Categories
kendo

2024 Edinburgh Kendo Seminar

Registration for this years (2024) Edinburgh kendo summer seminar is open! It is hosted by Edinburgh Kendo Club and will be lead by Yano Nobuhiro sensei and myself.  ***** FULL INFORMATION ***** ***** REGISTER HERE ***** If you don’t know much about the seminar or want to refresh your memory, please check out past articles here.  […]

Categories
kendo shiai

Awesome kendo weekend

Last Saturday, like this time last year, my students and I spent most of the day working at one of the highest level shiai in Osaka prefecture: the preliminaries for the National Athletic Meet. What we did during the shiai was exactly the same as the year before, so please check out the article linked […]

Categories
kendo kyototaikai

Kyoto Taikai 2024

[ While you are here: please note that registration for the 2024 Edinburgh Kendo Seminar is open. Please check here for more information. ] Aaaaaand, that’s another Kyoto Taikai done. This year I took part in two embu and spent three days in or around the Butokuden. During the train journey home I realised that […]

Categories
kendo

Equanimity

Equanimity. From the Latin aequus (level, equal, even) + animus (soul, mind). “For every challenge, remember the resources you have within you to cope with it. Provoked by the sight of a handsome man or a beautiful woman, you will discover within you the contrary power of self-restraint. Faced with pain, you will discover the […]

Categories
kendo

Yuko-datotsu vs Ippon

I am going to start today’s article with an anecdote and some self-reflection before getting into the main topic. In a roundabout way (as is my style) the intro anecdote is relevant to the theme, but feel free to skip it if you wish. [ While you are here: please note that registration for the […]

Categories
kendo

Seito-ha, nanken, and communication breakdown

Have you ever been in a discussion with someone about something and at some point realised that the person or people you are conversing with somehow doesn’t seem to get what you are attempting to communicate, no matter how simply or clearly you (think you) you are being? I am sure you have. Of course, […]

Categories
eikenkai kendo

Eikenkai (Feb. 2024)

The first Eikenkai of 2024 was held last Saturday, the 17th of February, and was attended by something like 25 kenshi (a few folks arrived late from a different keikokai, and a couple had to leave slightly earlier, so I’m not sure of the precise number). I think about ten nationalities were represented (Scotland, France, […]

Categories
kendo

The Green Tree

Recently, a lot of kenshi from abroad have been coming through Osaka and getting in touch. When possible, I invite them to keiko at my workplace and sometimes to my small asageiko sessions as well as some other places depending. Work and life can be quite busy, so it’s not always possible to fit people […]

Categories
kendo

Another year

A bit late I suppose, but happy new year! Kendo-wise things have started in earnest over here, and every day I find myself doing something kendo related, whether it be keiko itself, event related stuff, dealing with/organising visitors, renshujiai and/or godogeiko requests… and so on and so on. I promised myself a few years ago […]

Categories
miscellaneous

2023 Review

Whew. After a hectic year of kendo I finally finished my last two keiko sessions of the year today. Today’s first keiko was in the morning, one of my asageiko sessions which I outlined in the first post of the year, and the second was an open keiko held by a friend in the Butokuden. […]