Last Saturday I spent the morning and the first half of the afternoon working with my students at a shiai held at Shudokan, the dojo in the grounds of Osaka Castle (and five minutes walk from my workplace). The shiai in question was the “kokutai” preliminaries for Osaka prefecture. Kokutai translates into “National Athletic Meet.” […]
With the relaxing of mask mandates (requests) by the Japanese government this month and the ZNKR following suit, we are starting to see progress on the returning-to-normal front. Kendo-wise, the ZNKR have said something to the effect of (abridged): You don’t have to wear masks during kendo anymore but, if you choose not to, please […]
When I arrived in Japan permanently in late July 2003 (of course, that wasn’t the plan at that time…) it was to a small island in Hiroshima prefecture. Before arriving I knew that there was a shonen kendo club based in the local junior high school, but I didn’t really know what to expect. I […]
The rules changes had been in essentially an experimental stage since Autumn 2020 and now – after using them at various shiai over the past year – there has been a slight massaging of them. The information about the change started to disseminate to local federations about six weeks ago or so but the ZNKR […]
While (most of) the rest of the world has been in various stages of lockdown and societies across the world have been facing existential difficulties, things have been going on more-or-less as normal here in Japan. Kendo has faced difficulties of course, for example, with many shiai (todays topic) being postponed or cancelled indefinitely. The […]
The 67th All Japan Kendo Championships (mens) was held on Sunday the 3rd of November in the Osaka Prefectural Gym. Luckily for me, some repairs and/or renovations on the Nippon Budokan for next years Olympics brought the shiai (for the first time) to Osaka, the venue being about a 20 minute bicycle ride from my […]
On April 29th every year the All Japan Prefectural Championships (Todofuken taikai) are held here in Osaka. I have been attending the shiai as a spectator for well over a decade now, and have seen it change in format from a mixed male/female competition, into a separate male (the one I was at today) and […]
Whew, what a month. March has always been a busy month for me, both work-wise and kendo-wise, but this year has been… too much. Kendo-wise my club took part in four shiai (three university invitationals and a local competition) plus we hosted a five-school renshujiai. Work-wise, things started with the usual high-school entrance exam craziness, […]
As is the norm here in Japan, kendo doesn’t stop over the holiday period (what little holiday period we have anyway), still, I shouldn’t complain! Luckily, as kendo is part of my job, if there is a shiai on a normal workday then that shiai becomes a “business trip” for me. Such was the case […]
Recently I wrote two articles that took a critical look at the current kendo style and the (obviously directly related) problems with modern shiai. Engendering positive kendo Zanshin confusion, sutemi, and hikiage Of course, I am not the only person who looks at and thinks about the current kendo situation. In most cases, however, any […]