Practicing outside.

[Charlie Kondek]

Do you ever? What do you wear? What do you wear on your feet?

[Gene Williams]

I practice iaido outside on a sandy beach by a lake. I go barefoot and wear what I call my "dirt" hakama and uwagi (just an old one). For karate, I have a dirt gi. I love practicing outside. At first I worried about maybe sand blowing scratching my blade, but that has been no problem. Sand really makes you think about footwork, balance, low center, etc.

[gendzwil]

Originally posted by Charlie Kondek
Do you ever? What do you wear? What do you wear on your feet?
Yes, our regular stuff, nothing.

[Charlie Kondek]

Is sand the only surface good for practicing outside? What about grass? Neil, were these regular practices? I have to remark I have done kendo on sand myself.

[Gene Williams]

Any surface is fine. Grass can be slippery, but you need that, too.

[Charlie Kondek]

I should add that I have practiced iai barefoot on grass quite a bit and even joke that I have "dog-poop ashi" among my techniques...

[gendzwil]

Originally posted by Charlie Kondek
Is sand the only surface good for practicing outside? What about grass? Neil, were these regular practices?
This was from a few years ago when we didn't have enough members to afford renting space over summer. We ran our regular practices outside in a park on grass. We tried various shoes but in the end bare feet worked best. My only concession was to wear some old tetron hakama so I didn't stain up my nice cotton ones if I took a roll.

[Gene Williams]

Originally posted by Charlie Kondek
I should add that I have practiced iai barefoot on grass quite a bit and even joke that I have "dog-poop ashi" among my techniques...

Well, you never know when you might be minding your own buisiness walking through a kennel or a cow pasture and, wham, there comes the unexpected ninja exploding up out of a cow pie or a dog turd. I hear they are bad about that....

[Charlie Kondek]

"No one would ever think to look for me under this dung!"

The real agenda behind this thread is this: I have a baby now and don't make it to practice as often as I'd like. I'm still hitting the boards once a week and the bag now and then, haven't had much time for judo practice, but what I'd like is to be able to practice some kendo fundamentals at home when I get the odd hour to do so. Natural choice is my back yard.

I'm wondering what a good home practice session would involve. There's suburi or even kihon repetitions, one-side kata, and I suppose I should be working on iai, something I've let fall by the wayside. I'm a little obsessed with my kendo right now and feel that iai sort of "distracts" me. Maybe that's a wrong view.

[Aozora]

I've had two experiences training outdoors--both with iai. I went to Flrodia on a work/vacation in October 2001. It was in late October, the temp about 55 degrees. There was NO ONE on the beach and it me, the moon, the stars, the surf and my bokken. It might make me sound like a flake for saying so--I'll limit my description of how I felt by saying only that it was one of the most invigorating experiences of my life.

The other experience was at hatsunnuki this year... dawn in the park... it was misty and the park has a beautiful view of the LSU lakes. It wasn't the beach experience, but the look on the golfers faces was priceless.

I was hoping one of them was going to say something... I wasn't about to take any crap on my activity where I wear funny pants and swing a metal apparatus about from a GOLFER!

:up:

[Ren Blade]

Try on a hill. ;)

[X-san]

I get in more time outside, in my yard, than I do in my dojo.

I usually just wear my normal clothes, with shoes, and adjust things from there. Western-style belts provide about as much support for swords as a karate obi, and they don't stretch and start to get untied after a while, which is a big plus. You can do some tricks with belt loops to keep a shoto bokken tucked in nice and secure across your stomach, too. To be perfectly honest, it doesn't affect your technique much, at least with a saya bokuto for iai like I use. My only regret is that, training outside in a yard that is often quite muddy, I tend to neglect my seated techniques.

Training in western clothes may sound kind of strange at the first thought, but don't just take my word for it - I'm pretty sure you're wearing some right now, so try it yourself. ;)

I've had two experiences training outdoors--both with iai. I went to Flrodia on a work/vacation in October 2001. It was in late October, the temp about 55 degrees. There was NO ONE on the beach and it me, the moon, the stars, the surf and my bokken. It might make me sound like a flake for saying so--I'll limit my description of how I felt by saying only that it was one of the most invigorating experiences of my life.

Try it in the middle of a central New York winter, with lake-effect snow pouring down and that nice Christmas-ey feeling in the air. Go through the winter training every day and suddenly it takes a lot to get you cold.

[Chuck.Gordon]

Practice outside?

Yes, frequently.

What to wear?

Depends. If Em and I go out in the yard or on the patio to swing sticks, we'll wear whatever we already have on. If we take a class outdoors, everyone is in keikogi (those who have keikogi already at least).

Shoes?

Whatever you need. Barefoot on the patio, sport/hiking sandals on the grass. I have trained in trainers/tennies, a good friend who does SMR jo often wears deck shoes outdoors.

Chuck

[Caio]

Greetings,

I used to train in the outdoors (a public park) for a while, just to have an extra training session in the week. I had a fellow with me, so after some basic ashi sabaki, we would do some suburi (men, kote, kote men, choyaku suburi) and then some uchikomi and kirikaeshi. That was about all. I tried to practice on the beach once, but didn't liked it; the sand was too soft. So I rather train on the grass. I used to use a tabi, and it got dirty and spent on the sole, but my foot kept ok. I trained bare footed also, and to me it was much about the same thing. If you keep on the same place the grass will eventually turn muddy, though.
As for clothes, those you used to use when you didn't have a hakama yet (ok, ok, for those of you who ALWAYS had a hakama, normal confortable sports clothes).
Now, if I'm allowed a moment of fun, I DID trained once bare footed in concrete. Suburi was fine, even choyaku suburi, but then I went on to kirikaeshi. It didn't last some 10 cuts; I hit my thumb on the floor and it peeled the skin off, bleeding a lot and exposing the flesh. Nice he?! I really don't recommend it. Sure, it was caused by my erroneous ashi sabaki, but, then again... :rolleyes:

Truly,

[Charles Mahan]

Took a chance to do an embu down in Houston a couple of weeks ago. Rained off and on all day, and the stage was more than a bit wet. This stage was an outdoor carpet on top of plywood so it had gotten more than a bit slick. After a couple of waza I put a little extra emphasis on the nice low stances that I'm supposed to take up anyway, and the problems pretty much went away. Gotta tell you, using a shinken on potentially treacherous footing is a nerve racking experience, but it went quite smoothly all things considered.

As far as what I wore, it was a polytetron montsuki and a wool blend stripey hakama. Alas it got all wet and yucky, but it wasn't anything the dry cleaners couldn't fix.

Like Neil, I've had other oppurtunities to do Iai outside. Uneven grass is not all that unlike that stage. Remember to pick your feet up instead of slide and otherwise the regular low stances work just fine.

[Aozora]

Originally posted by X-san
Try it in the middle of a central New York winter, with lake-effect snow pouring down and that nice Christmas-ey feeling in the air. Go through the winter training every day and suddenly it takes a lot to get you cold.

I would,but I'm on the opposite side of the country from that and it's only snowed once in the last five years here. But I WAS outside for that. ;)

I only mentioned the temp because I thought the weather was nice... I'd never been to the beach when it was anything less than 70 degrees out.

try on a hill

Was on a hill during Hatsunnuki, in the dark. Like Charles said, you just have to adjust your foot work. On an incline on the beach sand was much more difficult--the terrain seems to actively fight you there. I'd love to do some kendo on a beach sometime.

[Edited because my spacebar is wonky]

[Charles Mahan]

Technically I didn't say adjust your footwork. Just pay more attention to it. The footwork we have been taught works just fine, if you remember to do it right ;).

[Ric Flinn]

We used to practice outside (iai and jo) in a park quite frequently, when we couldn't afford to rent space as often as we wanted it, and I really enjoyed it most of the time. Got some strange looks, lots of kids asking "Are those swords real?" and similar questions, but we were left alone most of the time. I'm not sure I'd like practicing kendo outside though, other than suburi, but you won't know till you try. But then, I'm blessed with high ceilings, so I can do suburi in my living room easily enough.

[Aozora]

Originally posted by Charles Mahan
Technically I didn't say adjust your footwork. Just pay more attention to it. The footwork we have been taught works just fine, if you remember to do it right ;).

Hai, sempai. But at my level, ALL footwork is an adjustment! ;)

[sunny]

my landlord comes over for inspection, and says "whats that big dead patch of grass in the back yard from?"

I say "my partner practices capoeira."
the landlord looks at her.
she says "that's a lie, he practices iaido.

the landlord looks at us both with a worried look and moves on. no more questions asked.

barefeet, in the dirt, with the damn fearless cat trying to get in on the action.

[Charlie Kondek]

Nice.

Well, I've been experimenting. Of course suburi and iai is possible but I was hoping to work on kendo fumikomi, too. You can, but you need a relatively stable (read: no mole holes) strip of grass and it ain't the same as boards, of course. Still, I don't think it can hurt and may actually help. Oh, and yer feet get quite dirty but, hey.

[GingrFish]

I really enjoy practicing outside. I go out three or four times per week at night onto a soccer field and do various kata. Training outside at night is one of the times I love most. It lets you relaly reflect on your technique and such, and the peace of it all is very humbling.

I enjoy it even more when it's raining. Nothing like doing a kata a few hundred times at night, in a downpour.