Nanseikan Kendo Club 剣道クラブ南西館

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...

Red Bubble is an art marketplace where you can upload your designs and then people can choose to purchase them in different forms. I've created a shop with some Kendo-related designs such as this one that says "Nanseikan" (南西館). As you can see this is an iPhone 6 case, but you can also choose it as a t-shirt, tote bag, hoodie, etc, etc. Here's another one: At the moment there are four designs. I'll upload more as I come up with them. Check it out. Maybe you need a new hoodie for winter...? http://www.redbubble.com/shop/nanseikan PS - Term 2 starts next Saturday

Our first beginners' course started lasted Saturday with seven new beginners. Even though two of those were my own children, it has been no easy task to lure them into the dojo, so I'm doubly happy. Thanks to everyone for getting into the swing of the new admin and fee structure. A testament to the success of the first class is this drawing by my daughter Jetta who is five. She doesn't draw a lot, so imagine my delight was she produced this fantastic kendo man. Actually it's a probably a kendo girl, knowing Jetta!

Well actually it's kenjutsu art, or Tenshinshoden Katori Shinto Ryu art to be really precise! It's a drawing I did based on a photograph of Otake Risuke sensei, the headmaster of the school, doing the characteristic jumping nukistuke (drawing of the sword) of his school. Click twice on the picture and for maximum bigness. Next term we are back on Saturday 15 October.

photo by Matti Sedholm This and many other photos were taken by a Swedish photographer named Matti Sedholm. He also uses the name Horimatsu on Flickr. This series shows a really wonderful old dojo in Yokohama, a big city not far from Tokyo. From his photos you get a real sense of the atmosphere. b

I know at least one person who would really love one of these... I'm not so sure about the sad little guy below... From a very cheesy gift shop of all things kendo called kendo358.com b

The Japanese artist and printmaker Hokusai was one of the most famous and influential artists of his time. He lived at the end of the Tokugawa era and the beginning of the Meiji era, which means he saw Japan change from a feudal society to a modern, industrial one. He produced the first manga , which were a collection of sketches of everyday life. These manga even covered martial arts training and armour as you can see from these drawings. Actually they were not just drawings, but woodblock prints, which means all the lines were carved out of wood, not just drawn with a pen or pencil. This makes them even more remarkable I think. The last picture is nothing to do with Hokusai, other than it is a photograph that would have been taken about the same time as he was producing his artworks, probably around 1860-70. The stances would have been posed for the camera, as photographic film wasn't sensitive enough at that time to take action shots. I think it's interesting to note litt...

By popular demand (thanks Pei!) here are some more tenugui from my collection. I don't even know where this one is for, let alone what it says. The rope design is a common one in traditional Japanese culture. It represents the sacred rope used in Shinto to signify the presence of a deity or "kami-sama". This one is definitely a kendo tenugui and says "the Great Way with No Beginning". This one I can lay claim to myself, as I was asked to design it by Macak sensei for the 1997 National Champioships. The writing was done many, many times to get it "right"! The logo is the symbol for the Victorian Kendo Renmei which is based on the Southern Cross (Jap.- minami juji), the main component of the state coat of arms. I was very happy that this tenugui was made in Japan and so is "printed" on both sides. This one should be familiar to anyone who has visited the Kenshikan in Melbourne. It is the dojo joseki, and is by the late Nakakura sensei. It says ...

Here are some interesting tenugui designs. Not all of these are kendo tenugui, some were souvneirs of a particular place like we have souvenir tea-towels. This is definitely a kendo tenugui. It reads from right to left and says "sword heart/mind, bright way" meaning, I think that to develop a sharp mind like a sword makes your path in life clear and bright. I think this is beautiful shuji (calligraphy). This one was a souvenir from the famous Buddhist temple "Ryoanji" in Kyoto. The design depicts the reason the temple is so famous, its stone garden. This is the club tenugui of the Ryujokan dojo in Kumamoto. It was produced as a limited edition for the 1992 Australian Kendo Championships in Melbourne. It is based on the Ryujokan joseki, the character "ken" with a long 'tail'. Here it is sideways. This tenugui is a souvenir of Kagoshima in southern Kyushu. It has two of Kagoshima's most famous sons: Okubo Toshimichi and Takamori Saigo. Both men w...