Autumn

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Welcome back to term 2. This term there are not many scheduled events so that means we can focus on developing our kendo. As the days get shorter and colder, it gets more difficult to stay motivated. However this is the time when your effort counts the most. This term we will be working on building the level of energy that we can bring to our kendo every time we train.

See you in the dojo!

b

PS - the photo is by Katsumori Shimada. You can see more of his autumn photos here.

Comments

  1. Anonymous5:05 pm

    Hi Ben and everyone else at the club.

    Ni hao! Ni hao ma? Wo hen hao.

    It's been a while. I can't believe I've been in Taiwan for more than eight months already.

    I didn't train for about the first five or six months because my work schedule wouldn't allow it. :(

    However, I've been back at training for a couple of months now. It's going really great. These guys are insanely fast. I found one local (I thought he was Japanese at first because he speaks English with a heavy Japanese accent) though who trained in Japan for many years, and he and I have epic jigeiko sessions of 45-60 minutes every Monday and Wednesday. Mr Chou also practises kata with me (because no one else does kata), and he's been teaching me a lot about all manner of different points, both with the shinai and bokken. It's really good to train with him as he has excellent kendo and a very traditional approach. The sensei at our club is also very good, but he doesn't speak English. There's also a Canadian guy who has been training for two or three years who is good too.

    The national team train here every Monday, but most of the people at our club (including them) won't train with me, even if I ask. It's a bit odd. Or, I get these teenagers who want to get scrappy happy on me with their cuts, so I generally stick to the old guys who have nicer kendo.

    Training here is a lot different to anywhere else I've been. They treat it more as a sport (hence no kata, and hence the hitting rather than cutting), and they're pretty lax on the etiquette (eg. the sensei even smokes inside the dojo), but it's really good to be training again. The break really did me a lot of good because I'm extremely enthusiastic again.

    Tonight is going to be the first night when it will be really hot. It's seemingly gone from freezing cold to boiling hot (and humid! AH!) in a matter of weeks.

    Hopefully, my girlfriend will come to training this Wednesday or next Wednesday, and I'll get her to film part of the training (and hopefully, some jigeiko of me with Mr Chou) and send it to you. If it's not too embarrassing, perhaps you can put it on here.

    Keep training hard everyone.

    Regards,

    Caleb

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nanseikan7:15 pm

    Great to hear from your Caleb. Love the description of training in a Taiwanese kendo dojo. I'd love to have extra stuff to post here (you're the first person in about 2 years who's even left a comment!). Youtube it and we can embed it in the blog.

    genki de

    b

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1:34 am

    Hi Ben,

    Jill (my girlfriend) filmed me last night at training. She took two short videos (before the power ran out on her camera). I'll put them up later because it was taking ages to upload one of them just then (even though it's only about a minute long).

    She's probably going to come again tomorrow to film more. Hopefully too, I'll get to train with Mr Chou (because he doesn't come on Mondays usually) and she'll film that. He's the guy who trained in Japan for several years, and he has really sweet kendo. He did tell me the name of his sensei, who is apparently quite famous (apparently, he was infamous for breaking the three lower front ribs of his sempai whilst at university, if I understood the story correctly), but I forgot his name.

    Regards,

    Caleb

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nanseikan6:05 pm

    Look forward to seeing the vid Caleb. b

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous9:49 pm

    gday caleb, its great to hear from you and its also great to hear that you are still committed to improving your kendo! cant wait for the video's(dont worry about the embarrassing parts, we'll laugh with you not at you :P...)


    -Eli-

    ReplyDelete

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