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**abOfU9nJ** · 08-15-2006, 07:00 AM

Didn't want to step into this muck again but... it's not that competitions are bad. It's that Olympic competition, with it's high profile and higher dollars, with countries reputations on the line based on medal count, has the possibility, some would say certainty, of altering kendo. First by changing competition to make it more TV friendly and easily understood, and then through the influence of governments as they wave tax dollars in front of the renmei and make them do it their way. Do you know there are some judo dojo that don't practice ukemi? The idea is ukemi is admitting you will be thrown and damn it, we're going to be doing the throwing. How long before we have one kendoka in blue and the other in white, sponsor logos on the doh and electronic scoring? I give it two olympics, max, if we go this route. How long before we have strip mall dojo whose sole focus is Olympic team competing with old-style dojos who care about the budo (and with the Olympic ones winning because of the kids with the medal dreams and the psycho sports parents pushing them)? Look at TKD if you don't think so.

What Gedzwill-sensei said!

I was one of the folks who was on the Medical Committee of the LAOOC. You should have seen the maneuvering around the infamous testosterone/epitestosterone rule for using androgens. No doping scandals in kendo since no one enforces the rules, because it isn't important in the long run who wins or loses.

Kendo has strictures against "doping" but I have yet to see Doping Control with split samples, chaperones, evidence chains, etc. at a kendo tournament. [If anyone has experience at the National Championships and/or Worlds I would be interested if doping control at the "highest levels" of takai is performed]. The cost of doping is prohibitive ~$100-150 per testee and all medal winners and a few other random participants are tested. Factor that into the entry fees and see how many tournaments would even break even.

I notice that the older you are (and it's not kendo rank but life experience) the less you want the sport to go "pro"!

08-15-2006, 07:00 AM	#4
abOfU9nJ Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 469 Senior Member	Didn't want to step into this muck again but... it's not that competitions are bad. It's that Olympic competition, with it's high profile and higher dollars, with countries reputations on the line based on medal count, has the possibility, some would say certainty, of altering kendo. First by changing competition to make it more TV friendly and easily understood, and then through the influence of governments as they wave tax dollars in front of the renmei and make them do it their way. Do you know there are some judo dojo that don't practice ukemi? The idea is ukemi is admitting you will be thrown and damn it, we're going to be doing the throwing. How long before we have one kendoka in blue and the other in white, sponsor logos on the doh and electronic scoring? I give it two olympics, max, if we go this route. How long before we have strip mall dojo whose sole focus is Olympic team competing with old-style dojos who care about the budo (and with the Olympic ones winning because of the kids with the medal dreams and the psycho sports parents pushing them)? Look at TKD if you don't think so. What Gedzwill-sensei said! I was one of the folks who was on the Medical Committee of the LAOOC. You should have seen the maneuvering around the infamous testosterone/epitestosterone rule for using androgens. No doping scandals in kendo since no one enforces the rules, because it isn't important in the long run who wins or loses. Kendo has strictures against "doping" but I have yet to see Doping Control with split samples, chaperones, evidence chains, etc. at a kendo tournament. [If anyone has experience at the National Championships and/or Worlds I would be interested if doping control at the "highest levels" of takai is performed]. The cost of doping is prohibitive ~$100-150 per testee and all medal winners and a few other random participants are tested. Factor that into the entry fees and see how many tournaments would even break even. I notice that the older you are (and it's not kendo rank but life experience) the less you want the sport to go "pro"!
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