It’s been raining relentlessly over the last while here in Osaka, and there is more forecast this coming week, but today – and only for today – the weather was absolutely beautiful!!! Obviously the kendo gods smile on Eikenkai!! Today’s session was held at my (George’s) work dojo and as such was deliberately a bit […]
Today’s Eikenkai session was held in what is almost certainly the oldest kendo related dojo by tradition in the Kansai area: Shubukan (older buildings include both the Nara and Kyoto Butokuden). The dojo started birth in 1786 as a place for studying kenjutsu and has been through a couple of name changes and rebuilds over […]
Forty-three kenshi got together in Sumiyoshi Budokan, next to Sumiyoshi Taisha in central Osaka, for yesterday’s jam-packed kenshi 24/7 led Eikenkai session. People travelled to Osaka for the practise session from as far as Iwate, Shizuoka, Okayama, and Mie prefectures, but the title to furthest away goes to Canada. Of course, most participants came from […]
Yesterday (Nov. 29th) was our 6th and last Eikenkai session of the year. Twenty-two people rolled up at Sumiyoshi Budokan for a spirited 3 hour kihon-based keiko session. Participating kenshi came from Europe, north and south America, as well as Japan (of-course). After keiko we popped into our usual restaurant to have some of Osaka […]
Eikenkai is a kenshi 24/7 led kihon-heavy keiko session that takes place usually every couple of months in central Osaka. Only two weeks after our last keiko, yesterday (Sunday the 13th of September) 24 kenshi got together at Sumiyoshi Budokan for our trademark session. Thankfully the Japanese hot and sultry summer weather is starting to […]
UPDATE: note that the building featured in this article was knocked down in the summer of 2017. The reason? Nara prefecture didn’t want to fork out money to modernise the earthquake-proofing. Eikenkai is the kenshi 24/7 led kihon-heavy keiko session that (usually) takes place usually every couple of months in central Osaka. To mark the […]
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 […]
Eikenkai is a kenshi 24/7 led kihon-heavy keiko session that takes place usually every couple of months in central Osaka. Due to the unavailability of our usual venue (Sumiyoshi Budokan) we used one of our member’s work dojo for this months session. Numbers were kept deliberately small in order to try a slightly different menu […]
Today’s Eikenkai practise – the first of 2015 – was absolutely packed. 40 kenshi from shodan to nanadan representing five prefectures (Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Mie, Nagoya) and five countries (Japan, the UK, Spain, Thailand, America) got together for over two hours of intense keiko. In amongst the participants there those that have competed at the […]
We held the 6th and last Eikenkai session of 2014 yesterday at our usual dojo at Sumiyoshi Budokan. 27 people participated with kenshi coming from as far afield as Kumamoto (Andy from All Japan Budogu), Nagoya, and Okayama, as well as from around the Kansai region (Osaka, Nara, Hyogo, Kyoto). We did our trademark 45-30-45 […]