Ko ken chi ai

Jose Vargas of Kendo Equador sent me a questionnaire covering a number of aspects of kendo philosophy. Being that time of year and feeling reflective, I decided to post my answer on “ko ken chi ai”.

4. – What do you think about: Ko Ken Chi Ai (交剣知愛)?

“A) Difficult to translate precisely, but an approximation is “learning to love each other through the application of the sword”. I believe in this on two levels.

The first is that it requires two people to practice keiko or kata or take part in shiai. For any of these activities to be of value, you have to try to read our opponent’s intention and timing and therefore to try meet them “mind to mind”.

Outside the dojo, Kendo gives us a common interest, allowing us to become friends with people from a wide range of backgrounds and social groups whom we might not get to know in other circumstances. One example of this is the experience I had when I lived in Japan. Many foreigners, who are working there, find it difficult to integrate into Japanese society, whereas kendo opened numerous doors for me and created relationships that have lasted for most of my adult life.

This is also true of my experiences with Kendo in other parts of the world. I have traveled extensively for kendo, and for work.On business trips, whenever I could, I have taken my bogu with me and called the local Kendo renmei to see if I could attend a practice. In nearly every case, this has not just given me the opportunity to train with different people, it has led to meals and drinks out with new friends. If you compare this to the average business trip, where the working day ends with lonely meal in a hotel, kendo has made my life much richer.

In the last twelve months, I have practiced Kendo in Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Ireland, Japan and Hong Kong and of course, all over the UK. I have also had the pleasure of meeting and practicing with kendo friends from many more countries, who have visited us in Britain.”

Even writing this blog over the past few months has led me into some interesting conversations, so I look forward to continuing to make new friends on and offline in 2009.

Happy New Year!

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Pedantry

Thanks to a slow work afternoon and Kendo World Forums, I came across a fascinating Youtube video of a gentleman, who may or may not have been helping himself generously to the contents of the medicine cabinet give what felt like a thirty minute lecture on the pronunciation of tsuka.

As well as fuelling my old fashioned view that there is an awful lot of bandwidth out there chasing content, it made me think about, “how far should we go in pursuit of accurate kendo terminology”.

In my experience, people practicing the sword arts are generally more concerned about using the correct pronunciation of Japanese terms, than are the devotees of say judo and karate. This may be because, that, as followers of what are classed minority pursuits in the west, we are still close to our Japanese roots and most of us have heard the correct terms from Japanese sensei.

I was a keen judoka in my youth, before my discovery of kendo and long before I went to Japan and learned Japanese. Although my Japanese accent is not too bad, I still mispronounce judo terms, because they were ingrained before I understood the meaning. On the other hand, I have a fairly clear view of Japanese kendo terminology and how it should be pronounced, because I learned much of my kendo in Japan in Japanese. Because of this, I sometimes find it easier to instruct Japanese students in Japanese, than I do English players in my own language.

There are several very good kendo dictionaries available, but by and large, kendoka are taught the terms in Japanese. The newest beginner thinks about kote, men, dou, rather than mask, hand, trunk. There were a number of early videos from the AJKF where the translators and voice over artists used English terms for things that we all always refer to in Japanese and they sounded strange, to say the least.

 

On the other hand, however perfect your understanding of the two languages, it is impossible to accurately translate Kendo terms into English, unless you are a kendoka. I attended an IKF meeting, where the very skilled simultaneous interpreters were unable to follow the conversation and I and one of the Japanese directors had to take over, even though our language knowledge was a fraction of that of the pros.

Mr R.A Lidstone, who was a founding father of British Kendo, wrote a book called “Introduction to Kendo”. In this work, one of the explanations of sen described the “long hand forestall”. Now, even as a native English speaker and someone who vaguely understands the concept of sen, I have a great deal of trouble understanding this terminology, whereas as a mediocre Japanese speaker, sen, sensenosen and gonosen are easier to understand.

Hopefully, readers will see that my post is in the interest of clear communication and that i am not being pedantic, but whilst the You tube guy got the Tsuku right, his aaa was too long

photo shows Mr Lidstone in action.

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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing……

Sanbiki saru

George makes the very valid comment on my post about kyoshi, that sitting the test in Japanese, stops foreigners with insufficient knowledge, from passing shogo on an uneven playing field. I still think that what writing in Japanese best tests is your ability to write Japanese.

I do agree that non Japanese kendoka have much less theoretical and philosophical information available to them, despite the efforts of FIK and the guys at Kendo World. Having said that, I am sure that the depth to which people wish to explore the spiritual and technical aspects depends on their personality rather than their nationality. I have reached this conclusion pretty much by guesswork, as in my experience British and Japanese men share the inability to talk about anything serious with other men. Not for us an evening in a cafe on the Boulevard des Capucins nursing a glass of absinthe and discussing existentialist philosophy. We are more likely to spend our soiree with 12 bottles of Sapporo in Shinjuku or Dotombori and a conversation that roams around the weather, the best place to eat Korean barbecue and the fact that old Suzuki has just married a woman half his age.

So although our relationships are based on kendo, I really do not have a clue about their view on kendo philosophy or their motivation to devote such a large slice of their life to continued keiko. I do however know whether they prefer sweet or dry sake, red or white wine and the names of their children and pets.

I have had verbal explanations of kendo theory and philosophy, but they have come from very senior sensei, mostly Hanshi and mostly over the age of sixty. My pet theory is that only when teachers reach this level do they have the confidence to express an opinion on the more esoteric aspects of kendo. More often than not though, they do this in writing, keeping to practical and physical instruction in the dojo. This brings then brings us back to my starting point that most of these writings are in Japanese and not available to western students.

Language issues aside, I beleive that most sensei will do their best to answer questions, no matter how complex, although it is far more likely that you will be taken seriously if the question is appropriate to your level of kendo development. Curiosity is a valuable attribute, but I personally do not think there is much value in trying to understand fudoshin on the second week of the beginners course. It is even more imperative that students do not get too creative with their interpretation of terminology until they are sure of all the answers. Many years ago a dojo in Scotland was named after “The bullet sword”, unfortunately the Shinkanken dojo was named using the characters for The New Trunk Sword.

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