Attitudes to keiko

After the rigours of kihon geiko at the beginning of each kendo session, I see quite a few people breathe a sigh of relief as they enter jigeiko. I am of course not a mind reader, but my guess is that their thought process runs along the lines of – “right that’s the hard part [...]

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Running before you can walk

Thinking back to Matsumoto sensei’s article, it emphasised that you need to “master the skills of kendo” to a level where they can be performed with “calmness of mind”. This is quite a tall order. We come to kendo classes to fight, so for most of us, an hour of gokakugeiko (jigeiko) is the way [...]

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Keiko timing

Often during keiko sessions, I am aware that there are some epic battles taking place in the dojo. In my view an individual keiko should last for 3 to 5 minutes, but I see some that go on for up to fifteen. When you join in mawarigeiko and time is set and called by an [...]

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Change

Yesterday was my first keiko of 2009. We held a kangeiko practice as a preliminary to the year’s first taikai, so it was an opportunity to practice with quite a few new people as well as some old friends. In the spirit of “start as you intend to go on”, I tried throughout the practice [...]

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Keiko kai

Anyone following my blog has probably gathered that I have strong views on the type of training session that builds effective Kendo. Having not run my own dojo for a year or two, I was interested to learn that the college close to my home has a gymnasium with a decent floor for hire. Rather [...]

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