Taipei Dojo

[boukenka]

Hey everybody,
I read both of the archived posts on a similar subject but I'm posting anyway.

I live on the Taipei Zoo side of town, close to Muzha station on the brown line. There is a practice location only about 10 mintues away called Isin Kendo (near JingWen Highschool station). Their prices seem a little high- about 60 USD a month. 5-7 USD per practice (tueday and saturday) (http://www.isin.url.tw/)
Does anyone know about this place or have somewhere else, on my side of town to recommend? I'm new to Kendo and am not sure if this is a reasonable price for a good dojo in Taiwan. (60$ is almost 1/2 of my monthly rent! haha)

Thank you!

[sainueng]

I'm double checking the dojo with a senpai of mine in Taipei, but if memory serves it is a relatively new dojo with great facilities that was just started by a couple of established senseis. I don't remember how much it costs to practice in other dojos in Taipei...

If you are completely new to kendo, it looks like another option would be to practice only on Sat for a while for 300NT (~$10 US). I would not recommend doing this, to be honest, unless you're not sure if you can consistently make the Tuesday class.

[Andoru]

I trained at a Taipei dojo once while over there for the WKC. Why don't you try ROCKA?

[boukenka]

Hey guys, Thanks for the replies- I ended up joining the Isin Kendo Dojo I mentioned, and i'm glad I did. The instructors are great, and so are the students and the facility. Now that I have Saturday and Tuesday I need to find another place for some other day/s of the week.

[sainueng]

Make sure you talk to your instructors first before visiting other dojos. Usually people don't practice at multiple dojos until they have been practicing kendo for a while, at least a year or so. It depends on the policies of your dojo and the surrounding dojos. Please check.

If you are looking for more practice, you could practice on your own or build up your base by doing other physical training.

[boukenka]

Thanks for the advice,
I ended up adding a chengchi university class/club that practices 3 other days a week and there are some high ranked students there to help. The top sensei comes once a week.
I didn't get the OK first. Perhaps that was rude.... I also took a paper he handed me with one hand, and later realized that was also rude to do in Taiwan.
Hopefuly I am not killed by an assassin for my ignorance. I'm sorry! I didn't know!!

[kanyil]

Uni dojos tend to be a little stiffer than the community ones, but don't worry. What you said might be true (eg one hand etc), but most Taiwanese won't sweat it for long. The main thing is to turn up ready to learn.

Cheng-Chi University's dojo is reputed to have a very good kendo tradition. I seem to recall they also have a very cute girl as the captain of its female team...but this was years ago so she might have graduated. Have fun.

[boukenka]

You are right about The Taiwanese being pretty open and forgiving
I hate to see myself as a careless foreigner running around like godzilla causing cultural carnage.

The people at Cheng-Chi are great. The program is much smaller and (not funded as well) as the Taida program, but, as there was a tournament just a few days ago between the two, Cheng-Chi held its ground. (despite my not sitting seiza for half of the last match and almost ruining the whole tournament).

As for pretty ladies, i'm going to keep my mouth shut on this subject because I'm sick of getting in trouble ^_^ ... everybody has at least one weakness right.

[Darknails]

Hello~ I know this is an old thread, but just in case if someone is looking for a good and foreigner-friendly dojo to train in Taipei, I can recommend The Taipei Kendokan.
http://taipeikendokan.wordpress.com