Keep your weight on the balls of your feet, don't try to drive your feet into the floor, glide along lightly on the floor. Keep most of your weight on your back foot when you start to step out, but don't lean back to shift your weight.

its difficult when your a beginner to get the footwork right because you have green feet (soft feet). they tend to stick to the floor a bit more but as you participate in kendo more, your feet will get tougher and be easier to slide

well anyway, hope you have fun with kendo!

Sweaty feet often stick to the floor too. Even a little bit of moisture will feel like your feet don't slide well. So get to practice early and be the one to sweep the floor. Walking around before practice starts and cleaning the floor will help to get rid of some of that moisture and a little bit of dust on your feet will help with that too.

A comment was made like this a long time ago... someone on the forum goes to the dojo and finds a dusty corner to step in and they felt like it helped a little bit.

try it on a poorly polished, laquered floor........your feet stick to it like glue.

Practice, practice, practice. Your feet will toughen up, no worries.

Just keep at it. Eventually you'll develop calouses and then you'll be able to slide all you want. When I first started, mine would stick to the floor a bit so I, not knowing any better, would just try to force them to slide and ended up making some skidding noises across the floor. Thankfully I wasn't the only one so nobody noticed. Now, I have no problem at all.

Started Monday
 

well, i had my first lesson yesterday, it was scheduled from 7:30 to 8:30 and it lasted until 10 lol. i have to say i really like kendo. but i'm just doing footwork and the floor in our dojo is tile. i'm having a hard time sliding my feet. do you have any suggestions?

thanks for all the help