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kendo

Sotaku-doji: the chicken and the egg, the zen master and the disciple

There is a Japanese phrase from zen teachings that reads: 啐啄同時 – Sotaku-doji The image it suggests is this: Imagine a chicken and her egg. When the chick is about to hatch it makes a scratching noise inside the shell. Hearing it, the mother chicken comes along and gently taps on the outside of the […]

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kendo kenshi

Even if you are wearing steel sandals, find a good teacher

The first half of this article is a short translation. Enjoy! Up until I was a third year junior high school student (14/15yrs old) I lived in Tottori prefecture. I started kendo in first year but was very weak and lost many competitions. I was so weak that sometimes people would even taiatari me out […]

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kendo

Year end, year start

Happy new year !!!! I hope all kenshi 24/7 readers had a great xmas and Hogmanay/new-year period. Japan, being a non-Christian country, basically doesn’t stop for a holiday break until December the 29th or 30th depending, and even then many shops will remain open throughout the whole period, perhaps closing only on January the 1st. […]