I think it was at last years European Kendo Championships some footage emerged online of a kendo competitor flipping his opponent over and behind him mid-shiai. My initial reaction was that – despite it not being something we do in kendo shiai – it was a well timed and executed technique (informing my opinion was […]
Following on from on from a couple of posts ago, here are some pictures from this years Kyoto Taikai held this year – as usual – between May 2nd-5th in the Butokuden, Kyoto. I was there on the 3rd and 5th, but due to the heavy rain on the 5th everyone stayed inside the hall […]
Eikenkai is a kenshi 24/7 led kihon-heavy keiko session that takes place usually every couple of months in central Osaka. Due to the unavailability of our usual venue (Sumiyoshi Budokan) we used one of our member’s work dojo for this months session. Numbers were kept deliberately small in order to try a slightly different structure […]
With April almost over and May looming ahead, the entire kendo community here in Japan gets ready for the most important season / event of the kendo calendar: the Kyoto Taikai. The first Kyoto Taikai was held in 1895 to celebrate the completion of Heian Jingu (itself a celebration and part copy of the foundation […]
The following is a translation of waza descriptions from Takano Sasaburo sensei’s book Kendo Kyohon, published in 1930. The translations were done by Kent Enfield and serialised here on kenshi 24/7 back in 2009. During the end of year article clean-up that I usually do, I temporarily archived the series (6 posts) with the aim […]
British Pathé have finally released their archive on youtube including some kendo videos for us enthusiasts to wonder at (they had been available on their own website and in lower quality for a few years now). The vids span the years from WW1 up until 1974 and are an extremely valuable source for those interested […]
The building my main dojo is based in is undergoing renovation. Part of the work involved includes increasing the size of an already existing office at the back of the dojo and to so were told that we would lose a little bit of the space in our changing room (luckily the dojo will remain […]
The following is a translation of a collection of things to be careful about during keiko by Takano Shigeyoshi entitled “Keiko kokoro tokushu.” It is a mostly random collection of kendo hints – things to be careful of, things to do, things not to do, comments about waza, etc. Some of the content is a […]
Note that this bogu set is now no longer in production. To see more bogu like this please visit the All Japan Budogu website directly. I very rarely do reviews of equipment on this site… and, in fact, this is actually the first bogu review I’ve ever done. The reason why I’m doing one now […]
Takano Shigeyoshi: A very brief bio Takano Shigeyoshi was born in Mito in 1877 (family name Chigusa). When he was 14 he enrolled in Tobukan and began to study kendo under Ozawa Torakichi. His father, himself a renowned swordsman, died the same year and Shigeyoshi ended up being looked after by the dojo. Eventually he […]