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 […]
Earlier this year I was delighted (jealous!) when my friend Andy decided to break free of the shackles of Japanese company life and go independent. Out of his new projects, his new online bogu company with a super cute name – KendoStar – is what interests me the most. The idea behind KendoStar is to […]
Over the past almost 9-years of being a high school kendo teacher (and the 5 years of teaching at junior high/elementary school level before that) I have been to quite a few shiai. Actually, I lie: I have been to about a million (if not that exact number then it certainly feels like it!). Behind […]
The crème de la crème of the Osaka shiai-circuit were out in force today to take part in the Osaka preliminaries for the Kokutai taikai (“National athletic meet”). What that translates to exactly is young tokuren police professionals, jitsugyodan (semi-pro business teams), and teachers. The odd random person tried their luck to (but to little […]
As long-time readers have probably noticed lately, my (written) output on kenshi 24/7 has been a little bit patchy. This is not due to lack of inspiration or because I am not thinking about and doing lots of keiko, but because I have little free time nowadays to spend writing long articles. This is partly […]
This year was my 13th or 14th straight year of attendance at the Kyoto taikai. I’ve written about it and shared photos and videos of the event many many times over the years (2015, 2014, 2011, 2009, 2008) as well as posted lots of information about the Butokuden as well, so if you want to […]
Today’s Eikenkai session was held in what is almost certainly the oldest kendo related dojo by tradition in the Kansai area: Shubukan (older buildings include both the Nara and Kyoto Butokuden). The dojo started birth in 1786 as a place for studying kenjutsu and has been through a couple of name changes and rebuilds over […]
I must apologise to kenshi 24/7 readers for not writing any articles recently: I’m currently crazy busy with work (and keiko of course!) at the moment and can’t find the time to read and write as usual. So, rather than not updating the site, I thought I’d share some of my pictures. I wrote briefly […]
A couple of articles ago Stefan asked the following question in a comment: Hey George, where is the article on how to build a tsuki pad? In 2008 I published two articles detailing some DIY tsuki-pads I had made. The earliest of the pair was made over 10 years ago, way back in 2006, and […]
All through this month I have been going through the mountain of kendo books one of my sempai gave me. The way I approached it was to put the really good books to the side and concentrate on the mass of general books in the pile… but, I must admit, I’ve started to tire of […]