EXPERIMENTAL DISCUSSION ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OF THE PROFICIENCY IN TANKENDO IN THE FOOT POSTURE

Abstract

Purpose: In martial-art plays using a weapon, the length and weight of the used weapon determine the timing of attacking the opponent and playing strategies, which may be in turn reflected on the body posture and foot posture of a player. The objective of this study is to analyze the features of the food posture of a skilled player in Tankendo, in which players play using a short and light bamboo knife-like sword in order to consider an effective playing strategy. Methodology: In our experiment, the subjects were asked to take the foot posture at the temporal and spatial timing kept to measure and quantify kinematic feature quantities, weight distribution between both the feet placed in the front and rear, respectively and favorite jump distance of them. Then, a one-to-one correlation analysis was conducted among all the feature values. Main Findings: The result of the analysis demonstrated that a strong negative correlation was observed between the number of years of experience in Tankendo and the favorite jump distance. Similarly, a strong negative correlation was observed between the number of years of experience in Jukendo and favorite jump distance. On the other hand, in the case of Kendo, a strong negative correlation was observed between the number of years of experience in Kendo and the width between the feet placed on the right and left sides.     Implications/Applications: A series of results obtained from the study suggests that in Tankendo and Jukendo, players have such a tendency that they first would take a position near the opponent and then jump there up to strike the opponent. In contrast, in case of Kendo focusing on a thrusting technique, such a tendency was observed that with a narrow width between both the feet, players stroke their opponent so that speedy footwork might be achieved, despite easily losing body balance.