Musha
25-11-2005, 01:21 PM
Hi all I visited the Shindomunen ryu kenjutsu dojo in Nakamegoro yesterday and heres what I wrote about it. You can view some more on my blog which has a link in my profile ;).
Kenjutsu at Nakayama Hakudo's Yushinkan
Yesterday I finally decided to go to Nakayama Hakudo's Yushinkan. This dojo was founded by Negishi Goro in Nishikanda and then was moved to Yutenji near Nakamegoro by Nakayama Hakudo.
I headed from the train station taking a left and looking for Tokyu store that I could not find making it take me about 30 minutes to find where I was going.
Looking for a cross roads and metal mon I finally worked out it was the smallest of alleys making a cross in the road but this was the back of the dojo!
The dojo was actually next to the house of maybe the sensei and didn't look like a dojo at all...
Nervously I stepped inside and asked there sensei if I could watch? He didn't seem to mind and pulled up a chair.
The class didn't seem to start for a long time; a younger student was doing very big strong suburi and hitting the koshi-ita board on his hakama and cutting right to the floor sometimes, cutting down, up, kesagiri (diagonal) and going through a full range of large cuts completely in time with his foot work.
An older sensei was practicing iaido with katana drawing and cutting in a full range of movements running forwards and cutting. Drawing cutting front and back like with multiple enemies all around him.
The main sensei and ryu-ha soke Ogawa Takeshi was practicing Jodo with full kiai swapping his hands round and round.
This carried on for more than 30 minutes and sitting there seemed even to me quite unnerving. Kiai and the sound of foot work and swords swooshing in a small dojo. This was definitely not kendo with extremely powerful cuts and foot work that echoed all over the dojo.
Gradually more students came in all ranging from early twenties to sixties and much stronger than most kendoka.
The newest student practiced suburi for a full two hours with the sensei giving pointers and helping with uchikomi shinai.
The high grades practiced kata in pairs. This kata had allot of movements very different from kendo. Holding the blade between thumb and index fingers and catching the sword and cutting under the kote. Cutting to the neck and sliding back and down to the floor.
This kata was also extremely violent with full cutting and kiai right through expressing incredible tension when blades crossed in a kata which represented kata number four with swords meeting in aiuchi.
I talked to the teacher and he said it was very rare to see this kind of shinken shobu style kendo today and only if you have the spirit to ender this art you can stay with it for more than 20 years I think. I guess correct cutting starts first with suburi and only then can you go into kata which without this correct cutting would be very dangerous.
This experience will differently make me see kendo and kata in a different light.
Kenjutsu at Nakayama Hakudo's Yushinkan
Yesterday I finally decided to go to Nakayama Hakudo's Yushinkan. This dojo was founded by Negishi Goro in Nishikanda and then was moved to Yutenji near Nakamegoro by Nakayama Hakudo.
I headed from the train station taking a left and looking for Tokyu store that I could not find making it take me about 30 minutes to find where I was going.
Looking for a cross roads and metal mon I finally worked out it was the smallest of alleys making a cross in the road but this was the back of the dojo!
The dojo was actually next to the house of maybe the sensei and didn't look like a dojo at all...
Nervously I stepped inside and asked there sensei if I could watch? He didn't seem to mind and pulled up a chair.
The class didn't seem to start for a long time; a younger student was doing very big strong suburi and hitting the koshi-ita board on his hakama and cutting right to the floor sometimes, cutting down, up, kesagiri (diagonal) and going through a full range of large cuts completely in time with his foot work.
An older sensei was practicing iaido with katana drawing and cutting in a full range of movements running forwards and cutting. Drawing cutting front and back like with multiple enemies all around him.
The main sensei and ryu-ha soke Ogawa Takeshi was practicing Jodo with full kiai swapping his hands round and round.
This carried on for more than 30 minutes and sitting there seemed even to me quite unnerving. Kiai and the sound of foot work and swords swooshing in a small dojo. This was definitely not kendo with extremely powerful cuts and foot work that echoed all over the dojo.
Gradually more students came in all ranging from early twenties to sixties and much stronger than most kendoka.
The newest student practiced suburi for a full two hours with the sensei giving pointers and helping with uchikomi shinai.
The high grades practiced kata in pairs. This kata had allot of movements very different from kendo. Holding the blade between thumb and index fingers and catching the sword and cutting under the kote. Cutting to the neck and sliding back and down to the floor.
This kata was also extremely violent with full cutting and kiai right through expressing incredible tension when blades crossed in a kata which represented kata number four with swords meeting in aiuchi.
I talked to the teacher and he said it was very rare to see this kind of shinken shobu style kendo today and only if you have the spirit to ender this art you can stay with it for more than 20 years I think. I guess correct cutting starts first with suburi and only then can you go into kata which without this correct cutting would be very dangerous.
This experience will differently make me see kendo and kata in a different light.