One of my favourite sensei is also an artist. He not only paints but has amazingly beautiful writing as well. Being 85 I guess he’s had lots of practise!! One of the things he does every year is paint something for hanging in the dojo, themed by whatever the current years (Chinese) zodiac is. Along […]
Happy 2013! For the first post of the new year I spent some time looking back af old kendo pictures, some from books, others that I picked up randomly on the web. I really enjoy looking at these old pics so I’d like to present a handful of them here (the earliest picture is from […]
Naito Takaharu (1862-1929) was one of the most influential kenshi to pick up a shinai. Born as as Ichige Takaharu in Mito in 1862, his Samurai parents were of budo stock: his father an archery instructor for the domain and his mother the daugher of the Hokushin Itto-ryu shihan Watanabe. At the age of 7 […]
In the kendo that we do nowadays there are two styles of tying the men: the ‘Kansai’ or the ‘Kanto’ style. The second of the two tends to be the most common. The difference in attaching the chichi-gawa (leather straps) to the men, and tying the men is as follows: ‘Kanto’ (pictured below) – both […]
I was lucky to spend my university years in the U.K.’s most beautiful city, Edinburgh. A city with a long and interesting history, unique architecture (‘Athens of the north’), and host to Europe’s largest cultural festivals, its a great place to be when you are young. And smacked right in the center of this wonderful […]
Sometimes I come across people in the dojo that have a certain sense of ‘something.’ This is nothing to do with physical ability per se, but more to do with their manner, how they naturally move, and the way that they approach keiko. Often, its hard to say what exactly makes them look (feel?) good, […]
A couple of weeks ago in the dojo a young kohai of mine, about 24 years old, attacked and knocked over one of the older sensei in his late 70s (needless to say, it wasn’t deliberate). The sensei fell backwards and knocked his head on the dojo floor. Keiko stopped and everyone rushed to him. […]
This year lets, with the goal of polishing our kihon, endeavour to spend a lot of time doing ‘uchikomi.’ Kyoto Budo Senmon Gakko’s (Busen) head instructor, Naito Takahuru, emphasised ‘uchikomi’ (what we now call ‘kakari’) – as transmitted by Hokushin Itto-ryu in Mito (Tobukan, where Naito started kendo) – as an important part of training. […]
A month or so ago – I can’t quite remember – I was reading a piece in one of the local kendo mags about someone who had, after many years of kendo practice, decided to quit. Of the many reasons he gave for this, one stood out: that there was no special ‘polishing of the […]
This is an abbreviated/casual version of a chapter that was originally in my just-published Kendo Coaching Tips and Drills book, but which I removed in the final version as it didn’t really fit in the way that I wanted it to (and also because I am terrible at making attractive visual charts… which is why […]