[payporanymn]

About the only down side I see to including Kendo in the Olympics-- you would probably have the same "top players" for most of their life. It would probably be dominated by the same 7 & 8dan--for every nation, every Olympics.
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I agree with most of your post (Olympics could bring Kendo to a new level worldwide) but things do change in Kendo, if you look at the all Japan Championships there are a number of constant top players but they rarely dominate for more than a few short years, as it happens in any other sport.

I have been thinking about this for a while, after rereading "Kendo the Definitive Guide" by Ozawa sensei, I noticed he refers to Kendo as a "sport" in the introduction. Western sports are also a way of life for many people and a way of conducting themselves in life. We even have sports psycologists now that help athletes work on the mental aspects of training and competing.

Most Olympic athletes are hardly loaded (money-wise), it becomes a life time dedication for them (as they exit the competitive circuit they become coaches, etc...) so all in all, are we all that different from this people?, or all the guys that play footie regularly and train in amateur clubs, what about people at boxing clubs?. they also go through physical suffering and hardening in their training and is a big part of their life and friendships.

We keep thinking about different mentalities but they are also similar in many ways I think budo is a term that could describe just as well to the sporting spirit of the olympics (not to win but to try harder, to defeat yourself before defeating your opponents, etc...). isolated unsporting behaviour is not representative of this spirit as a whole

Just a thought really...