Locked Doors

Hello everyone. Sorry about practice last night, as the doors to the gym were completely locked for the last day before the new semester. we will start practice and the new semester next tuesday. Thank you to everyone who came out in the summer and welcome to everyone that is just arriving. See you in the dojo.

How to Practice Kendo Outside

One Man's View
A Pragmatical - if a trifle tongue in cheek - Guide
By Charlie Kondek

A topic that comes up from time to time, especially at the esteemed Kendo World forum, is, "How do I practice kendo at home?" Specifically, "How do I practice kendo outside?" I would like to offer a little helpful advice in that area, particularly as pertains to the situation of the back-yard kendo-ka - a situation we all find ourselves in all to frequently.

Shown below is everything you'll need for a spirited session of backyardgeiko.

First, of course, you'll need a reason to go outside. Very conveniently, I have one - a spirited and wonderful 3-year-old who loves to play with his top-of-the-line "water slide." Actually, I have two reasons, if you read a couple posts ago - the very spirited 3-year-old and his newborn brother, who is taking up quite a bit of spirited 3-year-old's parents' attention. First step in my ryu of backyard kendo is to take child out back for a little one-on-one and set up said apparatus.

Next, you'll want your handy dandy bokuto. As your child happily splashes in his top-of-the-line facility, you take said bokuto and do some stretching and suburi. Then you find a leaf.

A leaf? That's right. A leaf that's about men height. You'll also want to find leaves at kote and doh height. Then you practice your kihon. Shown here is the men cut.


And here is tsuki. Tsuki is perhaps easiest of all because you can actually push the leaf with no regard for injuring a person on the other side.

Do as many of these in as many orders as you like. Try different angles. Et cetera. You can do it barefoot though of course you won't have a wooden floor to help work on your footwork, but you can do them more in the style of the bokuto kihon, or whatever works. Expect frequent interuptions to "come play," "fill my bucket," "blow more bubbles," "get me another toy" (eventually the kiddie pool portion will be so filled with floating and/or sunken toys that you may wonder how the child fits in at all) and the like. And by now you will be sweating quite a bit so you may need several of these:

This is perhaps the most controversial part of my practice. No, not the having beer part, the brand of beer. Several kenshi will doubtless take exception to my use of lite beer in my practice. To which I say: hey, let's remember we're athletes here, and must adhere to proper nutritional standards.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to at home with the new baby. As you can see, my skill will not be diminished one bit if I keep this up. See you guys soon!

Congratulations!!!

Congratulations to Charlie and Laurie on the arrival of their newest son Samuel. The next generation of kenshi are lining up. Kampai!!!

Hottest Practice yet

Thank you to everyone that came out to last night's 98 degree practice. We practiced the boktou kendo kihon waza and were still exhuasted and sweating afterward. I wanted to reiterate a bit on these forms. First they are completely different from kata. Please consider these as practcie for shiai and not a perfect form. The reason for this is that, I believe, they were created to give people an opportunity to fine tune their shinai kendo not to offer another strict form based practice. Kendo no kata is for perfect timing and pressure, these are for learning and practicing exactly like you had a shinai. Also, if you do not finish the cut you are being detrimental to both yourself and your motodachi. I hope you are ok Ken. : ) Anyway, these forms have been recently implemented and I believe are beneficial for slowing your kendo down and figuring out some finer points but please do not confuse them with kendo no kata. Thanks again for everyone who made it out. See you next week.