Taiwan 3: Tao-Yuan Kendokan 桃園劍道館

From Taiwan 2008

From Taiwan 2008

From Taiwan 2008

So I came back last night alive from the Tao-Yuan Kendokan in Tao-Yuan Tao-Yuan County, which is about 1.5 hours far from where I live by driving. Fortunately, Mr. Chou a Sempai affiliated to Tokyo Kobukan drove me there.

The keiko consisted of only jigeiko and mawari-geiko at the end, for about two hours. There were about 20 kendoka in total, all yudansha coming from not only Tao-Yuan, but Taipei and nearby places.

Most of the national team members come from this place because they had much resources to develop their kendo from very early since the Japanese occupational period, combing with the effort of Hsu Sensei, 7th Dan Kyoshi, currently the national team coach, to train his talented students.

Atmosphere is very relaxed there, much like a social club. People arrived gradually at different time and started keiko on their own in pairs. Some sat on the side and chatted for a long time before putting on men and practise. It didn't appear to me that they take it seriously, but somehow they do strong kendo. So much so that they won 22 times in a row in the national championship. I fought with Mr. Chou and Huang Sensei first, then the rest of the national squad members. Because of the mawari-geiko at the end of the training. I had the opportunity to fight with most of the squad members.

The style here in this dojo is much sportive I felt. Young, fast, a lot of techniques and the distance between the opponents is short, usally at chikma. It's not my favourite type of kendo, but I can still learn from them, and people can do very well with it in competitions. Their techniques are however very good, and because they started at a young age, they have solid foundations.

I didn't do so badly, and was able to put pressure and use waza to score points. However, I know pretty well that I was pushing myself to the limit to match some of them.

I was again told that I should improve my basics, like pushing with the left leg, using more left hand, and move forwards instead of right when striking kote. Then I will be very powerful.