The purpose of this study was to clarify the biomechanical characteristics of the body weight distribution in relation to differences of skill levels in a adopting the Chudan position. The subjects for this study were 23 male Kendo players having attained their 3rd,4th,5th dan degree of competence. They were 18-23 years old, and had 8-13 years experience. In addition 25 teachers were included in the study. They consisted of 5 male Kendo players with their 6th,7th dan degree who were 33-42 years old with 20-32 years experience,16 male Kendo players with their 8th dan degree who were 54-78 years old with 30-63 years experience and 4 male Kendo players with their 9th dan degree who were 76-81 years old having had 62-70 years experience.
1. It was found in each subject that the direction of the force applied to the platform was not only vertical but in addition in the case of the right foot, the force was applied in the forward directed slightly angled to the right. In the case of the left foot, the force had a vertical and a backward direction angled slightly to the left.
2. The ratio of body weight distributed in the Chudan position differed depending upon whether the measurement were made in a static, dynamic or just-before striking, these were also differences depending upon skill level and age.
1) About fifty percent of the students with their 3rd,4th and 5th dan degree distributed their body weight dominantly to the right foot in the static Chudan position. The other half of them did the reverse. All of the trained Kendo teachers with their 6th and 7th dan degree distributed their body weight to the left foot dominantly in the static Chudan position. On the other hand, all of the trained teacher with their 9th dan degree distributed their weight dominantly to the right foot. It is of interest that of the 16 teachers with their 8th dan degree over half distributed their weight to the left foot.
2) In the dynamic position, all of the subjects showed a tendency more to a right dominant distribution of their body weight.
3) In the position just before the strike, all of the subjects showed a tendency for the dominant distribution of the body weight to be on the left foot.
3. The subjects who distributed their body weight to the right foot dominantly showed a tendency to incline their body more forward in the Chudan position, compared with the subjects who distributed the body weight to the left foot.
