The Seven Coordination Skills (Kendo Edition)

text = Kanda Tomohiro (Fukuoka University)

There is a close relationship between the nerves that control movement and sensation. What can you do to move your body the way you want and get the hang of it quickly? In recent years, “coordination training” has been gaining attention as a way to improve athleticism, and has been adopted in competitions.

It’s still developing as a Kendo training system, but it will become essential to improve the performance of kendo athletes and keep children motivated to exercise.

This document summarizes the basics and objectives of coordination training and how to apply it to kendo.

What are the coordination skills?

In recent years, motor skills have been increasingly referred to as “coordination skills”. The motor nerves are the neural pathways that process information coming from sensory organs such as the eyes and ears in the brain to give commands to parts of the body.

Originally conceived in the 1970s by former East German sports kinesiologists, the theory classifies motor nerves into seven abilities. We systematize the training to improve your motor skills. It’s a complex combination of these abilities when you’re playing a sport.

• Rhythm : The ability to move your body in the way you envision it. 
• Body synchronicity : The ability to move various parts of the body at the same time or the ability to do two or more things at the same time.
• Adaptability : The ability to switch between body movements depending on the situation. 
• Reflex : The ability to react quickly and accurately.
• Balance : The ability to keep fighting even when the body posture breaks down. 
• Differentiation : The ability to operate tools and equipment with proper force and accuracy.
• Positioning : The ability to accurately grasp a sense of distance and position between oneself and others and objects

The Importance of Coordination Training

In exercise and sports, it is necessary to recognize one’s own body posture and movement, and to control one’s movement well based on these perceptions. To be a good athlete, one must recognize his or her own sense of movement, identify areas for improvement, and maximize his or her strengths.

Top Athletes have high coordination abilities. Research shows that many of them experienced various types of play when they were children.

Apart from play, the more you experience various sports the more benefit you gain in learning a specialty.

Possible reasons

You experience basic movements through play and various sports, and the nervous system and sensory organs are naturally stimulated.

The purpose of coordination training in Kendo

Coordination training allows children to develop motor skills that will be useful in kendo and other sports while playing with friends.

In coordination training in Kendo, we aim for the following four things.

• Building basic skills to improve Kendo skills.
• Eliminate the lack of exercise in children and improve their athletic ability.
• Injury Prevention.
• Motivation for Kendo (communication between parents and friends)

The Seven Coordination Skills

Coordination skills fall into the following seven categories

• rhythm
  • The ability to move your body in the way you envision it. Ability to imitate and move the body rhythmically
    In kendo, you will be able to imitate a strong player’s striking and movement, and you will be able to perform Ōji-waza by reading the timing of your opponent.

• body synchronicity
  • The ability to move various parts of the body at the same time or the ability to do two or more things at the same time. In Kendo, this refers to suburi and general movement (the upper half of the body is swinging a Shinai and the lower half is doing footwork). Being able to swing the Shinai smoothly when moving the body forward and backward.

• adaptability
  • The ability to switch between body movements depending on the situation. Even if you have an Ōji-waza against your opponent’s men and he hits a Kote, you can instantly switch to an Ōji-waza against the kote. If you attack your opponent and he doesn’t move, you can perform a technique but even if he suddenly starts doing something, you can instantly switch your Shikake-waza to an Ōji-waza in response.

• reflex
  • The ability to react quickly and accurately. Figuring out exactly when you or your opponent wants to perform a technique and then react by defending or performing an Ōji-waza.

• balance
  • The ability to keep fighting even when the body posture breaks down. You can pull off a technique from an difficult position.

• differentiation
  • The ability to operate tools and equipment with proper force and accuracy. To operate your Shinai accurately, to accurately connect to the striking target and hit strong.

• positioning
  • The ability to accurately grasp a sense of distance and position between oneself and others and objects. A sense of the distance at which you can strike and the distance at which you can elude the opponent’s attack. Able to judge accurately from what distance you can strike. 

The seven coordination skills are not discrete, but rather complexly intertwined to perform a variety of movements.

Keywords to increase the load and effectiveness of coordination training

ambidexterity	Perform one exercise in various directions
change	Not only do you need to repeat the same exercises, but you also need to vary the content even if a little.
combined	A combination of several exercises is also necessary
short time	Repeating one workout for too long will not be effective. It is important to switch the content around.
Adaptation to goals	It is important to be able to think about training content in terms of coordination and Kendo movements
Differentiation	Create unrealistic situations, such as putting obstacles in the way or making them do calculations while performing the operation.

Coordination skills related to Kendo movements

movement	Relevant coordination skills
Shikake Waza	The positioning skill to get the proper distance from the opponent and determine when to strike a move.Rhythm, reflex, and balance skills that allow you to choose the right moves for the situation and perform the technique quickly.
Ōji-waza	Rhythm, adaptation, reflex, and differentiation skills that allow you to quickly perform a two- or three-step strike against your opponent’s technique.
Defense	Synchronizing, reflex, adaptation, and positioning skills that allow you to get the proper distance against your opponent’s attacks and reduce the risk of being hit
Suburi	Rhythm to execute a plan, synchronizing body movements and shinai movements smoothly and differentiation skills
Ashi Sabaki	Rhythm to execute a plan, balance to enable quick footwork

Training types

• Training with Balls
• Training with ladders
• Training with a hula hoop
• Training with a jump rope
• Training with several people
• Training with rock-paper-scissors

The level of difficulty will be increased while combining the above content.

Training in a wide variety of movements creates a more precise neural circuitry for movement which is very useful for learning complex and advanced skills in the future.