History - The 1st All Japan Kendo Championship

One of our members knows one Kendoka who learned Kendo "few decades" ago but has stopped for a long time. He asked me why the Kendoka seems to have different styles from what we are doing. Actually, I think that there are no much difference but just evolved to a "finer" way.

Some core concepts such as Sen, Seme, Sutemi and fighting for central line etc are still the very important concepts today.

Anyway, it is really a pleasure to watch the video clip of The 1st All Japan Kendo Championship in 1952:

Hope you will get some inspiration from these great senseis.

Comments

Sherwood said…

I have to agree with you about kendo evolving. .. I'll go a little further and say that it would be impossible for it to stay the same. All we can do is to trust our sensei's and try to keep as true to their teachings as we can. Should we ever become sensei ourselves we will have a great responsibility to pass on our knowledge without corrupting it too much from what we were taught.

My father taught me many things, some of them I try to do exactly as he showed me but however hard I try I do it slightly different to him. I can't do it exactly the same because I am not him.
When I teach my son these same things he again does them very slightly different to me... he has to because he is not me. The process has evolved.
I'm sure a samurai from the 18th century was different from a samurai of the 8th century, they were both truly samurai but they had evolved.
All things evolve ... that maybe why so many older people think of the "good old days".

As I get older I become more of a traditionalist. However, I don't see a danger in kendo evolution ... Revolution? that's a different story.
Sorry for the ramble.

11:33 pm

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