[orbidewa]

It sounds nice but you have to look at college kendo how it is now. This is my opinion from starting kendo in college at a club as a freshmen graduating in 2004 and still actively practicing kendo. On the east coast 90% (estimate) of the members start in college. So you can see from the Harvard Tournament's results maybe 2004 and up the West Coast College Club teams have dominated 1st and 2nd Place. Most of their members have started kendo at an earlier age and already belong to other dojos. There are other college tournaments besides Cornell and Harvard which are the biggest. Scheduling, traveling and hosting a tournament is not easy for most college clubs. Plus the purpose of kendo is not to win tournaments and some clubs automatically stress more importance to getting people ready to compete rather than basics. So often a person's kendo career ends after the graduate from college or sooner.

What I would like to see for college kendo in the U.S. and the AUSKF did at least look at the idea. Was making some type of Student Kendo Federation not for the purpose of competition. But making it easier for college students to join the AUSKF so they can test. Maybe even have a yearly seminar lead by a guest sensei or cultural exchanges with Japanese college clubs. In the long run personally I would like to see people continuing kendo long after they graduate. Instead of maybe doing kendo 1 to 4 years so they can go to college tournaments and win metals. But the college students have to actually want this and work at it. Maybe in the future then the Student Kendo Federation can have some tournaments but nothing like the NCAA level with recruitment violations and other problems.