Nestled in the hills in the north of Okayama prefecture close to the border with Tottori prefecture is the small town of Mimasaka. It is here, around 1584, that the Miyamoto Musashi was said to have been born. From there Musashi embarked on his study of swordsmanship, with a narrative well known to all students […]
In 1906 the Butokukai made its first research into making a set of standardised kata for teaching its students (standardised kata for teaching had already been made in Tokyo shihan-gakko – Takano Sasaburo‘s gogyo-no-kata – and Keishicho – keishi-ryu). 17 members were selected from various ryu-ha, and a set of 3 kata were created called […]
As a followup on the article on the Transition of Kendo, I present another of Takizawa Kozo hanshi’s charts. This is different from the one before and works from the bottom-up and shows you what you need to do to in order to acquire great kendo. Again, I offer no explanation, simply a translation. Please […]