September grading results and term 4 start date

-























Congratulations to those who passed their kyu gradings last Sunday. There was a huge group, 97 people in all, making it quite a long afternoon. As usual the biggest group was 6th kyu and the smallest was the last group, 2nd kyu.




Next term starts on 10 October. It will be the day we first use our new joseki, which I'm very excited about. Ever since the club first started I've wanted the joseki to be a piece by Ishihara sensei.  The second thing I'm very excited about is related to this, but won't be ready for the start of term.


Yes, it's our very own NSK tenugui. The club has needed one of these too, for a long time, but cost and not having a suitable design got in the way. Now that we have a suitable design, the cost was surmountable. Couldn't order as many as I would have liked, but hopefully enough for now.

It is being produced by Zen Sankei. Cain Lee was a great help at every step. They are highly recommended for bogu. A little on the pricey side sometimes, but Cain, being a Melbourne boy, always has time for customers from his hometown. Indeed he is the go-to guy for our club zekken.

http://zen-sankei.com.au/home/

I've always imagined the NSK logo being a big part of any tenugui design for the club, but when it came down to it Ishihara sensei's calligraphy deserved to have the stage to itself. Even having our club name felt intrusive. The final result works well though, a balance between art and information.

I'm hoping we'll have it by the end of the year. Every current member will receive one for free, and have the option to buy more at cost price.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nishimura sensei's Kendo HIIT routine

-
Image
Former All Japan champion, and star of his own NHK documentary , Nishimura Hidehisa produced this workout routine for the All Japan Kendo Federation last year during the early stages of lockdown. It's an excellent HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) routine, sometimes called Tabata Training after the coach who invented the idea. Basically it has been theorised that you get better results in terms of fitness and overall body strength from short, intense and focused workouts, than you do from extended workouts. Some say it is also beneficial for improving endurance and longevity . There is even some evidence to support that it kickstarts mitochondrial function , that you're exercising at a cellular level. That's pretty amazing. Whatever the research says, it is very easy to feel the positive effects of interval training and it has several other benefits: PROS It doesn't take long, so you can fit it into a busy schedule   You can do it by yourself   You can do it almos
Read more

Results and pics - 2008 VJKC

-
Image
Another great Victorian Junior Kendo Championships today. The standard gets better every year. This year we had two divisions, 14 & under and 16 & under. Unfortunately only three Victorian dojo were represented, Nanseikan (of course!), Fudoshin and Ballarat. Firstly thanks to the shinpan who came along today: Gary Oliver, Khay-Lin Teoh sensei, Richard Ward, Jason Widdy and Andrew Lam. Thanks also to all the parents for bringing their boys (and they were all boys this year, more girl-kendoka needed!) as well as supporting their kendo throughout the year. Last but not least, thanks to Tony of UMKC, who took all the fantastic photos below. All pics are (c) Tony Shearer. Straight off the 14 & under matches were high quality. Newcomer Yuichiro Sato of Fudoshin won his first match in his first ever taikai against Thomas Goh, also of Fudoshin. Sato (red) scoring men against Thomas Goh. Poor Thomas didn't fare any better in his next match against our own Mr Weber. Geoffrey won
Read more

Koryu that are not like Kendo at all

-
Image
In the previous post I listed the various branches of Itto Ryu and asked you to consider the similarities between their use of the sword and Kendo. Sometimes when one becomes used to a certain way of doing things, one can fall into the trap of thinking that is the only, or maybe the best, way of doing things. In learning iai kata of Tatsumi Ryu, we are trying to break out of that thinking by exposing ourselves to a system devised long before even the Itto Ryu was founded. This means that there are some fundamental differences in how the sword is used.  In these posts I am mostly interested in the differences in how to swing the sword. In Kendo, and indeed in most of the styles of iaido practiced today, the fundamental cutting action is a straight up-and-down action often referred to as kirioroshi , cutting through or cutting down. In Tatsumi Ryu, the characteristic action where the sword first goes through a circular backswing before cutting downwards is called kowauchi , or 'power
Read more