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View Full Version : smr: omote vs. chudan



charlesl
1st June 2001, 09:32
Hiya!

I've only been training for about 3 years now, and only very recently has my teacher started teaching me kata from chudan, and so far I've only been shown up to midare dome.

So, suddenly a few ideas and questions are popping up tonight, figured I'd better ask before I forget.

One of the things I've noticed is that for me, chudan seems a lot more dynamic than omote did. One of the problems I had/have with omote was that it was/is difficult to not predict what the swordguy is going to do next. I feel that this set me up to be led into a dangerous position by uchidachi(?). And I had this problem even when just starting to learn a new kata.

With the chudan kata, I'm not really having that problem. It feels like everything is going by a lot faster, a lot more spontaneous. I don't have time to predict anything, or something like that. Ex. in midare dome go, just after the aiuchi strike and the downward strike on the sword, I am totally unprepared when uchidachi(?) automatically comes back with another cut. I feel like I'm getting that makiotoshi in there more by accident than anything else.

So is this the difference between chudan and omote? Were these kata designed to keep you on your toes, to make it so that you won't have time to predict as much, provide a slightly higher level of realism?

Another quick question: at the end of the kata, uchidachi attacks, and shidachi finishes with a hikiotoshi. The more advanced students seem to make it an aiuchi strike, knocking the sword aside before it finishes. Is this the goal?

Thanks for your time,

-Charles Lockhart