Knoxville Kendo Club
A Kendo Club in east Tennessee was originally established and led by
Maeda-sensei (7-dan) at the Tennessee Meiji Gakuin (TMG) High School in
Sweetwater. Since the TMG was closed and Maeda-sensei moved to Florida in 2007,
the Kendo Club was relocated to Knoxville and renamed Knoxville Kendo Club
(KKC). Hyun-sensei (7-dan) is currently leading the club. KKC and UT Martial Art Club hosted the SEUSKF Championship and Promotional Test in 2010 and 2016. The club won first place at the 2015 SEUSKF Championship.
Videos of our club:
(1) Regional Tournament
(2) News
If you are interested in Kendo, please contact us.
What is Kendo
Wikipedia | Dictionary | Google | YouTube | How to put armors on
Overview: Kendo is a martial art of sword fencing. "Ken" means "sword"
and "Do" means "a way of life-long training". It is not just a way of physical
training but mental training is a major goal in practicing
Kendo.
History: Sword fencing, along with horse riding and
archery, played a major role in Japanese battles until the middle of the 16th
century. Therefore, training of swordsmanship was very important for Japanese
warriors; however, since it is too dangerous to use a real sword for the
training, wooden swords were used instead. Because of the introduction of rifles
into Japanese battles at the middle of the 16th century and arrival of
relatively peaceful era at the beginning of the 17th century, practicing sword
fencing became less important in terms of preparing for a battle. However,
people continued practicing Japanese fencing for physical and mental training.
That's the origin of Kendo. But, at that time, it was not organized and
different groups had different ways of training. We had to wait until 1920 for
the official establishment of Kendo as a Japanese martial art. At present,
around 8 million people world-wide practice kendo with approximately 7 million
of them in Japan.
Training suits and armor: Jacket (Dogi), Skirt
(Hakama), Head gear (Men), Gloves, gauntlets (Kote), Abdomen protector (Do) and
Waist protector (Tare).
Bamboo sword: The Shinai is made of four
bamboo slats held together by two pieces of leather, and a string
(tsuru).
Competition: A match is played between two competitors
and the one who gets two points first wins the match. To get a point you need to
strike targets on the opponent. There are basically four specified targets.
The first one is Men (head), and second one is the arm where it is covered with
Kote. The third target is Do and the last one is the throat, called Tsuki. There
are other important criteria for getting points. First, the top third of the
shinai should make contact with one of the targets. Second, you need to vocalize
where you are going to strike. And the last criterion is that, after you strike,
you need to show a posture indicating you are ready to continue the fight.
