Is tsubazeriai unnecessary in kendo?

Although this is somewhat old news, as of September 1, 2024, the “Provisional Rules and Regulations for Shiai and Shimpan Applicable Until the COVID-19 Pandemic Subsides” (“Provisional Rules”), which had been in place from the 2020 year, became almost entirely permanent.

To put it simply, the rule now states that tsuba-zeriai should last for “one breath, up to three seconds.” If it continues beyond that, a hansoku is called or wakare (separation) is ordered. However, from watching events such as the 2020 All Japan Kendo Championships and onwards, the impression is that most competitors make an effort to separate within three seconds, and hansoku or wakare calls were rarely seen. After the 2020 All Japan Kendo Championships (held in March 2021), when the Provisional Rules were first adopted, I wrote an article suggesting that these rules should be made permanent, and I believe many others from kendo community felt the same way.

According to the “All Japan Kendo Championships (Men’s and Women’s) Match Analysis Report” published by the All Japan Kendo Federation, the average tsuba-zeriai time per match was three minutes and 45 seconds at the 2019 All Japan Kendo Championships (pre-COVID), but decreased dramatically to 24 seconds at the same tournament in 2020 (held in March 2021) and 45 seconds in 2021.

In addition, the situation regarding hiki-waza also changed significantly. Hiki-waza performed from a tsuba-zeriai have almost disappeared, while hiki-waza performed at the moment tsuba-zeriai begins or from a close distance just before entering tsuba-zeriai have increased greatly. Although there were concerns that wakare calls would increase, wakare was called only once in total in 2020 and not at all in 2021; in practice, it was almost never called, with competitors voluntarily ending tsuba-zeriai on their own.

I believe making this rule permanent was a wise decision, and at present, I think it has been a positive change.

The handling of tsuba-zeriai has long been a contentious issue in the rules of Kendo.

After Kendo was revived in the post-war period, the All Japan Kendo Federation established its first set of match and officiating rules (then called “regulations”) in 1953. Under “prohibited acts”, eleven items were listed, including ashigarami (entangling legs), kumiuchi (grappling), hikiage (lifting the shinai), “deliberately leaving the court”, as well as “tsuba-zeriai for the purpose of wasting time” and “placing the shinai on the opponent’s shoulder during tsuba-zeriai”. Amendments from 1955 to 1958 introduced the rule that if a foul was repeated three times, an ippon would be awarded to the opponent.

Regarding tsuba-zeriai, however, if it became prolonged, the shushin (main referee) would order wakare to separate the competitors. I am not familiar with the actual situation during this period, but I believe that no foul was incurred simply for prolonging tsuba-zeriai.

A major change came with the 1979 rule revision. Wakare was abolished, and the duration of tsuba-zeriai without a strike was limited (to approximately 20 seconds); violation resulted in a chūi (caution). Two cautions counted as one hansoku (foul), and two fouls resulted in an ippon.

The reasons for the revision were as follows:

“Conventionally, when competitors came into close quarters, there was a tendency to engage needlessly in tsuba-zeriai, leading not only to wasted time but also to the bad habit of using it to run down the clock. This revision aims to correct this, while also freeing referees from being preoccupied with issuing ‘wakare’ and ‘hajime’ instructions, thereby allowing matches to proceed smoothly.”

— All Japan Kendo Federation 30-Year History

Not long afterwards, in 1987, the rules underwent a major rewrite. The main changes were the abolition of “yosei jōgai” (momentum out-of-bounds) and the reorganisation of the text; the handling of tsuba-zeriai saw no major alterations. Contemporary records indicate that the system changed to: two cautions counted as one foul, and a third caution counted as two fouls (previously, the third was a caution and the fourth resulted in two fouls). I do not recall whether this was actually enforced as such. There were certainly many instances where two cautions led to a foul, and combined with out-of-bounds fouls or dropping the shinai, this sometimes resulted in an ippon for the opponent. However, I think there were very few cases where a third caution for tsuba-zeriai was declared.

The next major rule revision occurred in 1995. Regarding tsuba-zeriai, wakare was reinstated, and chūi was abolished. Unjustified tsuba-zeriai or time-wasting was now penalised with hansoku from the first offence (two fouls resulting in an ippon for the opponent). At the time of the revision, Masami Matsunaga, Hanshi, who served as Chair of the Competition and Officiating Committee, explained as follows:

“It had been pointed out that tsuba-zeriai was draining the vitality and tension from matches. The aim is to resolve this. This reinstated wakare is, so to speak, a ‘trump card’; while fouls for tsuba-zeriai are to be called strictly, wakare will be used when a stalemate continues and no other solution is possible.”

Regarding this 1995 revision of the competition and officiating rules, I had a question: was this really the right approach? I believed (and still believe) that in kendo, techniques involving forward movement are primary, while hiki-waza are secondary, and I thought the rules should be structured accordingly. My feeling was that the new rules were half‑hearted and that no significant change could be expected.

The July 1995 issue of Kendo Nippon carried an article titled “New Rules Will Change Tsuba-zeriai”, which explained the new regulations. Rereading it now, I see it reflects my concerns at the time, as well as my thinking on tsuba-zeriai and hiki-waza. I will quote it at length:

“The rules concerning tsuba-zeriai have greatly changed the techniques that arise from tsuba-zeriai, that is, hiki-waza. In the past, hiki-waza were seldom seen in the All Japan Kendo Championships, and even when they were attempted, the flags rarely went up. It is probably only in the last ten years or so that hiki-waza have become decisive techniques. This can be attributed to the 1979 rule change, which meant that if a competitor showed no intention to strike while in tsuba-zeriai, they could receive a caution, thereby encouraging them to attempt techniques.

This was also influenced by referees becoming more willing to award points for hiki-waza, but it was certainly an effect of the rule change. In recent years, hiki-waza have also begun to appear in events such as the Meiji Mura tournament, where competitors in their fifties and sixties compete. Among high school students, hiki-waza have become a major weapon alongside kote, and they have developed into diverse, sophisticated techniques not found in traditional Kendo textbooks. When the 1979 rules were first introduced, a sense of tension was created in tsuba-zeriai, and in time, this gave rise to changes in techniques: an increase in hiki-waza and their further refinement.

However, even among competitors at the level of today’s All Japan Championships, one sometimes hears remarks such as that they would rather win by moving forward than by hiki-waza. Many Kendo practitioners of older generations seem to hold such feelings. If winning and losing were the only consideration, hiki-waza would be an important means, yet within the ‘aesthetics’ of Kendo, there has long been an awareness that techniques performed by advancing are the highest.

Of course, tsuba-zeriai is also an important opportunity for striking. However, if techniques originating from tsuba-zeriai were to outnumber those from issoku-ittō no ma-ai (the one‑step, one‑strike distance), would that not be regarded as undesirable by many Kendo practitioners?

This latest revision will likely have an initial effect, but in the past, especially the younger generation, when the rules changed, they responded by adapting their techniques accordingly. The value of the rule change will be determined by how tsuba-zeriai, hiki-waza, and attitudes towards them evolve over the next five or ten years, and further responses may become necessary.”

When these rules were first implemented, there were occasional instances of wakare being called, but I felt that gradually the tendency shifted towards assessing fouls before that point. I also heard voices saying that it was difficult to judge what constituted a stalemate. Determining what constitutes a foul is also subtle, and because it takes place in a confined space, it is not easy to see from outside the court. Moreover, there was the negative effect of matches being interrupted more frequently by gōgi (referees’ conferences). There were also unedifying situations where a competitor who had been penalised for a tsuba-zeriai foul then committed an out‑of‑bounds foul or dropped the shinai, thereby deciding the outcome of a team match. And although I have no data, my impression is that this rule change did not lead to a reduction in the length of tsuba-zeriai.

I was not the only one who felt that further improvement was necessary. In 1999, the Police Championships established their own rule: “tsuba-zeriai must be resolved within ten seconds.” In 2004, this was further shortened to “tsuba-zeriai must be resolved within five seconds.” Although this was not a rule applied to the All Japan Championships, those championships are predominantly composed of police-affiliated competitors, and the five‑second rule had a noticeable effect on shortening tsuba-zeriai at the 2004 All Japan Championships (according to an article in Kendo Nippon at the time).

Following suit, in 2008 the Japan High School Kendo Federation introduced a “ten‑second rule” as a “matters of agreement” provision:

“Referees shall strictly judge ‘fouls’ for improper tsuba-zeriai, and if a proper exchange of tsuba-zeriai continues for approximately ten seconds, they shall judge either a ‘foul’ for time‑wasting or ‘wakare’. However, they shall not call ‘wakare’ lightly.”

My understanding is that because such “ground rules” were already being attempted prior to the COVID‑19 pandemic provisional rules, tsuba-zeriai times had been shortening from around this period, including in other tournaments.

However, the official rules of the All Japan Kendo Federation itself remained unchanged. It took the “external pressure” of the novel coronavirus—the increased risk of infection from prolonged close contact—to make change unavoidable. And when tried, the quality of matches improved.

One cannot escape the impression that the rule was made permanent simply because it was implemented under unavoidable external pressure and happened to work well. Since the idea of limiting tsuba-zeriai to five or ten seconds already existed within the Police and High School federations, might it not have been possible to achieve this sooner if there had been a system for gathering and debating a wide range of opinions? I regret that, so to speak, it was “all’s well that ends well.”

Late Tadao Toda, hanshi, who won the All Japan Kendo Championships twice using jōdan and later achieved hachidan while practising nitō, once stated, “I have long held as my ideal the realisation of ‘tsuba-zeriai-free Kendo’…”

“I can find no significant benefit in tsuba-zeriai; rather, I feel its negative effects—dulling the skills cultivated through daily practice — are conspicuous. (…) From a state of close contact, one suppresses the opponent’s techniques to avoid being struck. From there, hiki-waza that target an ippon almost as if stealing it appear to me, in my eyes, to be quite ignoble.”

— Kendo Nippon, April 2016

Toda hanshi, who served as Chief Referee at the 2016 26th Gakuren Kendo Tournament, gave guidance to the referees based on this conviction: when tsuba-zeriai occurs, they should call wakare promptly, and if it is repeated two or three times, they should penalise it with a foul. According to reports, at that tournament, tsuba-zeriai decreased, matches with straightforward, head‑on contests increased, and the flow of the tournament was smoother.

Thus, there have been those who considered tsuba-zeriai unnecessary in kendo. For myself, as stated earlier, I did believe that tsuba-zeriai should be shortened, but perhaps because I have watched Kendo for many years, I was unable to break free from the preconception that “tsuba-zeriai is also an opportunity for striking”, and I could not go so far as to conclude that tsuba-zeriai could be eliminated entirely.

It was perhaps around the mid-Heisei period. When I visited a prominent high school team for an interview, they were practising techniques starting from tsuba-zeriai. The instructor was teaching the students how to execute techniques while engaging in tsuba-zeriai with them. At that time, matches often went into tsuba-zeriai soon after the start, and there was even survey data showing that up to three‑quarters of match time was spent in tsuba-zeriai. I thought that practising this was only natural. The idea that “tsuba-zeriai is also one of the ma-ai” had, I believe, become widely accepted among instructors, particularly at high schools.

Therefore, among competitors who had honed their techniques from tsuba-zeriai since their youth, and among instructors who had taught these techniques as a weapon, there may be those who regret this new rule — though I cannot say for certain.

This time, making the provisional rules permanent was not done by revising the Regulations themselves, but rather by revising the “Kendo Competition, Officiating, and Management Guidelines”. Nevertheless, in terms of content, it can be described as a major turning point since 1995.

What draws my attention most is the following wording:

• (Old Guidelines) “Tsuba-zeriai is a ma-ai in which the tsuba clash against each other, with both competitors at their closest and most tense.”
• (New Guidelines) “Tsuba-zeriai is a state in which the tsuba clash against each other, with both competitors at their closest and most tense.”

Previously, tsuba-zeriai was considered one of the ma-ai. That is, it was a distance from which techniques could be launched, and therefore an opportunity for striking. Changing this to a “state” suggests that it is not a distance or an opportunity for launching techniques. Of course, this does not mean that techniques cannot be executed, nor does it imply that hiki-waza from tsuba-zeriai are invalid. Nevertheless, this represents a significant shift. Could it not be said that a course has been set towards the “tsuba-zeriai-free kendo” that Toda hanshi spoke of?

It may be too early to judge whether the current rules are optimal, and new issues may arise in the future. If that happens, the rules can be changed again. What is clear in retrospect is that the rules have changed the content of Kendo. This discussion has been limited to kendo as it occurs in competition, but in competition, competitors adapt their approach to the rules. If the content of kendo in competition deviates from its essential principles, I believe that the most important task for those in positions of leadership within the Kendo world is to change the rules so that they do not stray from those essential principles.