This year Kanagawa-kenkei’s (Kanagawa prefecture police force) Shodai Kenji won the 56th All Japan Championships. As a young policeman on his prefectural A-team, a 4th time entrant to the competition, and an extremely serious contender for being in the Japan national side for next years World Championships there is nothing surprising here. What might be surprising, however, is that he is a JODAN kenshi, and is the first to win the title using this kamae since 1983. Thats 25 years.
Some of my friends have said “if he wins, it will be the start of a new jodan boom” and the such like, but as someone on the ground here in Japan who goes to many shiai, i’d say we are well into a boom as we speak. For the last few years I have been noting that in shiai here – from high school level up – there are increasing numbers of jodan people, both male and female. Shodai’s win might help to accentuate things (or to validate peoples selection of the kamae) but I suggest that he is not the reason for it.
So what is? And why have I chosen to call it a “renaissance” rather than an “emergence?” Well, the second question is much easier to answer than the first, so let me start with that.
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The Zen Nippon Kendo Renmei (ZNKR, in English: All Japan Kendo Federation, AJKF) has started a dedicated page for the Senshuken Taikai (All Japan Championships) and associated youtube page today.
It features a video of the final of the first Championshipsm, which was won by Sakakibara (榊原 正), a 33 year old renshi from Aiichi prefecture in 1953. He died a hanshi on the 9th of April 2006 at the age of 86.
Hopefully they will be updating new videos regularly.
Senshuken Taikai homepage: http://www.kendo.or.jp/champ/
YouTube page: http://jp.youtube.com/ZennipponKendoRenmei/
Picture from the above site.
November the 3rd in Japan is a national holiday called Bunka-no-hi (文化の日), in English “Culture Day.” Kendo being an example of traditional Japanese culture, its fitting that the Zen Nippon Senshuken Taikai (All Japan Kendo Championships) are held on this day. 64 men from throughout Japan fight it out to find out who is the strongest kenshi in the nation.
One spot goes to prior years winner, and the other 63 slots are allocated between the other prefectures. The rule is generally one person per prefecture except for those areas that have an extremely large populations, for example Tokyo and Osaka. Each prefecture is generally free to decide the manner in which representatives are selected but it tends be be decided via a preliminary shiai in their home prefecture. As an example, lets look at how it works in Osaka.
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