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dojo eikenkai history kendo

Eikenkai @ Nara Butokuden (Aug 2015)

UPDATE: note that the building featured in this article was knocked down in the summer of 2017. The reason? Nara prefecture didn’t want to fork out money to modernise the earthquake-proofing. Eikenkai is the kenshi 24/7 led kihon-heavy keiko session that (usually) takes place usually every couple of months in central Osaka. To mark the […]

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media

Kobudo embukai

This morning I wandered down to the beautiful Sumiyoshi-Taisha, next to Eikenkai’s base dojo of Sumiyoshi Budokan, to watch a small kobudo embukai. The schools that were demonstrating were Ogasawara-ryu (kyujutsu/yabusame), Yagyu shinkage-ryu (kenjutsu), Hozoin-ryu (spearmanship), and Jigen-ryu (kenjutsu). As there were only four schools demonstrating, the whole thing only took a couple of hours. […]

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kendo miscellaneous theory

One should always be ready for snakes and demons

“It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.” – Anatole France I can’t remember the exact year, but I think it was way back in 1995 or maybe 6 when I first created a kendo website. I was studying computer science in university and had access to the something “new” […]

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kendo shiai

All Japan Teachers Kendo Championships

A couple of weekends ago I found myself in Kyoto watching this years All Japan Teachers Kendo Championships. It was the first time I’d attended this event and was intrigued into how it ran. The taikai was split into basically three competitions: ladies individuals, mens individual, and mens team, with all competitors either being a […]

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dojo history kendo kenshi

Tokyo Musha-Shugyo

At the very end of July this year I took some time out of my normal schedule and headed to Tokyo for a Musha Shugyo, that is, I went on a “warriors pilgrimage,” with the aim of polishing my kendo. In the short time I was there (I stayed five nights in Tokyo) I visited […]