by Mark Kawabe | Dec 2, 2015 | Uncategorized
I was fortunate to have been in Japan long enough to have enjoyed a couple of New Year’s eve and New Year’s day celebrations there. One year was with friends and the other was with friends in the dojo. New Year’s eve practice (Toshikoshi Keiko) at...
by Mark Kawabe | Dec 2, 2015 | Uncategorized
As talked about in an earlier post, I believe one of the reasons people choose to train in martial arts is for a purpose of self defense. Kendo is a weapons-based martial art and is therefore “impractical” as a form of self defense. I believe this way of...
by Mark Kawabe | Nov 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
Congratulations to our students who successfully graded! Congratulations as well to all those who were successful in their attempts. And, of course, to those who weren’t successful, I hope you consider how you can improve to attain that next level. A few...
by Mark Kawabe | Nov 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
Someone asked me how this year’s JCCC tournament was. Here are a few observations. Shinpan-cho Bryan Asa noted at the end of the tournament that the referees needed to do a better job controlling the matches to prevent roughness from creating safety issues and...
by Mark Kawabe | Nov 19, 2015 | Uncategorized
Sitting in a McDonalds waiting for my daughter’s job training session to end when I should have been at the dojo, my mind wandered to the state of kendo in Ontario. Kendo, along with other weapons-based martial arts suffers from low participation rates. Karate,...
