Happy new year everyone! 2024 ended without my usual end of year review post because, well, it was a rather quiet year article-wise: only 16 posts, 7 or so about events. I also had a lingering cold at the end of the year that sucked energy from me, thankfully that is gone now.
I am still doing kendo non-stop of course, it’s just that I guess I’ve addressed pretty much everything kendo-related one way or another since this blog started. Also, my mid-life crisis (see pic below) is kicking in so something other than kendo is taking up whatever free (writing) time I may have had …
2024 Super Mini Review
Last year started with a couple of semi controversial posts that prompted some online criticism plus inspiration for a kind-of response from yours truly. Actually, they weren’t that controversial at all, just opinion pieces. No harm done.
During the summer I made a (good!) decision to leave a dojo I was a long term member of before heading to Edinburgh for my yearly seminar. I say yearly, but I decided to take a break in 2025… sorry to those that may have been looking forward to the event.
In a bid to stop myself getting lazy, this autumn I decided to pop over to Tokyo for a long-overdue kendo weekend out of Osaka. I must travel for kendo more often…
My last post of the year was about how the shogo system operates here in Japan and served as a nice book-end for the year for me. Now that I have all the grading nonsense out of the way, I can chill and enjoy kendo.
One thing that happened over the year that isn’t addressed in articles is the volume of overseas visitors I’ve had. If you follow me on instagram you’ll probably have seen a variety of zekken and stuff being pictured, but that really is only a small percentage of the actual visitors I’ve received. This part of my kendo life is often my favourite part = enjoying others experiencing kendo in Japan.
Despite being poorly at the end of the year I still managed to take my students to a joint-keiko session, run an 60-student practice shiai on Christmas day, and join a 200+ person keiko on December the 30th. Keiko this year started on the 3rd with a 50+ person year-start keiko at my work place. Next Monday (the 6th) I will join Osaka Kendo Associations Kangeiko as normal, including shiai in the afternoon. I guess things are chugging along as normal.
The day after our year-start keiko my students and I had our first normal keiko of the year. I took down the dragon picture that was hanging in the dojo and changed if for a snake. This is of course in reference to the super complicated ancient zodiac system used in many East-Asian countries. The fact that the Japanese calendar flipped to the Gregorian calendar in 1873 yet they still pay lip-service to the old zodiac is a good example of the confusion that lies in modern Japanese “traditional” culture, including kendo. Anyway, it’s a colourful cultural artefact that adds a bit of fun in what can sometimes be a drab environment.
( Here in Japan almost everybody, young or old, believers or not, visit shrines and make offerings on new years day. As I was queuing up this year the family behind me were chatting about the big snake picture me local shrine had hung up and – suddenly – the father began talking about how it looked like Nessie! As a Scotsman I was kind of affronted: she isn’t a snake!!!! I bit my lip and remembered Heijoshin. )
After keiko, this year – for the first time in a while – the students and I decided to do some Kakizome or “first calligraphy of the year.” Everyone wrote something – a goal a wish, something to aim towards – and posted it to the dojo wall. Since my hand written kanji isn’t good I decided to draw a picture and do something simple: I chose to do a modified Bodhidharma picture (with my face as the model) and wrote the character GEN (玄) which I have kind of introduced before. I am not sure that my students realise, but the character GEN that I wrote is very similar to the homonym GEN (弦) which is the “string” in “guitar string” …
Anyway – as always – thanks for your continued support of kenshi 24/7, and I hope everyone has a good 2025. Cheers!
One reply on “Dragon into Snake”
Osu!