DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Evolution of Kendo (split from what do you have on zekken?)

**Goksiodiffeli** · 09-09-2006, 08:00 AM

Personally, I would be horrified if kendo started behaving the way other martial arts have. If there were two or more competing kendo orgs that disagreed on some of the rules (like knee strikes or whatever). If rank were such an ambiguous thing that you could effectively buy whatever rank you wanted (karate, judo). Uniforms I'm not so concerned about, but I really think they are an outward manifestation of the important issue of changes within kendo.

How can something evolve which reached its pinnacle in the 1800s? Why does it need to "evolve"? It's sword combat - sword combat has hit the ceiling! It's not like judo where, for example, judo meets western wrestling, sees that western wrestling has a cool technique (like single or double leg takedowns) and adopts them (true story). A sword is a sword is a sword (in this case, a specific type of sword, a katana is a katana...); it doesn't need to be messed with, IMO.

Granted, kendo is very restrictive, there's a very clear-cut and rigid hierarchy, and bending rules is very rare. But I think that's too its credit, in the long run.

09-09-2006, 08:00 AM	#34
Goksiodiffeli Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 440 Senior Member	Personally, I would be horrified if kendo started behaving the way other martial arts have. If there were two or more competing kendo orgs that disagreed on some of the rules (like knee strikes or whatever). If rank were such an ambiguous thing that you could effectively buy whatever rank you wanted (karate, judo). Uniforms I'm not so concerned about, but I really think they are an outward manifestation of the important issue of changes within kendo. How can something evolve which reached its pinnacle in the 1800s? Why does it need to "evolve"? It's sword combat - sword combat has hit the ceiling! It's not like judo where, for example, judo meets western wrestling, sees that western wrestling has a cool technique (like single or double leg takedowns) and adopts them (true story). A sword is a sword is a sword (in this case, a specific type of sword, a katana is a katana...); it doesn't need to be messed with, IMO. Granted, kendo is very restrictive, there's a very clear-cut and rigid hierarchy, and bending rules is very rare. But I think that's too its credit, in the long run.
	Quote