Men! Do! Kote!
The long and excruciating semester continues. However, I have managed to take some of my free time and dedicate it to a new interest which I’ve always wanted to pursue, Kendo.
First off, let me go into a little bit into Kendo. Kendo is a Japanese martial art. It is a fencing art, where each kendoka (Kendo practitioner) wields a shinai (bamboo sword) and attempts to strike the opposing kendoka in one of four target areas. These targets include the men (head), do (body), kote (hands) and tsuki (throat). They also wear the bogu (protective armour). Here is an image of what a standard kendoka looks like with the bogu and shinai, as well as the target areas which are marked off. This fencing style isn’t exactly the way samurai wield katanas in battle, rather it is a derived “sport” form from the actual technique known as Kenjutsu (much like how the sport of fencing was derived from older fencing techniques).
So how do Kendo competitions work? In a shiai (competition), the first kendoka to reach two ippon (points) is considered the winner. An ippon is awarded by not only a valid cut to one of the target areas, but also by a kendoka’s display of intention and control during the cut.
I’ve signed up to my university’s Kendo club for the semester to try it out and see if it’s something I’d like to pursue. So far I am enjoying the training and the drills. I even went so far as to buy a practice shinai of my own after the second class because I was so enamoured with it.
Well, other than Kendo, I’ve been up to pretty much nothing else but studying and strength training. I’m considering getting back into tennis, but that will have to wait for now. I’ll leave you now with a nice video that pretty much sums up Kendo.