Old Kendo Video

[Chaby]

I was spending some time on Youtube, and randomly came across this short gem.


I was wondering....if this would be a recently recorded digital video, would someone point finger and say McDojo perhaps?
Anyways, quite energetic demonstration.


Think this one was posted earlier, but here it is again.
Congrats Britt mates, you came quite a long way!

[Fonsz]

It's funny to see the difference between the two clips.
The Japanese kenshi's footwork is considered bad form nowadays. When I could see their feet it looked like shumoku ashi. (Toes of left foot pointing a bit to the side instead of forward). Never the less I think that a lot of people here would have a hard time with them
The British clip doesn't look so energetic. It might be because they practice on Judo mats I guess. A while ago people here were asking about throws, foot sweeps and grappling. Well here it is. It doesn't hurt so much if you fall on a judo mat.
Nice clips, those were the days.

[Martch]

It's funny to see the difference between the two clips.
The Japanese kenshi's footwork is considered bad form nowadays. When I could see their feet it looked like shumoku ashi. (Toes of left foot pointing a bit to the side instead of forward).

Yes and it's not the first old clip I've seen that has that style of footwork, which begs the question when did the parallel foot Kendo/Iaido ashi sabaki become standard?

[Neil Gendzwill]

It doesn't hurt so much if you fall on a judo mat.

Did you ever train on real tatami? You don't really even need to know ukemi on modern foam mats, but those old rice ones were pretty hard. Better than a wood floor, but still pretty hard.

[ghostdancer]

Did you ever train on real tatami? You don't really even need to know ukemi on modern foam mats, but those old rice ones were pretty hard. Better than a wood floor, but still pretty hard.

i used to train on a very old judo mat covered with a canvas top and that was really hard, but man was it a fast surface it was like walking on a wood floor but not quite so hard to be thrown on

that was the YMCA judo club in Norwich Norfolk (uk), it was at one point i believe, one of the few permanently laid mats in the uk (now sadly gone)

[Fonsz]

Did you ever train on real tatami? You don't really even need to know ukemi on modern foam mats, but those old rice ones were pretty hard. Better than a wood floor, but still pretty hard.

As a matter of fact I have. My first Kendo lessons were not that much different from what could be seen on the "modern" clip. So yes I have trained on a mat which consisted of some sort of straw mats covered with canvas (I think it could double as a sail on a sail boat) on a wood floor. And we often fell down when things got out of hand. It never hurt that much as nowadays on a wooden floor or plastic coated concrete floor. When you practice judo I suppose you're trained to fall down and it is more or less expected.

[Neil Gendzwill]

I did my original judo training as a kid on real tatami. Now the dojo I'm at has the foam ones, but the border around them are the old rice ones so you can really feel the difference. Mind you they probably are quite compressed from age.

[Chaby]

It's funny to see the difference between the two clips.
The Japanese kenshi's footwork is considered bad form nowadays. When I could see their feet it looked like shumoku ashi. (Toes of left foot pointing a bit to the side instead of forward). Never the less I think that a lot of people here would have a hard time with them
The British clip doesn't look so energetic. It might be because they practice on Judo mats I guess. A while ago people here were asking about throws, foot sweeps and grappling. Well here it is. It doesn't hurt so much if you fall on a judo mat.
Nice clips, those were the days.

There is quite few things which are not used now.
The footwork is I think because Kendo moved to dojo.
I read once, maybe on this forum, that kind of footwork was used earlier for better stability on the ground or outside if you will.Now it's more effective and no need for it on wooden floors.
Then, there was the yoko-men, katate yoko-men to be more precise.
At the 0:59 mark I'm quite sure it was a strike to the knees.
Uh...but those katate yoko-mens......eesh...head surely rings for two more days after one.

[xvikingx]

Think this one was posted earlier, but here it is again.
Congrats Britt mates, you came quite a long way!

HOLY SH!T Is this Phil Write's Shinto-ryu!? Please tell me it is.
I've seen this several times before but never connected the two until just now because of Kiyamasa's thread blitzkreig.

[H.Sandsleth]

How did they score matches before? I don't see much zanshin or what should I call it "announcing" in these old videos..

[Kenshi]

HOLY SH!T Is this Phil Write's Shinto-ryu!? Please tell me it is..

Nah, our resident Rimbaud, his Keystone-Kenshi, and the alcoholic 薮師 go by the moniker of "shido-ryu" or something.