Dojo News: Nanseikan Kendo Club

***NOTE: changes below*** We will be training at Latrobe Indoor Sports Centre for the next three weeks: Saturday 28 November from 12 noon to 1pm Saturday 5 December from 11am to 1pm Saturday 12 December from 11am to 1pm Cost of training will be $5.00 per person on 28/11 and $10.00 per person after that, payable on the day. Please bring two N95 masks per person to train in. Do not buy the ones with the plastic valve. Have other masks on hand for non-training use. ALSO PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING CHANGES: We will be using the basketball court, not the squash court. But we will be in the same venue. See map below. This means the instructions around training a slightly different: We can get changed in the change rooms. We  will do  rei and mokuso before and after training. We will be training in the same space, which will make things easier and more flexible I have changed the other instructions below to reflect this. Some, such as the overall plan for training, remain the same. The locati

 As mentioned at training this morning there will be no Kata training this Tuesday 10 November. There will however be a special meeting at 5.30pm on Wednesday 11th to discuss returning to in-person training. Items on the agenda: confirm ability to train in person next Saturday 14 Nov decide on location and time discuss options for return to dojo  I will endeavour to speak with St Pius and find out what I can about their needs/issues around us returning. I will also see if there are some alternative (larger, better ventilated) venues that might be available either for a short-term or a medium term option. Videos First, the video of Tagawa sensei (H8 dan) from Detroit that I mentioned. And also the classic video of Chiba sensei and his 'seme-ashi'. Take note of the movement of his kensen when he makes seme. 

This is not a channel but just a single vid, but I'm pretty sure it's where the examples in Yano sensei's presentation were edited from. It's 75 min of Miyazaki Masahiro sensei scoring ippon in competition! Gotta be happy with that! Filmed at the Kenshikan, this is the video I mentioned in last night's discussion where Chiba sensei talks about the right foot being used for seme. This was my very first time using a digital camera to record video of Kendo and upload it to the internet. I think the camera in question was a 2MP Canon Ixus, hence the shabby quality. Still, it's a wonderful record of Chiba sensei's incredible skill.  ************************************************************************* https://www.youtube.com/user/tamichel0428/videos This channel is Sanmunokai 三無の会　and has lots of great videos of their in-dojo training and also instruction by their sensei Matsubara (K8 dan). https://www.youtube.com/user/loganbury/videos This channel has lots o

In the previous post I listed the various branches of Itto Ryu and asked you to consider the similarities between their use of the sword and Kendo. Sometimes when one becomes used to a certain way of doing things, one can fall into the trap of thinking that is the only, or maybe the best, way of doing things. In learning iai kata of Tatsumi Ryu, we are trying to break out of that thinking by exposing ourselves to a system devised long before even the Itto Ryu was founded. This means that there are some fundamental differences in how the sword is used.  In these posts I am mostly interested in the differences in how to swing the sword. In Kendo, and indeed in most of the styles of iaido practiced today, the fundamental cutting action is a straight up-and-down action often referred to as kirioroshi , cutting through or cutting down. In Tatsumi Ryu, the characteristic action where the sword first goes through a circular backswing before cutting downwards is called kowauchi , or 'power

A figurine of Ito Ittosai as he appears in the manga "Vagabond" 人は眠っている時でも足がかゆいのに間違って頭をかくことはありません。人は意識下に己を防衛しようとする本能が動いております。その原理を生かせばよいのです。　　　　 伊藤一刀斎 (People do not accidentally scratch their heads when their feet are itchy, even when they are sleeping. People have an unconscious instinct to defend themselves. You have to make use of that principle.)   This is one of the famous observations of Ito Ittosai, founder of the Itto Ryu (One Sword School). It might not sound like much, but there's a lot to think about there.   https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJor9pGc9SS6IRT9zk2dw25qrYULXh0Qq I've made a brief playlist of the main Itto Ryu lineages. There are some others I haven't listed that are more recent (i.e. less than 200 years old) but these are the main ones.  Of these, the Ono-ha, Hokushin, Mizoguchi-ha and Nakanishi-ha are the most widely practised. Kogen Itto Ryu is less common. Most have hereditary headmasters, usually called soke . The Mizoguchi-ha is

Training for term 4 We will continue to have kata training 5.30 to 6pm Tuesday night  and more general training 10am to 11am Saturday via Zoom. We will continue this schedule until there is a change in regulations around public gatherings. When we come out of strict lockdown (no travel restrictions), it is likely the first opportunity to train together will be outdoors and with distancing. In this event we can consider meeting either at a park centrally or at different parks each week. I imagine that we will train in 'civvies' (normal clothes) and do solo movements:  suburi and taiso only.  When this happens we will discuss as a club what the best time and duration is for training, and what is the best mix of online and in-person training. As the situation improves, we can work towards more close-quarters training, eventually with the aim of returning to the dojo and practising one-on-one in full armour. Even then it is very likely that the following conditions would remain