It’s been a busy budo weekend: Zaimusho kendo Friday night, Chinese stuff Saturday and Sunday, Meiji Jingu demos today (see prior post). And somewhere in there was a long-overdue first visit to the famed Koubukan Dojo in Nakano, Tokyo.
One dojo member – whom I met a couple weeks prior at a kendo tournament – had put together a sort of gaijin kendo bash, drawing 40 foreigners from around Japan (two from Singapore, in town for today’s all-Japan kendo championships) as well as a couple Japanese who had lived abroad for some time.
He had hoped for 20 and gotten 40, not bad at all. Ozawa Sensei watched while the show was run by and for we gaijins. The format was unusual and good – three separate 30-minute sessions of practice or keiko, each punctuated by a 10-minute break to rest and, more importantly, to commiserate.
Everything was quite free (choosing your own practice partner, feedback if appropriate, “lining up” in a circle) but all the necessary decorum was also observed – a nice respite from the sometimes overformal martial arts world in Japan. Really, everything was done exceptionally well and I look forward to the next time.
Kind of a funny feeling – at most practices in this country I am the only foreigner present. At most big events like gradings and tournaments, there is usually a handful of foreigners who already know each other or who get to know each other quickly. Yet here we were, basically a dojo full of foreigners in Japan blasting away on each other and doing it the right way, good kendo.
New friends made, old friends seen again after many years – cheers to all.
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