What Is Kendo

Kendo is a martial art 1000 years in the making. It's roots lie in the old sword schools of kenjutsu such as Itto Ryu (School of Itto) founded by Ito Ittosai and Yagyu Shikage Ryu (New Shadow School of the Yagyu Clan).

The Old Schools (Koryu) taught Kenjutsu which translates roughly as "Art of the Sword". The character which reads jutsu, also means technique. The schools taught their students how to defeat other swordsmen of other schools in battle. Each school was highly individual in style, often based on the techniques that worked for the founder through hard earned experience, and added to by successive headmasters in the same way. The techniques themselves were often taught through Kata, a series of prearranged movements done using Bokuto (Wooden Sword). This training was supplemented by actual experience in battle. The students who learnt their lessons well survived to transmit their knowledge on to the next generation.

In time, the scope for actual combat experience dwindled and students had to rely more and more on Kata alone. Some teachers believed that this was not sufficient, and started to develop supplementary training methods. One was the use of fukurojinai, a length of bamboo, split down most of it's length to give flexibility and covered in leather. This allowed students to strike each other an engage in limited free sparing.

During the Shotoku Era (1711-1715) Naganuma Shirozaemon-Kunisato of the Jiki Shinkage Ryu developed the first known Bogu (practice armour). Made with cloth, leather and deer wool packing, it could used with a shinai (a sword made of four bamboo slats) allowing free sparring with relative safety.

Then, during the Horeki Era (1751-1764), Nakanishi Chuzo-kotake of Itto Ryu started training his students using an iron Men (headgear) and Bogu made of bamboo, a method  which quickly became commonplace among many schools.

As the occurrence of actual sword combat decreased, training with bogu and shinai became more common place. After swords were banned after the Meiji restoration of 1868 along with the class of Samurai, some sword masters earned a living showcasing their abilities in competitions and teaching this skills to the general population. In 1895 the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai was established. The various styles brought to the burgeoning art of Gekiken (battling swords) started to slowly merge and become more uniform.

After WW2 Gekiken was banned by the occupying US forces as being to overtly militaristic.

In 1952 the Zen Nippon Kendo Renmei (ZNKR) was formed as the governing body for what was now known as Kendo (also know as the All Japan Kendo Federation) and as interest grew worldwide the International Kendo Federation (FIK) was established in 1970 and the first World Kendo Championships (WKC) was held in the Nippon Budokan in the same year.

The word Kendo takes the character Ken for sword like in Kenjutsu, and the character Michi (pronounced doh) which mean way or path. The change from Jutsu to Michi illustrates the differing goals of the older sword forms and the newer Kendo. Kendo is a path to self betterment and eventual self knowledge, through casting your personality into a crucible and tempering it. Kendo's aim is to improve the human state of being.

The Zen Nippon Kendo Renmei defines kendo thus: