Kobo Drills for Jissen

This entry is part 1 of 11 in the series Drilling for Jissen

In Japan, Kobo is not a prac­tice method — they are a test­ing require­ment. Nobody here prac­tices kobo with the inten­tion of improv­ing their skills or build­ing their tech­ni­cal base for jis­sen. Instead, most stu­dents spend a por­tion of the two or three prac­tices pre­ced­ing their exam to mem­o­rize the required kobo and per­form it well enough to pass. What a waste.

Kobo means “offense and defense,” and it can be a good way to train attack­ing and defend­ing in jis­sen. It can also be used as a kind of men­tal con­di­tion­ing to rewire a few of the less pro­duc­tive habits some stu­dents tend to develop in jissen.

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A Working Definition of Kobo

This entry is part 2 of 11 in the series Drilling for Jissen

how not to think of kobo First, I want to write a few words about what kobo are not. Kobo are not answers to var­i­ous tech­niques. The way I see most peo­ple prac­tic­ing kobo is based on this idea that they are algo­rithms for defeat­ing var­i­ous high-percentage tech­niques. Thinking of kobo in this way will make your jissen…

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Using Incremental Progression

This entry is part 3 of 11 in the series Drilling for Jissen

The Problem with Traditional Kobo The usual style of train­ing kobo is based on the idea that “if he does that, you respond by doing this.” It ingrains pat­terns that may not always be to best response to a par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion. The first thing we need to do to make kobo a use­ful method of train­ing is…

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Notes on Working Drills for Jissen

This entry is part 4 of 11 in the series Drilling for Jissen

This is just an easy list of guide­lines that will help you get the most out of your kobo and jis­sen prac­tice. I fig­ured it would be good to tidy up my series on drilling meth­ods with a con­cise list­ing of what I think are the most impor­tant points, in no par­tic­u­lar order. You’ll find that they aren’t all…

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Games for Jissen

This entry is part 5 of 11 in the series Drilling for Jissen

Jissen is not sim­ply a mat­ter of one per­son con­trol­ling another per­son. Both play­ers have the same goal: hit the other dude with­out let­ting him hit you. At lower lev­els, it’s often enough to sim­ply bully your oppo­nent, sub­ject­ing him to your will. But a strong oppo­nent won’t allow you to do this, and you’ll find that…

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