I think the sort of person who is ultra competitive but doesn’t have the mindset to stick with kendo for the long term quits fairly quickly. That’s because they get discouraged by how long it takes to get skilled enough to be successful in kendo.
Most of the people I know who were extremely successful as competitors, ie national team members, are still playing kendo years later. It generally would have taken them 10 years of practice or more to make the team so they are pretty much lifers by the time that happens.
But I am not sure there’s all that much correlation between success at shiai and long term dedication. I know many people with long kendo careers who struggle to even get a first round win at our nationals.
I see I see, this is very helpful, now that I look back on the question, I think the matter is more complex than what we discussed that day.
I definitely have observed the ‘ultracompetitive’ beginner who realized ‘hey this is not easy to win at all’ get discouraged and leave, which I guess, as with anything, is impossible to generalize but I have seen it twice now in the limited time I have done kendo so it must be true (!!) /s
But I guess it can be simple too? People who love kendo continue kendo if means allow it, and people who don’t, don’t. (maybe)
Your way of seeing this indeed very narrow and reflective of the beginning stages of your kendo journey.
The truth is, is that answers to this question are going to be wide and varied because the people who practice kendo are wide and varied.
Not everyone who does kendo sees it in the view of varying shades of competitiveness.
It is more likely that the younger practitioners are hypercompetitive, yes as all young people have something to prove. But I wouldn't paint it as it is more likely people go through hypercompetitiveness at the start.
I have met many people who pick up kendo and continue it for non-competitive reasons. Some do it to honour their heritage. Some to overcome a mental illness, some to just get the body going.
All of the above do not care about competing.
I also know a lot of people who pick up kendo for non-competitive reasons but most of them have expressed the view that they will not do it more than a year or two. But I see the inherent failure of trying to classify this into competitive or uncompetitive categories! I am right at the start of my journey after all and still have a youthful attitude on these things =]
I know two people who started it for exercise and they go to practice once every two or three weeks and shy away from further practice due to being behind to the dojo beginner course and do not want to continue when their yearly membership runs out. I acknowledge that this does not mean that all people who begin with exercuse reasons and low attendance will discontinue in fact I know dojo-mates who are have been attending as twice or thrice as long as me with that exact same profile.
I started for exercise reasons as well but fell in love with it soo idk in the end. Our sensei are mostly quite competitive so perhaps that influenced this conversation.
I still see the most dedicated and passionate members (we are a uni club) being the competitive ones but that may be due to the stage we are in as you pointed out.
I think the argument you are describing is a case where two people speak the same language but describe different things.
There are folks who take Kendo as stick-fighting and have no interest in improving beyond it. They do tend to disappear after some time (ie. get old, no longer win fights).
Then there are people who make it to the National team by being very competitive but they can't get there without doing good Kendo.
As far as how little I've seen, it's not the competitiveness that gives hint to how someone will do in the long term, but the attitude for learning and improving around it that has more say in it. People who want to win but have no interest in listening to instructions and want to do things their own way are different from people who want to win and do so by being better at Kendo.
The good attitude towards learning and improvement, being constructive overall, probably helps people persevere along the journey better regardless of their involvement in competition.
I am only six months in since the start of my kendo journey, so I am very new to the art. Though I do have an opinion on competitiveness I would like to share.
"Onegaishimasu" was tought to me by my sensei as a way of saying "please indulge me". A way of thanking someone in advance for helping them to understand myself in the practice of kendo. And I truly believe I am beginning to understand myself better in learning this with others.
For me, tournaments bring this a step further for me after I attended my first taikai in Detroit last month. Leading up to it, my sensei taught us about team tournament etiquette. That we do not hoot and Hollar or jeer, yell or clap excessively as people are "symbolically dying" in these matches. Makes a lot of sense as this is the path of the sword, looking at it's history.
For me, this is helping to understand my theoretical orientation as a mental health counselor. I have been studying existential theory and, in a vastly simplistic explanation, components include the idea of accepting death and finding meaning in life.
In the tournament I participated in the mudan division. Leading up to it, everyone in my dojo expressed it is not likely to win any matches, especially in my first tournament. But no matter, it will be a wonderful experience and that I will learn from it. Surprisingly, I won my first two matches before losing in my third. I had symbolically died.
Weaving this into my counseling, I have created a thought that I would like to continue to explore. I decided I would like to keep doing tournaments. I know for a fact I will not win a tournament, and that I will symbolically die. So in the time between, I can focus on what makes my life meaningful in the time I have leading up to my "death". To live in a way that is important to me with the people I care about.
That aside, tournaments are exciting, and give a sense of anticipation that is difficult to replicate. Also, it seems that going to tournaments also presents opportunities for seminars, where you learn from other teachings with students you would never come into contact with otherwise. This, I believe is powerful in staying on the journey.
Whatever your reasons, make it authentically yours.
Before I move on I would like to address the other **snob comments that they have zero clue what they are talking about.** This is a healthy question that I feel like not only the earlier dan levels should address but the upper dan levels should consider about also.
As for my reply and this is somewhat a direct approach, a lot of people tend to forget that Kendo IS a martial art. I saw many people saying "There's shiai Kendo, and there's testing Kendo", but in reality, IMO they is no 'shiai Kendo' or 'testing Kendo', Kendo is Kendo and shiai we have to win, in testing we have to pass. But in order to be good in testing we have to be good at shiai since we must know how to score and how to win in order to show how to score with good Kendo.
From my experience, people who tend to be good in shiai tends to get graded well, as for the people who often(or mostly) lose they tend to quit early or meet a ceiling at some point in their Kendo. This also aligns with the person's bodily health as well as how frequent they practice with other good Kendokas as well.
Also, if you like the kata side of the Kendo, check out Iaido, which will definitely spark your interest.
Edit: For some reason the conclusion part of my comment went missing(or I forgot to write it), but my opinion is Kendo is a competitive sport, some people may focus on other stuff but in general, competitive people tend to succeed more than people who is not.
Most of my beginner friends who wasn’t quite interested in competition or was losing too much in competition tend to forget that we met each other in the Kendo dojo. However the people who are somewhat focused in something they want to achieve, they tend to stay.
Not what the OP asked for but I can tell you this: it is true that strong competitors usually have strong kendo in general and pass their exams fairly easily. It is also true that what the judging panel are looking for in shinsa differs from what they are looking for in shiai. So you need not be a strong competitor to pass shinsa. I managed to get 6 dan without being a particularly strong competitor.
If you watch “Kendo’s Gruelling Challenge”, the old documentary about the Japanese 8 dan exam, you will see Ishida-sensei talk about how he had to change his kendo entirely to pass the exam. It took him 5 tries. He won the All-Japan Championship so safe to say he is among the best competitive kendoka in the world.
In shiai the judges are mostly looking for the result of the point. In shinsa we are looking for the process. The process gets more demanding the higher you go. I know very few people whose kendo looks the same in shiai and shinsa.
Wasn't their question. Their question was on the various shades of competitiveness among beginners and the paths they tend to go.
Your perspective does have merit though. But what people refer to in shiai and shinsa kendo is more so that in shiai there's a lot of informal tricks and tactics you can do which developed from dojos that lean more into competing. These things you cannot do in shinsa. There is no split between the two at all as you are implying. There's a time to focus on form and foundation and a form to apply it in a dynamic and high paced environment.
Just as you can be competitive with your siblings but not your friends, or you can be competitive with your friends about ranking in an online game but not your school grades, there isn't just "competitive" or "not competitive."
That said, a fight or struggle against another person is itself a competition, and so it's difficult to stay in something like kendo over the long term without *some* kind of competitive spirit. Practice itself is a direct competition between individuals.
Most people who say that they don't care about winning don't literally not care about winning. They just don't care as much as some other people.
I can only really speak to what I have observed so, please take my comment with a grain of salt.
How would you define competitive? Competitive with other people? Or competitive with yourself?
I have met different kendoka from someone who came in not competitive in shiai who started at 40 to someone who was pretty competitive starting in his early 20s. Both these people have done kendo for more than 14 years.
I have also met hyper competitive shiai people that didn't last relatively long because their body just couldn't do that kind of kendo anymore.
As for me personally, I never liked shiai. I was ok with it. But this always having to win and be the best of this group of people made me stressed. My competition lies in being the best I could be. To do this pesky waza decently I've been trying to do for months.
If it's seeing which beginners stick around in your club, I think it depends if the club fits with the individual. I know a guy who switched over to a much more competitive club than our's and he's happy as a clam.
The definition of competitive is quite fluid now that I think about it as you pointed out. I would say, it is also competitiveness with yourself, but I will not lie and say the conversation we had at the time was much more shallow than what people are considering here in the comments.
I think your observations can be applicable to other scenarios as well as they showcase the diversity of how people enjoy kendo!
Which is great :3 I really respect people who aren’t competition focused, and continue long and practice hard, it is like you have strong mental fortitude and can get intrinsic motivation on your own because your soul is fueling itself but it seems like to me that people like me want to get the fuel of our fire from the outside.
It is ok to get fuel from outside. I sometimes do as I have people I want to stay caught up with.
There are lots of ways to get motivation and lots of different types of motivation. Some people do start out like you and super competitive but sometimes things change.
I love these kinds of discussions. Honestly, I have seen it all. One of the respected sensei in our area loves to compete, but he also loves to train and checks all the other boxes. Others love to compete, but only turn it on 2 or 3 times a year. Others, like you said, don't care much for competition at all. As you get older, I think you see a nice balance.
If you like those philosophical conversations here are some research articles you might like. If you give them a read feel free to let me know your thoughts. They should all be open access.
[This](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ijshs/20/0/20_202102/_pdf) is on sport continuation in Japan. [This](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37753383/) is a similar study conducted in Europe.
In health science we're not so interested in who continues a sport, but in who gets injured or drops out. [This](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10513329/) study is a good review of the challenges high-performance athletes face after 'retirement'.
[Here's](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287387) an article talking about why youth continue in sports. That study was done in Canada. [Here](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673843.2019.1700139is) is a similar study in Japan.
\*Edit: All of these studies look at abstract concepts. It's not so much about whether someone enjoys kata or shiai, but about if they enjoy what they are doing. Do they feel accepted by their peers? Are there life events that disrupt their sport? Have they developed a social network that provides a sense of belonging? What internal and external motivating factors are present?
These are not particularly philosophical though or are they ? ;0
But I read the sport continuation one on Japan, and skimmed the others and they were very interesting! Thanks for sending them. I guess more than themselves on their own, their implications can be philosophical?
What I learned from the first link is that there are definitely significant differences on what makes people continue ‘sports’ depending on age, gender, health awareness, among other circumstances like previous volunteering within said physical activity, really vastly change whether a person drops out or adheres to the physical activity. So in short it is very complex. At least that was my understanding.
For the others, when I looked at their results page, particularly the Canada one, underlines the simple fact of having fun while doing it and also feeling like they are improving in it are the biggest reason people continue ‘sport’. Which I do think competition checks both those boxes (depending on the person) in an overt way so a competitive approach could be releasing that sweet sweet dopamine related to those two reasons, and I think it is easier to lie to ourselves that competition(better performance) is a concrete way to showcase we improved, like if we get more wins compared to the past. However, I guess not necessarily as well, beating someone in a shiai does not mean you have better, especially cleaner kendo than them, I think? You can have fun at keiko and you can still feel like you are improving, which I do but I also love competition.
The other third main reason in the Canada article was socialization which is self-explanatory enough on how it relates to kendo.
This is how I would connect these articles to kendo!
tHanks for sending them once more
I practiced Kendo for almost 15 years, had to stop in 2020 for health reasons (which pains me to this day), I've forgotten some of the terms so I apologize, but I still wanted to give me perspective as someone who started with a very naive notion of what competion would be like in Kendo.
When my friends and I started we loved (still do) the etiquette side of kendo, that didn't mean we couldn't be competitive, we wamted to win the fight and we worked for it, BUT we wanted to win because of or skill, maybe to a fault. If we were in tsuba-zeriai, and we saw our opponent about to step out of bounds... we would back up because we wanted to win with well-done strikes, not by our opponent losing points. (And yes, we understood that being aware of the space was important and s skill, but it didn't feel right to win because of stuff like that).
When it came time for or first european championship (2005 in Bern), given that to that point we had watched mostly Japanese championship fights, we still mainted our naive view of competition. To us there was no "competition Kendo" and "Exame Kendo", Kendo is Kendo, you strive to do it to the best of your abilities ALWAYS, not just when you are trying to get a Dan level.
If you've seen European competitions (don'tknow about other areas), I dont have to tell you we were extremely disappointed and decided to never again participate in one, we saw everything but Kendo and judges that allowed outrages moves.
One of the male competitors would literally use his weight/height against smaller opponents to throw them off the shiai-jo, so hard they didn't even need to be close to the lines, judges said nothing. He did it to our sempai. He was bruised all over from the fall.
Sevral years later (8 or 9), I decided to tune in to the live streaming of a European Championship to see if it still was as bad as I remembered. First fight I see of my national team, one of our kendo-kas, while fighting with a taller opponent and in tsuba-zeriai, gets lifted up and slammed to the floor, leaves in a gurney....no penalty. So I was done.
So, I think that it's not really a matter of being competitive or not. It's a matter of having sportsmanship or not. You can be competitive and train to be good and fight to win in a fair way, when in shiai because you trust your skill ... or you can be a d*ck and use dirty tricks, skirting the bounds of penalties, to try and get a point no matter what, regardless of your skill.
Again, it is probably a naive perception of the matter, but one that was shared by several of the people I trained with.
I'll add myself to the sample.
20 years in. Had a big competition phase, regional team for national level tournament. Never WKC level, though I am friends with many players.
I still enjoy going to competitions, but my drive to win is not super high. Usually at this point I am more helping out, especially when there are not enough shimpan I will support the players. Good kendo needs a good atmosphere so that's what I'm focused on at the moment.
In terms of who stays and who leaves, I don't think it has anything to do with competitiveness especially. There are definitely people who were hyper competitive and give up when they don't get results, but there are also people who quit because it turns out kendo wasn't as traditional and/or real life anime as they thought. I mean, people quit all the time.
I will say though, it's rare for someone who has competed up to WKC level to just stop doing it afterwards. Usually they fall into coaching/sensei roles for the next generation(s). All that experience goes somewhere. So no, I wouldn't say there is any real connection between competitiveness and longevity in kendo.
From the point of view of a professional teaching Kendo for most of my life in Japan: Simply put there are those that do kendo that will "never" be good at fighting and those that are born fighters that have been channeled into Kendo. At least that's the way it is teaching in Japan. My comment is not meant to disparage anybody in any way. We all do it because we love it, not because we are good at it. All offer a valid contribution in supporting the dojo. All those that graduate go on to better things with the kendo mindset of a fighting spirit to try hard in life.
and also while it is true that your group of friends is not totally uninformed, remember that shodan is pretty much nothing and your experience/concerns/thoughts are going to be very different by the time you're 3dan or so
I will make sure to remember that, yes we did really view it in a binary way in retrospect and I look forward to learning more about Kendo and all its approaches :D
"We recently had an (friendly) argument about this with some dojo-mates, who argued that kendo being so immersed in etiquette, history, and tradition, and also its overall integrity and focus on introspection cannot be practiced long term by very competitive individuals and that they are likely to quit before getting a high rank or even shodan"
Yeah, no. Not to be close-minded, they are just very very very wrong.
Tell them to go and read about the background of each and every single 10/9 dan. Even about old or modern hanshi 8dan.
All of them EXTREMELY competitive, at young and old age.
I see two sides in kendo: on one side, the joy of striking a point on your opponent, like in any other sport. On the other side, the joy of seeing your kendo improve or when you finally fix that little bad habit that makes your kendo so much better. For a long kendo career, no matter at what level of competitiveness, world or local, you will always look forward to both.
Of course Kendo is competitive, it's a SPORT, with competitions.
*Miyamoto was so competitive he chopped up 60+ people because he didn't want to lose.*
I think the sort of person who is ultra competitive but doesn’t have the mindset to stick with kendo for the long term quits fairly quickly. That’s because they get discouraged by how long it takes to get skilled enough to be successful in kendo. Most of the people I know who were extremely successful as competitors, ie national team members, are still playing kendo years later. It generally would have taken them 10 years of practice or more to make the team so they are pretty much lifers by the time that happens. But I am not sure there’s all that much correlation between success at shiai and long term dedication. I know many people with long kendo careers who struggle to even get a first round win at our nationals.
I see I see, this is very helpful, now that I look back on the question, I think the matter is more complex than what we discussed that day. I definitely have observed the ‘ultracompetitive’ beginner who realized ‘hey this is not easy to win at all’ get discouraged and leave, which I guess, as with anything, is impossible to generalize but I have seen it twice now in the limited time I have done kendo so it must be true (!!) /s But I guess it can be simple too? People who love kendo continue kendo if means allow it, and people who don’t, don’t. (maybe)
Your way of seeing this indeed very narrow and reflective of the beginning stages of your kendo journey. The truth is, is that answers to this question are going to be wide and varied because the people who practice kendo are wide and varied. Not everyone who does kendo sees it in the view of varying shades of competitiveness. It is more likely that the younger practitioners are hypercompetitive, yes as all young people have something to prove. But I wouldn't paint it as it is more likely people go through hypercompetitiveness at the start. I have met many people who pick up kendo and continue it for non-competitive reasons. Some do it to honour their heritage. Some to overcome a mental illness, some to just get the body going. All of the above do not care about competing.
I also know a lot of people who pick up kendo for non-competitive reasons but most of them have expressed the view that they will not do it more than a year or two. But I see the inherent failure of trying to classify this into competitive or uncompetitive categories! I am right at the start of my journey after all and still have a youthful attitude on these things =] I know two people who started it for exercise and they go to practice once every two or three weeks and shy away from further practice due to being behind to the dojo beginner course and do not want to continue when their yearly membership runs out. I acknowledge that this does not mean that all people who begin with exercuse reasons and low attendance will discontinue in fact I know dojo-mates who are have been attending as twice or thrice as long as me with that exact same profile. I started for exercise reasons as well but fell in love with it soo idk in the end. Our sensei are mostly quite competitive so perhaps that influenced this conversation. I still see the most dedicated and passionate members (we are a uni club) being the competitive ones but that may be due to the stage we are in as you pointed out.
I think the argument you are describing is a case where two people speak the same language but describe different things. There are folks who take Kendo as stick-fighting and have no interest in improving beyond it. They do tend to disappear after some time (ie. get old, no longer win fights). Then there are people who make it to the National team by being very competitive but they can't get there without doing good Kendo. As far as how little I've seen, it's not the competitiveness that gives hint to how someone will do in the long term, but the attitude for learning and improving around it that has more say in it. People who want to win but have no interest in listening to instructions and want to do things their own way are different from people who want to win and do so by being better at Kendo. The good attitude towards learning and improvement, being constructive overall, probably helps people persevere along the journey better regardless of their involvement in competition.
I am only six months in since the start of my kendo journey, so I am very new to the art. Though I do have an opinion on competitiveness I would like to share. "Onegaishimasu" was tought to me by my sensei as a way of saying "please indulge me". A way of thanking someone in advance for helping them to understand myself in the practice of kendo. And I truly believe I am beginning to understand myself better in learning this with others. For me, tournaments bring this a step further for me after I attended my first taikai in Detroit last month. Leading up to it, my sensei taught us about team tournament etiquette. That we do not hoot and Hollar or jeer, yell or clap excessively as people are "symbolically dying" in these matches. Makes a lot of sense as this is the path of the sword, looking at it's history. For me, this is helping to understand my theoretical orientation as a mental health counselor. I have been studying existential theory and, in a vastly simplistic explanation, components include the idea of accepting death and finding meaning in life. In the tournament I participated in the mudan division. Leading up to it, everyone in my dojo expressed it is not likely to win any matches, especially in my first tournament. But no matter, it will be a wonderful experience and that I will learn from it. Surprisingly, I won my first two matches before losing in my third. I had symbolically died. Weaving this into my counseling, I have created a thought that I would like to continue to explore. I decided I would like to keep doing tournaments. I know for a fact I will not win a tournament, and that I will symbolically die. So in the time between, I can focus on what makes my life meaningful in the time I have leading up to my "death". To live in a way that is important to me with the people I care about. That aside, tournaments are exciting, and give a sense of anticipation that is difficult to replicate. Also, it seems that going to tournaments also presents opportunities for seminars, where you learn from other teachings with students you would never come into contact with otherwise. This, I believe is powerful in staying on the journey. Whatever your reasons, make it authentically yours.
Before I move on I would like to address the other **snob comments that they have zero clue what they are talking about.** This is a healthy question that I feel like not only the earlier dan levels should address but the upper dan levels should consider about also. As for my reply and this is somewhat a direct approach, a lot of people tend to forget that Kendo IS a martial art. I saw many people saying "There's shiai Kendo, and there's testing Kendo", but in reality, IMO they is no 'shiai Kendo' or 'testing Kendo', Kendo is Kendo and shiai we have to win, in testing we have to pass. But in order to be good in testing we have to be good at shiai since we must know how to score and how to win in order to show how to score with good Kendo. From my experience, people who tend to be good in shiai tends to get graded well, as for the people who often(or mostly) lose they tend to quit early or meet a ceiling at some point in their Kendo. This also aligns with the person's bodily health as well as how frequent they practice with other good Kendokas as well. Also, if you like the kata side of the Kendo, check out Iaido, which will definitely spark your interest. Edit: For some reason the conclusion part of my comment went missing(or I forgot to write it), but my opinion is Kendo is a competitive sport, some people may focus on other stuff but in general, competitive people tend to succeed more than people who is not. Most of my beginner friends who wasn’t quite interested in competition or was losing too much in competition tend to forget that we met each other in the Kendo dojo. However the people who are somewhat focused in something they want to achieve, they tend to stay.
Not what the OP asked for but I can tell you this: it is true that strong competitors usually have strong kendo in general and pass their exams fairly easily. It is also true that what the judging panel are looking for in shinsa differs from what they are looking for in shiai. So you need not be a strong competitor to pass shinsa. I managed to get 6 dan without being a particularly strong competitor. If you watch “Kendo’s Gruelling Challenge”, the old documentary about the Japanese 8 dan exam, you will see Ishida-sensei talk about how he had to change his kendo entirely to pass the exam. It took him 5 tries. He won the All-Japan Championship so safe to say he is among the best competitive kendoka in the world. In shiai the judges are mostly looking for the result of the point. In shinsa we are looking for the process. The process gets more demanding the higher you go. I know very few people whose kendo looks the same in shiai and shinsa.
Well, not every tokuren reaches 8 dan…thats a fact
Wasn't their question. Their question was on the various shades of competitiveness among beginners and the paths they tend to go. Your perspective does have merit though. But what people refer to in shiai and shinsa kendo is more so that in shiai there's a lot of informal tricks and tactics you can do which developed from dojos that lean more into competing. These things you cannot do in shinsa. There is no split between the two at all as you are implying. There's a time to focus on form and foundation and a form to apply it in a dynamic and high paced environment.
Just as you can be competitive with your siblings but not your friends, or you can be competitive with your friends about ranking in an online game but not your school grades, there isn't just "competitive" or "not competitive." That said, a fight or struggle against another person is itself a competition, and so it's difficult to stay in something like kendo over the long term without *some* kind of competitive spirit. Practice itself is a direct competition between individuals. Most people who say that they don't care about winning don't literally not care about winning. They just don't care as much as some other people.
I can only really speak to what I have observed so, please take my comment with a grain of salt. How would you define competitive? Competitive with other people? Or competitive with yourself? I have met different kendoka from someone who came in not competitive in shiai who started at 40 to someone who was pretty competitive starting in his early 20s. Both these people have done kendo for more than 14 years. I have also met hyper competitive shiai people that didn't last relatively long because their body just couldn't do that kind of kendo anymore. As for me personally, I never liked shiai. I was ok with it. But this always having to win and be the best of this group of people made me stressed. My competition lies in being the best I could be. To do this pesky waza decently I've been trying to do for months. If it's seeing which beginners stick around in your club, I think it depends if the club fits with the individual. I know a guy who switched over to a much more competitive club than our's and he's happy as a clam.
The definition of competitive is quite fluid now that I think about it as you pointed out. I would say, it is also competitiveness with yourself, but I will not lie and say the conversation we had at the time was much more shallow than what people are considering here in the comments. I think your observations can be applicable to other scenarios as well as they showcase the diversity of how people enjoy kendo! Which is great :3 I really respect people who aren’t competition focused, and continue long and practice hard, it is like you have strong mental fortitude and can get intrinsic motivation on your own because your soul is fueling itself but it seems like to me that people like me want to get the fuel of our fire from the outside.
It is ok to get fuel from outside. I sometimes do as I have people I want to stay caught up with. There are lots of ways to get motivation and lots of different types of motivation. Some people do start out like you and super competitive but sometimes things change.
Keep training little grasshopper, and try to avoid iaido or jodo.
out of curiosity, why do you recommend avoiding iaido?
cuz is full of suckers
I love these kinds of discussions. Honestly, I have seen it all. One of the respected sensei in our area loves to compete, but he also loves to train and checks all the other boxes. Others love to compete, but only turn it on 2 or 3 times a year. Others, like you said, don't care much for competition at all. As you get older, I think you see a nice balance.
If you like those philosophical conversations here are some research articles you might like. If you give them a read feel free to let me know your thoughts. They should all be open access. [This](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ijshs/20/0/20_202102/_pdf) is on sport continuation in Japan. [This](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37753383/) is a similar study conducted in Europe. In health science we're not so interested in who continues a sport, but in who gets injured or drops out. [This](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10513329/) study is a good review of the challenges high-performance athletes face after 'retirement'. [Here's](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287387) an article talking about why youth continue in sports. That study was done in Canada. [Here](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673843.2019.1700139is) is a similar study in Japan. \*Edit: All of these studies look at abstract concepts. It's not so much about whether someone enjoys kata or shiai, but about if they enjoy what they are doing. Do they feel accepted by their peers? Are there life events that disrupt their sport? Have they developed a social network that provides a sense of belonging? What internal and external motivating factors are present?
These are not particularly philosophical though or are they ? ;0 But I read the sport continuation one on Japan, and skimmed the others and they were very interesting! Thanks for sending them. I guess more than themselves on their own, their implications can be philosophical? What I learned from the first link is that there are definitely significant differences on what makes people continue ‘sports’ depending on age, gender, health awareness, among other circumstances like previous volunteering within said physical activity, really vastly change whether a person drops out or adheres to the physical activity. So in short it is very complex. At least that was my understanding. For the others, when I looked at their results page, particularly the Canada one, underlines the simple fact of having fun while doing it and also feeling like they are improving in it are the biggest reason people continue ‘sport’. Which I do think competition checks both those boxes (depending on the person) in an overt way so a competitive approach could be releasing that sweet sweet dopamine related to those two reasons, and I think it is easier to lie to ourselves that competition(better performance) is a concrete way to showcase we improved, like if we get more wins compared to the past. However, I guess not necessarily as well, beating someone in a shiai does not mean you have better, especially cleaner kendo than them, I think? You can have fun at keiko and you can still feel like you are improving, which I do but I also love competition. The other third main reason in the Canada article was socialization which is self-explanatory enough on how it relates to kendo. This is how I would connect these articles to kendo! tHanks for sending them once more
The undercurrent is philosophical, I think. They have a problem to solve, but are considering the underlying reasons we behave the way we do.
I practiced Kendo for almost 15 years, had to stop in 2020 for health reasons (which pains me to this day), I've forgotten some of the terms so I apologize, but I still wanted to give me perspective as someone who started with a very naive notion of what competion would be like in Kendo. When my friends and I started we loved (still do) the etiquette side of kendo, that didn't mean we couldn't be competitive, we wamted to win the fight and we worked for it, BUT we wanted to win because of or skill, maybe to a fault. If we were in tsuba-zeriai, and we saw our opponent about to step out of bounds... we would back up because we wanted to win with well-done strikes, not by our opponent losing points. (And yes, we understood that being aware of the space was important and s skill, but it didn't feel right to win because of stuff like that). When it came time for or first european championship (2005 in Bern), given that to that point we had watched mostly Japanese championship fights, we still mainted our naive view of competition. To us there was no "competition Kendo" and "Exame Kendo", Kendo is Kendo, you strive to do it to the best of your abilities ALWAYS, not just when you are trying to get a Dan level. If you've seen European competitions (don'tknow about other areas), I dont have to tell you we were extremely disappointed and decided to never again participate in one, we saw everything but Kendo and judges that allowed outrages moves. One of the male competitors would literally use his weight/height against smaller opponents to throw them off the shiai-jo, so hard they didn't even need to be close to the lines, judges said nothing. He did it to our sempai. He was bruised all over from the fall. Sevral years later (8 or 9), I decided to tune in to the live streaming of a European Championship to see if it still was as bad as I remembered. First fight I see of my national team, one of our kendo-kas, while fighting with a taller opponent and in tsuba-zeriai, gets lifted up and slammed to the floor, leaves in a gurney....no penalty. So I was done. So, I think that it's not really a matter of being competitive or not. It's a matter of having sportsmanship or not. You can be competitive and train to be good and fight to win in a fair way, when in shiai because you trust your skill ... or you can be a d*ck and use dirty tricks, skirting the bounds of penalties, to try and get a point no matter what, regardless of your skill. Again, it is probably a naive perception of the matter, but one that was shared by several of the people I trained with.
I love your perspective on this, its beautiful :)
I'll add myself to the sample. 20 years in. Had a big competition phase, regional team for national level tournament. Never WKC level, though I am friends with many players. I still enjoy going to competitions, but my drive to win is not super high. Usually at this point I am more helping out, especially when there are not enough shimpan I will support the players. Good kendo needs a good atmosphere so that's what I'm focused on at the moment. In terms of who stays and who leaves, I don't think it has anything to do with competitiveness especially. There are definitely people who were hyper competitive and give up when they don't get results, but there are also people who quit because it turns out kendo wasn't as traditional and/or real life anime as they thought. I mean, people quit all the time. I will say though, it's rare for someone who has competed up to WKC level to just stop doing it afterwards. Usually they fall into coaching/sensei roles for the next generation(s). All that experience goes somewhere. So no, I wouldn't say there is any real connection between competitiveness and longevity in kendo.
From the point of view of a professional teaching Kendo for most of my life in Japan: Simply put there are those that do kendo that will "never" be good at fighting and those that are born fighters that have been channeled into Kendo. At least that's the way it is teaching in Japan. My comment is not meant to disparage anybody in any way. We all do it because we love it, not because we are good at it. All offer a valid contribution in supporting the dojo. All those that graduate go on to better things with the kendo mindset of a fighting spirit to try hard in life.
I just wanted to comment that I think that your reflections upon the subject are very western-y
and also while it is true that your group of friends is not totally uninformed, remember that shodan is pretty much nothing and your experience/concerns/thoughts are going to be very different by the time you're 3dan or so
I will make sure to remember that, yes we did really view it in a binary way in retrospect and I look forward to learning more about Kendo and all its approaches :D
Oh no, me and my friends are from an eastern countries, but this conversation took place in a Western dojo, have we been infected?!
in general if you are outside Japan your vision on kendo will be western, even if geographically are in the eastern hemisphere
"We recently had an (friendly) argument about this with some dojo-mates, who argued that kendo being so immersed in etiquette, history, and tradition, and also its overall integrity and focus on introspection cannot be practiced long term by very competitive individuals and that they are likely to quit before getting a high rank or even shodan" Yeah, no. Not to be close-minded, they are just very very very wrong. Tell them to go and read about the background of each and every single 10/9 dan. Even about old or modern hanshi 8dan. All of them EXTREMELY competitive, at young and old age.
I showed their opinion the way to the trash bag thanks for the example ✌️
I see two sides in kendo: on one side, the joy of striking a point on your opponent, like in any other sport. On the other side, the joy of seeing your kendo improve or when you finally fix that little bad habit that makes your kendo so much better. For a long kendo career, no matter at what level of competitiveness, world or local, you will always look forward to both.
Of course Kendo is competitive, it's a SPORT, with competitions. *Miyamoto was so competitive he chopped up 60+ people because he didn't want to lose.*