The annual kobudo enbu taikai will be held again this year on February 7th at the Nippon Budokan main hall in Tokyo, from 1030 to 1550.

This festival is the premier showcase for the classical arts, providing an overview of many of the main schools of the ancient arts, their techniques, systems of etiquette, and dress. Each style demonstrates a number of kata over a 10-20 minute span, including archery and musketry.

Kendo World has a limited number of complimentary tickets and we’ll be happy to pass them on a first-come-first-serve basis. Simply send a mail with your full name and we will send you the details. ...

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Content

Editorial
The Bokuto
55th All Japan Kendo Championship
46th Women’s All Japan Championship
East vs West The 53rd Tozai Taiko 2007
The Current Kendo Refereeing System: Room for Improvement
Ishimatsu Shugyo ...

By Michael Ishimatsu-Prime, Senior Staff Writer
Live commentary by Hamish Robison (See below)

The 57th AJKC at the Nippon Budokan has just finished. As usual, KW were there reporting on the main event in the kendo calendar. This year, as we did last year, we brought you up-to-date information and results. See the tournament summary, tournament ladder, competitor profiles and Hamish's live feed below. Also, for those of you who do not live in Japan or could not watch NHK, we will be uploading videos to our YouTube page as soon as we can.


Tournament Summary
So the dust has settled on what turned out to be an intriguing 57th All Japan Kendo Championships, full of thrills and spills, upsets and shocks at the Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo.

On shiai-jo 1, Teramoto started off in convincing fashion winning with a well timed kaeshi-do against Norimoto, the doctor from Tottori in his third championships, who made a good account of himself. A big upset followed when Wako (Hokkaido), last year’s runner-up, was defeated by Shikano, a teacher representing Yamanashi. You would have thought that Wako, being a policeman, would have won this encounter therefore setting up a tantalizing second round tie against Teramoto. However, Shikano was apparently destined for Tokyo police but due to a family tragedy he became a teacher. His record before this tournament, his third entry, was impressive winning the Kokutai and also with the mighty Kokushikan University finishing second and third in the individual university championships. At only 25 years of age, he will surely be another to keep an eye on in the future.

Another massive upset occurred on shiai-jo 2 when defending champion Shodai (Kanagawa) fought Oishi (Osaka), and was defeated. Shodai was many people’s favourite this year but there was a real buzz surrounding Oishi, who at 24, was the second youngest in the competition. Qualifying from the Osaka group cannot be easy but Oishi has real pedigree winning both the team and individual ...

Veteran Murayama Chinatsu of Saitama, former 3-time winner, World Championship Team Champion, All Japan Policewomen’s Champion, battles with fellow World Champion team-mate and All-Japan Educator’s Women’s Individual ...