Attica

Kendo, Kendo Everywhere Yet. . .

Years later after growing up and getting married but before I had kids, I was in my mid to late 20s and doing all the things I ever wanted to do. I was riding motorcycles, doing water sports several times a week and, yes, martial arts.

I lived in a small Texas town three hours from Dallas so my choice of martial arts were slim. Mostly, two Tae Kwon Do schools, a Karate school and some other commercially federated Korean art. I chose one of the Tae Kwon Do schools based on the guy who ran it. He was a great guy who came over from Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era. It was good but I was looking for something more so I started going to the other school that was a commercially federated Korean martial art. It had more too it than Tae Kwon Do, a "universal system" but I doubted some of it's authenticity. In the back of my mind I knew there was something specific at one time in my life I wanted to look into but I couldn't put my finger on it.

Have you ever tried to remember a single word you uttered once in your childhood over 20 years later? I couldn't do it either. Luckily for me the web was around by this time and it was no trouble finding the name: Kendo. The next step was to look for a school and there was one in Dallas. Unfortunately Dallas was three hours away.

Sometime after this my wife had to travel to Dallas every weekend for a month for a CPA class. She was in class all day and if I went with her I could run around Dallas and do whatever I wanted. For this month I specifically set aside Sunday mornings to visit the Kendo class. I even participated in a couple of classes. I wanted to make the three hour drive once a week to attend but my primary vehicle was a motorcycle and I just couldn't make it work.

Interestingly enough around this time I traveled to downtown San Francisco once a year for a conference. Being curious I looked up whether there was a class nearby. There was and within walking distance of the hotel. I went and watched classes one or two years I was there for the conference and it was always an interesting experience. I felt very out of place there. Whenever I walked in they would stare at me. I'm sure they were nice; I was just really out of place. I would politely sit in the bleachers and watch and leave after it was over. Maybe I should have called ahead. I only knew I was watching Kendo. I didn't know anything about the quality or anything more about it. I always enjoyed it and was impressed, though.

Not long after that my company moved me to Virginia. After getting settled in I looked for a Kendo group. I found one meeting at Virginia Tech.

Travel in that part of the country is very deceptive, especially when compared to western states. You look at a location 30 miles away and think "hey...that's only 30 minutes away." In Texas, it is. In Texas, there are tons of roads to get there. In the D.C. area there is probably one road route and one toll route to get there and your looking at an hour minimum.

I did visit the Virginia Tech club but was very uncomfortable there. Besides the travel time taking too long the practice was in a racket ball court. I took a racket ball class in college. It was too loud for my comfort just playing racket ball. The noise level for me during Kendo was unbearable. I decided against attending.

This was o.k. though. Because after two years my wife and I decided to leave Virginia. We decided to move back to Texas and we chose Dallas.