Until recently I found the end-of-class ritual in kendo of lining up in seiza and bowing to the sensei(s) to be a polite formality. When we bow (head down to just above hands placed palm-down on the floor) we all say, “Thank you very much” (どうもありがとうございました). Now when I do this, I feel a sense of true gratitude and it has been making me look forward to practice because I know that I will end with ...
I passed my nidan (2nd-dan) exam on March 2nd. I’d been training for this since August and I went in with a feeling of comfortable accomplishment. Whether or I would pass or not, my sense was that I was in a comfortable nexus point, between wanting to pass and also seeing this as a single way-point on a longer journey. My preparation for the exam was a return to the basics of kendo. An emphasis on posture, introspection, and commitment to every strike (well, mostly…that last point ...
Examiner’s Report on Alexander C. Bennett’s Ph.D. thesis: “The Cultural Politics of Proprietorship: The Socio-historical Evolution of Japanese Swordsmanship and its Correlation with Cultural Nationalism” This is an excellent thesis, well-written, well-argued and well-structured, and it makes an important new contribution to scholarly knowledge about its subject. The author, Alexander Bennett's, mastery of the subject is obvious on every page — clearly he has studied it ...
Blooming heck. Six years it took, but I finally finished my second PhD thesis, and submitted it yesterday to the University of Canterbury. The title: "The Cultural Politics of Proprietorship: The Socio-historical Evolution of Japanese Swordsmanship and its Correlation with Cultural Nationalism". I finished my first one at Kyoto University about "bushido" in 2001 which can be bought here if you can read Japanese. The one I just finished is all in English (much easier to write) ...
The Chuseikan Dojo in Christchurch, New Zealand See Chuseikan Video Here!! The earth didn’t rock, it exploded under our feet. That was the February 22 earthquake in Christchurch last year. Not long after that, when I had arrived back in Japan, the March 11 Great Tohoku Earthquake happened, followed by a massive tsunami and the unnerving nuclear disaster. In terms of scale, the Japanese earthquake was far bigger, and the casualties inconceivable. How do you come to terms ...
Recent Comments
