[HedoShoodovex]

I started kendo at a Japanese high school when I was an exchange student. The training was hell on earth. Hot, hard, long, pretty violent, and every single day without a break. I've kept it up, but not many of my high school kendo peers have. A minority continued through at university level, and had to quit when they started working. Still, every now and again when they do hit the dojo floor, they still retain most of the skills that were drummed into them in the school dojo all those years ago.

High school is supposed to be hard for the mere fact that kids can take the physical punishment. It is a way of instilling dicipline, and also making kendo movement and techniques second nature (or even first nature!) This base of hard training continues on to the next level (usually at university) where students have still got the high school fire in their guts, but now have the capacity and time to refine their movement, and understand the principles of the techniques they are executing. These two components are what develops into strong seme, so even though high school kid's kendo may be untidy, and very non-orthodox to watch, it is actually serving a purpose. Of course that purpose can only come to fruition if the practitioner continues through to the next levels.

As you get older, you learn to refine your movement out of necessity. You just can't keep up and do the things you could do in your teens (otherwise you risk serious injury). However, if you've got speed, agility, and incredible stamina, why not use it? The point of Japanese high school kendo is to form the base for things to come. In Japan, these stages in kendo development are clearly divided and visible according to age. School clubs offer a very clear example of kendo progress and attitudes. The kendo evolves from elementary, jr high, high school, university, then companies and so on. At each instituition the focus of training is different, and usually suits the mental and physical maturity of the age group. High school kids are strong, fast, and have bags of stamina, but not the maturity of a university students. So training is based around utilising the attributes they have got as a lead on to the attributes they will develop later as they evolve physically and mentally.

In the west we don't have the luxury of jumping onto the kendo conveyor belt, and receiving the training regimented to suit our age and level. Everybody trains at the same machi dojo, together, regardless of age or level. Thus, when a young hotshot high school kendoist from Japan shows up, people cringe at how awful their kendo looks. It's quite simple. It's just a teenage phase they are going through, and this will lead onto bigger and better things. Basically the process which is used in Japan to learn kendo differs greatly to the method of progression outside Japan. For instance, even though many Japanese kendoka start at a very young age, the majority of non-Japanese practitioners start in their twenties, or later. There's no way we should all be doing the same thing...