Hello there! I’m Andrew. A co-founder of KAMINARIKAN dojō along with Ann. Nice to meet you!
I became acquainted with the way of sword in 2009. That year I’ve begun practising tameshigiri (a test cutting). After several years of practice I’ve decided that I want to use my sword skills in real life combat. Fortunately real sword fights are prohibited at law due to potential fatal outcome. Thus I began to look for a possible alternative which turned out to be kendō.
At the first blush kendō has proved to have nothing in common with real sword fighting for bloody disappointment of mine. More like a modern fencing. However, I’ve found a true interest within this martial art through years of practice which gives oneself an opportunity and ability to overcome self, defeating your opponent not just with brute strength but with cunning skill of wielding a bamboo stick. And that’s the true experience of self character building which I’d love to share with you!
What I truly love about kendō that it has a variety of ways to practice it which helps oneself not to get bored ever! E.g. one can practice kendō for sports achievements, or for understanding and following the budō principles, or just to decrease everyday stress rate, or to build stamina and agility, etc. Which one to follow - that’s for you to decide, but you’ll never know unless you try it first...
We had been keeping this in mind when we decided to open our dojō. So we’d agreed to add non-standard set of accompanying disciplines such as naginata and tameshigiri to maintain the variety and competition of ways to follow. Let’s see where it’ll take us!
Yours sincerely,