Comments on: 26th April 1873

By: Cesar Urena

Cesar Urena — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:12:44 +0000

Gekkenkai was found ed to save many Samurais who lost their wages and work due to to abolishment of Feudal system in Japan, the Imperial Japan was formed in 1868.
Gekken Kogyo = demonstration of tournaments of bamboo swords fight, which the common people were not allowed to practice or watch.
Sakakibara, Ken kichi opened the this tournaments to general audience and charged the fees.
It was a big hit show, except so many people copied so quickly and every where, it became un popular in few years and the show of these tournaments have ceased away.
Best regards,

By: George McCall

George McCall — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:58:00 +0000

I have the names somewhere. I’ve been a bit busy to follow up this article and those leads, but I will get around to it sometime!

By: Kenshimex

Kenshimex — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:08:23 +0000

Do you know who were those two non japanese kenshi who took part in the gekkikenkai?

By: George McCall

George McCall — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:41:51 +0000

Never heard of it I’m afraid. Sounds a bit strange. In all the sources I’ve read about Sakakibara there has been no mention of it. I’d need to see some original stuff, or at least the term in Japanese to do some checking with.

By: Usagi San

Usagi San — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:06:41 +0000

Well acordingo to Tokitsu Kenji’s website (tokitsu.com which is down, by the way) sakakibara kenkichi opened, right after the samurai class abolition, a “samurai bar”.
A place where the samurai waited (is that the word? like in waitress or waiter?) on non-samurai clients.
And I was wonder if you knew anything else more about that… like how was business?…

By: George McCall

George McCall — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:10:27 +0000

@Usag9i -> no idea what the “samurai bar” is referring to… can you enlighten me?

@Isaac -> There is literally nothing in English other than the usual done-to-death explanation. How did you manage to write 3 pages of a thesis without Japanese sources? And what was your thesis about?

@Kent -> I guess so. No idea why I have the extra k in there!

By: Kent Enfield

Kent Enfield — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:09:23 +0000

A minor comment on transliteration: isn’t 撃剣 either “gekiken” or “gekken”, rather than “gekkiken”?

By: Isaac Meyer

Isaac Meyer — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:11:30 +0000

I spent an entire 3 pages of my thesis on this topic. It’s fascinating stuff, but unfortunately my Japanese isn’t good enough to read the original sources and there’s almost nothing available in English.

Let me know what else you dig up on the subject!

By: Usagi San

Usagi San — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:52:02 +0000

It’s redundant by now, but anyway: thanks again George.

I find this “area of kendo history”, as you put it, particularly interesting.
People, and specially martial arts folks, always tend to think of their historic figures almost as super-heroes.
And some (most?) of the time they were not. They were also, as in this case, people just trying to get a break.

Sakakibara must have been one hell of a character, as there are maybe as many stories about his sword hability as there are about his entrepreneur skills (and his thirst for saké)…
The Gekkiken kogyo, the samurai bar… are you going to talk about the samurai bar, George?… that man was a genius! Well, sort of…

Cheers