Still going, despite my ups and downs. The tennis elbow still affects me from time to time, though I’ve learnt ways of minimising the problem now. My left calf (the one I have to push off when making a stike) likes to give me grief too, though I suspect this is either my bad veins (varicose, from years of working standing up!), or a muscle knot – if it’s the latter then by regular use of a foam roller I’m hoping to free it up somewhat. Anyone else ever tried foam rolling? I opted for a ‘rumble roller’ with lots of knobbles on, they supposed help work out the knots like a masseusse’s knuckles – painful, but seems to work to some degree!

Anyway, I digress. As I said, there have been ups and downs, some physical, some mental. I’m quite prone to mild depression, and when things don’t go my way, I can find myself thinking about quitting. I’ve learnt to never do anything rash when this happens – just recognise it for what it is, ride it out, and soon the status quo will be restored. I’ve had some fairly naster foot blisters too – I seem to be very prone to them (when I’ve done hiking, I’ve also suffered from the on the soles of my feet, despite the most careful foot, sock and boot preparations…). I’ve got better at taping now, though, and can usually keep them from getting too serious.

In terms of my Kendo – for some months, since first getting into armour, I’ve struggled in spotting openings in my opponent’s stance (or Kamae, as we Kendoka say!), and as a result have found myself ‘standing off’, and countering, rather than being an offensive fighter. Over the past couple of weeks, however, something seems to have ‘clicked’, and I’ve found myself suddenly able to find cracks in their defences, and I’ve become suddenly more aggresive as a fighter. Whether this is the training sinking in more, or whether it’s a growth in my confidence (or a combination of both), I don’t know, but I’m liking it! I’m still far from being a good fighter, but after a year, that can hardly be expected. I’ll progress at my own rate, and I’m happy with that.

Fitness wise, the sessions are certainly becoming more intense for those of us in armour, and by the time we get to sparring towards the end of the session I’m often blowing hard, but I can feel my ‘Kendo fitness’ getting better. I’m also changing shape a bit – not much in the way of weight change, but I’ve lost some lard and toned up here and there, so that’s a bonus.

There are a couple of team tournaments which the dojo is trying to get teams together for, and I’m umming and arring on that. Not sure if I’m ready – can my anxiety cope with it, I wonder? The first one is next month, but that’s just as my car goes in for it’s yearly MOT test, so I’ll be transport-less for that one, unless someone wants to take me, but that means driving out several miles in the direction opposite to the way we’ll need to be going, not sure if anyone will appreciate that, but I’ll discuss it with my Sensei after class I think, and see what he thinks. I certainly tneed to dip a toe into the world of Shiai (competition) at some point…

Confidence back UP again! 9 months ago

So, after my last entry, where I was really down and beating myself up more than a little, events have taken a turn.

I’ve had a dodgy elbow for the past couple of months, and looking up my symptoms, I thought I’d probably got a touch of tennis elbow. It’s been affecting me more and more, both at work and at home, not just in Kendo, and as my work was quiet on Monday morning, I decided to haul my arse down to the doctor’s and get it looked at.

The result? Tennis elbow confirmed. The treatment? Anti-inflammatories and rest for several weeks. Whilst stopping work isn’t an option, I can modify the way I do things there to favour my left arm. Kendo, however, is right out.

I went to Kendo and watched last night – I still learnt a surprising amount, though naturally not being able to go with ‘monkey see, monkey do’ is a bit of a handicap.

In short, giving my elbow, along with my other niggling injuries, time to heal, means that when I do pick up a shinai again, I should be pain-free, and able to focus on performing good Kendo (or at least attempting to!), rather than being focused more on enduring the pain, and simply trying to make it to the end.

If this period of rest and anti inflammatories and rest doesn’t work, then it’s steroid injections in the elbow for me, which frankly isn’t too appealing a prospect!

Watching the class last night did remind me of my initial enthusiasm, before I started getting all my aches and pains, and has helped renew my ‘Kendo Spirit’. I’ll be going in at least once a week to watch – this way I’m still learning, and I’m staying in the habit of going to class – it’s all too easy to get into a habit of sitting on one’s arse instead! I’m also going to be asking my Sensei if he’d okay with me bringing my camera in and taking some shots – I think it will be fine as we’ve had photographers in before, and the gallery on our website could do with a few new pictures. Of course, this is highly dependant on any of my shots actually being worth using.

Despite everything, confidence is back on the way UP. 13 months ago

It’s now getting to a point where my dodgy feet are beginning to really get me down, and I keep rueing the decision to do Kendo and not Judo. I have a job where I’m on my feet all day, and bad feet are not conducive to that at all. Not at all. On the plus side, I enjoy the physicality of it – it gives me a damn good workout, and the fact it is a ‘proper’ art and not a Mickey Mouse McDojo-spawning one is a bonus (like Judo, Kendo clubs are non-profit, in the Uk at least, run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts as it were). Our dojo, being very new, is also very much a social thing, and I would forever have the feeling of letting everyone else down if I were to ‘defect’.

Will I stick with Kendo? To be honest, I’m not so sure any more. It’s not going to be an overnight decision and much soul-searching will take place before I decide anything. Perhaps it’s just a crisis in confidence and a month from now this will all be a distant memory, but at the moment it’s causing me some worries.

Some time ago (before Kendo came along)I was looking at choosing between TKD and Judo, and dismissed TKD as I suspected I would always feel ‘this just isn’t as good as Judo’.

I’m beginning to think the same thing about Kendo, and this has genuinely surprised me as Kendo was always that one art that I always wanted to do. Perhaps it doesn’t suit me quite as well as I thought it would. There is also a cost thing to be taken into consideration here – whist Kendo is cheap to do (monthly costs are very reasonable!), as already stated in recent posts I’ve not long got into armour, and that wasn’t exactly cheap. I’m at what is known as the ‘Kendo hump’. Lots of folks come up against it as they reach the stage where they get into armour. Mostly people freak out when they put it on – it’s hot, heavy, claustrophobic, and you can’t see or hear properly. That I got over fairly quickly, but armour has also meant a total shift in gear, training-wise, and that shift in gear has brought with it a raft of minor injuries, and those damn blisters. The injuries I can cope with – that magic ibuprofen again! – but the blisters are becoming a bit much.

Anyway, just thought an update might be polite, maybe someone out there is interested!

I hate it when I’m soul searching like this (and believe me, soul searching is EXACTLY what I’m doing), without a clue which is the right way to go.

As a final thought, it’s not that I feel I’m making no progress in Kendo – I know I am, and at a similar rate to those who began at the same time I did. I can see the progress I’ve made when I look at the latest raft of beginners struggling with the same things I did. Much like Judo, Kendo is HARD, damn hard. It’s easy to hit someone with a stick, but that alone isn’t Kendo. There’s that same learning curve.

In short – I have a good Sensei, great classmates, yet there’s something about Kendo that just isn’t clicking.

Confidence is back DOWN. Quo vadis? 13 months ago

I’ve now had three sessions in bogu. It would have been four, but I missed Monday’s session due to a bout of what I can only describe as ‘bleeeuuurgghhh.’. I woke up on Monday feeling run down and not at all ‘with it’, and that continued for a couple of days. I paid attention to getting my head down for a good seven hours for three nights and that seemed to shift it, so by Thursday I was feeling pretty good.

One of the things I’d intended to write about in my last entry about my initial bogu experience and completely forgot about was that of suddenly feeling like a TOTAL beginner again. Having spent the past five or six months doing many things over and over, some of them seem second nature to me (even if my technique is not yet perfect, my muscle memory is finding the movements easier), but as soon as I got into bogu, everything felt so incredibly different, and everything went to pot.

I’ve even had/overcome a minor confidence/anxiety crisis. Things were freaking me out a little I admit, and a dreadful feeling of ‘I’m useless at this and will always be that way’ came over me. However, It’s very difficult to explain, but I think it might be connected to how I was feeling at the beginning of the week – and that my friends, was due to alcohol consumption, I’m reasonably sure of that. Let me explain.

A cursory glance through my goals will show anyone who cares to look that I have a tempestuous relationship with alcohol. Now, there’s no big problem of alcoholism here, but I’m convinced that alcohol creates both anxiety and depression in me if I drink too much. And last saturday, whilst I didn’t get hammered, during the course of the day, I drank quite a bit. Sunday I was tired by early evening, and on Monday I was, as has has already been described, ‘bleeeuuurgghhh.’ I was on a low for a couple of days, and was generally down on myself, particularly about work and Kendo.

Anyway, by Thursday I was dreading practice. A week before, when we had come to put on men, I had a Himo crisis (himo are the ‘strings’ that we use to tie the men on with), and despite having practiced repeated at home, I made a total arse up of things and had to go off to one side and try again. Now, when you suffer from anxiety and your confidence isn’t always unshakeable, this molehill can easily become a mountain if you allow yourself to dwell on it. I did.

To cut this increasingly lengthy story short, I said bollocks to my demons, went to practice, and this time got my men on without incident. Practice was hoard and hot, but I got through it unscathed, save for a couple of clouts on a tender spot on my wrist (one of my fellow ‘bogu-beginners’ gave me a rather clumsy sledgehammer blow last week, and it’s still sore).

Confidence is heading back UP. 14 months ago

...our Sensei surprised us all by turning up with all our armour! He’d gone majorly out of his way to collect it, and whilst I haven’t asked him why yet, I suspect he felt that if he sprung it on us, we wouldn’t have time enough to start getting nervous about it – it certainly worked for me – I imagine I’d have been nervous as hell all day Thursday thinking about it at work, and would have been in a right state by the time I got to class and actually got to try on the armour itself.

First impressions: the best description I can manage is to imagine yourself trying to do an aerobics session, dressed in a roll of carpet, wearing a crash helmet, looking through the grill of an electric fire – at the same time you need to swing a tennis racket whilst wearing boxing gloves!

More seriously, the Kote (that’s the gloves for those not Kendo-savvy)make your grip on the Shinai (Bamboo sword) feel incredibly different, and the Men (that’s the head/shoulder protector) not only makes swinging the Shinai feel awkward, but is also hot, and impedes both hearing and vision!

These were all things I was forewarned (and thus foreARMED) about, and I’ve been assured that I’ll get used to it as the bogu (that’s the armour) loosens up and begins to form fit me a bit better.

Our first little bit of sparring was also enlightening, to say the very least!

Another step taken on this endless journey! :) 14 months ago

...is when most of our little cohort finally get into armour. Our sensei is heading across the country in his line of work this week, and will be picking up all the sets of bogu that we’ve ordered from the supplier.

Thursday’s session is when we finally get to both try it on and try it out. A mix of antipation, excitement and nervousness is upon me, I admit.

On the downside of this however is the fact that I’m now carrying a couple of injuries and may have to curtail certain elements of Kendo training in order to let them heal. Philosophically, I need to show some kendo spirit here and go with the flow – this is not an obstacle, but a challenge to be overcome. It may slow my progress down for a while, but Kendo isn’t going anywhere. This is a lifetime journey, and there is no end.

“To conquer oneself is a greater victory than to conquer thousands in a battle”. 15 months ago

Still not into armour yet. :(

In established clubs, when a beginner gets to the stage where they can get into armour, there are usually sets available that they can borrow – old sets that have been replaced by newer stuff and then donated to the club. Our club, being a brand new one, doesn’t have this, so we’re buying out own. Whilst some of us are in a financial situation where this isn’t a problem, others aren’t so fortunate (mainly those who are married with kids and a mortgage!).

So we’re trying to get as many together as possible before making our order in the hope we can get a bigger discount from our supplier…

Won’t be long now – we’ve waited this long, a few more weeks is as close to nothing as to make no difference.

We’ve also moved to a new dojo – the old building was falling apart- quite literally at times – and there was a situation developing there in terms of the bloke we paid our rent to. We’re now at a nearby school, which is more expensive, but is in one piece and has novel items such a changing facilities! :D 15 months ago

The open evening was quiet, fortunately, so no anxious moments there. It was a cold, cold night, and our advertising had been purely by strategically-placed posters rather than the local papers (that costs money our non-profit club hasn’t really got), but we had a handful turn up, and two of that handful returned the following thursday to sign up and start a beginners’ course. This is what we need – small numbers signing up every so often – we’ll do fine, I reckon.

As for my training…

There have been blisters, there have been bruises, but it’s all been very much worth it, and I’m pretty sure I’m in this for the long haul. I’ve found it’s a great way to de-stress; as it’s a pretty difficult art, you need to put your full concentration into it, and as a result you simply don’t get the chance to think about anything else in your life – it’s almost like a physical meditation!

Our little cohort (all those who started at around the same time) have now been given the go ahead to get into armour too, so that’s going to be an entirely new experience! By all accounts, about 1 in 5 or perhaps 1 in 10 (I forget) folks who get through the first few months and get to a point where they can wear armour, try it once or twice, find it too heavy or claustrophobic, or movement limiting and give up just like that. It’s quite a well known phenomenon apparently… 16 months ago

The bug that made me miss a couple of sessions at the end of last year is still hanging on in the form of a cough, which on occasion makes some of the exercises we do in Kendo a touch more troublesome, but I’m still in this one for the long haul.

We’ve got an open evening tonight where we’ll be trying to swell our numbers a little. As a new club, it’s important to keep folks coming through the dorr – over time you always lose members, so you have to keep on replacing them.

I’m not good in front of an audience, so I’m hoping there won’t be TOO many folks turn up to watch… 16 months ago

Still keeping this up and getting one hell of a lot out of it. The Japanese terminology is becoming more natural, and slowly, very slowly, things are starting to drop into place physically as I get more used to the movements. Gettting into armour is now within sight!

Sadly, I have to miss my first training session tonight as I’ve caught some sort of bug and feel like crap. Hopefully I’ll have got it out of my system enough by thursday so I can attend… 17 months ago

I think that ‘learn kendo’ was not the appropriate way to term this goal. It implies that there’s a finishing point, and I think that there never will be. This is a ‘way,’ not a goal, but there are markers along the way that I can reach for (fix that wonky footwork problem, earn my nidan, become a better senpai and then a better senpai and then a better senpai).

It’s still the best thing I’ve ever done for myself, though. 17 months ago

Still going strong! The visit from our chief instructor was a tad on the daunting side, but what I had been told was correct – I did learn a lot!

My coordination is getting better too, slowly but surely- all the various things we need to remember are slowly sinking in, and are almost all happening together. Our instructor tells us that when we can demonstrate ‘Ki-ken-tai-no-ichi’ (translated roughly as ‘Sprit-Sword-Body-One’, menaing that all things are working together as one harmonious unit when you attack, more or less), that’s when we’ll be more or less ready for armour, and a whole new set of things to learn and experience comes into play! 19 months ago

...I’m now four sessions in – It’s been hard, I won’t deny it, but lots of fun too.

There’s a lot of etiquette (Reigi) to learn in Kendo, as well as the techniques themselves, plus of course the fact that everything is reffered to in Japanese, which is yet another thing to remember.

This week we dipped our toes into the first of the Kata – these are the ‘forms’ used to learn techniques, most traditional martial arts have them – in Kendo they are all performed with a partner, so in effect, you have to learn the same Kata twice, once as the ‘attacker’ and again as the ‘defender’.

We’ve also been practicing a lot of footwork and sword techiques. Oh, so much to learn! :shock: Sometimes I find that I get a reasonable grip on one thing, then when I try to combine it with something else, the first thing suffers – if I then correct that, something else goes to pot! This is my natural lack of coordination shining though, but I intend to persevere – get the basics right and everything else follows. Picking up bad habits at this stage means they will be very hard to correct further on, so it’s very much worth getting it right now!

Something we do is Suburi- this is the repetive practice of various cuts combined with footwork, and is used both to improve technique and also as part of preparation for the rest of the class after a general warm up and stretch, but before the line up and the general instruction parts of the lesson. One of them I have particular difficult with as the feet stop sliding as the tempo goes up and you sort of do a little jump with it: Haya Suburi – so much more difficult than it looks!

So far, so good though, and I’m really enjoying myself. Having trouble with some of the footwork in particular, but I improve a little every session, I feel, and that’s important. Our instructor is very encouraging, as are our senior students (while it’s a new club, our sensei has brought some of his students with him from various other clubs he trains at) – they seem to have infinite patience with us clumsy oafs!

My mate, who decided to join me when I told him what I was up to had a minor achilles’ tendon pull on Monday, so he’s limited in what he can do- his doctor asked him what he was doing and made some recommendations as to what he should avoid. Our sensei is very happy to accomodate him with this, and is constantly checking he’s okay and asking if he’s fine with doing certain things or if he needs to sit something out. We also have a ‘larger’ chap in class, and again our Sensei appreciates that his fitness levels are lower than many, and if he needs to take a break, he’s happy with that. I’ve heard of instructors in various areas of the Martial Arts that are ‘do or die’ and believe you should just push through injury or exhaustion (and whilst I believe that pushing yourself is the best way to improve – it is important to recognise the differentiation between that and harming yourself). The fact our instructor takes all of these things into account is good, and is confidence-inspiring.

We already seem to be developing a social aspect of the group outside the dojo too. Heading to the pub around the corner after training is over is not unusual, and discussing what we’ve learnt in the session over a few drinks is always nice, plus you really get to know the folks you’re training with too.

On the 7th and 8th of October we have our Chief Instructor coming to pay his first visit too – he’s a fifth Dan, and has coached the Belgian national team, no less. From what I understand, he’s pretty strict in the dojo, so it may well be interesting. I’ve been told that I WILL learn a lot from him – even just watching him fight can impart a lot, by all accounts. On the Saturday evening, we’re all going out for beer and a curry (both great British pastimes!), when we can have a more informal chat with him too – he’s far less fierce outside the dojo, by all accounts!

In short, it’s all good – my two decades of waiting are over and I’m finally getting a chance to try this! 20 months ago

Well, I went to the open evening last night, and after a demonstration of what Kendo is, and how a class is structured, we were invited to have a go ourselves. I jumped at the chance – after two decades of waiting I wasn’t about to turn the offer down!

Kendo is something which looks deceptively simple, but it takes a lot more skill than many people realise to hit another person with a stick!

I felt pretty self-concsious I admit, but that will pass. It became easier to do as I realised that many of those who were having a go were as hopeless or far worse than I was.

Next monday we start a beginners’ course proper. I can’t wait! 21 months ago

I never did go back to judo in 2007. I was too attached to my earlobes (they’re stretched and realistically, shinking them was the only safe option for doing judo) and I shyed back off the idea.

However, in June, the idea to do judo returned and once more I was shrinking my lobes in preparation – this time I didn’t give up on doing so and they’ve shrunk nicely. I was planning a returning within the next month or so.

However…

Fate has other ideas for me, it seems…

Last night, I’d been out with some friends and got in late, so had made myself a snack and was reading my local paper. There was an advert for a new Kendo club starting up in my local town. This in itself may no sound that exciting, but Kendo has been the martial art I’ve been wanting to try for many years but have never had the chance and there has never been any classes withing a sensible driving distance of me.

I first saw a demonstration of Kendo on a Saturday morning kids’ programme when I was 18 or 19, and was instantly drawn to it. I believe it was the GB Kendo team, though can’t be sure. They gave an address to write to for more information, but that turned out to be for the Martial Arts Council and they advised me to look in my local library to try and locate a local club. I had no luck, as there weren’t any clubs. This was all pre-internet days. A few years ago it was featured on Channel 4’s ‘The Games’, and I watched with much envy. In the intervening years the internet has appeared, and I’ve looked at the BKA (that’s the British Kendo Association) site quite regularly in the hope of finding something local – no luck, until now. I’m now 40, so it’s been a 21 or 22 year wait!

Now not only has a club opened within a few miles of me, it’s actively recruiting new members and is running a beginners’ course!

I’ve registered my interest this morning, and on August the 31st I’ll be heading to an open evening where there will be demonstrations of both fighing and Kata (patterns), and hopefully on the Monday folowing that I’ll be having a go myself!

For those who don’t know about Kendo, here’s the Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendo

If you can’t tell – I’m excited! 21 months ago

Listen and get through the first few months. I founf Kendoka to be peculiar, I found Kendo to be frustrating at first. I swear there will be a practice were it “clicks” and you get it. Then it is sheer beauty. Kendo can be your ocean and your mountain. Sounds corny, you will know what I mean when you keep at it! 23 months ago

Kendo cannot be “learned”, I am finding out since joining my club in Frankfurt back in 2009. There is no “goal”. The “way” is the “goal”. As superficial as it sounds, that is correct.

I am going to practice regulary, am learning about Zen and intuition a lot and will close this entry with my graduation of 5th kyu, which I have been putting off but now feel ready for… 23 months ago