Nanseikan Kendo Club 剣道クラブ南西館

To say Nakakura Kiyoshi sensei was important to Kendo is like saying Don Bradman was important to cricket. Not only was he instrumental in shaping post-War Kendo (he was largely responsible for " the Concept of Kendo "), he was an influential teacher, a swordsman without peer in his generation and at one time the adopted son of the founder of Aikido, Ueshiba Morihei sensei (that's a young Nakakura with Ueshiba sensei above, c.1933).  As you will see from this excellent interview from 1987, Nakakura sensei was such a gifted martial artist that Ueshiba chose him above his own son to be his successor, hence he was adopted into the Ueshiba family and married Ueshiba sensei's daughter. For a while he became "Ueshiba Morihiro", but that didn't work out... http://members.aikidojournal.com/private/interview-with-swordmaster-kiyoshi-nakakura-1/ The reason he is so important to us is because he was my teacher's teacher. Nagae sensei became...

But back again next Wednesday. See you all Saturday.  PS - thanks to Chie for attending the delegates' meeting Sunday.  🙏

Anyone who is interested in learning some of the basics of Tatsumi Ryu iai will need two extra pieces of equipment, as well as their bokuto. They are: a plastic saya  http://www.tozandoshop.com/Plastic-Saya-p/002-wps.htm and an obi  http://www.tozandoshop.com/Standard-Cotton-Iaido-Kaku-Obi-p/095-iomo[xx].htm Oh, and a pair of knee pads might be necessary, depending on how strong your knees are! Volleyballer's kneepads are a good option. We practice from 8.30 to 9.00am Saturdays before regular training. There is no fee for this training.

The year is well underway and the Kendo calendar is filling up! Here are some events to consider: VKR Delegates' meeting Kenshikan, Sunday 17 Feb from 1pm Nagae Taikai Kenshikan, Saturday 2 March from 1pm (2 dan to 5dan) VKR AGM Kenshikan, Sunday 31 March from 1pm 44th Australian Kendo Championships East Victoria Park WA, 19-24 April If you would like more information about any of these events, please get in touch.

As promised, here is that video on whip dynamics. Watch the whole thing, or start at 5:45 for the gist of it. The speed of sound is indeed (well done Alex and Ben!) 343m/sec or 1,234.8km/h (which for all you old timers, air force or navy people is 667 knots). The similarity with the shinai, as I mentioned at training this morning, is the 'unrolling' of the whip and how this causes the speed of the tip to increase exponentially. Our aim with the shinai is not to interfere with the whip-like potential of the shinai, by having the most rational and efficient cutting action possible. We should try to imitate the kinetic wave of the whip's motion through the way we use our body, recreating this unrolling by starting with the shoulders then continuing through our upper arms, elbows, forearms, wrists, palms and fingers. As you can see in the slow motion video of the whip with the taped segments, the unrolling movement is characterised by each section of the whip coming to re...

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These are courtesy of Kyohei and Tomoko.

Congratulations to Soon for passing his 3rd dan in Brussels yesterday! Apparently it was quite a strict grading with a low pass rate. Soon has been living and working in London for the past 18 months. You can often see him at training via London Kenyukai's Instagram . Well done Soon and we hope to see you Melbourne again soon!

Thanks to Anna for sharing these photos. We had such a wonderful time I think we might have to do it again! Nanseikan end-of-year training, Blairgowrie Community Hall.

There are a number of seminars coming up in 2019, some of them before we start back at training, so please be advised. artist's impression of expected 2019 hatsugeiko at Kenshikan Hatsugeiko (first training) at Kenshikan, 31 December/1 January The Kenshikan has established something of a tradition of New Year's training and all VKR members are welcome to attend. " The dojo will open at 10:30pm and then training will start before a small pause just before midnight to allow the participants to have a celebratory drink to usher in 2019 and then training will continue for about 45 minutes or so.   After training has concluded, participants are welcome to remain to have a bite to eat and drinks as per last year….or should I say this year?  Therefore people attending this event are encouraged to bring food, drinks, dessert to share with everyone.  We hope you can make it!"  Kristine Ventura, MBK Secretary Fujiwara sensei: 17 to 22 January 2019...

Next Saturday 15th December will be our trip to Blairgowrie. We can use the St Pius bus which can fit 12 people plus luggage. Please let me know in the comments if you are coming and if you want a seat on the bus, or whether you are planning to drive. I've decided we can meet up and leave a little later than previously mentioned. We will meet at the dojo at 7.00am and leave at 7.30am . This will make it a little easier for people like Chie who have to travel further. It means we will start a little later (probably arriving by about 9.30am) but I think we can still do plenty of keiko. We will also finish a little earlier than usual, about 3.30pm. The weather forecast at this stage is 28 degrees and chance of showers. Leave a comment below with your name and how you wish to travel. All food for the day BYO and dinner will be purchased from Blairgowrie shops (either f&c or pizza). There is no extra charge for the training for Nanseikan members. For non Nanseikan mem...

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 year's end-of-year summer training, or shochugeiko , will be held at Blairgowrie Community Hall, 8 William Rd.  View Map We will meet at the dojo at 6.30am and set out at 7.00, aiming to arrive at Blairgowrie by 8.30. We will train until around 3.30-4pm, then head to the beach which as you can see from the map is about 100m away! St John's Wood Rd shops are also walking distance, which means fish and chips and/or pizza for tea I reckon. It looks like we will have access to a 12-seater bus, but even so we will probably need to do some car-pooling as well. The hall is about the same size as our dojo, perhaps a tiny bit smaller. The date for shochugeiko is Saturday 15 December.

An ongoing issue for me is how to best reach everyone with information about the club and Kendo-related events, particularly at short notice. I was hoping that the email subscribe feature here on Blogger would work but it seems people aren't always getting notification of new posts in their email. If you've a notification about this post in your email, could you leave a brief comment below? I suspect that some are not receiving them because the notification is going straight to their junk mailbox. I'm hoping this is the problem, not some more fundamental issue with cnames and anames and DNSs and stuff I generally don't understand. Blogger's online help community is not super up-to-date. Also, if anyone knows of another platform that might work, and that's not too 'needy', could they let me know? I've tried Twitter and TeamApp, but Twitter especially is way too intrusive and very hard to delete. 

The remaining junior trainings with Matsumoto sensei at the Kenshikan are: Sunday October 28: 12:30 – 2pm Sunday November 18: 12 – 2pm

It's a 10 week term (my mistake earlier, apologies). Much appreciated!  :)

Congratulations to Sean on passing his 3rd dan grading last Sunday at the Kenshikan! It is a great achievement and testament to Sean's commitment to regular training. His Kendo is informed by the depth of his experience in other martial arts. From 3rd dan, in Australia at least, the expectation is that you will start to move into a mentoring role. Sean is already doing that through his teaching at Parade College. From now he will also be expected to attend shinpan seminars and experience life on the other side of the red and white flags. In Kendo, the gap between each grade gets bigger the higher you go, so it's no shame to fail. Whether you pass or fail, each grading offers a unique chance to learn more about your Kendo. Congratulations also to Eric, who passed his 2 kyu. While not a Nanseikan member per se, Eric has become a familiar face at Nanseikan through his consistent attendance on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings. Well done Eric! Komeda sensei seminar Th...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LFqtbbMnZjE