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kendo kyototaikai

Kyoto Taikai 2014

Following on from on from a couple of posts ago, here are some pictures from this years Kyoto Taikai held this year – as usual – between May 2nd-5th in the Butokuden, Kyoto. I was there on the 3rd and 5th, but due to the heavy rain on the 5th everyone stayed inside the hall […]

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eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai April 2014

Eikenkai is a kenshi 24/7 led kihon-heavy keiko session that takes place usually every couple of months in central Osaka. Due to the unavailability of our usual venue (Sumiyoshi Budokan) we used one of our member’s work dojo for this months session. Numbers were kept deliberately small in order to try a slightly different structure […]

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history kendo kyototaikai

Kyoto taikai over the years

With April almost over and May looming ahead, the entire kendo community here in Japan gets ready for the most important season / event of the kendo calendar: the Kyoto Taikai. The first Kyoto Taikai was held in 1895 to celebrate the completion of Heian Jingu (itself a celebration and part copy of the foundation […]

Categories
history kendo

Takano Sasaburo’s Kendo Kyohon: Pre-War Kendo Waza

The following is a translation of waza descriptions from Takano Sasaburo sensei’s book Kendo Kyohon, published in 1930. The translations were done by Kent Enfield and serialised here on kenshi 24/7 back in 2009. During the end of year article clean-up that I usually do, I temporarily archived the series (6 posts) with the aim […]

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kendo media

British Path̩ Рkendo !

British Pathé have finally released their archive on youtube including some kendo videos for us enthusiasts to wonder at (they had been available on their own website and in lower quality for a few years now). The vids span the years from WW1 up until 1974 and are an extremely valuable source for those interested […]

Categories
japanese kenshi

The stream of tradition

The building my main dojo is based in is undergoing renovation. Part of the work involved includes increasing the size of an already existing office at the back of the dojo and to so were told that we would lose a little bit of the space in our changing room (luckily the dojo will remain […]

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kendo

Takano Shigeyoshi hanshi’s 50 pointers for kendo keiko

The following is a translation of a collection of things to be careful about during keiko by Takano Shigeyoshi entitled “Keiko kokoro tokushu.” It is a mostly random collection of kendo hints – things to be careful of, things to do, things not to do, comments about waza, etc. Some of the content is a […]

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equipment kendo

Bogu review: All Japan Budogu’s Guardian

Note that this bogu set is now no longer in production. To see more bogu like this please visit the All Japan Budogu website directly. I very rarely do reviews of equipment on this site… and, in fact, this is actually the first bogu review I’ve ever done. The reason why I’m doing one now […]

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kendo

Takano Shigeyoshi hanshi’s jodan

Takano Shigeyoshi: A very brief bio Takano Shigeyoshi was born in Mito in 1877 (family name Chigusa). When he was 14 he enrolled in Tobukan and began to study kendo under Ozawa Torakichi. His father, himself a renowned swordsman, died the same year and Shigeyoshi ended up being looked after by the dojo. Eventually he […]

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kendo media

University invitational shiai

One of the busiest times of the year for my high school kendo club is in March due to the amount of university invitational shiai we attend. These types of shiai are when university kendo clubs invite a number of high school kendo clubs to come to their university for a day of kendo. These […]