Nanseikan Kendo Club 南西館剣道クラブ

VKR/AKR fees for Membership Year 2018 (1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018) are now due. Juniors are $45.00 and seniors are $70.00. In other words no change from last year. As you know by now, membership fees pay for insurance and contribute funds so that the volunteers who run Kendo on our behalf have a budget with which they can organise gradings, support new clubs with equipment, subsidise seminars and support the national team, amongst many other things. Seniors are anyone 16 years of age and over. Please pay into my account directly because I have to make one payment to the VKR for the club. Once you have paid, if you could send me the payment details in an email that would be great!

For our junior members, here is some primary school shiai (competition) from Japan. This is the Saitama Prefecture Primary School Championships from 2011. The video is of the final of the grade 3 division. So these children are probably 8 or 9 years old. Watch how they enter and exit the shiaijo (court, or match area). Did you notice how they bowed first to shomen (high place in the dojo)   then to each other? That's because this is the final. You do that only when it's the very first or the very last match of the tournament. Notice the shinpan (referees)   also bow to shomen at the same time. Shinpan don't bow to the shiaisha (competitors)   though. This is a great match. White is quite a bit taller than red, but red doesn't seem scared at all. There is a lot of moving around in tsubazeriai (close fighting, literally 'meeting of the two tsuba'), but both shaisha regularly come back to tachiai (swords-crossed). This shows they are both experienced at sh