Categories
eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai June 2016

It’s been raining relentlessly over the last while here in Osaka, and there is more forecast this coming week, but today – and only for today – the weather was absolutely beautiful!!! Obviously the kendo gods smile on Eikenkai!! Today’s session was held at my (George’s) work dojo and as such was deliberately a bit […]

Categories
kendo shiai

All Japan High School Championships (preliminaries)

A couple of posts ago I talked about renshu-jiai, or practise competition, what they are and what sort of benefits can be had from doing them. Since making that post I’ve spent three whole days (two Saturdays and one Sunday) at shiai with my students while they competed in the Osaka preliminaries of the All […]

Categories
equipment kendo

Practice bogu (KendoStar)

Earlier this year I was delighted (jealous!) when my friend Andy decided to break free of the shackles of Japanese company life and go independent. Out of his new projects, his new online bogu company with a super cute name – KendoStar – is what interests me the most. The idea behind KendoStar is to […]

Categories
kendo shiai

Renshu-jiai

Over the past almost 9-years of being a high school kendo teacher (and the 5 years of teaching at junior high/elementary school level before that) I have been to quite a few shiai. Actually, I lie: I have been to about a million (if not that exact number then it certainly feels like it!). Behind […]