Vale Kyohei Fujiie

-



Vale

    藤家 教平様　
Fujiie Kyohei 

1953 - 2021

It is with great sadness that I must convey the passing of Mr Kyohei Fujiie, husband of Tomoko Fujiie, father of Rodan Fujiie and founder of Benalla Renshinkan Dojo. He died on 30 December in Shepparton Hospital from complications arising from COVID-19.

Kyohei established Benalla Renshikan Kendo Club in 2008. Kyohei and Tomoko were regular visitors to Nanseikan in the intervening years, usually starting their journey at 5.00am to get to Nanseikan in time for training. In recent years he and Tomoko also trained in Tatsumi Ryu Hyoho with the Melbourne Koryu Kenkyukai. Outside of martial arts, Kyohei learned the guitar so that he could perform with Tomoko in the ensembles which are her passion. 

Kyohei was a warm, thoughtful, compassionate, and eternally inquisitive man. He took the meaning of his given name “to teach peace” seriously. His training was in youth counselling and education and he worked with young people with special needs, often using activities based on Kendo and Karate drills to help inspire and engage. He was a man of the world, balancing his deep love of Japanese culture with a broader, global outlook.  

His commitment to improving his own Kendo and always doing his best, in spite of age and other setbacks, is something we should all aspire to. 

Rest in peace old friend. We will miss you.






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