With only one day left in the year, today was the final kata practice of 2025.
How did a whole year go by so fast?
Looking back on this past year of practicing Nihon Kendo Kata every Tuesday, I realize something important: things I didn’t know at all a year ago—or things I hadn’t even noticed—are now becoming a little clearer to me.
Especially through this year’s kata practice, I feel that I have discovered, and begun to learn, two extremely important elements in kendo.
The first is ’maintaining correct maai (distance)’.
The second is ‘feeling my opponent’.
As I’ve written in a previous blog post, if the first three steps forward in kata are not executed properly, then from that point on the practice is already ignoring maai. Honestly, I now think it would be completely reasonable for a sensei to say, “Stop. Start over.”
(Reference blog ↓）
Looking back on my beginner days, I also realize how poorly I understood the essence of kata when, in a very typical shidachi mistake, I moved through the kata selfishly—without matching timing or intent with uchidachi.
I admit it… even now, when I’m shidachi,
I sometimes get impatient and want to move on too quickly.
I don’t actually know the full details of why the great masters over a hundred years ago decided to preserve Nihon Kendo Kata for future generations.
But as I continue accumulating kata practice, I’ve begun to feel that kata contains many of the essential things one must internalize when facing an opponent with crossed swords.
Recently, I’ve even started to feel that “Kihon practice of shinai kendo” = “kata practice.”
Huh, Haru-chan?
What do you mean by that?
In kihon practice with shinai, the practice procedure is clearly defined: when the kakarite enters issoku-itto no maai, the motodachi opens the target area, and the kakarite then strikes that opened target decisively. In this way, the steps of the practice are predetermined.
I believe the purpose of this kind of basic training is that, by fixing the practice sequence in advance, the body is trained to remember correct strikes—so that they can be executed properly at any time, under any circumstances.
In Kendo Kata, uchidachi and shidachi already have a clearly defined scenario—how the fight will unfold—and this is practiced over and over again.
Of course, one purpose of this practice is the same as kihon practice with shinai: to refine the fundamentals of each individual strike.
However, the “script” of Kendo Kata also contains the flow of a fight. In other words, rather than isolating techniques and practicing them one by one, kata asks:
How can I execute these techniques while actually fighting an opponent?
This is why I’ve come to feel that Nihon Kendo Kata is, in essence, basic training for combat itself.
True enough—kata definitely contains the element of “fighting.
And when do I usually fight? During shinai kendo—whether in matches or in shinsa tachiai. That realization led me to the conclusion that the kihon keiko of shinai kendo is Nihon Kendo Kata.
From that perspective, the two things I’ve begun learning this year through kata—maintaining correct maai and feeling the opponent—feel like major learning points for me personally.
I know this may sound a bit grand, but honestly, I’ve only just begun fumbling my way forward in the dark. So in 2026 as well, I hope to continue studying Nihon Kendo Kata and use it to further develop my shinai kendo.
Slowly and steadily—no rushing ♪
And with that, tomorrow I’ll be heading off to the final shinai practice of the year!
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