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eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai (July 2023)

Today I held my first Eikenkai since February. Due to this-and-that a lot of regular members weren’t in attendance. Still, 15 people turned up for a just-over three hour session. Nationalities represented included Japan, China, America, Croatia, Ireland, Switzerland, Venezuela, Italy, Germany, and, of course, Scotland. The lack of locals made today’s session feel more […]

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eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai (Feb. 2023)

Last weekend the first Eikenkai session of the year was held, as is usual, at my work dojo. 35 people attended with 14 nationalities represented: Scotland, England, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, New Zealand, Australia, America, Russia, China, and Japan (of those one person won the World Championships team event in the past, and […]

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eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai (Nov. 2022)

Yesterday, for the first time this year, I held an Eikenkai session at my work dojo. Twenty-one friends gathered together representing something like ten countries (Japan, China, Scotland, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Croatia, America, and New Zealand) for a spirited morning of keiko. A couple of us arrived at the dojo at 7:30am-ish to practice […]

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eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai (Oct. 2021)

Today, for the first time in two years, I held an Eikenkai session at my workplace. Up until mid-2017 I had been hosting an open kihon-based session about four-six times per year (since 2008), with attendance getting so crazy at times (over 40 people, hachidans joining, etc.) that I ended up having to limit it. […]

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eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai (Sept. 2019)

Yesterday I hosted my first Eikenkai session in about 8 months. 22 kenshi from six counties (Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Germany, America, and Japan) and 3 prefectures (Osaka, Kyoto, and Mie) got together at my work dojo where we did 40 minutes of kihon followed by just over an hour of jigeiko. After keiko we went […]

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edinburghkendoseminar eikenkai kendo

Edinburgh Kendo Seminar (2019)

For the past few years I have been travelling back to the wonderful city of Edinburgh, Scotland, to teach a seminar at my home dojo, Edinburgh Kendo Club. This year was the seventh seminar I have run over the past 11 years, and the 3rd in as many years.

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eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai (Nov. 2018)

Last Saturday (10th of November), I held an Eikenkai session at my workplace. 17 kenshi got together for some keiko: about 40 mins of kihon, one hour of jigeiko, and about three hours (or four… I can’t remember!) in the second dojo. Seven countries were represented: Scotland, England, America, Australia, Brazil, Italy, and Japan.

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eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai (Feb. 2018)

Yesterday, for the first time in half-a-year I held an Eikenkai session. For the last 10 years or so we’ve been going at a pace of one session every couple of months, but with work and baby making life hectic, it has been difficult to get the time.

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eikenkai kendo

Teaching environments: summer gasshuku in Japan vs seminar in Europe

The summer holidays are over here in Japan, and it’s back to school for yours truly after a very busy few weeks of kendo. I am always running around doing kendo during this period, and so am quite used to it, but this year was slightly different in that I combined two events in to […]

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eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai (May 2017)

After the flurry of kendo activity that was the Kyoto Taikai, it was nice to have a relaxed keiko with a bunch of friends. Whereas the last session was jam-packed, today’s was a more reasonably sized group of 15 people. Still, we had six countries represented (Scotland, England, Italy, France, America, and Japan), and people […]