I definitely know what you are talking about. School and collegiate kendo is an animal of its own. High pace kendo enviroments like that are often pretty tuff, in many different ways. Also, the members tend to be of a certain grain. In a way, I can’t always blame the cold environment that goes a long with it. Most of them practice 6 days a week and have been doing so for years. It ends up being more like a job than an affair that they enjoy. Imagine not being able to go out Friday nights all through out college because you have 7am practice Saturday morning.

I’ve talked to many high school students before and asked if they were going to continue practice after high school and most of them said “No, I want to have a life.” After practicing 5 days a week with them, and another at a local dojo for 3 months in Fukuoka, I really understood the sentiment.

Hopefully you can find a great place to practice kendo, where there is a serious and hard practice, but also has that fellowship you are looking for.

Unfortunately your university kendo club experience doesn’t seem to be that rare. I’ve heard the same or nearly-same story a number of times now. Of-course I do know people that do have a good time in university club, but its not that often.

Estrangement is all too easy to come by in Japan, be it in the dojo or outside of it.

I admire your situation and ideas very much.

I can relate to your experiences somewhat. I’m relieved that you are having a rewarding kendo experience in Japan. I also tried to integrate myself into a kendo club as a foreigner in Japan. For me personally, probably due to the combination of my own personality and the strictness of the specific college-club, it was a living hell.

Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t convert any rewarding social interactions with the members. I was always neglected and felt somewhat despised for my efforts. It wasn’t what I expected at all and became very stressful psychologically to be honest. Its sad but kendo lost its original meaning to me as a humane self-improvement, and instead became vulgar and ignoble. My dream became a first grade encounter with the absurd. Estrangement is no joke!

If you aspire to practice kendo in Japan as a regular member of a club, definitely be prepared for a different experience from that of your home. Understand what it is you love about kendo and find the kind of club with members who are willing to oblige your needs. I’m sure some people can flourish under the circumstances that I found so draining if they are tenacious, independent, patient, and their hopes are in the right places.

The estrangement is a widely held feeling among foreigners that live in this country. I still walk into McDonald’s here and the clerks flip the menu to English. Read into that what you will.

I do also stand by this statement “where you are from, what you look like, even what language you speak is of no consequence.”

If you put people from 50 different countries, speaking 50 different languages, but all did kendo, we’d have an amazing keiko together.

I wasn’t doubting that in any way, if you read my post again, but there is no place free from discrimination (positive or negative) and if we talk about Japan also a kendo dojo is certainly not.

Japanese people make you feel “non-Japanese” despite your passport status. Its something that those of us who live in Japan (and speak Japanese) feel on a daily basis. How much ti effects your daily life is up to you, but it is very very real.

“The biggest one most people feel is the estrangement. A stranger in a strange land. No foreigners that come will ever be Japanese”

What do you mean by being “Japanese”? There are some Japanese that are not very much Japanese. Some foreigners try to be more Japanese than the Japanese themselves, perhaps some even are. For many Japanese kendo is a lot more strange than it is to us. What is being Japanese? The most solid definition would be the ownership of a Japanese passport, but I am not sure if this is what you meant.

Actually this is something I heard quite often, however I think this “estrangement problem” is self made. You are who you are, an individual, and you certaily can be part of Japanese society even as a foreigner, if you make friends and take part in public life. Even as a foreigner you can be part of the Japanese socienty, but your roll is slightly different and not as well defined as that of a native Japanese.

The culture is different ofcourse and you can adopt. It’s a similar process like when you are switching schools, your employer or move inside your home country to another place. Learn the rules, make friends and fit in.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t say you are wrong, because your oppion and your experience are your own, but I don’t understand the sacrifice part really.