[SappyAppy]

This scores 11 out of 10 on the weirdness scale.......

When I was aged about 12 (and you can check my age now, see top right) I went to a friend's house after school. His elder brother was just gathering his bogu and shinai, ready to go off to practice. We had a brief discussion about it, I was impressed at the time, but that was that. Kendo never again entered my head - until....

Roll on 32 years........

I woke up at 3am a couple of months ago and thought 'I have to start kendo !'. I have no idea why this happened.

Made some calls, elicited some help from the kind folks on KW forum and Bob's your uncle, I am the oldest new kendoka in town.

[Brainpole]

I first came to Japan back in 1984. I knew very little about the country, colture, people, and history but had a desire to learn all I could. I also grew up listening to stories of my immigrant relatives who moved to the US and learned to speak the language.... the idea was we live here, we have to learn the way they speak and do things. I took this thinking with me to Japan.
When I was finally leaving Japan a little over 4 years later, I started to understand that kendo and budo were much more than just martial arts, and having grown up playing American football, and being a big guy, I was surprised at the power tiny old men and women displayed in doing kendo particularly. I knew my size and physical strenght counted for virtually nothing in competition with them, some other source of strength they had was overwhelming.
Unfortunately, I was soon to leave, but I promised myself that if I ever returned, I would find a place to try learning kendo.
As luck would have it, I came back to Japan in February of 1993 and the military base I was at had just started a kendo club 10 minths earlier. I plunged in and am now the club captain, and I cannot imagine life without kendo and the "family" I know through it.

[CializCialiscsqw]

Started kendo coz friend said kendo is like samurai thingy's...Didin't even know wut kendo was..saw a pic in the Uni sports brochure and thought wut the heck..aikido seemed boring enough =P...so..tried it out..didin't really impress me at first..but continued with it and started to like it a LOT! =P..plus..the uniforms are super cool~

[Teligacio]

I was lucky as in my country kendo is not such a rare sport as in Western ones.

I started Kendo in the university club.
Not as a club member but they had a kendo class for non kendo club members for a month during summer vacation, kind of introductory keno class.

And there I became to get a crush on the instructor (senior student) because of his coolness when practicing and teaching kendo.
( I agree that people who practice Kendo long time have such coolness but I doubt if I have grown such things in myself...)

Kendo was really beautiful and attractive sport that I had ever experienced.
I really loved the feeling in my bare feet in the dojo wooden floor, hearing my yelling reverberating, even loved the smell of dojo, you knoe the sweated bogu smell.

[thushioli]

"That's a great post Koori! I'm going to show it to my wife."-Ben
Good, I think that everyone should have a supportive spouse. It makes it easier.

"BTW everytime I see your name on the boards I think "at last! an Aboriginal kendoka!" But I don't suppose you're a blackfella, are you?"-Ben

ummm... No I am a Native American woman. Koori in Japanese means " Ice" I am told often that I am rather icey / stoic and have a cold demeanor. I don't show emotions too much

~Koori

Oh! Now I understand. Koori(e) in Australia means an indigenous person from the Southern part of the continent.

b

[nanyaHgoc]

Kendo was really hard to find when I started (same age as you Karana). It's a little bit more common now, but not much. There was only one club in Melbourne (now there's six, not including iaido/jodo clubs). I think Star Wars and especially Empire Strikes Back, with Yoda and the training sequences lit the flame, but it wasn't until Frank Miller's "Ronin" came out that I really had to do something about my interest. I became mildly obsessed (Does anyone remember having to wait for each issue to come out? It got longer and longer, and he kept revising his drawing style. I prefer the look of the early issues. The weird "bubbles" of the later ones just looked goofy! Awesome story though. Amazing it has escaped Hollywoodification for so long...).

Karana, is Singapore Kendo Club your nearest one? They seem to have the most exlcusive beginner's course in the world.

b

[PhillipHer]

In my childhood and teenage years I tried a lot of different sports (swimming, orienteering, sailing, ...) and ended up with playing tennis for a few years. It was quite fun, but the ones I played were very boring at the end, and our club hated our group since noone had any ambitions to become a tennis-pro. So I quit when I was about 15-16 or so. Then I did nothing for three years but I knew I really should be doing some sort of exercise to keep my body in good health. When I was 18 I stumbled upon kendo by sheer mistake and loved it. Trained for one term and then had to do military service. Started the university this year and continued my kendo practise in my new home town, and now it got even more fun.
So from doing nothing for three years and bever really liked doing sports on my spare time, I know train kendo three times a week, and iaido two times a week.
Budo rocks!

[Audi_z]

I intended to start kendo september 2004 but couldn't because of a shoulder injury so i joined up with the next course in februari.
Haven't missed a class sofar and I must say it's addictive.

[Apparpsmose]

Well...its was because of a skirt...really.

Wanted to learn a bit more about Japan(where my then gf was from). So I joined up...lost interest...and then later picked it up again, got into bogu, and have never turned back.

Plus, nothing relieves stress like jigeiko...look, anywhere else you get sent to jail for belting someone.

[Hmwmzian]

This scores 11 out of 10 on the weirdness scale.......

When I was aged about 12 (and you can check my age now, see top right) I went to a friend's house after school. His elder brother was just gathering his bogu and shinai, ready to go off to practice. We had a brief discussion about it, I was impressed at the time, but that was that. Kendo never again entered my head - until....

Roll on 32 years........

I woke up at 3am a couple of months ago and thought 'I have to start kendo !'. I have no idea why this happened.

Made some calls, elicited some help from the kind folks on KW forum and Bob's your uncle, I am the oldest new kendoka in town.

^^
definitly one of the more interesting stories in this thread...

[zzarratusstra]

i started kumdo and came back home from korea and they only have kendo here so...kumdo is so much better HAHHAHAHHA xP

[timgreyuvcz]

Why waste time getting stamina ? it will come as you train ! so its something I wouldn't worry ! I'll probably start asap if u really want to learn kendo.

I'd love to start asap but unfortunately, due to space constraints, the next beginner class where I live is April 2005!!!! T___T I really wish there was some way I could start now but there isn't.... (The last beginner class open was last month, October, but I was having my exams then so I wasn't allowed to join.... x__x)

So I thought before then I might as well work on my stamina...

[Rqqneujr]

I've wanted to do kendo for as long as I can remember but the distance was way too much for me to ask someone not involved or interested (I drive an hour and a half there and back), so I finally get my car (with nice mileage or kilometerage in some peoples cases) and one of the first places I drive is to the kendo club where its become something I will be involved in for as long as I possibly can.

[MoreEndotte]

I started kendo two years ago, I had been looking for a dojo to practice it for much longer, but I hadn"t found one till then...
I believe my initial interest came from scenes in anime (not kenshin-style, real kendo) and documentaries on martial art...

[dumadegg]

I started kendo this year, in February. There was a newspaper article about a kendo exhibition in my town (there was no club in my town at the time, the exhibition was done by a club from another town) but I didn't see the actual exhibition because I never saw any ads about it, but I did read the article afterwards and it sounded interesting, and it said they will start a club in my town. So they did, I contacted them and tried it out, and joined as I enjoyed it. So I'm one of the first members in this very young club. That's the story.

[Oppofeescom]

I started kendo last year. I started by lookin on da net. It looked cool so i foung the local dojos and started. After 2 practices my braddah and 1 of my friends started to go. den dey atracted more people, until we got like 6 people. my braddahs moving to delaware no more kendo fo him. an my friend moved to cali.
well dats how i started.

[maonnjtip]

Lol yeah I still have yet to experience what an actual Kendo training feels like... but i think watching the Kendo trainings of the japanese students everyday for almost 3 weeks has gotten me somewhat mentally prepared....

And I really really like kendo so i hope that the physical factor won't be a reason for me to drop out (or any other factor for that matter )

I'm kinda planning on building up my stamina before the next beginner class so that I don't collapse or something ^_^;; That'd be kinda embarrassing..... thanks for the warning though

- Oh plus there's this certain coolness thing the kendokas had..... does that come naturally when you learn kendo? Lol -

[Triiooman]

Tumbling around can be fun...provided you don't hit your head too much

[ssupermegatone]

Pure chance. A friend of mine's mom mentioned it and I looked into it. Now i'm doing kendo and iaido/iaijutsu.

[exschke]

For me it was peer pressure! My mates went along and said "Gibbo, we're going to kendo, aren't you coming too?" so I went.