Judging the outcome of shiai and handing down a decision may at first appear a simple task but, in fact, it is far from it. It would be more accurate to say that it is one of the most difficult of tasks. Perfect refereeing can be achieved only by the Gods alone – it is […]
On the rare occasion I actually get some time to myself I like to engage in my hobby… no, not kendo, but rummaging around second-hand book shops for kendo and kendo related books. In particular I enjoy getting my hands on pre-WW2 books/manuals, or autobiographies/first-hand biographies of kenshi that lived during that period. Over the […]
Along with Naito Takaharu, Takano Sasaburo (1862-1950) is rightly considered one of the fathers of modern kendo. There are many reasons why he can be considered so (see a full bio of Sasaburo here) but the one of interest to us today was the publication of the highly influential kendo manual (sometimes referred to as […]
Eikenkai is a kenshi 24/7 led kihon-heavy keiko session that takes place usually every couple of months in central Osaka. Only two weeks after our last keiko, yesterday (Sunday the 13th of September) 24 kenshi got together at Sumiyoshi Budokan for our trademark session. Thankfully the Japanese hot and sultry summer weather is starting to […]
UPDATE: note that the building featured in this article was knocked down in the summer of 2017. The reason? Nara prefecture didn’t want to fork out money to modernise the earthquake-proofing. Eikenkai is the kenshi 24/7 led kihon-heavy keiko session that (usually) takes place usually every couple of months in central Osaka. To mark the […]
This morning I wandered down to the beautiful Sumiyoshi-Taisha, next to Eikenkai’s base dojo of Sumiyoshi Budokan, to watch a small kobudo embukai. The schools that were demonstrating were Ogasawara-ryu (kyujutsu/yabusame), Yagyu shinkage-ryu (kenjutsu), Hozoin-ryu (spearmanship), and Jigen-ryu (kenjutsu). As there were only four schools demonstrating, the whole thing only took a couple of hours. […]
“It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.” – Anatole France I can’t remember the exact year, but I think it was way back in 1995 or maybe 6 when I first created a kendo website. I was studying computer science in university and had access to the something “new” […]
A couple of weekends ago I found myself in Kyoto watching this years All Japan Teachers Kendo Championships. It was the first time I’d attended this event and was intrigued into how it ran. The taikai was split into basically three competitions: ladies individuals, mens individual, and mens team, with all competitors either being a […]
At the very end of July this year I took some time out of my normal schedule and headed to Tokyo for a Musha Shugyo, that is, I went on a “warriors pilgrimage,” with the aim of polishing my kendo. In the short time I was there (I stayed five nights in Tokyo) I visited […]
In 1952 the Zen Nippon Kendo Renmei (ZNKR) was formed with the object of trying to re-organise kendo on a national level (iaido and jodo would come under it’s aegis in 1956). Kendo was in a sorry state at that time: the Dai Nippon Butokukai (the overarching organisation in control of kendo before WWII) had […]