A Little Taste of Kendo

Last week one of the teachers that Ryan works with invited us to practice some kendo with him. Ishikawa-sensei is awesome! He brought us the bogu (protective gear) to wear and at the end of the lesson he gave us each our own shinai (bamboo practice sword) as a present!

It was a very basic lesson. He showed us a few moves with the shinai and then we practiced striking on each other. Getting hit for the first time on the top of the head is pretty unnerving. I could see this being something I can enjoy for a long time. Haha.

Let's have a little lesson here:
(Please refer to the picture below)

• Men - head/face protector
• Men gane - metal grill over face
• Men tare - flaps/ shoulder protection
• Tsuki tare - throat protector
• Kote - hand and wrist protector
• Do - chest and torso protector
• Tare - waist, thigh and groin protector

Here is us wearing all the gear!
Ryan's do looks like a little apron on him. I have to remind him of that all the time. Haha.

There are four different places to strike someone in kendo- the head or "men," the torso or "do," the wrists or "kote," and the throat or "tsuki." When you strike you must call your target. So if I was going to hit someone on the head, I would strike and yell "men!!" It sounds pretty silly but the yell can be as unnerving as the actual blow. Hah. (Or maybe I'm just easily unnerved.)

So here's the rest of the pictures we took:

All in all it was an exciting night with Ishikawa-sensei. Ryan is looking for a kendo dojo and I am in search of a naginata dojo (it's just like kendo but instead of a sword you're striking with a spear/halberd). We're pretty positive that we've found a place to train that has everything we could want though (and some things that would be hilarious to study) so we'll keep you updated on that!

Until next time, おつかれさまでした!! (Otsukaresamadeshita = it's what we say after working out and it means "thanks for working hard!" It can also be used to say goodbye to coworkers at work I think.)