Edinburgh Kendo Seminar (2024)

Over the last 16 years, this was the 9th seminar I’ve instructed at my home dojo of Edinburgh Kendo Club. For two years running, for a total of three times, Yano Nobuhiro, kyoshi hachidan, also came with me.

Last year we had so much interest that we capped participation at just over 90 because we hadn’t booked a large enough venue. This year we did book a larger venue, but with the WKC happening only a couple of weeks earlier, plus a competing seminar held in England two weeks later, we saw a drop in participants, to a little bit over 60. That was fine though, as it was far more manageable. As far as I can work out, kenshi joined us from Scotland, England, France, Switzerland, Canada, and Germany at a minimum. 

Anyway, today’s article is just a short event rundown plus some media for people to enjoy. Hopefully it will inspire others to participate in the future.

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Pre seminar keiko

(Like other seminars, we always pad the event itself with keiko before and after, mainly for the benefit of local Edinburgh Kendo Club/Edinburgh University Kendo club members, but anyone can join.)

Surprisingly our long flight started by heading EAST from Japan then continued with us flying through the Bering straight, up and over Alaska and Canada (skirting through the Artic Circle!) and down into Europe. With a long change-over in Amsterdam, we arrived late on Thursday evening in Edinburgh. By the time we arrived at our accommodation we had been on the move for 24 hours. Despite that, we were in the dojo the following evening.

As Yano sensei was taking the lead over the weekend, I took the Friday night session. Instead of doing anything complicated or over-teaching, after the warmup and some ashisabaki exercises I put my bogu on and went through a basic kihon session with everyone. This was followed by a long-ish introductory jigeiko.

This years event was held in the newly constructed Meadowbank Stadium. Originally it was built to host the 1970 Commonwealth games, but the old facility was demolished in 2019 and a new one opened in 2022. Our main seminar was held in the main sports hall, and we used another smaller one for the pre and post keiko sessions.

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Seminar Days 1 and 2

The content of the weekend seminar itself was decided before we came over, with Yano sensei sketching out some ideas and the pair of us discussing it a bit. On each day we looked at participant numbers, general skill level, fitness level, injuries, time constraints, and so on and massaged the blueprint slightly as we saw fit: adding stuff here, removing stuff there, and so on. As both Yano sensei and I are highly experienced in teaching groups of people (him: police men/women and university students; me: high school students) between us it is pretty easy to create or modify keiko menus on the go, so everything went very smoothly.

Like last year, I was also lucky to have Andy Fisher attend to help translate sections of the weekend. This freed me up to give individual advice to people, clear up any confusion about movement or waza, take some pics, and so on. In the past I did everything by myself, which was pretty tough. The combination between Yano sensei, Andy, myself, plus Ryuichi as demonstrator and in-bogu instructor, worked very well I believe.  

The actual content of the seminar was pretty simple:

- each day was split into two sessions: morning and afternoon
- each session was split into about two parts
- morning sessions were generally: warmup, ashisabaki, and kihon
- afternoon sessions were generally: review, something new, mawarigeiko, and jigeiko

I could go into a lot of detail explaining exactly what we did each day, but as it isn’t really so different to what we usually do, and both Yano sensei and I are highly orthodox instructors, I’ll skip that part this time (you can re-read past reports). Instead, check out the short montage/PR vid instead. I hope you can at least imagine the atmosphere through watching it.

Pics

Here are a small handful of pics I took over the weekend. I didn’t take my “real” camera this time, just phone pics I’m afraid.

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Things to improve on for the future

After each seminar I get lots of positive feedback, which is awesome! But in order to improve the content of the seminars I do also need to hear criticism as well. Usually I ask one or two people for their honest opinion and this time this is what I learned I need to consider for future seminars:

- some time for feedback at the end of the sessions; 
- more instruction on how to receive;
- encourage people to more actively participate in the jigeiko sessions rather than for long lines.

All fair points and things that I will definitely improve on next time

A future possible addition

This is something I have thought about before, but it was the first time I was asked directly about: the possibility of adding some sort of kendo lecture, not about the mechanics, but on the cultural/historical aspects. This is something I would love to do in the future, but I don’t want it to detract from keiko itself. Hmmmm.

*Quick note*

One thing I am adamant about in this seminar is that I will never have a shiai or grading aspect as part of it: the seminar is for keiko. 

1. There are lots of shiai to attend all over Europe, I don’t want to waste precious keiko time on that when people have lots of chance to do shiai anyway;

2. Gradings, of course, are a thorny subject. If I were to add a grading to the seminar I would feel obliged to pass people for their contribution or because they are my friend and so on. No thanks. 

I expect that if we added a shiai or grading to the event we’d get far more participants, and perhaps even make some sort of profit. But I am here for the kendo, and I don’t care about the participant numbers. If only 2 people turned up I’d still happily do two full days of keiko with them.

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Post seminar keiko 

After the main seminar I spent another week in Edinburgh doing kendo. Yano sensei joined keiko on Monday and Wednesday, Ryuichi joined Monday, and I did Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Of course, participant levels were far lower than the weekend, and consisted pretty much only of locals, which was no problem at all.

Monday: for this session Yano sensei and I decided to let Ryuichi take the class. This wasn’t because we were tired or anything, but because we are both vested in helping/supporting/mentoring the new generation of instructors. Ryuichi currently runs his own kendo club in Montreal.

Wednesday: this session focussed solely on kata,  a nice break from the oikomi and kirikaeshi of the weekend!

Friday: Yano sensei returned home this day so it was just me on my lonesome. We had a great keiko then headed out to the pub nearby for some refreshments. 

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Wrap-up and thanks

Yano sensei and I had a great time in Edinburgh. This was, as usual, due to the effort of Edinburgh Kendo Club and senior members Dez, Xabi, Martin, Lynne, Mike, Richard (despite being injured), and so on – you know who you are! We were well looked after and appreciate it. The venue was also top-notch. 

Andy is not only a good friend, but literally a Kendo Star. I’d have a much harder job without him in attendance.

Ryuichi coming from Canada was awesome of course, the man needs a medal! His crazy dou made a bit of an impact…

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Swag

During the seminar Andy kindly gave one of his newly released products: his “NEW AND IMPROVED – ‘KIYOI’ – Seiaizome KIRARI-ZASHI Kendogi & KEIRYO Hakama Uniform Set”. Very briefly, let me quickly review the set.

Kiyoi kizari-zashi kendogi: A super nice fitting keikogi, soft on the skin, nice “diamond” pattern which gives it a traditional feel. Looks good, feels good… what more can I say?

Kiyoi Keiryo hakama: A lightweight-ish hakama that looks great, just like heaver cotton ones. I say “-ish” because you can get lighter material hakama nowadays, but this looks much better than those. One thing that Andy pointed out to me – and that I had never seen in a hakama before – is the “pleat locking + stitching system.” This seems to be a KendoStar innovation where the very top part of the hakama pleats are stiched down, meaning that it is easier to fold, plus you are far less likely to “lose” your pleats should you do some sort of major wash. 

Note that the dogi is dyed, so you will go blue. Also, the hakama will most likely shrink, so you are best to get a size up from what you usually wear. If you have questions about these things you can speak to Andy directly, he’s very approachable.

I only took a couple of snaps of my set, so please check out the product pages for better pics and more info.

Bonus swag

Sitting in the pub on the final post-seminar keiko, a kendo friend of mine (actually, an Edinburgh kendo sempai by 2 or 3 years) handed me a book as a present. The book is called “Gyosha no Kiroku” or “records of a (kendo) practitioner” by Minowa Masaru. I haven’t finished the book yet, but it tells the story of his experiences at Noma dojo, studying under numerous legendary kenshi. I haven’t (yet) met Minowa sensei, but I knew all about him: that he built his own dojo in Yamanashi prefecture, or that before that he had a government issued school kendo teaching licence (these were issued during a very short period of time and no longer exist) both of which sound like my dream life! 

My friend actually studied under Minowa sensei when he was a member of Noma dojo, and the book pictured here came directly from Minowa sensei himsef… hmm, I feel the rumblings of a new project…

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