8th dan

[Confound]

It would be interesting to know if any other countries are awarding shogo. Good point. Does anyone know? I doubt I'll ever make it that far, however, it's interesting trivia.

re: Meng
<massive sarcasm>
yes, China was so pushy over that Nanking thing. I mean, why did they have to take up arms anyway? Why couldn't they just submit nicely to being colonized.
</massive sarcasm>

I agree, Meng. Not the first time either. I don't like the way Japan talks about the Rape of Nanking, it's always referred to as 'the excursion' or 'the outing'.

"Come along, boys, let's have a picnic in China! Don't forget to pack your guns."

"Itadakimasu and pass the ammo."

Also, Will, thanks for the note on reverse ethnocentrism. Glad to know I'm not the only one who wants to sit those kinds of people down in a chair with some history textbooks.

c

[Will]

There are some nisei hachidan in the states, we also have several who came to the states as young men that also reached hachidan.

[wutian]

Will,
for you to think, that i might not know my culture is upseting. I live in the united states in my humble opinion the greatist nation on this rock. sure we have our problems but we are world devolpmet and econimic leaders. I was born in germany, ive been to france, canida and mexico. ive lived in 7 of the us states. And the one thing that is so great is that we are a culmination of world cultures. And we learn from others mistakes and achievements. and as my grand pappy used to say "if we dont learn from the past we are doomed to make it mistakes". I study japan i like its history. and when discusing kendo that is the one aspect of my personality that shows the most. I think its the same for alot of us here. all history should be romantisized a bit. Why?, because its the storys of our past that teach us the most about our future.



Meng,

I wasnt harping about confounds spelling. see, i have a spelling problem I know this. I get tired of people who cant find ways to attack my point so they attack my spelling. so I lashed out. and that was imature I know. As to any referances on china dont think any change could make them a worse nation. those duck romancers are responceable for some of the most evil acts in recent history. that is all i have to say about that one.

everyone,
thanks for the informitive info on the dan system i learned alot



"free tibet"

[KENSHIN]

Originally posted by wutian

point 1: "I live in the united states in my humble opinion the greatist nation on this rock."

point 2: "As to any referances on china dont think any change could make them a worse nation. those duck romancers are responceable for some of the most evil acts in recent history."

Hi again Wutian,

Without being dis-respectful to you but I just want to point out that you are making far too many rash judgements and making some rather crude assumptions that countries like China are responsible for some of the most evil acts in recent history, yes maybe according to you and yes according to me too, however, I will not be blind in saying that countries like the USA and even my own country Great Britain are exempt from that too, I think these two countries have done just about the same level of damage to the world as china has done too...I can very easily list all these tradegies that these two supposedly democratic countries have done. However I do not have the inclination to talk about the subject as it will just end up as a flame war...and we are not here to talk about which country is the best, who has committed the most genocides bla, bla, bla, but we are here to share knowledge about Kendo...so please mate keep it to kendo.

Thanks mate.

[2muchryt]

since the IKF recognizes the KKA (Korean Kumdo Asscociation)
and Kendo in Taiwan is directly under the IKF, all of their
rankings are valid despite any individual prejudice.

my humble opinion is that if a westerner is to reach
a rank of 8dan then she (or he) must not see her (or his) kendo
as "japanese kendo" or "korean kendo", but purely kendo.
The greats such as Morichida Sensei, Mori Sensei, and Sasamori Sensei,
should be veiwed as great kendo masters because their kendo
was great, not because they were japanese.

learning japanese, living and studying kendo in japan
is still the best way to learn kendo.
however, a westener, no matter how much one tries,
will never, ever be japanese.
as kendo grows in ethnic diversity, the face of kendo
is slowly changing, and there will always be some of the
old guard the will be less than thrilled with this fact.

one of the great things about kendo is on any given sunday
one can see japanese, koreans, and chinese in battle with
each other with swords drawn in shiai. deep!
i was at a tournament in texas where
texas was fighting mexico and california was fighting new york.
this is truly a beautiful thing.
after the tournament there is a chance for all
people to come together and to communicate and sincerely
dialouge with each other. (over a few beers, of course)

we all have our own warrior ancestors, whether
they were called "samurai", "hwarang", "knights", or "braves".
if we (westeners) are to reach 8 dan,
i humbly put forward that it is the
spirits of our own ancestors and the guidance of our
(usually japanese or korean) sensei that will get us there.

[hamish]

Check out Kendo World no. 2 for more info. on the shogo system, but in a nutshell, the AJKF wants to get away from looking after the rest of the world, which is why the tests must be done in Japanese, and letting them follow the IKF guidelines. Any country can award shogo if they so decide, and same for 8th dan as well, which to my knowledge have been given domestically in the US, Korea and Taiwan (anyone know about Brazil or any others?)

Of course the Japanese 8th dan is the most well regarded (and if you saw the Korean 8th dans in the 50th WKC demo matches you'd know why...)

Hamish

[cklin]

Hamish -- 50th WKC?

[iwatekenshi]

Hamish (were you mostly taking video at shomen courtside?),
Anyway...I was at the 50th All-Japan and I agree with you. It was a bit different. Glad to see someone else noticed.

[2muchryt]

does anyone sense a "gaijin wall"
do japanese sensei tend to teach more to japanese sensei
and stop teaching gaijin at a certain point?
or are koreans, americans, etc. simply incapable of
learning higher level kendo.

[2muchryt]

is it just time? do non japanese need hundreds
of years to improve. (at whose guidance?)
its easy to say "oh look at that 'korean kendo',
its not as good as 'japanese kendo'"
but what can we do to raise the level of just 'kendo'?
americans used to say the same about american basesball
in regards to the japanese players,
i guess that was before Nomo and Ichiro.

[Alex]

No there is no "Gaijin Wall".

No there is no cut-off point where every Japanese teacher innately decides to stop teaching the secrets of kendo to foreigners.

Why are there no foreign 8th dans who were graded in Japan? Because there are stuff-all Japanese 8th dans either, when you consider the overall kendo population.

It is well-known that less than 1% pass the 8th dan exam, and many who fail have been training full on, full time, for over 40 years. Not only that, they have been training with hundreds if not thousands of other people who have also been training every day for 30,40,50 years, or even more. High level, and high intensity. And even then not many are able to pass. When any non-Japanese can claim the same level of training then maybe we will see a non-Japanese 8th dan graded in Japan.

[taiwnezboi]

why is it that everyone seems to look down on Korean Kumdo? you guys make it sound like Kumdo practitioners are terrible.. Korea gets second in the WKC all the time.. and there's also the fact that Japanese players get paid to practice Kendo all day.. does any other country get this luxury? how do you expect to pay the rent by practicing Kendo 8 hours a day?

[2muchryt]

I agree with taiwanezboi. Korea definetly rocks in the WFC!
And my humble opinion is that its just a matter of time before
Korea unseats Japan. I would think that people would see
that as a good thing for kendo. Football would be boring if
the same team won year after year after year.

But the subject of the last few posts was not about winning
tournaments. It was commented that at the WFC, some people
thought that the Korean 8 dans were not as good as their
Japanese counterparts.
I believe some of the korean students of today that are
"training with hundreds if not thousands of other people who
have also been training every day" and have more resources
available to them than did their teachers, will, after 40 years,
possibly be able to claim the same the same level of training.
And yes, maybe, we will see a non japanese 8 dan that even
the Japanese will aprove of.
For the sake of kendo lets hope so.

[AlexM]

I think one of the major reasons some people dislike kumdo is that it's seems to be very "sport" oriented. I saw a few clips from a university level competition in Korea and while I really like the attacking style they were using, the concept of zanshin was either non-existant or completely different. The best example of this was that often times the person hitting a kote would then turn his back and run away from the opponent. Turn your back = no zanshin = no ippon, but in this particular competition the judges gave points for this. It really just looked like they were trying to hit each other with the shinai (sort of like fencing... i.e. no "after-hit"). Also the fighters often seemed off-balance (something that is frowned upon in kendo) and there were quite a few falls. But I think that Koreans that participate in international competitions adopt a more "kendo" style of zanshin (and I was watching a university level competition, not exactly known in Japan as well for being a hot-bed of kendo with good fundamentals). And yes the Korean team did really well at the last WKC. For instance in team matches they knocked out Brazil with 10 ippon to 0. No country with a very Japanese style of kendo (Canada, US, Brazil) wanted to face them because they simply weren't use to the style.

[kendokamax]

ya respect kumdo yo! lol

I hope I can practice in korea 1 or 2 week when i go to japan.

there is a small difference in style but who cares..

I usualy dont want to give escuses to myself like: "oh the zanshin was weird, why did they gave the point to him?" If the dude hits me at the good place that means I did a mistake.

I personaly want to learn from the agressiveness of korean kumdo player.

anyway my kendo will not be japanese or neither korean, it's my canadian kendo. When you live in a multi-cultural place like canda you learn to learn from everybody.

so hopefully if someone non-japanese gets 8th dan, it wasnt because he became interiorly japanese or korean.