I should begin by apologizing to all of the Sensei and kendoka I have had the honour of training with over the years. It has been too many years since I last wore bogu and faced off against an opponent. In some way I feel that I have squandered all that those good people shared with me. I have always been a hard learner and I’m sure it took great patience and hard work to knock some of the fundamentals of Kendo into my thick skull. Domo Arigato Gozaimasu どうもありがとうございます
I can’t really recall walking onto the dojo floor for the first time, but I sure do remember hobbling off of it. I was sore all over for days. I also can’t remember why I ever came back to the next session but I did.
Kendo literally means ‘The Way of the Sword’. It is a relatively modern art although it has its roots in the centuries old practice of Kenjutsu. Kenjutsu is the real deal and to make it safer for the practitioners armor and padding and more ‘appropriate’ practice swords were introduced in the 1700’s. This allowed swordplay to slowly be morphed into a sporting activity. The term Kendo was actually adopted in the 1920’s.
Today it is a sport practiced worldwide with national and world championships. For some that aspect holds great appeal. For me I was always attracted to the more inner aspects of it.
If you ever very carefully watch a Kendo match you will see that it is not a free for all (although it may seem that way to the untrained eye). Kendo play may be aggressive yet it is also subtle and highly disciplined. Sanbon Shobu is a point scored match. In a match there are points scored by the contestants. For a point to count three things must occur. First, an appropriate target must be hit; of which there are six: The top of the head, the left and right wrists, the left and right torso, and the throat. Secondly and thirdly the targets must be hit with purpose. By that I mean there must be kiai; verbal, and physical at the tip of the shinai; coupled with a follow through. Just whacking a guy on the head isn’t enough.
You need to be very relaxed to play Kendo well, and yet you need to be able to turn on intensity and power in a microsecond. There are two approaches to Kendo. One is to aggressively attack. The other is to wait until attacked and defend and counter. Most of the sensei I had were of the former mindset. Attack, attack, attack. Always be the initiator. If you are quick and accurate and can read your opponent then you score before they know what hit them… literally. It is probably easier to show fighting spirit and to develop kiai when on the offensive.
One of the best Kendo matches I ever witnessed was at a tournament in Kyoto, Japan. It was in a very senior division. Not just in dan ranking but age as well. It was unlike any match I had seen before, or since for that matter. For most of the match these guys were almost motionless. Almost like they were staring each other down. Looking for a weakness; either in the opponents form or in their spirit. Then one would explode forward with a strike; typically so fast and accurate the other could not respond and counter, because it was too late. There were no feints, no posturing, no excess movement.
We had this one old instructor who was easily into his 70’s. He had been playing Kendo since he was 5 or 6 years old. Whenever anyone wanted a water break he would launch into this tirade about when he was a young man they never got breaks, and about his sensei would attack so hard that he would keep advancing and back the students out the door and into the street…
I can recall sparring with him once and he got so impatient with my ineptitude that he told me that he would just stand there and let me take strikes at him and all he would do is move his shinai to deflect mine. And he did. Try as I might I couldn’t land a decent hit on him anywhere. He just stood there cackling with laughter as he calmly with a flick of the wrist parried my every attempt.
He was the man who taught me Jodan no Kame as an alternative and perhaps better posture for me.
We would typically practice twice a week, sometimes three if I decided to visit another club. A typical practice on Sunday would be structured pretty much as follows and last well over three hours.
- Cleaning the floor
- Warmup exercises
- Reiho / Seiza / Mokuso
- Basics Kihon and Suburi
- Kirikaeshi
- Kakari-Geiko
- Ji-Geiko
- Reiho / Seiza / Mokuso
I remember one Sunday morning very well. Our head instructor was leaving our dojo to return to Japan. After our regular practice he engaged in what is called Kachinuki. Basically fighting one opponent until a point is scored, and then without stopping moving on to another opponent. He went through all of us in rapid succession; several times each. Then, although not strictly formal Kendo he took on two opponents at a time. This went on for the longest time, until drenched through with sweat he finally collapsed in defeat. It was quite the send-off.
He was a very kind and soft spoken gentleman, but on the dojo floor he had an indomitable spirit and absolutely flawless technique. You could ram into sensei at full speed and really all that would happen is that you would bounce off of him; he was so deeply rooted into the earth that he was immovable.
As with most martial arts there is a system of rank and gradings. One thing that appealed to me was there were no obvious signs of rank. No coloured belts. You knew who was who by how they were seated during seiza, and really by how they comported themselves on the dojo floor.
I trained pretty hard leading up to my Shodan grading. I was ready. I was anxious. I failed. It was a bit devastating at first, but it didn’t take me long to realize, that I wasn’t ready at all. It would have been a travesty, not to mention meaningless, if they had of passed me. I went back to the dojo, put it out of my mind, and just trained. The following year; no anxiety. I passed. I went back to the dojo, put it out of my mind, and just trained…