Categories
kendo theory

The overall construction of modern kendo

The following is a presentation of a couple of charts found in the book ‘Nihon kendo no rekishi’ (The History of Japanese Kendo) that I found interesting and my commentary on them (apart from the charts themselves, this is not a translation). To read more about whats discussed here in more detail, including the background […]

Categories
kendo

The kendo practitioner and rei (etiquette)

The true meaning of rei is found in the midst of seriousness The following article was originally published in April 2011 and is by Ota Tadanori hanshi (see author bio below). I placed this article on my ‘to-do’ list a while back and picked it up randomly a few days back. With the 15th World […]

Categories
kendo theory

The kendo lifecycle

(a.k.a.Kendo and you: what it means and how you approach it at various points in your life) I started kendo at the comparatively late age of 19 (I’m 35 now) and, with only 16 years of practise under my belt, I can say with no false humility that my experience is pretty shallow… considering that […]

Categories
history

Kendo places #8 and #9: Kashima and Katori jingu

As part of my summer Musha Shugyo this year I visited the spiritual and historical center of budo in Japan: Kashima and Katori shrines, located in Ibaragi and Chiba prefectures respectively. Their proximity to each other is very close, about 15 mins by train. Although 400 years ago there were no trains nor cars and […]

Categories
kendo

Jodan Renaissance?

This year Kanagawa-kenkei’s (Kanagawa prefecture police force) Shodai Kenji won the 56th All Japan Championships. As a young policeman on his prefectural A-team, a 4th time entrant to the competition, and an extremely serious contender for being in the Japan national side for next years World Championships there is nothing surprising here. What might be […]