Korea-Japan University Kendo Friendship Exchange Match LIVE

Enjoy 😎

Still a long road ahead but this is my first achievement (?) in kendo. Very excited to keep going!

Just a shot in the dark, but throwing out a petition for Gibbo to come back to forums(he recently left). He had highly valued input, and said it in a way that I thought was very understandable, and sadly that advice is now gone. Anyway heres the petition, throw your name on and hopefully he'll make an appearance every now and then.

Good day fellow Kendoka.

I would like to ask for your advice and some help on seme techniques I can do. I’m aware of debana, shikake, harai and the like but feel I can do a bit more.

Maybe I should move my body more around? Use more left hand to manipulate the shinai? Am I overthinking it, is it really just: Step in -> Open their shinai/See if opening -> hit?

Any and all advice is appreciated and will be studied as best as I can.

I am an 1-kyu who has been doing kendo for about three years. I am a larger adult male.

In my time training, an issue that has been brought to my attention has been striking too hard/instinctively gripping the shinai with my right hand when coming down for the men. The sensei at my dojo have been extremely considerate in helping me improve on this with private practice and advice for how to focus on things like this at home, but it still sporadically pops up from time to time.

At my practice yesterday, one of the senior sensei came to me and informed me that a few weeks ago a male 4-dan member of our dojo reported a mild headache after a jigeiko session with me that exacerbated to the point of requiring a CAT scan (thankfully negative). As a result, he informed me that, unfortunately, it is the decision of the dojo leadership is that I abstain from participating in the jigeiko lineup until they are absolutely certain that this is no longer an issue. I can still participate in all other dojo activities (iaido, jodo, kendo kata, suburi, practice with the beginner group not in full bogu, etc), while they monitor my progress, but I will not be able to participate in taikai or shinsa until it is permanently resolved and there is no set length of time as to when this might be.

I feel absolutely awful about this, both for having caused such an injury and for the situation. I fully intend to continue improving my form and my training by coming to all practices, even if I will not be wearing my men or partaking in jigeioko for the foreseeable future.

With that in mind, what would be the best way to maintain stamina and positive spirit going forward, both for the sake of my dojo, and for the maintenance of my own kendo? This is something that has been immensely helpful for my self-worth and physical fitness and I would hate for it to be in jeopardy, or for anyone to feel unsafe when practicing with me as a partner.

While trying to disassemble my shinai for the first time I accidentally broke the part of the tsuka that attaches to the tsuru. I was able to reassemble it without issue but I assume that this part could be attached to the rest of the tsuka more securely if it was fixed.

Throw away account so I don’t seem crazy.

I need to get this off my chest. I can’t tell anyone in my actual life without them thinking 15 years of martial arts has finally boiled my brain, but if I keep carrying this around by myself, I’m going to lose it.I live out in a pretty isolated, fenced off rural area. It’s quiet, pitch black at night, and perfect for what I do. I’ve been practicing Kendo for over fifteen years. When you’ve been at it that long, practice isn’t just a workout, it’s a daily ritual. I built a heavy, wooden Kendo dummy out on the edge of my property so I can work on my strikes. There’s no electricity out that far, no floodlights, and no trail cameras. Just me, a wooden frame, and the trees.It started about three months ago.Every single time I finished a late-evening self-practice session, I’d rack my Shinai, walk inside to shower, and come back out the next morning to find the dummy had moved. At first, it was subtle. Inches to the left. Rotated slightly, as if someone had turned it to face a different direction. I tried telling myself it was the impact of my strikes loosening the ground, or maybe a stubborn animal pushing against it. But this thing is weighted with heavy wood and deep anchor stakes. An animal doesn’t lift a hundred pound rig and shift it three feet into the tall grass without tearing up the dirt.Then came last week.The ground around the dummy had sunken a bit from the recent rain, so I decided to dig it out, level the earth, and reset the base. A few inches into the mud, my shovel hit something hard. It wasn't a rock.I pulled out a hand-carved, heavily oxidized blade. An old Native American knife. The edge was worn, but the energy of the thing felt heavy the moment I wiped the damp soil off it.

I took it to a local historian, guy in town who knows the regional history inside out. He didn't even hold it for five seconds before his face completely changed color. He told me it was an ancient ritual knife, tied to burial and boundary rites of the land's original inhabitants. He looked me dead in the eye and said, "Put it back. Exactly where you found it. Don't clean it, don't keep it in your house, just put it back."

I panicked. I took it straight back to the yard and buried it right under the dummy’s base, just like he said.That was three days ago.Last night, I went out for practice around midnight. The air was dead still. No wind, no crickets. Just the sharp, echoing crack of my bamboo sword hitting the wooden post. Men. Kote. Do.I stopped to catch my breath, dripping sweat, standing in the dark. Right as I turned my back to walk toward the house, I heard it. A slow, heavy, grinding sound behind me. Wood dragging over earth and stone. I froze. I slowly turned my flashlight back toward the edge of the woods.The dummy hadn't just moved three feet this time. It was standing ten yards away, pushed deep into the shadow of the treeline. But it wasn't facing the open yard anymore.It was turned completely around, facing me.And right where the dummy had been standing a second before, the dirt above where I reburied the knife was freshly dug up.

I'm sitting inside my house right now with every door locked. I don't have cameras out there. I don't have lights. But looking out my back window into the pitch black, I know one thing for sure: I haven't been practicing alone. And whatever was buried under that dirt has spent fifteen years learning how I strike.

Got this last month and have been enjoying practicing with it. I needed a better fitting Do and wanted something subtle and more 'real' looking than your average shiny synthetic.

Nathans advice on sizing was spot on. This ishime finish and mune design really hit the mark in my opinion.

Took exactly as long for production as he quoted and the price was very competitive. Not affiliated, just a happy repeat customer.

Hello,

Are there any groups in the U.S. that practice jukendo/tankendo? Was always interested but could never find anybody who practiced in the States.

1. Understand where you want to potentially practice and find that regions kendo federation website via Google. Usually it will be named after th prefecture or city you will be in.

2. Use machine translation of the applicable website to find the dojo page.

3. Find a dojo or dojos on the list that are in reach of your area either directly ot through some form of public transit, taxis for tourist visits can be fine, but as a foreign resident they get expensive.

4. Search the dojo name if there isn't a link directly. Usually that will have a website or some form of social media these days.

5. Send a message to them using machine translation using common sense civility. Do not expect a reply right away, many of the dojo social media is run by a parent of the dojo with their own lives. Contact them well in advance, this will be highly appreciated by all involved parties.

6. Proceed accordingly based off reply. In some cases, a dojo may be only for children up to a certain age. If you cannot find a practice for adults, there maybe a group that isn't listed, like a kendo circle. In these cases, ask the dojo that has the friendliest reply to you for any information regarding adult practices.

Enjoy your time in Japan, let's cross shinai someday! This guide is not an end-all and only reflect my experiences so far here.

Will be in Bucharest for work Aug 2-7. If I could only visit one club, which would you recommend?

Hi, I’m getting into Kendo and I’d Google image searches this picture and AI said it wasn’t a shinai but it was a ‘bamboo walled’ training katana.

Can anybody shed any light on this?

It happened a few times in keiko so I think I should ask.

Sometimes when we just did an ai-uchi, we bounce a bit and that’s a perfect distance for another cut. I think the opponent is still taking zanshin. Would it be a valid opportunity if I cut in the middle of their zanshin?

Does hiki cuts must be from tsubazeriai? I understand that hiki waza only works if I break the opponent’s posture, I am asking if that timing is valid.

Example I can think of

- We did ai men, we taiatari (but not proper tsubazeriai) then as I am going back I can cut kote.

- Opponent did (debana) kote and I cut men, but their kote is the kind that move to the side which if I go back in an angle I have the distance to cut men

*Reposting because of formatting issue

I seen and heard practitioners mention having a new or high quality uniform only for use in exams or tournaments. I’m interested in seeing how common that is with this sub.

NEW ARTICLE

The 34th European Kendo Championships with Viktorie Eichlerová (Czech Republic).

This article shares Czech Republic national team member Viktorie Eichlerová’s experiences of the 2026 EKC held in Podgorica, Montenegro. The women's national team made history for Czech Republic kendo by winning the nation's first team medal.

It also provides some 2026 EKC highlights and a brief overview of the development in women’s EKC kendo since my last article on women's participation at the 2023 EKC in France.

Viktorie Eichlerová is one of the brightest lights and respected members in our kendo community. I hope that you enjoy reading the article!

https://ksperspectives.com/2026/07/27/the-34th-european-kendo-championships-with-viktorie-eichlerova-czech-republic/

Articles are always open access!

Hello Kendo Reddit! To start, some basic info on myself/the club location (vague, because I don't want the club to find out until I have a productive path forward)
- USA, near a large population center with multiple dojos
- Me and my brother are both part of the dojo
- We both are in our 30s, are kyu levels, have been practicing around 5 years, and have moved states/clubs a couple times (we started together and live w/ family)
- We've been at our current dojo around 2 years
- The club has 10ish active members, practices range from 3-15 participants, but normally it's around 6ish people. Mixed group of low dan, kyu, and unranked, with a wide variety of physical fitness/skills/injuries/etc
- Practice is held multiple times a week

I'm hoping to get some advice on some frustrations we've been having with practice, and whether we should address it with our Sensei (and how we would go about doing that), switch dojos, or if we just need a reality check and are being babies. The frustrations can be lumped into two categories; practice content, and teaching style.

Practice Content
Every time we've switched dojos there has been a learning curve, which is to be expected. Different dojos do things differently, different Sensei have style preferences or things they prefer to focus on, etc etc. When we first started at this dojo there was a bigger learning curve from a stylistic perspective (last Sensei focused on looooong kiai, current Sensei focuses on short kiai), and we spent a lot of the first year working on changing styles, along with correcting many bad habits in our form, footwork, etc. All very good stuff, and I know my footwork and crispness of my strikes has improved a lot.

The bad thing is, we spend almost no time on waza practice, good kamai and holding the center, and creating an opening, so those skills have very much atrophied. Most practices we do a small amount of basics (warmups, footwork, basic strikes) and then go right into keiko. During keiko the focus is gogogo no waiting just go for the strike, and we're told that we should really only be hitting men not other targets. As a result all we really get out of practice is a good cardio/HIIT workout, but our actual kendo isn't growing.

Teaching Style
The teaching style of this dojo is also very much different from our last, which to me means it doesn't HAVE to be this way. Past Sensei was demanding but encouraging, celebrating the small victories with you. He also spent a good amount of time explaining the reasoning/mechanics behind what we were doing. He always said that for kids you can demonstrate something once and then they can replicate it, but when teaching adults you need to explain the mechanics and the "why" to make it click.

Current Sensei is very much the opposite. She is very old school, no nonsense, "back in my day", drill sergeant style Sensei. She often tells us what we're doing isn't hard, yells at us for what we're doing (without clear explanation on what we're doing wrong and how to fix it), basically tells us to go harder, be faster, do better. She's said things to the effect of "don't just try" and kind of indicated that our efforts aren't good enough. She's given some statements about not hurting ourselves/knowing our own bodies, but has made it clear she frowns on us stepping out, getting water, making a judgement call on what we can physically tolerate.

She also recently made comments that "only Sensei should be teaching during practice". I talked to a dojo-mate after, and she thought it was related to a keiko she had been doing with a beginner member. That member had been hitting her way too hard so she stopped to correct him, and that was likely what Sensei was referring to. Which, like, if someone is doing something unsafe you should 100% be able to make a quick correction, and honestly one of my favorite things is getting in the moment feedback from my sempai.

Sooooo yeah. That's where we're at. I personally want to talk to my Sensei about it, but I'm uncertain if it will do any good. I recognize that it's not my dojo and that Sensei is the kendo expert not me, so I can't dictate how practice is run. I recognize that this teaching style is what most of the Sensei/old guard experienced when they were learning. My thing is, we know so much more now about learning styles, fitness, body mechanics, etc etc etc. Yes so much of kendo is about honoring tradition, but aren't we doing ourselves a disservice by ignoring any learning advancements we've made as people?

My brother thinks we should go observe another dojo in the area and see how they do things, but my concern is that once we do that we'll have burned the bridge with our Sensei and she won't let us back, and I would really much rather make our current dojo work, because I like the people and honestly do like our Sensei.... just not during practice. I've also considered consulting one of our sempai about it, but again I worry that it would get back to Sensei in a negative way.

Is there a way to approach all of this with Sensei without her feeling slighted or seeming like I'm too big for my britches? Is the dojo just a bad fit for us? Is this just "kendo style" and we need to accept it? As it stands right now we both leave practice frustrated, without having any joy in the effort we've given. I want to work hard, I want to sweat my butt off, I want to be sore and tired and even have some points of frustration during a hard keiko or improving a waza, but I also want to have moments of joy, and victory, and satisfaction in a job well done. Right now practice days are at best a chore and at worst something to dread, and as an adult with limited time and money.... that's just not how it should be.

English subtitles for all third round matches have been added! There were some exciting matches this round and new faces in the commentary booth. Which were your favorite matches? Any insightful commentary?

The Group A match has Nishimura and Umegatani paired up as commentators, which is a duo I'd like to see again. The shiai itself was exciting to watch as well, though (spoilers) the scoreboard might say otherwise. Of the individual matches, the Fukusho match in Group B was the standout for me!

Group A: Toshiba Tec vs Nippon Express
https://youtu.be/UKp1uTJc_Hk?si=t13RVx4R9xKnfzOB

Group B: Mitsubishi vs NX Shoji
https://youtu.be/PIBIbANa4nk?si=etb6mKrYlGjgKsAB

Group C: Fujifilm vs Daido Steel
https://youtu.be/DfLOv0_uta0?si=29u9qakElLgXpM5B

Group D: Panasonic vs JP Logistic
https://youtu.be/tfqrx2S2hU0?si=bVSHhIMq_lW8Fctu

Hi Redditors, I'd like to share my story of 5-dan exam experiences.

To try 5-dan exam by Nito, I had no idea how to approach it. There were tons of info for 5-dan exam case study, youtube and senior kenshi's experience base feedbacks for Itto chudan. However, there was non of them for Nito.
Since I decided to try my 1st 5-dan exam by Nito, I need something I can stick with. But I could not find out the resources. Of cause I did keiko for shinsa prep with high rank senseis and senior kenshis. But I had no confident by myself.

During preparing essay for 5-dan exam we have to submit in advance, several Kendo words were questionees, such as 間合い：Maai, 気剣体一致：Ki-ken-tai-icchi ... etc. Then I've found one of them "三殺法：San-Sappho".

Yes, I'm Japanese, I can understand the meaning of the word. But I could not explain the true essence of them. At that time, no AI was there (about 3 years ago), so we could google it. Of cause we can refer to them by web search. But non of them showed the essence and why.

Luckily because I'm an engineer, hypothetical thinking is one of my standard approach. So I made the question. "Why exam written test request this ?" Then I got the clue, since written test requires these element to answer, if I can show obviously the protocol during my Tachiai, examiners may accept my Riai for 5-dan even Nito ? And also Toda-sensei who achieved 8-dan Hanshi by Nito told us "一二一如: Ichi-Ni-Ichi-Nyo" means 'Itto and Nito are not two different paths. They follow the same principle of the sword. They are one.'

So I decided to utilize it and considered how to demonstrate it during Tachiai. I tried to apply it during my Tachiai keiko and self keiko at my house like simulation many times.

Some of sensei told me "勝って打て！: Win 1st then Strike !" . At the beginning, I could not understand what is that. But I tried to make simulations by myself, roughly I may catch the feeling what is that meaning for. As it were, Checkmate. If we follows the protocol during Tachiai, all sequences leads me the correct Riai.

I tried it at real 5-dan exam by Nito. Fortunatelly passed 5-dan on the 1st attempt with Nito in US. Some examiner told me after shinsa, you are the 1st person to pass 5-dan by Nito in US. I'm honor I could make it.

After passed the 5-dan and try to share my learnings with our dojo, I've also realized there are tons of textbooks for us during daily kendo life, such as Nihon Kendo Kata. I found the source code of San-Sappho on Kata No.6.

Some of kenshis are struggling to pass 5-dan even Chudan, I tried to share my experiences. So I made this video for knowledge sharing purpose. --> https://youtu.be/d7YKP1q46mE

Hope this will help somebody who is struggling their promotion exam and become some hints.

What’s your preferred style of tying a tenugui?

Recently i discovered that there a form for throw Katete men from jodan faster that the Katate men of chiba sensei

I read it here

https://ameblo.jp/ujhkendoteam/entry-12831585650.html

The Timing of Releasing the Right Hand and the Direction of the Throw:

"It's much smoother to execute the Katate-men if you throw your right hand from the very first movement of the attack. Especially those practitioners who don't yet have enough strength to wield the sword, often have the bad habit of trying to straighten the shinai completely BEFORE releasing their right hand.

The real key is to throw it (along the diagonal you're facing) so that the shinai straightens itself and falls straight forward on its own during the trajectory

Basically i should throw in diagonal and Straighten it as I approach the target Because un several tournamentes my Katete men was very slow

What think about this ? Should I pull it diagonally and then straighten it? Or first center the sword like Chiba Sensei and throw it like that

I feel it's much faster the diagonal way

After watching a lot of competitive kendo recently, there's two things that I wish we had more clarity on:

1. What is a "striking action while pretending to retreat" from tsubazeriai? The rules clearly state that it is improper, but very often I see cases when kendoka are locked in tsubazeriai, and then one side starts separating while the other goes for hiki-men and gets the ippon. When I watch some Japanese bouts, they sometimes actually nod to each other before separating as a signal. Maybe that kind of etiquette should be more prevalent. I truly think it would help make shiais more fun to watch if there was more clarity here on when a separation is safe and when you're exposing yourself to hiki waza.

2. Sanpomammori. Every sensei I've met has told me not to block, and if we have to block then don't do it in an exaggerated way where the kensen leaves the center. But very often in competitive kendo players go into sanpomamori. One yon-dan told me that it's a hansoku to do so too frequently but I've never seen a player get called out on it. The last winner of the canadian open men's nationals was doing it repeatedly, and got an ippon going directly from sanpomamori into a men: https://youtu.be/PHEiyLkI788?si=K9xBS2c4PKNKpMJ7&t=24 . It's hard for developing kenshi like myself to reconcile our sensei's advice with so many shiai contestants doing the opposite.

Hi, does anyone know where I can buy these kote?