Kendo Bogu

I have written about bogu before in this blog, but I was prompted to think about it again after getting involved in a thread on the “Kendo Business Professionals” forum on Linkedin. A kendoka started the debate by asking for advice on inserting hard protection into kote to limit injury. Some people including me, made [...]

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Fancy Dou

I have always been fascinated by the variety of doudai available and have spent hours in Japanese bogu shops staring at the selection. For some reason the more outlandish models are kept on the top shelf, (rather like magazines in the newspaper shop). I have seen dou covered in deerskin, wild boar skin and even [...]

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Chakuso

Chakuso is the term used for the way we wear our hakama and keikogi and tie our bogu for kendo. It is an important part of kendo etiquette. This is one of the few pictures I could find on the internet to illustrate bad chakuso. It also does a great job in illustrating bad kendo, [...]

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Kendo Equipment

I often get asked for advice on the best choice of equipment and find it difficult to give a simple answer. Thanks to the proliferation of e-commerce sites trading in budo equipment, you now have a choice, wherever you live. This is good news and a vast improvement on the days when everything had to [...]

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