A night with the Kendo club

Neil invited me to his Kendo practice tonight. They had a special guest. Ken-sensei is a 6th Dan Kendoist based in Detroit. It was quite a wonderful experience, even for me.

He allowed them to go through their normal routine. He stopped them every-so-often to correct even little things like the angle of the sword or their foot position. But I thought the best thing about the way he taught was that he explained the reason behind everything. As he said, without the Iai (reason), the action is meaningless. It was absolutely fascinating.

After the practice, we went out to dinner with him at Snug Harbor. It was just Frank, old Neil, Jennifer, Neil and I. The discussion at dinner was even more interesting. He was such an engaging personality. He was funny but very insightful. He explained the principle of balance between body and mind in Kendo. He described it as a rectangle with a diagonal strip going through it. One side of the rectangle is the body, the other, the mind. When you start Kendo out as a youth, you have a lot of strength but little understanding and knowledge. As you grow older, your body weakens but your mind becomes stronger and that allows you to compete against stronger opponents.

Towards the end of the night, they started talking about Kendo politics. It seems things are quite bloody in the Southwestern Federation where New Orleans belongs. Then they talked about how some people are doing Kendo for the money. These people are "sensei" but I liked what Ken-sensei said about them. He said, these people are just people that do Kendo. To be a true sensei, you must be respected. Besides, one should do Kendo for enjoyment, not to gain power over others.

I think we all enjoyed the evening we spent with him. He's the second person I've met in the past year (the first was Dr. Tary-Lehmann) that sparked something deep inside of me that keeps me in awe of the human soul. Hopefully he won't be the last.