Nanseikan Kendo Club 剣道クラブ南西館

As usual, St Pius X Hall with be a polling booth on election day. Although it might be fun to try and run training at the same time, I have a country wedding to go to that day. So I think the easiest thing will be to cancel training rather than relocate for the day. To make up for it, term fees will cover the whole day of shochugeiko. In the meantime, we were doing suriage waza last night and I showed everyone this video again. Chiba sensei is a great example to have in mind, and you can never share this video too much!

This video is 10 years old this year! It's still a great resource for oji waza. What does debana kote look like when done properly? What about suriage? Or kaeshi? Just watch and you'll find out!

As I learned from Geoff Salmon sensei's blog , we lost a giant of the Kendo world last week. Chiba sensei had suffered significant health problems over the last few years which is why he stopped his visits to improve our Kendo. A whole cohort of kenshi came up through the ranks thinking it was normal to have regular visits from a hanshi hachidan, former All Japan champion and Tokyo Police shihan. Sadly we know now that we were spoiled by his tireless generosity. There are a lot of videos of his Kendo on the net, so we can still watch his technique. But what you can't see is his playful sense of humour*. My favourite teaching of sensei's was when he admonished everyone at one of his Kenshikan seminars. "Do you think I have good Kendo?" Silence. Everyone inside their own heads: "Is this a trick question?" "Don't you think my Kendo is any good?" Awkward shuffling and looking at the floor. "I...