Back in 2014 I wrote how I made a deliberate change in my kendo life by deciding to focus on asageiko more. I had attended morning keiko since about 2009 (well, 2005, but that wasn’t few-and-far between and doesn’t count), but I went full-morning-mode in 2014 (Mon, Wed, and Fri: three times a week). After my daughter arrived in 2017, my after-work kendo life mostly stopped and, instead, I focused almost entirely on asageiko and work sessions. 99% of my kendo at this time became kihon based.
When the pandemic struck my asageiko sessions dried up and so, after a year, I decided to take matters into my own hands and began (starting February/March 2021) running my own morning sessions. When my usual asageiko re-started (in 2022) I decided to keep hosting my sessions as well… which meant some weeks I was doing asageiko every weekday. On top of that, I had my normal six keiko/week at work, and the occasional degeiko or Eikenkai session and what have you. Oh yeah, and I was constantly taking my students to shiai as well.
Needless to say, I was doing a LOT of keiko. A lot.
Sadly, this period of my life has come to an abrupt halt.
I started working in my current school in autumn 2008. Almost immediately I took over the running of the kendo club and, for the last 17 years, through rain and shine, good times and bad times, I have been at the helm. I’ve taught hundreds of students, some of whom have gone on to pass yondan and godan.
It was with a sad heart that on the last day of February this year I was told I was being transfered school in April. This is something that happens to all public servants in Japan, but I had been told – due to the uniqueness of my position – that a move would be highly unlikely.
Still, I had actually expected a move to happen eventually, perhaps in the next three~five years, and had already had some schools (with good kendo clubs + near my home) in mind. Anyway, after the order came, I had to wait another week to find that the school I am being moved to is not only super far from my house, but the kendo club there had been shuttered, seemingly due the impact of the pandemic (no teacher to guide them through).
Due to the distance of the school, my normal asageiko sessions have become almost impossible to attend (I can go during test seasons, days off, and the like). Added to that, I can’t run my own sessions anymore because all my asageiko friends work in central Osaka. The number of weekday keikos I could do from April, because there is no kendo club in the new school, went from ten down to two (evening sessions at my police dojo).
My kendo life was turned upside down in an instant.
At this point I had two choices: 1) wait for four years and apply for a transfer (that’s the minimum time you have to do before putting in a request)… but even there is no guarantee the school will even let me go (I’m a good teacher!); or 2) re-boot the kendo club.
There was a kendo-jo in my new school… but the question was, given the current state of the kendo population amongst young people in Japan, could I even recruit any students?
[ In theory I should never have been sent to a place without a kendo club – teachers have individual skill sets, kendo is mine, which is usually taken into account – but the fact of the matter is that although non-Japanese civil servants have increased over the years, there are still very few, which translates into almost little wiggle room for placement. In the end they just rotated three people around without much consideration of my personal circumstance (the story is much more nuanced, which I won’t go into here: in short, I was caught up in other people’s dramas). ]
Once I knew what was happening and where I was going, I immediately set to work: within a day I already knew that there was an almost unused kendo-jo in the new school, which was a good start. It was communicated almost straight away (teachers have networks of colleagues – remember we all get moved around) that some kendo-crazed teacher was en-route to posses it.
Arriving on April the first, the subject of kendo came up immediately, with many of my new colleagues taking an interest. I discovered almost immediately that the club that had been there for more than 50 years folded just prior to the pandemic. The kendo teacher that had been there retired a long while back and, with no replacement sent, the students ran things themselves for a few years. Due to this, over time, numbers sunk very low and when the pandemic hit it – and with nobody to lead them – the last nail was struck.
My first job was to check out the condition of the kendo-jo and what it was being used for. I was pleasantly surprised to find the dojo, although bare of any ornamentation, was in very good condition. At least, the floor was. Bogu and various kendo bits n’ bobs had been left discarded in the storage areas and nothing was really kept in order. Usage wise, the baseball club used it when it was raining, and the music club used it for the odd concert. Hmmm, I thought.
So, what does it take to start a kendo club in a public high school in Japan? Well, in the spirit of sharing my kendo experience with you, let me give you a brief rundown.
Part one: get some members
If I was to start a new club I of course needed students. I created some posters, stuck them up around the school, and waited. My new school has a rule that you cannot start a new club up without collecting ten interested students. Considering the downward spiral of kendo population in Japan of late, I had little confidence I could manage, so I was more than a bit concerned. On the very first day I went to put up posters – even before I put my first one up – a second year boy came to find me and ask about joining: “I heard about the kendo teacher in [my previous school] is famous, everyone knows about him” he said!
Within a week I had collected enough students to start a club, more than enough. My final total was 15, which is three times more than my old school managed to gather this year. Go figure.
Part two: go though the process
If it was just a matter of getting the numbers, I could’ve started after a week but, as you probably know, Japan loves her bureaucracy! I of course had to file some paperwork and, after that paperwork was checked, I had to go through a string of meetings: a student executive committee, a student class committee, a club representative committee, a staff meeting, and, finally, the principal had to hanko it. In total, it took me about 6 weeks from entering the school on April the 1st to get the ok. There was not a single dissenting voice. At that point we had hit our mid-term tests, so the actually club would start after they finish. Yay.
(As a side-note, the baseball club and music club basically removed themselves from the picture. Of course, the dojo can and will be used or P.E. classes, which is not a problem.)
Part three: sort out the the dojo (plus the other stuff)
As the state of the floor was good the only real thing I wanted to do was dojo-fy it. This included getting the uchikomi-dai out of storage, sorting out a proper shomen (getting a flag and some decoration), and adding a notice board. I aim to continue making it more kendo-like over time.
The biggest job was sorting out all the stuff that had been left there. I immediately threw away all dogi, old leather shinai and bogu bags, and any bogu parts that were unusable. Items in great condition I kept to give away, and those in decent condition I sorted with the intention of donating.
In the end, however, the person who initially wanted everything (and importantly, could come around and collect it all) backed out, but we did manage to organise a taker for over 11 sets of kote and two men (they are heading to Europe). The remaining men (19), dou (20), and tare (18), I will keep for a bit then dispose of them.
Some other random stuff included:
- I found an old, dirty, and battered nafuda-gake (the board that hangs in the dojo with members names on it) so I cleaned, repaired it, and made some new name plates.
- There wasn’t enough bokuto in the dojo, and some of them were in bad condition. I immediate “acquired” some from my old dojo (they had far too many) and repaired the stuff I could;
- We had shinpan-ki and some tasuki, but I have no idea how long they had been in storage, so it all got washed and I ordered more tasuki;
- Sorting out things like shinai-kezuri, extra tsuba, and so on;
- Putting together a first-aid box.
There was lots of other minor things to work out as well.
Part four: creating a practice menu
As I’ve had many years of teaching experience, this was perhaps the easiest part of the process for me. However, rather than just do exactly the same as I did in my last school, I decided to change the menu in places to give the school its “own original style” of keiko.
What I changed was:
- The warmup
- Suburi (making it more realistic/useful)
- Ashisabaki patterns
- Kirikaeshi patterns
- Hikiwaza execution
- Uchikomi at the end of the session
- etc.
Of course, I kept my unique tsuki practice method as is (I’ve never seen it done anywhere else).
Not only is the keiko menu itself important, but the rei-shiki is as well – the etiquette. I had to decided how to line up, what to say, how to move and switch between different keiko sections, and so on and so forth. Until the students get used to it, it can feel awkward/stiff/forced.
All this will of course evolve over time as the club matures and new members cycle in and out.
Part five: do all the official stuff
Just starting the club is only part of the process. I also had to ensure the school registered as having a kendo club with the High School Spots Association (done). From now I will have to register the club with the group that looks after kendo in the Osaka branch, then register individual students as members of the association. This is done so that we can take part in the large “official” shiai that happen during the year. We’ve already missed the biggest shiai of the year, so the next will be in November.
In order that students can grade I also need to register with the local Osaka Kendo Association. They have already given me a club number, so I just need to do the paper work and pay the fee.
Future plans
As I write this in the second week of June, we have been running for something like a week. We’ve already had two guests: my friend Jose from Kendo Tips, and Richard from Fudoshin kendo club in Australia. The students are a little out of practice, and keiko isn’t running smoothly yet, but it’s all good I think, or it’s a good start at least. My plan now is to motivate and train the students as best I can.
Future plan 1: create a nearby support training-network
The wheels are already in motion for this!
1. There is a private school a short walk away - not only do they also have a kendo club, but one of the teachers visited my old dojo when he was a university student. I bumped into him at a shiai recently and we started plans to have regular godogeiko sessions.
2. My old school (which, btw, I still go to and teach at) isn’t so far away, so I intend to bring both schools together at least once a month for joint keiko sessions.
3. The nearest public school is a 20min bus ride away. They are very active and have a good teacher (he, like me, moved this April). Once my club is a bit more stable I intend to strike up a strong relationship with the teacher and club.
Future plan 2: self-invite myself to things
Instead of waiting to be asked to join things, I used my already-established network of kendo friends to “self-invite” myself to a) two university invitational shiai, and b) three university practices. I also intend to (slowly) get involved in as much renshu-shiai and godo-keiko that I can over the next year, perhaps even running some myself.
Future plan 3: gather potential students and establish a name
One thing that I need to do quickly is get the word out that a kendo club exists in the school again. Social media is a good start, but what I will focus more on (and have started soft discussions on) is getting local kids clubs to come to the dojo and keiko with my members. This way when they are older and thinking about where to study at high school, they might be more inclined to come to my school because a) they’ve actually been there and b) they know they can continue kendo there. I will, of course, praise all the kids I meet!
Future plan 4: getting the local big boys involved
One lucky break I got in amongst all of this is that there are two hachidan that live in the immediate vicinity, both of whom I know well. One runs a bogu shop 10 mins walk from my school and is very active teaching kids in the area, the other is none other than my good kendo friend who I take to Edinburgh most years (including this year) – Yano sensei. As you can probably work out, both of these sensei have found themselves entwined in my plan!
So yeah, as I said above, my life (not only kendo: my entire life) changed dramatically from April. I felt like I got a good kick in the teeth. No matter what I do in this new place I can no longer go back to the perfect kendo situation I had spent all those years creating. In a way I was lucky, but I also worked hard to build up that kendo life.
I must be honest and admit that I nearly didn’t even attempt to start a new kendo club. I imagined being able to leave work on time, or not go in on weekends and holidays… for once in my life I’d have some more time. Even now, after it has started, I wonder if I have made the right decision or not. Part of me actually saw this as an “out” for kendo itself… I could’ve used the opportunity to just, well, stop. Imagine a life without kendo!? I must confess, given the circumstances, the idea isn’t entirely unpalatable.
Anyway, for now, I am focusing on getting used to my new situation as well as preparing for next months Edinburgh summer kendo seminar. Posts here will then, for the foreseable future at least, will be a bit few and far between I’m afraid… please bare with me!
[ the header image reads FUKUTSU-FUTO which translates to “indomitable and unyielding” or “unyielding and unbending” in English. It expresses a deep inner strength—refusing to be defeated or discouraged, no matter how difficult the challenge. ]
2 replies on “Down, but rising steadily”
Inspiring reading George! Glad you not only landed on your feet but in chudan!
Thanks Andy, but I assure you it’s not all been easy/positive. Some serious soul-searching has gone on (and still is).