Kendo in an Osaka Dojo: Armour, Bamboo Sword and Two Hours of Instruction

Kendo is what happened to Japanese swordsmanship when the swords stopped being sharp. The techniques come directly from the schools that trained samurai; the shinai, a sword of four bamboo staves bound together, and the bogu armour were developed in the eighteenth century so that practitioners could strike each other at full force without killing anyone. It is still practised that way, and it is still loud.

This two-hour session is in a genuine dojo rather than a studio, and it is built for beginners. It opens with the part that matters most and that most visitors have never heard of: reiho, the etiquette. Where you bow, when, to whom, how you enter and leave the floor. In kendo the etiquette is not decoration around the practice — it is treated as part of the practice, and getting it wrong is a bigger error than a poor strike.

Then the armour. Bogu is heavier and hotter than it looks, and the men — the helmet with its grille — changes what you can see and hear. Putting it on properly takes help.

The strikes come next: men to the head, kote to the wrist, do to the torso, each announced with a shout as it lands, because in kendo a point requires the strike, the voice and the follow-through together. Hitting correctly is far harder than hitting hard.

Anyone with prior martial arts or kendo experience can spar with a skilled practitioner instead. Photographs in the armour are included.

Groups cap at twelve, instruction is in English, and the dojo is in Kita-ku, Osaka.