• Mikey Ryu
• December 29, 2023
• 0

Mikey: Second/Third Month & Grading of Kenjutsu/Bojutsu

Mikey’s Second to Third Month

Kenjutsu has been an experience I will not forget, learning how the samurai use the katana as a tool and a weapon to be feared. The samurai truly were the greatest and most disciplined soldiers I can remember, Learning how they use the katana and bo staff is a great experience and I’m looking forward to continuing it. Now let’s catch you up on everything that’s been happening so far.

Second Month:

This month we worked on learning as many different techniques as we could, in a short period we learned so many different techniques that it’s hard to remember any of them. There was a wide range of techniques. There are so many that it’s hard to remember most of them. At the end of this month, we were told by our sensei that he thought that we were ready for grading, I and my dad told him we thought we weren’t ready but he insisted that we were ready for this grading so we took his words and agreed to do the grading.

Third Month:

This month was spent getting ready for the grading, so we mainly went over some of the techniques that we had done in the first month all while practising the forms that we had been practising at the start of every Kenjutsu lesson. After we went through every technique that we had previously gone over we spent the rest of our time being told how the grading would work. Our sensei explained that the grading was more like an “assessment” rather than a grading, explaining how he will never fail someone on a grading but they just won’t get the belt. He explained how he was just seeing how much we retained and understood what he taught us rather than testing us on what we knew.

Now knowing what we were going to be doing we still didn’t know exactly what we had to do but we had an idea of what we would be doing.

The Grading:

On the day of grading, we were told to do the form while our sensei watched us do our form and corrected us on any mistakes we made. We then got told by our sensei to demonstrate as many techniques as we could remember, we then practised them as we went through each technique our sensei corrected us when nessicary.

In the next lesson, we did the same thing but with Bojutsu, we showed our sensei how to spin the staff many ways and the basic strikes with the staff, with him correcting us so that we could improve and get the technique right.

We both ended up passing our grading and getting to the next belt level, with the first grading out of the way (while it wasn’t what I was expecting) I was on my way to understanding the methods and techniques of the samurai.

Final Thoughts:

This is where the blog gets a bit personal.

During our time at this dojo, I have noticed many different things that would not be allowed to happen in a traditional Japanese dojo, while they are just little things it’s the little things that give the biggest details. Me and my dad for a little while now have been thinking of maybe stopping After all we originally wanted to learn Iaido and we weren’t learning the official 12 Iaido forms. We found a solution to this issue thanks to the work of a YouTuber Shogo-san (let’s ask Shojo | your Japanese friend in Kyoto) has joined sides with a Japanese dojo to offer online Iaido, Kobudo and jo-staff lessons, allowing anyone from around the world to. Me and my dad have both said that it would be an amazing idea to do it and we are looking into starting it.

Here is The issue:

My entire life I’ve spent my time starting something and then giving up from football to the piano, I’ve spent the past 8 years of my life wondering through existence giving up on everything that I could have achieved, to look back now and say to myself “I could be” hurts. So the question is whether or not we continue with the Kenjutsu/Bojutsu lessons as well or do we “give up” and just learn Iaido?

I would like to continue with Kenjutsu with a new perspective as I know that if I quit now I will regret it in the years to come. So Stay tuned for what I will be doing in the future.

As a wise man once said: