Ten Years Later

Picture (right) courtesy of Kendo Photography

This month marks my 10-year anniversary in kendo.  It seems like a long time, but it also seems to have gone in the blink of an eye.  I've had so many wonderful experiences through this art, and yet I feel like I've only scratched the surface.

I actually "started" kendo WAY back in 2004, I believe.  That's how committed I was at the time; I wasn't.  I can't even remember the exact year, but I do know that I made it through our 8-week beginning class and....that was about it.  I was a flaky student, at best, and even though I started with high hopes and motivation it quickly deteriorated into making, and taking, any excuse I had to not go to practice.  I wasn't even a registered member of the AUSKF at the time because I wasn't around long enough, that's how sad it was.  The nail in the coffin was when I moved away due to a new job, and dropped it completely.  The one thing I never dropped, though, was the spark that had ignited inside, and it smoldered and flickered and burned lightly in the back of my mind for years.

Fast forward to May of 2009.  I had moved back to Spokane and had thought about trying kendo again, but just like before I kept putting it off.  That is until May of 2009.  I wrote my sensei an email, asking if any beginning classes were starting up because I had taken classes before and wanted to join again.  He said yes, I had perfect timing because they had just started a new class the week prior, so please come on back they'd love to have us.  So I did, and the rest is history!

...But not quite.  I started strong again, going to every practice that I could, and I jumped through the beginning class to the next class and then to the advanced/pre-bogu class in just a few months.  I was given the ok to purchase my bogu in September of that year, but wasn't able to get it (i.e. couldn't afford it) until March of 2010.  My bogu came, excitement was had by all, and once again I started having doubts and being flaky about going to classes.  I don't know why, honestly, but I did.  It lasted for about a month, and I actually had to have a conversation with myself about it.  I told myself that I needed to figure out if I was serious about this or not, because if I wasn't I should just quit now. But if I was serious I should strive to do the best I can.  Obviously, if you're reading this or have seen any of my other posts you know that I chose the latter option.  And thus in May of 2009 this kendo journey truly began for me, despite some bumps in the road.

I remember at one point, when we had two dojos going in this area, I was going to practices five times a week.  I was going so often that my sensei told me that I might want to rest up a bit and "not practice so much."  He said that he'd never had to say that to anyone else before that, but there we were.  Regrettably, our valley dojo didn't last very long so the decision to scale back to three practices a week was made for me, but for a time there I was enjoying the fruits of all the practice, plus all of the home suburi I was doing.

My first tournament was the Rose City Taikai of that year, in 2010.  Everyone told me to not expect much at my first tournament, most people lost their first time out, etc etc.  I stepped into my first match with no expectations and ended up winning 2-0.  I was ecstatic!  I went into my second match with high spirits and high hopes and...lost, 2-1.  My opponent scored a point on me, I returned with my own point,and then I stepped out of bounds twice.  I always thought that I could have won that match if not for the penalties, but we'll never know.  I do know that it taught me a valuable lesson about court awareness, and while I have stepped out of bounds since then I can say that I've never given up another point because of it.

As the years passed I kept training, usually as much as I could.  I would have ups and downs, but for the most part I was training my three times a week consistently, which bumped up to four times a week when we started introducing some extra training for the guys doing team training.  I got beat up by everyone, poured sweat and blood onto the training floor.  Not literally, of course, but I tried as hard as I could to improve as much as I could.  I was training with a bunch of people that started when they were half my age and already had years and years of experience on me, so I was always trying to play catch up with them.  The first time I feel like I caught up a little was during the Highline Taikai in 2011, which at the time was just for mudansha (under black belt level).  I was 2 kyu at the time, having just passed my rank test the week before.  I made it through the round robin and the first couple of rounds, and my opponent in the quarter finals was one of my friends, from my own dojo.  I remember that we started and he came out and did hiki men on me to score the first point.  I was not ready for it because he'd never done it to me at practice.  I fought hard to come back from the deficit and ended up not only tying the match up with my own point but scored again to win.  All the training was starting to pay off. I ended up taking third place at that tournament, and helped our team take second place in overall points.  Second place with only eight competitors, by the way.  The team that took first in points had entered over thirty competitors, for comparison.

Kendo, to me, hasn't been about the points I've scored or the tournaments I've placed at.  I do enjoy that aspect very much, but I've always felt that my biggest drive to compete has been to test myself to see where my own strengths and weaknesses lie.  I heard a saying once that I truly believe - Kendo is learning through failure.  I've also heard that you learn more from losing than you do from winning, and I try and always look for the lessons in every match that I've lost and every mistake I've made.  Trust me, I've made a lot of them. 

One of the best things about kendo, in my opinion, is the community that I've become a part of.  I've made friends not only throughout our federation, but throughout the world, and I know that anywhere I go I have contacts and could jump in on a training, much like if anyone makes their way to my neighborhood that they will be welcomed to training with open arms.  I've formed bonds in my own dojo and through the team training I did a few years ago for US Nationals, which I competed in in 2017.  I've made bonds with people throughout the places that I used to travel to for work, and always looked forward to visiting them again for training and fellowship.  and I feel like our community is a welcoming one, which I saw at the 2016 US Nito Seminar when I attended.  I only knew a handful of people there when it began, but as the weekend went on I made friends with all kinds of people, from all across the world that were represented there. 

One of the biggest goals I've accomplished in this time was passing my 4 dan test last year.  It was not only a milestone for myself but also for my dojo, being one of the first homegrown people to pass that rank.  I don't think I passed because I'm naturally gifted at this or anything.  I don't believe that at all.  I just trained hard and with purpose, and continue to do so now.  I'm constantly trying to refine what I know so I can be faster, more efficient, snappier, more accurate, etc etc.  I'm starting to form a better picture of how every piece works to make a good attack, or to create smooth movement, or to keep my mind and body focused and ready.  It's as if I was watching TV on a small black and white set when I started, and through the years have upgraded to high definition.  Everything is coming into focus better and as it does I'm seeing more and more detail and how it adds to the big picture.  Hopefully that analogy made sense!

Ten years is a long time to do anything, but in my case I feel like it's only a drop in the bucket.  I have friends that have been doing kendo three, four, five times as long, and I have friends that just started their own journey.  The late Mochida Sensei once said that it took him fifty years to master the basics of kendo.  The more I train, the more I can understand his sentiment, and I look forward to another decade of training, and beyond.