“Speak when you are spoken to!”

On my occasional visits to one or other of the kendo message boards, I often see requests for advice or clarification, to which someone invariably posts the response – “ask your sensei”.  This seems to me to be the most logical and accessible way to have questions answered, but obviously many people find it a [...]

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Teaching timing and opportunity

Recently I was lucky to practice with Sumi sensei on his stopovers in London to and from a seminar in Russia. Despite suffering from jet lag he taught a one hour kihon session prior to jigeiko at Mumeishi. As well as enjoying (if that’s the word) the opportunity to stretch myself in keiko with him, [...]

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What a difference a dan makes

Having spent a fairly relaxed summer, work has gotten hectic again as we enter September. Unfortunately, this allowed me just two brief visits to Sumi sensei’s current seminar in the UK. On the first, my participation was limited to acting as motodachi. However on the second, I managed to move over to shimoza, after the [...]

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Kihaku

I am trying to recover after 4 days and 5 nights of keiko with Sumi, Uegaki, Tashiro and Mori sensei. We have just finished the annual Sumi seminar and by the final day there was a clearly visible improvement in the standard of Kendo for all participants. On the last day we held a grading [...]

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Kendo heroes!

two weeks time we have 4 hachidan and a supporting cast of nanadan sensei visiting the UK for a seminar and I am really looking forward to a my “hachidan fix”. In the meantime I have been reviewing my videos of this years Kyoto Taikai and thinking about what makes some of the great sensei [...]

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