Can Kendo be used as a self defence?

[Masahikokobe]

Yeah i was thinking, could it? Cause i was almost mugged couple of weeks ago (long story and for poeple who live in sydney dont go to beverly hills after 9pm) and the guy who tried to mug me goes to my high school and im not going to seek revenge.

[Enderin]

well...

if you have a sword with you, and you know how to use it (you do kendo for enough time) i guess you could... but with a sword i mean, bokken / katana
not shinai because thats not painful enough to cause any demage

[satoshi]

I think you do develop awareness about things that goes on around you, so one may be able to avoid unwanted troubles. Perhaps footwork and sense of distance are helpful as well.

[Enderin]

Zanshin is also important, few days ago we went to a kendo demonstration at Jerusalem, and we had all our equipment at one place, so we had to participate the demonstration and also guard our equipment so my sempai told me guard the equipment with Zanshin, I thought to myself, hi! thats a pretty good way to practice zanshin

I think its the first time i understood Zanshin and its meaning, so you could use Zanshin to be aware of everything and be ready, it might sound alittle stupid, but it gives you a very good chance to practice kendo zanshin and also, fun

[GrandCentral9]

A shinai hit to an unprotected head or wrist would hurt quite a bit... If you used enough power, you could also probably crack some ribs. The human skeleton is a fragile thing.

[Enderin]

oh btw, about revange, hire a ninja!

[yangs]

In sense of developing your own body, kendo could use as a self defence. However, Kendo today (especially the one use in Shiai) does not have much power in real life fighting. First, it does not have any cut below wist and not much cuts horizontally. Second, swords are not everwhere, you won't be carying your sword everywhere you go.

I and one of my friend who practice nanchaku and we fought each other. He wears kendo armor without kote and uses a foamed nanchaku so we can both strike each other. If face to face from a normal kendo distance, I basically won every time. However, he then start to attack my legs with his body crouched. Or douge down every time I attack him. And I have a hard time wining him. There are too many restrictions in kendo today which make it not capable of using in real life fight.

[Nanbanjin]

Yeah i was thinking, could it? Cause i was almost mugged couple of weeks ago (long story and for poeple who live in sydney dont go to beverly hills after 9pm) and the guy who tried to mug me goes to my high school and im not going to seek revenge.

You have more chance of suffering ill health or dying from obesity than you do from being beaten up. Keep up the kendo to keep obesity at bay if nothing else.

[darkluc3]

but with a sword i mean, bokken / katana
not shinai because thats not painful enough to cause any demage

hehe try a tsuki with the shinai and you'll se if it doesn't cause any damage
(i think a good tsuki could also kill...)

[Enderin]

hehe try a tsuki with the shinai and you'll se if it doesn't cause any damage
(i think a good tsuki could also kill...)

well thats true, but its very painful and unnice to do a tsuki to someobody

*angel face*

[DCPan]

Read the review of "Dueling with O-Sensei" in the current issue of Kendo-World.

Ellis Amdur covers the "what if there are thugs" bit quite nicely.

To find out more, try Edgework - Crisis Intervention Training

[Hai_hai]

Yeah i was thinking, could it? Cause i was almost mugged couple of weeks ago (long story and for poeple who live in sydney dont go to beverly hills after 9pm) and the guy who tried to mug me goes to my high school and im not going to seek revenge.

The answer is no. You would want to study hand-to-hand combat-based martial art for self-defense.

[Nishi]

The answer is no. You would want to study hand-to-hand combat-based martial art for self-defense.

Agreed, you should be looking toward hand-hand stuff! (brazilian jui-jitsu IMO).

[Will]

Obviously we all keep forgetting the teachings of Sensei Brian Wilkes and his Street Kendo instructional video

http://espytv.com/mpegs/Street%20Kendo.mp4

[AGLkenshi]

Once me and a friend tried some kendo "experiments" (you know, the kind that if your sensei saw he would beat you up and tell you to work on kirikaeshi ) and one of them was what if a guy with a knife broke into your house and you had a bokken lying around your bedroom, how would you defend yourself?

So I had a shinai, and my friend was holding some small piece of something or other as the "knife" and he came at me like a common thug with a knife. The interesting thing was, as a kendoist we are not too worried about being in close contact (tsubazeri, etc) although in any real fight, it would be a pretty bad situation to be in, especially with live blades. And though a men hit to the head could potentially knock the other guy out, it seemed the best thing to do was wait for his lunge (the atgtacker probably would not be too afraid of some guy in his pajamas with a wooden stick) and hit a good kote to disarm him as soon as possible. If you miss that opportunity and let him get inside the bokken, you are pretty much screwed, so keep him at bay.

of course its hard to say for sure without trying the actual situation, but its interesting to think about.