Thats one of the things I love about kendo becuase its something that anyone can do, tiny 80+ year old men, overweight and large people (I'm about 6' 300lbs... not the biggest but not small either), and I've even heard of a girl that is blind in one eye and the other one is getting there itself but that dont stop her from practicing (sp?). your ability at kendo just depends on how much you want to do it.

My sensei's pretty big but he still can whoop anybody in our dojo. I guess it depends on whether or not they can get through a couple hours of keiko without too much trouble. The only thing that slows down my sensei is a problematic achillies tendon.

We had a 65 years old and quite a bit overweight kendoka in my dojo 2 months back. He had a big problem doing seiza and sonkyo. So he quit now.

I am 6'5 and used to be close to 300 but i got it down to 225 by changing eating habbits and kendo.

The main part of the weight was off when I started kendo otherwise I wouldn't have known how I would have made it thru like I have sofar.

There are quite a few "big-boneded" kendo ppl and sensei in Socal.
There was one at a North/South taikai soooo big that he had a "custom do" made for him. He literally took up 1/16th of a regulation sized court.

Tim

I started Kendo a year ago at about 240 and now weigh about 220. I have set the goal of being under 210 for the next grading in December. Biggest problems are the ankles, knees, and general conditioning. Since I am about to turn 40 I don’t recover as quickly as I used to. At the grading in NYC one of the sensei (whose name I did not catch) was huge. He looked like a sumo wrestler; I would love to see him practice.

The biggest kendo players I've seen (as in 350+) can do kendo for a time, but have problems with their leg joints. Kendo is already pretty high impact on the feet, ankles, knees, etc, and the weight exacerbates it. I imagine there is a way to work around it, but I don't know how it is done. I think the joint issues are a bigger problem than stamina in the long run.

Blindness does not keep a person from doing Kendo. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...es/biggrin.gif

Kaoru

I just participated at a tournament at Mexico City.

the guy who won the Juniors tournament (under 18) was overweighted.

His name is Abraham and has 17 years old.

he did the second force tournament ( up to 1st kiu) as well, and won it too.

he has a very quick and accurate short technique.

he finished me off with two consecutive MEN.

you can see the photos at

http://spaces.msn.com/members/pabloakumal/

One attending my dojo weights about 130-160 kg, not sure how many pounds that are.

Anyway, he have no problems at all, I've seen him go through 1h 20m of keiko and I'd say one must be in pretty good shape to do 1h 20m of keiko with that amount of deadweight.

Fat Kendoka
 

How large the heviest(by this I mean dead fat weight) kendoka you ever saw? Could they still do kendo? What kinds of disabilities keep you from kendo? From what I have seen, not many short of blindness and having no arms.

Hmmm... Thats a lot of interesting and varied feed back. What it seems is that if you really want to do kendo you just do it, unless you are 350+, this seems to be where the trouble sets in.

At one time, we had this one student at our dojo, and she weighed atleast 390-400 lbs. In her case, it was just to much for her to do kendo(she couldn't even sit in seiza......barely could get in the door. No joke).



Holmgren-san

[QUOTE=Ayame]One attending my dojo weights about 130-160 kg, not sure how many pounds that are.

Anyway, he have no problems at all, I've seen him go through 1h 20m of keiko and I'd say one must be in pretty good shape to do 1h 20m of keiko with that amount of deadweight.[/QUOTE

we don´t really have many people with anything slowing them down. except one of our senseis thats like 60, but still extremely skilled. not so good at endurance, but the techniques just keep inproving, amazing.

Ayame, du e en av de få svenskar jag sett påp forumet. kul att fler går in på kendo world, finns ju många svenska kendokas.

So he quit then? I was wondering what happened to him. He was pretty nice, I thought. I wonder what made him quit. He tried really hard, and he did improve over time. He was there before you joined... About a month and a half before you did, that is. Sonkyo and seiza can be modified for those that have trouble with it and just are not able due to bad knees and things that can't be fixed. I know this is done in other dojos. So... That's a bummer. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/frown.gif

Kaoru

I haven't seen him in 1.5 month. So I can only assumed that he left

I saw a sensei at a tourny that had to have been atleast 500 pounds. I think he should lose some weight, and not because of kendo, but for his own health.

I'm 6'3" about 310#. I was running a mile every other day, and doing two hours of kendo practice. since ive been hurt and layed up a while, my endurance level is WAY down. im not even shure i could make it through the first hour without having to take a break(mostly because of the foot.....my lung capacity is back up to standard.

And interesting problem that comes from being large, you have to lengthen the himos and the hakama out with extensions. otherwise...they dont tie right

OFF:
´

Jepp, Vid vilken dojo tränar du vid? jag tränar i Wäsby kendoklubb i Stockholm.

Theres a dude in NCKF where he is really huge, his do only covers have his stomach.

I, myself, kinda overweight, but it doesnt slow me down.