Ted and I went to a kendo class this morning, which was a lot of fun. Neither of us had ever done kendo (though Ted’s done a lot of other martial arts) and among other things we learned is that there are no blocks in kendo, only parries, because the swords are too expensive and precious to risk damaging. So Duncan and Connor have been manhandling their poor katanas all these years. :)
Then we watched Torchwood, and Kate dropped by with muffins so we could pretend we’d gone out for coffee, and I’ve decided that although I was planning for tomorrow to be my day off, today is, instead. I’m going to do more laundry, curl up with a cat, and read a book, I think. Maybe go to bed early so I can get up and make up for some of the words I didn’t write today…
miles to Minas Tirith: 89.4
Hmm. I took a couple months of kendo, and I recall one particular move that *I* would call a block, the one where you thrust your arm over your head and stick your shinai/boken (sp) horizontally over to deflect a men strike. The others I would say are definitely just parries, but that one has the potential to just be called a block, imho. It could be I was just never fast enough for it to be a real parry. :D
I LOVED kendo, especially the outfit, although the armor was zomg way too many laces and took forever. I prefered fencing because it was streamlined, but kendo? just awesome, and a more holistic work out. *g*
Yes, important question, what IS the difference between a parry and a block? Is there any easy way to tell? We’ve been discussing this for Pirates of the Burning Sea…
I think the basic idea is that a parry pushes the other guy’s sword to the side while a block stops it in its tracks.
I could be totally wrong. :)