Eikenkai is a kenshi 24/7 led kihon-heavy keiko session that takes place usually every couple of months in central Osaka.
Yesterday’s session (Sunday the 28th of June) was held at our usual venue Sumiyoshi Budokan, which is right next to the beautiful Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine. It seemed like a nice cool day until I got to the dojo itself and realised it was boiling! A few regular members were not in attendance due to the All Japan University Championships taking place over the weekend in Osaka, but that didn’t stop around 20 people getting together for Eikenkai’s trademark tough kihon session.
After stretching and doing suburi we did around about 40 minutes of kihongeiko, including a few rounds of kirikaeshi and uchikomi. After a short break for some water, we did 25 minutes of waza practise (focusing mainly on oji-waza) before going straight into an hour of jigeiko. Pretty much everyone was dead by the end of it!
To finish up a small handful of us popped out to the local okonomiyaki restaurant for food, a few beers, and lots of kendo chat.
Our next regular keiko will be held on the 13th of September at Sumiyoshi Budokan. We will, however, be holding a special session at a different venue far to the south of Osaka on August the 30th. If you are interested in coming along to either session please (after reading and understanding the “Points to note before joining a session”) get in touch. The regular session will be advertised on facebook as normal, but the special one won’t.
The awesome black and white pics below are courtesy of Aussie ex-pat Andy over in Nagoya. Check his work out online at Kendo Monochrome.
