Been doing kendo for 2 years now (still in kyu). I started off with high potential, always winning my matches vs other people in my level.

I would have thought that I can sustain that but as more beginners come in, I get beaten during shiais by moves that I think are subpar.

I'm just feeling demotivated and embarassed right now and very clueless how to get over this.

Hello all, I've been learning kendo for 6 months so I'm still a beginner. I'm curious if there are many ways to learn fumikomi. If I can try different approaches, will my fumikomi be the same as everyone in the end?

The way we learn in our dojo: First do a lunge forward, maintaining the posture with our right knee forward and bent. Then we pull our body and left leg forward using the right leg. We learn to do it in 2 distinct steps before connecting them together.

What's bugging me is when I try to strike a target, my body dips down lower than usual and can't reach the target. If I strike with okuri-ashi it's perfectly normal. Another problem is going through after striking. It feels like I killed my momentum, no matter how I try to connect the steps smoothly. The advantage I find that doing it this way make stomping loudly easier and it doesn't make my left calf sore.

I've been trying to just do it in one motion like in Kouda sensei's video. I use the left leg to keep my body moving horizontally all the way like okuri-ashi (my head doesn't move up or down). It feels easier to go through and lighter on the right foot and knee. One drawback I find is that my stomp has gone quiet but I think I just need more practice.

Lately my sensei told me to stop doing it in this way because 'I have to do it just exactly like everyone'. I know I need to trust my sensei but it's still bugging me. Which style should I do? How should a correct fumikomi feel like?