Jukendo Kata: Mokuju vs Tanken #4 銃剣道 形 （木銃と短剣）

And now it is the Tanken's turn to win!

Note that the next 3 kata are effectively the same as the first three, just the results are different. Currently I think that there is either a mistake made by the loser or a good thing done by the winner to decide the outcome and that is what we are supposed to be learning. I could be wrong about that.

• Starting from 9 steps apart.
• Ju takes a fairly straight geidan
• Tan covers with a twist of the forearm so the blade is now pointing over the right shoulder of the gun barrel and the base of the tanken is to the left of the gun barrel. Still very vertical 
• 3 steps in each
• Tan has decided to attack before reaching centre and so isn't pressured into making a mistake like in #1
• Tan quickly steps in with one step (right foot first) and uses the tanken to hold the mokuju down. The tanken slides all the way down the barrel until almost at Ju's front hand. The tsuba almost touches the hand here.
• Ju makes the natural reaction of fighting this downward pressure by slightly raising the mokuju with both hands (i.e. horizontally up), Ju should do this with forearms, not with shoulders.
• Tan takes another step (left foot), grabs the mokuju with his left hand between both of Ju's hands and presses down firmly. The back of Tan's left hand is towards him. At the same time Tan moves the tanken back onto his right hip aimed at Ju's soft kidney
• Utilising a twisting of the torso Tan strikes Ju, the tanken is not moved off the hip if possible (I am a little tubby and inflexible so mine does come off here). For me I think the heel of my right foot comes off the ground for this bit.
• Tan performs zanshin by raising the grabbed mokuju slightly and running the point of the tanken down the outside of Ju's front arm
• As Tan moves back to centre the tip of tanken follows the line of the arm and then the base of the blade controls the barrel.
• Return to chudan
• Drop weapon point down releasing pressure on opponent, At this Tan's back hand goes down as well.
• 5 steps back
• Return to Chudan, Tan's back hand comes up to hold the (imaginary) bayonet scabbard

Important Points:

• Timing of the strike. Tan walks in One, Two, Three, pressure. Tan makes the third step but doesn't allow Ju to apply pressure.
• As Tan slides in the mokuju stays below the centre of gravity of the tanken the whole way
• When Tan makes the strike he is in close and body upright, left foot between Ju's feet
• During zanshin the tanken is a shield against the mokuju
• When talking about these kata afterwards sensei said that all of the mistakes we made were meaningless compared to the eye contact. Whenever you do an arm lock / hip stab the ippon is granted from the eye contact I think.

What we did wrong (this time it is actually hard, sensei said this one was very good for our level):

• Too fast
• Kamae when I had the mokuju was too high on the end.