Like most kenshi 24/7 readers, I always have a few kendo books and mags lying on my desk at work. When I have time to kill I like to randomly flick through them. Every now and again I’ll rotate a book from my desk with one from my bookshelf at home. In all honesty, however, […]
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 […]
Just the other week a friend was visiting from Tokyo. She popped into the dojo for a couple of keiko, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. To my surprise she also brought with her a gift from my 2022 Kyoto Taikai partner: a tenugui. I of course knew that they were friends, […]
UPDATED: when I posted this article originally it was about the rokudan tests. When I later went to translate comments for the 2022 nanadan tests I realised that the published comments were the same. Rokudan and nanadan always happen together over two days, and it seems that the same shinsa-in work on both. I have […]
A number of years ago I talked about a change in my kendo “mode” and in particular my flip-over to a sort of asageiko-main routine (despite not being a morning person). I had been an on-and-off asageiko person since about 2009-ish I guess (from about 2005 I did asageiko very occasionally, maybe once or twice […]
* Note that the seminar has been overbooked and registration has been closed. I am pleased to announce that the Edinburgh kendo seminar is back on in 2023!! The 2020 seminar was cancelled and we couldn’t hold anything in 2021 0r 22 due to you-know-what, but we are back… with a vengeance! If you don’t […]
As readers of kenshi 24/7 of course know, I have been involved in writing kendo stuff online for a long time… but maybe you don’t know exactly how long. kenshi247.net started in 2008 as an evolution of a blog I had started 5 years earlier in 2003. The prior instance of the site was a […]
A few months ago I started to realise that the tare I usually used for my daily work practice was reaching the end of its life. Well, the body of the tare itself was fine, but the obi – the belt – was frayed to the point that it could rip apart at any moment. […]
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 […]
Ten years ago today, I self-published “Kendo Coaching Tips and Drills.” At that time it was the only English language kendo instruction manual that didn’t focus on basic stuff like how to fold your hakama or the names of the parts of shinai*. Instead it introduced footwork and wrist drills, gave ideas for basics and […]