When I was heading to the UK last year I popped into the airport bookshop to see what reading I could pickup for the flight. I quickly selected about 4 books that seemed interesting and looked forward to reading them on the long flight. As usually happens on marathon plane journeys (I assume this isn’t […]
Last Sunday after keiko, I was lining up to say thank you to one of the older 7dan sensei (lets call him S-sensei). 77 years old now, I remember going to his 70th birthday celebration the highlight of which was him doing tachigiri keiko – he fenced a shodan, a nidan, a sandan, a yondan, […]
Note: this is a guest post by Jon Fitzgerald. This year saw Tora Dojo host the 6th London Cup. Once again we were lucky enough to be joined by kenshi from all over Europe, including various current and former national team members. Countries taking part included France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Spain, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, […]
Yesterday morning around 25 kenshi gathered at Sumiyoshi Budokan (in central Osaka) for our usual fast-paced kihon keiko session. As always, the format was 45 minutes of basics, 30 minutes of waza practise, and 45 minutes of jigeiko. On top of that, we did some tachiai-geiko for members that are taking 6 and 7dan gradings […]
UPDATE: I’ve decided to renew this particular article every so often when new and interesting books become available. The original post was published in April 2013. Most recent updated January 2017. As I write this post at work, I have dozens of kendo books standing in the shelf on my desk: ones about learning the […]
Yesterday I popped into my sempai’s kendo shop in central Osaka to buy a shinai. Almost all my shinai have round handles, but sometimes I do use koban (oval-handled) shinai, so I picked one up. I took a snap and posted it on facebook to quickly see if kenshi247 readers also try koban shinai. Of […]
Bunburyodo is a term that I’m sure many if not all budo practitioners are familiar with. It’s a term used to describe someone who has become or is trying their best to become ‘accomplished in the both military and literary arts’ (martial arts and arts/sciences). The first recorded use of a similar term (「文事ある者は必ず武備あり」) is […]
Recently a long-time kendo friend living in the U.K. messaged me on facebook to tell me he was bored with kendo (again). The problem – as I put it to him – was that he has probably “little variation in his keiko” and that he is “constantly stuck with the same partners, doing the same […]
I’d like to introduce kenshi247 readers to someone who has played a large part in my kendo life over the last three years: Kubota Suzunosuke. He was a key member of my high school kendo club, eventually becomng the club captain and passing his 3 dan when he was still just 17. Unfortuanately, on January […]
We had our first keiko of the year on a sunny Sunday morning on February 24th… and it was a good one! Jam-packed, we had nearly 30 kenshi in the dojo representing 11 countries, 8 prefectures, and almost every continent (Africa and Antarctica were absent). We had university students, a high school teacher, a science […]