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 […]
This year, as usual, the Osaka prefectural gym was the venue for the All Japan Prefectural Championships (mens). What was different from last year is that I am now in possession of a seven month old daughter, which meant I was only able to watch a couple of hours of the competition before heading back […]
Today’s mini-post is another media one with pics from a couple of University Invitational Shiai that my students and I attended over the last couple of weeks. March is always a busy month shiai-wise (we still have one more next week and another was cancelled) but, as I’ve mentioned before, these university invitationals are my […]
When my alarm went off at 6am this morning (Sunday) I dragged my body out of bed, had a large cup of coffee, grabbed my stuff, then headed over to Kyoto to take part in this years Kyoto University high school invitational competition. By “take part” I of course mean “take my students over to […]
Today I spent the whole day at yet another university invitational shiai for high school students (it’s that time of year!). I got up at 6am and was greeted with a cold and rainy Osaka morning. Jamming a banana in my mouth, I bought a coffee at the nearby convenience store and headed over to […]
Mini-update Back in May I announced that I was having a re-think about what to do with kenshi 24/7 and then in September I posted a notice saying that I was semi-retiring posting content… at least for the “time being.” I tried to start a more casual blog on the side, but things in life […]
A couple of posts ago I talked about renshu-jiai, or practise competition, what they are and what sort of benefits can be had from doing them. Since making that post I’ve spent three whole days (two Saturdays and one Sunday) at shiai with my students while they competed in the Osaka preliminaries of the All […]