All through this month I have been going through the mountain of kendo books one of my sempai gave me. The way I approached it was to put the really good books to the side and concentrate on the mass of general books in the pile… but, I must admit, I’ve started to tire of […]
The fourth instalment of my March book project will look at a handful of books that are primarily for children. I guess many kenshi 24/7 readers aren’t too interested in kids kendo books and, honestly, neither am I very much. However, when flicking though the books I realised one area that they can be of […]
For the third instalment of my March book project I chose four titles that have variations on a similar name/theme: Shashin de miru kendo (“Kendo by pictures”). One of the four is actually a revised and reprinted version of the other, so it’s really three books I’m looking at today. Kendo by pictures and diagrams […]
The choice of books for the second instalment of the the March book project was simple: I picked up two books that were the same shape! I picked up one square book, saw another one, then picked that up too. Amazingly, like in my first instalment of this series, the books were not only authored […]
For the first instalment of this months book project I picked two books that were written by the same authors: Oshima Kotaro and Ando Kozo. Oshima Kotaro was the son of Oshima Jikita (another article here) and Ando Kozo was the shihan of the Waseda university kendo club from 1999-2002. The two books being looked […]
Forty-three kenshi got together in Sumiyoshi Budokan, next to Sumiyoshi Taisha in central Osaka, for yesterday’s jam-packed kenshi 24/7 led Eikenkai session. People travelled to Osaka for the practise session from as far as Iwate, Shizuoka, Okayama, and Mie prefectures, but the title to furthest away goes to Canada. Of course, most participants came from […]
During June last year I was invited to join an open keiko session at the dojo which probably has oldest (kendo-related) tradition in the Kansai region. During the break between the kihon and jigeiko parts of the session I was wandering around the dojo looking at the various pieces of calligraphy and what not that […]
The following is a translation from a privately published 1928 book entitled “Noma dojo ki.” I assume that a set number of copies were printed and distributed to Noma dojo members only (it was finally re-published publicly in 1996). The book is essentially split into two halves: the first discusses Kodansha founder Noma Seiji’s ideas […]
Takano Hiromasa (1900-1987), kendo hanshi and headmaster of Itto-ryu*, was the the second son of kendo legend Takano Sasaburo. A brief bio: Hiromasa began studying the sword when he was 6 years old in his fathers dojo, Meishinkan. He graduated from Tokyo Shihan Gakko in 1923 and, in 1927, took over the day-to-day running of […]
It was a relaxing Sunday autumn morning in Kyoto when the school dormitory’s door was flung open: “Everyone! Nakayama Hakudo and Kawasaki Zenzaburo are practising at the Gojo police station!!!!” The Butokukai’s bujutsu kyoin yoseijo (martial arts training school) was established in 1905 and was the direct forerunner to the legendary Busen. All five of […]