Hello everyone!
Thank you for reading the following blog post! I'm Kota Suzuki from Japan. I've been practicing kendo since I was seven years old in Japan－I am currently 3rd Dan. Right now, I am studying abroad in the United States and regularly practice at the university kendo club here.
Today's topic: Basic Dou-uchi Techniques. Dou is one of the challenging waza for many kendoka because dou is very different from men and kote. Today, I'm going to introduce three important points of dou-uchi.
1. Get close before attack
The first thing you need to do is getting close to the distance which you reach an opponent's dou enough. Dou is placed slightly far compared to men and kote, so you are likely to miss to hit dou if you start to hit from the usual distance. In actual kendo matches, you are easily get hit once you swing and miss dou.
It is important to hit from the correct distance because it also leads to the strong dou attack. Many people who start to hit from the far distance don't hit dou strongly enough because they attack dou with the very end of a shinai. For the strong dou attack, you should hit dou with a correct part of shinai which is between sakigawa (the end of a shinai) and nakayui (the middle belt part of a shinai).
2. Look at dou when you hit
The second thing you should do is looking at dou when you hit. This is important because you are able to hit dou accurately if you look at dou. However, many players don't look at dou since they look at the direction which they are going through after hitiing, causing the inaccuracy of dou-uchi attacks.
Hitting dou in front of an opponent is the right way for hitting dou. Many people attack dou on the right side of an opponent, which makes difficult to look at dou. If you don't look at dou when you're hitting, make sure to hit dou at the correct position which help you attack properly.
3. Go through fast
The last thing for better dou-uchi is going through fast after hitting dou. If you go through slowly after hitting in actual kendo matches, an opponent should follow you and hit when you turn around. This is a very common situation to get hit in kendo matches, so you should go through fast and turn around quickly in order not to get hit at the situation.
As you know, you can go through with ayumi-ahi (the walking footwork) for dou-uchi instead of okuri-ashi (the usual footwork: the right foot is in front of the left foot). It is important to use the ayumi-ahi in order to move away from an opponent fast.
If you want to learn dou-uchi more, you can watch a video of the basic dou techniques on my youtube channel. I've added English subtitles on the video, so you can enjoy watching it if you want!
Thanks for reading this blog post! Do-uchi is very important waza for kendo matches as well as dan tests, so please remember the three points that I explained today.
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