Note: this is a guest post by Andy Rogers. If I were to ask you, “who do you think are, or were, the most extraordinary kendo people in the world?” What would your answers be? Teramoto Shoji? Uchimura Ryoichi? Perhaps you believe that the last generation All Japan Championship winners were – such as the […]
The following is a rough translation of a very small part of a much larger essay about REIGI (etiquette) that was published in the July 2013 edition of Kendo Nippon. The author is Iwatate Saburo sensei. The translated section in particular caught my eye so I thought i’d share it here and use it as […]
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted any DIY articles, so I thought it was high time I made the effort. This quick post is to help you to easily and quickly save some money (at least those of us that use heel supporters). For most of my kendo career I never used a […]
About two weeks back I was looking through a friends small book collection and noticed a budo book in English that I hadn’t heard nor see of before: “Jigoro Kano and the Kodokan – An innovative response to modernisation” (produced by the Kodokan and translated by Alex Bennet). Not being a judo/jujutsu person, I must […]
Yesterday morning it was absolutely boiling in central Osaka. As people that have been to Japan in summer know, its not just the heat thats a problem, but the exceptionally humidity. Steeling myself for a sweaty keiko, I ate a large breakfast, drank buckets of water, and headed to the dojo. In the judojo next […]
July 27th 2003, exactly 10 years ago today, was when I stepped of the airplane in Tokyo and started my vague “move to Japan to study kendo and learn the language” experiment. That I’d still be here all this time later is… I don’t know, surprising? Stupid? Crazy? Probably all of the above! Like the […]
Sometime in the very early 1990s, Britain’s Channel 4 TV station started broadcasting Sumo on terrestrial TV. I don’t know why they took the chance of broadcasting such an exotic sport, nor did I care – it was on, it was Japanese, I must watch it. I not only watched it, but I studied it: […]
On a hot and sticky day at the end of June, 24 kenshi got together at Sumiyoshi Budokan in central Osaka for the usual kihon keiko bash. Keiko was especially interesting as we had a lot of first-timers, 8 in total. Hopefully some will become repeat members!! The menu was as usual split into three […]
When I was heading to the UK last year I popped into the airport bookshop to see what reading I could pickup for the flight. I quickly selected about 4 books that seemed interesting and looked forward to reading them on the long flight. As usually happens on marathon plane journeys (I assume this isn’t […]
Last Sunday after keiko, I was lining up to say thank you to one of the older 7dan sensei (lets call him S-sensei). 77 years old now, I remember going to his 70th birthday celebration the highlight of which was him doing tachigiri keiko – he fenced a shodan, a nidan, a sandan, a yondan, […]