Dutch Kendo Teams competition

8 July

I practice kendo. This is one of the two modern forms of Japanese fencing. Nowadays whoever is interested in learn the way of the sword has the option of learning kendo, iaido, or both. In kendo, very much like in western fencing, we wear an armour of sorts, which protects our hands, torso and head of the strikes of the weapons of choice, a shinnai. Differently than in western fencing the shinnai is not a copy of the real thing, but four slates of bamboo tied together. The goal of a kendoka in matching with another one is to strike the opponent on one of the four well defined targets, showing great form and spirit plus full attention and respect to the opponent. In the nine years that I have been practicing I have seen quite some people starting in our club, or in others. Most start after having seen lots of anime, where kendo is more or less omnipresent. Others are generally interested in Japanese culture and want to do something sportive. Most beginners stop at wearing the armour -or bogu- by first time. A bogu is cumbersome and the strikes of your opponents come fast and land hard. Most people is baffled then, and also later, when teachers will say: don’t block the incoming strike! Strike them first!

So kendo rejects that basic instinct of defending ourselves against an incoming blow. Even worse, we are taught to be grateful if somebody manage to hit us successfully, for it is only then that our opponent has taught us something, they say. But which sense does this make? Kendo is an art derived from techniques taught to soldiers going into the battlefield to kill others. A soldier does not have the luxury of being hit and learn. A soldier sliced by a katana in a battlefield is dead.

I have been munching on these matters, since past sunday I participated in the Dutch Kendo Teams competition. Having been founded only nine years ago, our club is at the bottom range of the dutch kendo community, so we were -honourably in my opinion- defeated in most of the matches that we took part. The teams of the better clubs showed a kendo still beyond our level. I myself matched three times and won one, and am fairly happy at the two matches that I lost. Again, this does not makes much sense, does it? Shouldn’t I be happy at the one point I deliver for our flag?

It goes without saying that in a competition, and certainly in a national level competition that thing of forsaken defensive behaviour is more or less forsaken. Our teacher informs us that in competitive kendo to know how to defend ourselves from an incoming strike is as important as knowing how to strike the other. And yet.

The one and only match that I won was a fundamentally defensive one. I matched somebody I have chatted with before, between other trainings we have attended together. I dare say that we are friendly to each other. And yet our match could not go much further than slow and failed attempts at striking, getting clinched pushing the other away. It was only in a brief moment of lucidity that I manage to do what I trained for, and then I scored the point that gave me the win.

The second match I lost and on the contrary, it was a great pleasure. I didn’t know my opponent, but at the earliest moment we locked eyes, and this time we smiled more or less at the same time. From then onwards we were two persons trying to see what the other stand for, and how. I have had debates a lot less interesting than this one. I did not feel the need to defend myself, or to push anybody anywhere, but rather to deploy whatever I can deploy to know what somebody else intended. And I got practically taught something I knew theoretically: there was an exchange that I thought I lost, but the juries did not award to anybody. I got confused, and in that brief moment of confusion my opponent scored the deciding point. How many times have I heard that losing the attention for a moment is to lose the game? Well, now I did not only heard it, but experienced it.

Before starting kendo I used to climb and to dive. In none of those activities winning is relevant. Partly because of that, and perhaps due to my own personality, I have been always sceptical of competitions. If I win, I feel bad for the looser. If I loose, I feel bad for myself. The definition of a loose-loose situation! And yet, being in the train back home and talking with my team, I had these bubbling feeling that I know after a good climb, or a long and interesting dive.

Perhaps that is another of the lessons I am learning from kendo, those lessons delivered obliquely in a truly oriental way, or at least not in the straightforward western way that university and mathematics taught me. Perhaps to compete for shared improvement has no losers, and to loose is to win.

Perhaps.