Everybody here WISHES they could do no-handed spins with a bright green plastic bo staff. They just ain't man enough to admit it.
:google: If you have to rely on others to explain what you're seeing, you probably shouldn't do Japanese martial arts. If you watched a kendo class and thought anybody there thought they were learning about killing, you should stick to MMA and Xbox. I have heard that getting hit with a shinai to the unprotected head hurts(especially when it comes from behind unannounced), there is very little in kendo that is applicable to real swords or sword fighting. It is a great workout and I wouldn't want to face a kendoka with bogu(armor) and shinai, but by the same token they wouldn't want to face someone who does traditional arts with bokken and no armor either. Without learning patience and care, sword arts are often more dangerous to the practitioner than any imagined opponent.
It's a shame you didn't stick around for the sparring, as -- speaking as someone who trains essentially exclusively through kata -- I have no patience for kendo kata. Modern kendo dates back to the early Meiji period, where Japan was rapidly undergoing Westernification. One aspect of this was the development of a physical education culture, which originally was very much copied from primarily German and French models. There developed a feeling that this programme was too Western: that while it was important to adopt modern approaches in training and emphasis on physical culture, it would be more appropriate to draw on Japanese sports, rather than Western ones. Of course, there weren't really any good examples of such, so they set out to invent one. Kano went through this with judo, which was a resounding success, so the decision was made to go through a similar "distill the best of existing schools" process with the practice of swords. The core of kendo is a competitive duelling practice, "gekken." Gekken was quite a modern practice though (within living memory), and so to give kendo credit as an inheritor of a truly traditional Japanese practice, it was necessary to tie it into the traditional schools. As with judo, a call went out, and a large number of influential traditions agreed to join in this effort to create a unified, modern kendo. These schools were, by and large, primarily kata-based in their training, and so it was important to them that kata be present in the school. But the sheer size of each individual school's curriculum meant that there was no way to teach a student all of them. Besides, the insistence that kendo be practiced in a modern fashion required that the student be spending most of their time in calisthenic drills and free sparring. So the kendo founders set out to create a distilled set of ten kata that would contain the purest expressions of traditional Japanese sword techniques. The problem being that kata do not work in this way. I've written about this in other places in the forum, but the short version is that kata aren't intended to be rote rehearsals of an effective technique, but instead a tool to teach student fundamental principles of conflict. In order to accomplish this, it's necessary that the teacher understand those fundamental principles. And that simply could not be the case in kendo: even the founding instructors at best had that understanding for one of the component schools, or (as it worked out) just one of the ten kata. And the rapid explosion in the number of places and people studying kendo meant that very quickly students were learning from people who didn't understand the kata at all. Unlike with judo, there was no effective way to pressure-test the kata, and so they quickly became hollow shells. There are possibly exceptions to this, but I've never seen kendo kata practice with any sort of living vibrancy, with a comfort of movement that suggests they really know what they are supposed to be doing and a belief that they can make it happen. I'd be surprised if what you saw was a typical practice. My experience is that in kendo, like most other sportive arts with a kata component, the kata are usually ignored entirely in practice except when a grading is coming up, which then leads to a cram session in order to pass the kata component of the test. EDIT: To end on a more positive note, the point I'm trying to make is that kata has historically always been a bit of an adjunct to kendo. The core of kendo is the sparring, and so much more worth the time. I've done kendo sparring, and quite enjoyed it. Tea vs coffee, of course, but I would say hold off on judging kendo until you've seen the sparring, as that is what it is really about.
Judo is still doing me just fine thank you. And you should stick to the Ninjutsu forum, where you will have much more success trolling me. Yes, I'm sure HEMA groups are constantly losing their fingers as well.
I haven't fenced in years, but to be very precise here, there is no right of way in epee, it's always "first blood" regardless of the circumstances leading to the hit. This contrasts to foil and sabre, both of which have a frankly stupid right of way system which award priority to the first person to extend their arm and make an overt threat of an action. Even if you do nothing more than extend your arm toward the opponent, you have right of way and they need to tap your blade to take that away from you. In terms of pure realism, epee is probably the best system to represent a sword duel, as it is literally the first to score what would have been a piercing thrust anywhere on the opponent. It's also the only one of the three systems where a point can be awarded to each party at the same time for a simultaneous strike. With the others, right of way is established and the point awarded to the person with right of way. From memory, if right of was is unclear, the point is nullified.
My Judo injuries are worse than my HEMA injuries. I still have all 10 fingers and play a musical instrument and have never had to stop playing because of a sword hit. JSA etiquette can be somewhat obtuse, but for some schools, the etiquette is part of the rep. For example, in the kenjutsu I do, we start off far away and each take one step, then another, and the third step is when the technique finishes most of the time. What this teaches is engagement range, which is vitally important with sword arts, since any misjudging of range can be instantly fatal if it were the real deal. So in my head head it's "one step, still safe, two steps, oh crap here it comes… and third step: boom, the other guy's dead". Since there's no sparring in kenjutsu, and there is also usually no protective gear, that's how we do it. In HEMA, we learn that by sparring with steel at speed with protective gear, which inserts is own distortions due to the use of full kit (hand mobility, visibility, lack of fear, etc). Admittedly, sparring with steel is more fun and likely works better, but it's also way more expensive than a bokken. A full set of tournament grade kit will cost about $700 or more, not including a good sword, which are about $500. High end tourney gloves can be $300 all on their own. -Mark
That's pretty patronizing, PR. I get the point you're making. But it's hardly ludicrous to assume that participants in a fencing art might be thinking they're learning about sword combat. It seems to me that Chadderz has gone to some lengths to emphasize that he's not casting a value judgment beyond "not my style." I think you could extend a similar courtesy. It's not like he has no experience with a weapons art. Just none with YOUR weapons art.
Like I said, after pro fighting (assuming I get that far) I'm very interested in weapon arts, just more along the lines of weapon combat relating directly to fighting, probably close to dog brothers style, with traditional Chinese and Japanese weapons. I'm still open to kendo, as long as I find a more efficient club for it. Moffat says he was talking to a friend and apparently the class we went to outright was not kendo, perhaps leading me to believe we watched the first half as Kenjutsu.
It also may have been made-up nonsense. Most good kenjutsu is koryu (old school). Koryu tend to be fairly casual and family-like. Militaristic training is not the norm in my experience. All the koryu I've done is full of smiles, laughs, warmth and camaraderie. It's sometimes quiet, sometimes noisy, but no one walks around in fear of the instructor. I've never once cleaned the floor with a rag in a line doing koryu either. We used brooms and mops.
Not seen it with koryu (though to be fair my knowledge of koryu is lacking somewhat) but I have seen it in Japanese Karate clubs as part of the pre-training rituals. Wouldn't be surprised if there was some assimilated etiquette thing going on there.
Looks like kendo to me! Lots of the beginners stuff looks, well, to be fair, like beginners stuff. It was like, nine months before they put me in bogu.
I think I was watching a more advanced class because everyinr had the proper equipment. Although at the same time they did break the group up and explained what a kata is while the other half did the kata.
