In this link two kendo 7th dans are filmed in their efforts to make 8th dan. One is 78 years old and has made 25 previous attempts, the other is a former all Japan champion in his late 40's who has made 7 attempts - enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXMfPPWkMVY

I love watching kendo, when I had an opportunity to do Judo in Japan during high school we shared the dojo with the kendo class. I would often get thrown while watching them practice. If I could find some where to train with here I would in a heart beat! Good link.

Thats a cool vid..
A friend of mine goes to the local kendo club, his sensei is going for his 8 dan this year.. Hes 84 or so i think, and his second try.....
I went to one of their practices to watch, it was pretty cool, the sensei may be 84 but he only looks 70 or so...

I always wanted to do kendo in addition to judo...

There's always a Kendo class running next door when we're doing Judo. My sensei is always saying we have to drown out their noise with our own Ukemi noise.

This is a wonderful, wonderful film - and really explains why an 8 Dan is not merely a 7 Dan with time in grade.

Watch, digest, learn - then watch again!

Wise words, Jonesy, wise words ...

Nice video thanks,i always liked Kendo

Just pushing this thread forward, the video is clip is so good on so many levels I don't want anyone to miss it


Geoff

Not sure what to write. This is budo. This was the goal of Kano shihan. Thank goodness for Kendo. Wonderful film.

Mike

I did too. But may I pass to you the advise I got early on. "That is nice, Dan (Dino), but you make a rather large target." It was the truth, but it hurt anyway. So I just wacked on things with a stick. Not bad with a stick, still heck of a target. Some, day, some day....

This shows the way one hopes one can practice their art.

Thanks for the post.

I took up kendo when I was 15 or 16 years old. There were only a couple of people in the dojo, and it was quite a drive. Then after three months or so, the teacher decided he it was not profitable; he too had to drive quite a while. The costs for the equipment at the time were prohibitive for parents. Kendo was still extremely rare though, but the same year someone from one of the few existing clubs became continental champion. Sadly, he died not much later. I tried to go elswhere (= much further), but that was impossible to combine with school work. So, I was forced to quit. Seven years later I took up iaijutsu in Japan. Then I left again, and returned another 7 years later. By that time I was a bit old. I remember each afternoon when going to the police academy hearing the kiai from their neighboring kendo dojo, while jukendo or taiho-jutsu was still going in the judo dojo. We then trained randori for 3 hours, and one day afterwards I managed to catch the kendo sensei, who too was a hachidan. The police there had some absolute expert instructors. I told him I wanted to do kendo again, and he submitted me to a lengthy interrogation. He had never taught or allowed Westerners in his dojo. He was very impressed with my knowledge and commitment and agreed to teach me. However, he told me I was way too inexperienced in kendo to train with the police, so I had to come in the evenings to his machi-dojo, which was called the Hei'an Dojo. It must still exist. I have never been back, but I remember it was somewhere near Kitano-jinja. I can't remember the name of the sensei, but I remember still having some of the paperwork.

OK, I looked it up, and his name according to my notes was: 岡崎光司 (Okazaki Kōji), although I cannot really remember this. So, now I obviously wonder what has happened to my former kendo sensei ?

Nevertheless, my point was, that I was always intrigued and attracted to kendo, but I sort of was forced through circumstances to give it up, and I regret that. I always remained a beginner. I am glad though with my iaijutsu training as it makes up for part of what I lost out by not continuing kendo.

My father watched this video and started tearing up. He has taken this exam 16 times and has yet to pass. He is 84 years old and says he is going to give it one more shot.

Wow ! I am touched by this. Thank you for sharing this very personal story with us. 頑張ばって下さい !

does anyone know if the older of the two (myamoto... sorry about spelling) was successful in a later attempt? i felt so sorry to see him leave, i think he deserved it. maybe i'm just too soppy :)

porl

Interesting observation by Ishida.

The instinct to win learned from his previous youthful days of competition was actually counter productive to his pursuit of hachidan.

Yes, well it's a litle more complex than that but you get the initial idea. This was also true of all Budo pre the 1950's in Japan. One had to show the complete cycle of knowledge from waza to character through how one performed. Gaining points off ones partner was not THE point but how one scored points off the self. Incredible clip. Had a lump in my throat also PTNippon Sensei.

Just a foot note, Imagine the skill and character the original DNBK pupils had to have as they where training in up to 8 arts and ways at a given time!!!! Sugar that must have been hell. I now start to understand why my sensei where as they where. What they must have been through in all their arts must have been hell in comparison to what they put me through and I spoke face to face with the devil more than once!! Lol

Mike

Miyamoto did not succeed, but he was determined to attend the following year's testing again.

The documentary was very well done. There were a few moments that really touched me, too--and that's not solely because of a heightened amount of estrogen in soymilk (as relayed by a friend).

Amazing film! It really touches on the self Pride and the one's Mind and Spirit.

I wonder about those two these days ..

That film is amazing. There is so much find out from it.

Michigami-sensei and Hirano-sensei would have loved the clip, not to speak about Ushijima, the man himself.

Indeed so. Just to think that those Sensei actually went though systems like that. I guess students like me really know so little about Budo. Lets not go there though!

Mike

Wow.

Great video thanks for that link.

Always had the utmost respect for Kendoka of any rank and particular those of Dan grade. This video really demonstrates what budo is all about. Humility, mastery of self, utter dedication to achieving perfection and much more. With all the issues surrounding many of the traditional martial arts (Karate, Judo etc...) that have been made sports. Kendo still, in my view at least, remains a bastion of what all the martial arts should be about. Long may it remain so.

When I opend the link and saw the clip was 46 minutes long, I thought I'd give it a few minutes and then go surf elsewhere, 46 minutes later . . . . . !

a great learning experience just watching it.

Have there been any american hachi dans in Kendo? I amazed that none complained or anything. If this would been in the U.S., most people would have threatned with lawsuits or something or form their own organizations.

The most senior kendo instructor in the US is Maki Miyahara in LA. He is a properly licensed and recognized kendo hachidan.\

This is him:

Click to view attachment

He was born in 1921, so he is 87 years old.

There have been others, such as Miyata-sensei, and Tagawa-sensei. Shioda-sensei, Kawaguchi-sensei and Iguchi-sensei were all kendo hachidan holders (all three passed away) who lived in the US and may have had US citizenship, although they all also held Japanese citizenship and were originally Japanese.

As you can imagine, they are all of Japanese origin. In other words, no Caucasian or Hispanic or African-American or Native American person in the US has ever been promoted to kendo hachidan recognized by the ZNKR. I believe in one case, someone received an honorary 8th dan rank, but not a real one.

In a few countries such as Germany, England, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, and the US, there may be one or even a handful of non-Japanese 7th dan-holders. In the US, Professor Benjamin H. Hazard, PhD, from SJSU is both a real professor and a real kendo 7th dan (http://www.jstor.org/pss/596925), Mark Grivas from Southampton is also a kendo 7th dan, the other one is Jeffrey Marsten from WA state; in Belgium Alain Ducarme is the only kendo 7th dan, in England, John Howell, Jock Hopson, Terry Holt, Mike Davis.

It is virtually impossible for a non-Japanese or non-Korean to pass hachidan. Even if you had all the technical and maturity skills, you also would have to be able to express your thoughts in fluent Japanese in writing for the written part. Only someone who had lived a long time in Japan or who would have an advanced university degree in Japanese would be able to do so. Apart from the real skills & knowledge part, the largest stumble block may simply be your race. Like in judo, there is a potential part of racism, or xenophobia in there that makes you not 'trustworthy' or 'different' when you are not Japanese. Look at the USJF's hachidan list and look at the names. While no doubt, the four 9th dan-holders are all people of exceptional credentials, no discussion possible, that isn't quite true about the hachidan-holders. In fact, there are some rather incompetent people in there who got hachidan mainly because of their heritage and to some extent because ... they have been around. To add insult to injury, some of these 'supposedly Japanese' people with a Japanese name do not even read or write kanji, thus even making the "Japanese heritage" even worse, because now even the 'cultural understanding' is given up and only the pure race issue is withheld as critical. John T. Anderson is the lone Caucasian in that group, and if he would have been Native American or Black, even that would have been unlikely.

Another teacher from the Midwest passed hachidan a few years ago, but I believe he too is originally from Japan.

As for American-made nanadan, there are quite a few, given the number of people doing kendo in the US--only a few thousand total. In the Pacific Northwest alone, there are at least three: Doug Imanishi sensei, Jeffrey Marsten sensei, and Robert Stroud sensei. There may be more, and then there are several Japanese born ones as well. Then there's the question of where you make the cut-off. Is someone who started in Japan but has been in the US for 20, 30, or 40 years count as an American nanadan?

You are, of course, right, but the real underlying issue I was implying is: Is race a factor in dan rank promotion ? To turn the question around: is the fact that we don't have people with no Japanese blood who are hachidan or higher, because they have not reached the same skill and maturity level as other hachidan, or is it in part because they do not have any Japanese blood ?

Why does the Kodokan not have an officer/department for Ethnic, Gender, and hetero/homo/bi diversity ? How many people who are not Japanese but fluent in Japanese are employed by the ZNKR, and if so, in leading positions ?

Neither explanation is evident. In judo, for example, there has never been a non-Japanese 9th dan-holder (Kodokan). Honestly, I cannot imagine any Westerner who has the insight to deserve that rank too. There are Westerners with incredible competitive records, but that does not equal a judo 9th dan. There are very, very few people who are not Japanese who have ever reached a Kodokan 8th dan. Nevertheless, it does appears possible, albeit under very certain circumstances rather than generally and objectively.

I have some times though ... would there ever be a day that there would be a class action suit to get rid of some of the crap and discrimination. If there were only clear objective criteria not just to be taken into account, but that automatically would imply promotion, then such would be easy. This may sound very un-Japanese, but then again, racial discrimination isn't exactly in line with bushidô or the principles of either judo or kendo either.

There is a Belgian kendoka, Pascal Van Laeken who was very very impressive in passing his Shichidan test. Apparently it was said that " this person will be a hachi dan one day...."

Very inspiring doco. To have that level of mental cultivation...

Absolutely beautiful.

(: Thanks for sharing this clip!

Don't know him. I thought that Alain Ducarme was the only Belgian kendokan shichidan. Not even Emilio Gomez, who is known for his high technical skills (more refined than Ducarme) and for his iaido, is a shichidan in kendo. So, I had to investigate, and it turns out you are right; Mr. Van Laeken was promoted in November of last year. Since I do not know him, he must have made a pretty swift career, since I know various other long-timers (like Gomez) who have not climbed up to that level. Congrats to him.

I've been trying to figure out how I can download this so I can burn it to a DVD but I can't figure it out. Any advice? ...it's a great video and I'd love to have a copy of it to go back and watch down the road. Thanks.

Download link:

http://kendoshop.com/images/8dan.wmv