My daughter on the golf course
Whereas I was drawn instantly and obsessively to kendo from the first time I saw it, none of my family feel the same. That’s not because they are not sporty. My wife spends as much time in fitness and dance classes as I spend in the dojo. My daughter works for a well known golf club and my grandson fits school work in between football, golf, tennis and swimming, but none of them show the slightest interest towards kendo. Fortunately they all treat my addiction to kendo with a level of good natured tolerance.
I have always been intrigued by the motivation of my fellow kendoka, particularly by those like me, who chose kendo when it is obviously not part of our own cultural heritage. Over time I have run a number of polls from this blog site, including a survey on “Why did you start to learn kendo?” To be honest, the answers were not particularly illuminating, but this may be more a function of my lack of skill as a pollster. The three most common answers were:
- An interest in Japanese culture
- A good way to keep fit
- As an addition to other budo study.
Numbers 1 and 3 make sense to me, but the second answer could apply to any other form of exercise. It interests me more to understand what keeps people coming back to kendo week after week for many years; in some cases for a lifetime. Of course there are some elements that would be common to other sports or pastimes such as the support and friendship of a social group, but I believe that the long-term motivation to continue kendo is often based on a desire for personal growth that is to my mind, unique to kendo.
Kendo is “shugyo” – a long path that leads to self improvement and self fulfilment. Now after 40 or so years of keiko, I feel that I am starting to get some of the basics established, but the current challenge is in adapting my own technique to an ageing body. At the same time I want to be the best motodachi I can be, whilst continuing to stretch myself. So inspired by the advice of Mochida sensei, I am trying to strengthen my “ki” to make up for physical decline.
Kendo’s other attraction for me is that it requires us to suspend conscious thought and commit ourselves on a purely physical level.
Whilst it is interesting to analyse how and why we do things, reflecting on kendo, reading and comparing ideas with others needs to be done outside the dojo. The formula making the most of our keiko time is simple – turn up, listen to sempai and sensei, do your best to practice energetically and correctly and try to encourage others.
When I decided that I wanted to do Kendo, I know it would be a life time commitment and what drives me to practice twice a week and the desire to practice more when I can afford too is when I compare myself to my senpais and my sensei’s. I wish to do nice clean cuts and do well in Taikai’s like they can and do, while I hope throughout my Kendo career, my body and mind becomes better overall.
It’s an interesting observation.
People usually doesn’t like kendo, specially my wife. My family usually ignores my kendo interest, and the only kendo subject is the money I spent in it.
It’s curious, because my father is a compulsive tennis player, when I was a kid he usually plays everyday. Now he is retiring from work and will built a court in his house.
I think, what borrows people, specially wifes, is the commitment. Here in Curitiba there are only one dojo and three days of training per week (Wednesday, Friday and Sunday). So, no matter what happens I want to go practice. And I don’t know why relatives and job opportunities usually comes in the training time…
I’m trying to go to a city that has more dojo, thus kendo training opportunities…
PS. I didn’t mentioned that I’m researching kendo in my after graduation investigation.
Which aspect of Kendo fascinates me is the older we get, the stronger you become, provided right and sufficient trainings are conducted. There are a very few physical exercises (I intentionally avoid using the word “sports”) which can attain it. I is usual in many sports that at the age of 25 (or even younger) people reach the highest point (I mean, the strongest). When I played with a 66 year old sensei of 8 dan, yes, I make some strikes time to time but incidental, and on the other hand, there are days when I don’t even touch him!!! This is what fascinates me. Kendo is one of the “things” that allow you to grow and become stronger as we get aged (of course, with a proper training). This is exactly what “do” manifests to me. Physical disadvantages can be overcome by mental advantages / strengths as Geoff suggests…
Asking people why they started Kendo really isn’t going to yield too much insight as to why people tend to stay. For example, when I first started, I just needed something to do in college other than go to class and study all the time.
However, I found much more than that over time There was an inherent interest in the various aspects of practice, and eventually shiai, that just kept me going. Now, what seems to keep me going is that I am realizing that there is so much more to Kendo that I like to investigate, which is part of trying to make Kendo my own. Taking up the teaching positions at the dojo I attend also helps in that I’ve been forced to really look at what I’m doing and examining the philosophy and practical reasons to what I am doing so that I can relay it to people around me.
If you want to get some more insight as to why people stay, you could run another poll. But then I think that the answers would be so varied that putting reasons into categories would be a disservice to getting behind all the reasons that people come up with.
Agreed. My girlfriend and I started Kendo six months ago because as life long fans of Star Wars we wanted to be Jedi (don’t laugh) Since our Sensei isn’t three feet tall and green, and neither of us has learnt to move things with our minds there must be a reason we stayed that is different from our reason for starting.
Unfortunately I honestly couldn’t tell you what it is, but both of us have embraced Kendo with a passion that we haven’t felt for any sport or hobby before, even other martial arts.