Kendo: Martial art or martial sport?

[Black Knight]

Perhaps, for those of us in the USA, this question was definitively asnwered by our most senior practicioners and teachers in the January 2008 AUSKF newsletter:

"A. Committee Recommendation to
Adopt Proposed Mission Statement.

A report was submitted by committee
chairman Norman K. Otani and
committee member Walter Hashimoto,
indicating that significant research had
been undertaken and completed of
various organization mission statements.
It was the committee recommendation
that the following AUSKF Mission
Statement be approved:

'Kendo is a martial art that fosters the
building of physical, mental, spiritual and
moral values through diligent, persistent,
disciplined practice done with courtesy
and respect.
“In addition, the goal of the All United
States Kendo Federation is to develop a
social and humanistic consciousness that
will enhance the values of family,
community, society, and our nation.'

The AUSKF board of directors
unanimously approved the above Mission
Statement."

The AUSKF says kendo is a martial art. I agree for many reasons, including those articulated by Noma sensei, but there it is from our governing body.

[Paikea]

You'd be surprised what a bottle of Cold Duck can do.

Girls like that are looking for Cristal. You're gonna need a better job.

Jenny sounds like she's been communing with Che Guevara again...

[enkorat]

Personally, when I have to describe these things, I use the boolean operator "and" rather than "or".

I usually start out by saying "kendo is a martial art and modern sport". It keeps people asking questions and keeps others in the know relatively happy.

After all, both statements independently are true to a certain degree, and it keeps discussion levels down and we're able to practice more.

Besides, that way an older guy who's in kendo for self improvement and health can practice with a kid who wants to be the next champion, and both get what they want out of it, and get a little of what the other person wants to get out of it at the same time. Regardless of the abstract motivation, they're both getting floor time, both getting an opportunity to practice.

After all, isn't it far more important that we have places to practice kendo with qualified and good senseis and decent dojomates and actually get up and do something than to get hung up over semantics and end up sitting in a chair?

[Kenzan]

Girls like that are looking for Cristal.

A.) Most people don't know the difference.

B.) By the time they would figure out it wasn't, I'd be enjoying a post-coital Ham sammich.

[ne0r]

Nice post Enkorat.

I think why people (like myself some time ago) struggle with the sport aspects of kendo is because they don't want to accept that kendo has become quite impractical as a sword-art (i.e. you cannot really wield a katana as a kendoka).
I think kendo as sport gives us great advantages, especially jigeiko and shiai. We practise to use our skills directly in shiai/jigeiko and this makes kendo a lot more practical than for instance kenjutsu (which I would consider a martial art; calling kenjutsu a sport may not be really adequate).

[Charles Lockhar]

I think this question is a lot like like the "Why do we train?" question. This one answer to that question, which I thought was completely correct, went something like "wasting time on asking the question as to why you train in kendo indicates a lack of maturity. You train because you do. Don't waste your time asking why."

I think the "what is kendo?" question is pretty much along that same line of thinking.

The implied lack of practical aspects in kendo I will respond to. I have trained in aikido, judo, and jujitsu (Gracie), of all those I find kendo to have the most practical application in my life, by far. Every aspect of kendo training has had some positive impact on me, whereas the other things I practiced were much narrower in scope and benefited me far less. Some of those other things were just plain detrimental.

-Charles

[ne0r]

Oh, very interesting.

I think it is like this: The martial art/sport -question leads to the practicability-question, this again leads to the "why practise kendo"-question. I don't know about the "what is kendo"-question, though, never thought into that direction; it seems quite obvious to me, isn't it?
If you first get to know kendo as "japanese fencing" or "art of the samurai", learning that you're not exactly learning what the samurai did (and in fact kendo is even quite different, I'd say) can be like losing the basis for all your learning. So "why practise kendo" can be a quite difficult question in the beginning.

Well, as a person that cannot call itself mature, I don't think your answer is a very good one, Charles. ("wasting time on asking the question as to why you train in kendo indicates a lack of maturity. You train because you do. Don't waste your time asking why.")
It can be seen, indeed, as a waste of time, but you will only realize that afterwards. And if you realized this, it isn't a waste of time anymore, isn't it? There are some questions one needs to ask. Like we say in Poland: Jak sie nie wywrucisz, to sie nie nauczysz. That means: If you don't stumble and fall at first, you're not gonna learn it.

[Jiyoui]

Oh, very interesting.

I think it is like this: The martial art/sport -question leads to the practicability-question, this again leads to the "why practise kendo"-question. I don't know about the "what is kendo"-question, though, never thought into that direction; it seems quite obvious to me, isn't it?
If you first get to know kendo as "japanese fencing" or "art of the samurai", learning that you're not exactly learning what the samurai did (and in fact kendo is even quite different, I'd say) can be like losing the basis for all your learning. So "why practise kendo" can be a quite difficult question in the beginning.

Well, as a person that cannot call itself mature, I don't think your answer is a very good one, Charles. ("wasting time on asking the question as to why you train in kendo indicates a lack of maturity. You train because you do. Don't waste your time asking why.")
It can be seen, indeed, as a waste of time, but you will only realize that afterwards. And if you realized this, it isn't a waste of time anymore, isn't it? There are some questions one needs to ask. Like we say in Poland: Jak sie nie wywrucisz, to sie nie nauczysz. That means: If you don't stumble and fall at first, you're not gonna learn it.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Why was I born? Why should I carry on living? Why do I have to work? And so on. This line of
thought is not necessarily meaningless but if we try hard to seek answers, “Why do it?”, then our
doubts and confusion will only increase, resulting in an unmanageable situation. Honen Shonin
(1133-1212) founder of the Jodo sect of Buddhism is reco rded to have said, “Just continue
single-mindedly with the invocation as a shortcut to nirvana”.

Again surely it must be said that there can be nothing more detrimental to our endeavours than to
consider as most correct our own shallow and immature ideas and to decide for ourselves all the
answers to the question “Why do it?” During ones years of immaturity, one must be especially
careful not to become a victim of ones own dogmatic attitude. When ones ideas and thoughts
seem incomplete seek the opinion of others or else just follow the instruction given by those who
are senior to oneself. This must surely be the correct path.

It is the same with the question “Why practice Kendo?” Does one refuse to practice Kendo
because this cannot easily be answered? Eve n if one enquired deeply into finding an answer to
this problem one would find it a most difficult problem to solve. Even if the problem could be
partially solved, ones answer will not necessarily amount to anything of real significance.

[ne0r]

Hm, thanks. I forgot that Noma had a chapter about this in his reader.

Well, it seems that I thought too much

[Charles Lockhar]

If you first get to know kendo as "japanese fencing" or "art of the samurai", learning that you're not exactly learning what the samurai did (and in fact kendo is even quite different, I'd say) can be like losing the basis for all your learning. So "why practise kendo" can be a quite difficult question in the beginning.

Hopefully I won't get fired upon too heavily for wandering off topic...

You know, I can relate to what you're saying all too well. I came to kendo from SMR jo, which, the way my teacher instructs, has a strong sword component ("You're a swordsman who happens to be carrying a staff today..."). I started under Quintin Chambers in 1997. I'd never heard of it, or anything about koryu, I'd basically been told by a friend that Quintin taught some really good stuff, so I went and watched him, liked what he was teaching, and started. I probably trained for a couple of years before I heard anything about koryu, and during that time I wouldn't have been able to tell you the name of what it was that I was training in, just "this is my jo. There are many like it, but this one is mine..."

I started kendo in 2004, and the first two years of training were really hard, I kept trying to make it a more dynamic, freestyle version of the swordsmanship I'd learned in SMR. I went through a lot of difficulty trying to impose on it what I thought it should be, rather than accepting it as it's own thing. It took me two years to start opening up to just letting it be kendo. And then it was like starting all over again from the very beginning.

Funny thing is, at that point when I just accepted it on it's own, I really started seeing a lot more similarity between the results of my SMR training and my kendo training. Not really in terms of technique, but in terms of what I just smash together as "the brainy stuff."

That said, I don't think my jo training ever helped my kendo, but I am convinced that my kendo training has done a lot for improving my jo.

Like we say in Poland: Jak sie nie wywrucisz, to sie nie nauczysz. That means: If you don't stumble and fall at first, you're not gonna learn it.

I like that ;o)

-Charles

[enkorat]

Well.......

I respect Noma Hayashi very much, and I have read his reader and appreciate it very much.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if I agree with some of his logic.

In profession and training, I am in graduate school in order to become a scientist. And at the core of any research scientist, and perhaps any researcher, is the question of "why". The pursuit of understanding, of comprehension, of enlarging the sum total of human knowledge in some small way, is a motivating factor for myself and many of my colleagues.

And in some ways, Kendo is a refuge from the great uncertainty I face within my professional career, where I can simply set aside questions of "why" and follow the ideas of my senior. In doing so I can act instead of being paralyzed by over-analysis and uncertainty. And during practice it is a wonderful moment to be unburdened by thinking.

However, even within Kendo, it is an important part of training (ie. mental, moral and spiritual training referenced by our mission statement) to at least reflect upon the issue of "why", balanced by the understanding that answers don't always come right away, and a particular answer may change as one matures.

I agree it is a mark of "immaturity". But perhaps that may sound harsh with negative connotations, so perhaps we can say "a beginners mind". We didn't always walk into Kendo training with a fixed idea of what kendo was going to be. I certainly had preconceptions and prejudices (ie. I had already judged before beginning training), but through experience, both through training and through interacting with others in training, those views changed and continue to evolve.

I think eventually, we all have to come to some sort of personal understanding as to why we do Kendo. It becomes a very personal question... "what do I gain from doing Kendo?" If we don't answer this question, or avoid answering this question, there is no underlying motivation for doing Kendo in the first place.

[ne0r]

Charles, what you said confirms my (little, naive) idea of what kendo is all about and what has stayed with kendo through hundreds of years: "the brainy stuff". I think that in kendo we don't use koryu waza anymore (koryu means "old school", doesn't it?) , but we use the same mindset because this is what deserves to be preserved through generations. (Just an idea)

But unfortunately I don't know a lot about the mindset itself xD

"I think eventually, we all have to come to some sort of personal understanding as to why we do Kendo. It becomes a very personal question... "what do I gain from doing Kendo?" If we don't answer this question, or avoid answering this question, there is no underlying motivation for doing Kendo in the first place."
Well said. I think the answer to this question grows with the years... For example: level one: fun; level two: friends/community; ...