Kendo and acupuncture - Andrew I have a family of two children 8 and 5, and my partner who is a midwife, we moved to New Zealand from Australia so she could study midwifery. I am a practitioner of Oriental Medicine, I practice Japanese style acupuncture and Kampo (Japanese herbal medicine). Having a partner who is a midwife and no other family here means that I need to be flexible and working from home in my own practice allows this. Part of my decision to study Kendo was to increase my understanding of Japanese culture to help my work, which it has. Kendo and acupuncture have the same philosophical root and I will attempt to draw your attention to some of the parallels between the two. I believe that most people reading this know less about acupuncture than Kendo, so I will focus on the former. Acupuncture has been practiced for over 1600 years in Japan, the needle and sword being both made of metal would have developed at similar times. Acupuncture and Kendo are two aspects of Orien...