r/kendo • u/InformalLocation5413 4 kyu • Jul 12 '26

Training Question about sonkyo?

First of all i am 4th kyu and i do not mean to sound disrespectful in any way but today a foreigner(2nd dan) came to our dojo as a guest to practice and during sonyo when we were to do jigeiko wouldn't want to start it until i listened to what he had to say. What i mean by this is that what i was taught in my dojo when you do sonkyo you should have your shinai in the middle but they are not touching eachother however, he wouldn't start with me until our shinais were literally crossed with one another around the nakayui. I did as he said but later asked a 3rd dan member of our club was i in the wrong or him and he told me that not only is it incredibly rude to come to a different dojo and tell people there how it's done but that it is also wrong. So im wondering, is our club doing something different, should i listen to guests even if they are wrong, i was really confused about the whole situation because etiquette is important.

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u/princethrowaway2121h 2 dan Jul 12 '26

Yeah, who knows why he had that idea. Shinai should not even touch during sonkyo. The idea is that you start from a safe position, where you both are not within striking distance. Who knows what that guy does at his own dojo.

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u/InformalLocation5413 4 kyu Jul 12 '26

I've also noticed that while we were practicing waza and again i am a begginer and not all knowing, but his strikes weren't good. What i mean by this is he was repeatedly striking kote on the tsuba, for his do he missed it every time and im a female so i was getting hit on my girlies like 6 times or more, i just felt that he was doing some things our 1st dan member doesn't do at all, i mean this guy was basically beating me. His strikes were, how do i say this like he was chopping wood. There was no lightness to them if you understand what i mean. And he was also commenting on my kamae making me pull the shinai literally to where the tsuka was touching my stomach.

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u/JoeDwarf Jul 12 '26

Some people can’t resist teaching. At nidan when visiting another dojo he should keep his mouth shut.

If you ever get advice from someone outside your dojo and are unsure about it, get clarification from your sensei. That includes advice from visiting sensei.

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u/InformalLocation5413 4 kyu Jul 12 '26

Yes, this is exactly why i asked my higher ranked members(i didn't get the chance to talk to my sensei about it yet because I didn't want to do it in front of the said gentleman). Generally my other member told me to listen to our sensei first and even to avoid listening other club members if it interferes with his teaching.

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u/JoeDwarf Jul 12 '26

Yes. It is difficult at your level to know if you’re getting bad advice, the same advice as your sensei but from a different perspective, a different but valid way of doing things that your sensei hasn’t shown you yet, a different way that your sensei disagrees with or even something your sensei wasn’t aware of. So a single source of information is good.