About 10 years ago a student of mine - a tall 15 year old girl who had only started kendo seven months earlier) - approached me in the dojo and suddenly said “please teach me jodan.” Not having thought too deeply about it before but knowing that I wanted to learn myself at some point [...]
Osaka Kangeiko 2019 寒稽古
Happy new year! As is the norm here in Japan, the year-end/year-start season is a busy kendo one. Amazingly I actually did end up having a handful of non-kendo days over the period (family time), but I managed to make up for the missed keiko days by cramming multiple sessions in a very short time [...]
Decade 十年間
Another year is done. 100s of keiko sessions, thousands of kirikaeshi, countless suburi, and a couple of beers. Unlike most years, however, this one seemed to fly by. Probably because this it ushered in some rather significant changes/advances to both my personal and budo life. The main reason for starting kenshi 24/7 a decade ago [...]
Boxing day shiai 試合
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 [...]
The end of one era, the start of another 明治・大正・昭和・平成の代表的な剣士とエベント
With the scheduled abdication of the current Japanese Emperor on April the 30th 2019, a new era will begin. Well, not a really a new world-changing epoch or anything so exciting, but a change in the Japanese calendar name that happens along with the succession of a new head to the imperial family. For people [...]