Ten years ago, I took part in two brief kendo / iaido tours of China. Both were excellent experiences and I wish I had known a lot more THEN that I know now (in terms of Japanese martial arts, Chinese martial arts, the languages involved, everything). (Human relations, too).
On each tour, we gave demonstrations in several cities in the Southeastern province of Zhejiang. We toured together with members of a local wushu school. At each stop, reactions were fairly similar.
The Chinese crowds knew something of Chinese wushu and knew how to appreciate the Chinese martial artists. The crowds did not know much at all of Japanese martial arts, nor how to appreciate our demos.
They were used to flashier demonstrations with large numbers of techniques. Kendo, iaido, and other Japanese martial arts are not flashy and tend toward pursuit of a single technique which finishes the encounter. Our kendo and iaido demonstrations were usually met with curious silence, followed by tentative applause, often at unusual points in the demonstration.
In just ten years, general knowledge about the Japanese martial arts has increased significantly in China, and fledgling clubs can be found scattered across the country.
At the Sport Accord Games (wubo or 武博), there was an overall greater understanding and appreciation of kendo in particular. Even so, I loved the fact that the greatest crowd response seemed to come not after the masters’ bouts or any of the other excellent demos, but during the childrens’ kendo demo.
You just have to love the kid who is shorter than everyone else’s shinai (bamboo sword) – and who is trying twice as hard as most of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment