Categories
history kendo publications

Teikoku Kendo Kyohon – The Kendo Textbook of Imperial Japan

The latest kenshi 24/7 publication has been released: a translation of Ogawa Kinnosuke sensei’s Teikoku Kendo Kyohon (The Kendo Textbook of Imperial Japan). I am a bit bias, but I have to say that the book is amazing, not just in content, but in format as well… I’m super excited to release it! When this […]

Categories
history kendo

Takano Sasaburo’s Kendo Kyohon: Pre-War Kendo Waza

The following is a translation of waza descriptions from Takano Sasaburo sensei’s book Kendo Kyohon, published in 1930. The translations were done by Kent Enfield and serialised here on kenshi 24/7 back in 2009. During the end of year article clean-up that I usually do, I temporarily archived the series (6 posts) with the aim […]

Categories
books kendo media

March book project #1: kendo nyumon and kendo dokushu kyohon

For the first instalment of this months book project I picked two books that were written by the same authors: Oshima Kotaro and Ando Kozo. Oshima Kotaro was the son of Oshima Jikita (another article here) and Ando Kozo was the shihan of the Waseda university kendo club from 1999-2002. The two books being looked […]

Categories
books kendo

Kendo Coaching (decade)

Ten years ago today, I self-published “Kendo Coaching Tips and Drills.” At that time it was the only English language kendo instruction manual that didn’t focus on basic stuff like how to fold your hakama or the names of the parts of shinai*. Instead it introduced footwork and wrist drills, gave ideas for basics and […]

Categories
kendo media miscellaneous

Kendo Miscellanea

I’ve been practicing kendo for, what, about 30 years now. Or nearly that, I’m not exactly sure. In that space of time I have collected so many kendo-related bits and bobs that I have lost count. Well, after moving to Japan that is – before that (20 years+ ago) there wasn’t really anything kendo-related to […]

Kendo History

This page attempts to organise well over a decade of kenshi 24/7 historical articles in broad themes to make them more easier to access for the discerning reader. Sections are divided in to: Historical Timeline, Kendo People, Kendo Places, Kendo Events, and Kendo Books. I have also hand picked some of my favourite/useful/popular articles (when […]

Categories
kendo media

Hayashi Kunio sensei’s discussion on kendo for adults

In June 2017 I introduced on kenshi 24/7 a project that I had worked on a year-or-so earlier that had finally seen the light of day: “Kamei Toru Sensei’s Kendo Lecture” – an English subtitled DVD from Japanese kendo magazine Kendo Jidai. At the time it was the magazines first foray in to the international […]

Categories
kendo kenshi

Kendo judan

In 1952 the Zen Nippon Kendo Renmei (ZNKR) was formed with the object of trying to re-organise kendo on a national level (iaido and jodo would come under it’s aegis in 1956). Kendo was in a sorry state at that time: the Dai Nippon Butokukai (the overarching organisation in control of kendo before WWII) had […]

Categories
kendo publications

Kendo Books

UPDATE: I’ve decided to renew this particular article every so often when new and interesting books become available. The original post was published in April 2013. Most recent updated January 2017. As I write this post at work, I have dozens of kendo books standing in the shelf on my desk: ones about learning the […]

Categories
history kendo kenshi

Busen and Koshi

Over the last few years I’ve repeatedly mentioned Budo Senmon Gakko (Martial arts vocational school, known as “Busen”) and Tokyo Koto Shihan Gakko (Tokyo Higher Normal school, or “Koshi”) in articles. Their respective kendo head instructors, Naito Takaharu and Takano Sasaburo, have also made appearances all over kenshi 24/7. Despite this I hadn’t really gone […]