Each week sports reporter ROBERT CARRY tries out martial arts from around the world. This week it’s the Japanese art of Kendo
Kendo was one of the martial arts styles I was itching to try, but sadly things went somewhat awry.
There is just the one kendo club in Dublin, located in the north city suburb of Artane, and I booked in for a beginner’s class which kicks off at midday on Sundays. Artane is one of the many places in the city a south Co Dublin chap like myself would seldom have cause to visit, and despite living in Dublin for every one of my 25 years I had never actually set foot in the place or its environs.
The Dublin Kendo Club is located in a hall at the back of a school somewhere in one of its sprawling, interconnecting housing estates, and I suspected that finding it would be far, far beyond my paltry navigational skills. With that in mind, I recruited the help of a friend of mine who knows the area well, on account of once having an Artane native as a girlfriend, and he was happy to drop me out.
However, when Sunday morning rolled around and I texted him to see what time we should leave at, the silence from my mobile was deafening. I rang, but was then met with a message minder.
I then decided to call his brother, who rattled with laughter when I informed him that I was expecting to get a lift off his wayward sibling within the hour – apparently he had overdone it to an exceptional degree the night before and had only crawled into bed two hours prior to my call. I thought about insisting that he be roused immediately, but I suspected that dishevelled head would be unable to stand up to even a cursory glance from a passing garda, to say nothing of how he would fair against a breathalyser. So, running out of options and time, I grabbed a street map and hopped into my car.
By half past 12 I was yet to find Artane, and my requests for information from people standing at bus stops and traffic lights were met with either slack-jawed vacant stares, haughty dismissals or an inability to speak English. I tried driving faster but going quickly in the wrong direction is rather counter-productive, so I gave stopping and consulting the map a go.
Unfortunately, not knowing where I was made the map useless. By a quarter past one I was a beaten man, and I decided to call it a day.
I won’t go into my tragic attempt to find my way home, nor will I discuss the lengthy list of martial arts moves I will be executing on the guy who was too hung over at lunchtime on a Sunday to give me the lift I was promised, because to do either would take up far too much time.
Luckily, I happen to know a bit about kendo so I can tell you all about it – although this week’s tale will be devoid of the type of physical injury and/or ritual humiliation this column has been known for.
Kendo, meaning ‘way of the sword’, is basically a Japanese version of fencing which developed from techniques used by feudal-era Japanese military clans in the time of the first samurai government, around the 12th century. Along with horsemanship and archery, sword fighting was one of the cornerstones of what was an extremely militaristic society.
As the style developed into its current form, it took with it militaristic attributes beyond those related directly to the skills practitioners were taught. Among them are Zen Buddhist overtones favoured by the samurai, on account of the fact that it could be used as a means of playing down the significance of death, and dovetailing this concept with the idea of warriors laying down their lives for the greater good.
Kendo’s estimated 8 million practitioners (called kendoka) don protective clothing (called bogu) and pick up a wooden sword (called a shinai) to fight each other in competitions. Kendo makes for quite a spectacle; the wide-trousered, grill-faced garb they wear (pictured) is unlike any other costume you’re likely to see, and bouts are extremely noisy affairs, with competitors roaring at each other and stamping their feet in an effort to accentuate their attacks to the head and upper body of their opponents.
Kendo has been established in Ireland for the past eight years, and there are now two clubs – one in Dublin and a second in Cork. But despite the modest size of the Kendo community here, Irish Kendo practitioners have been in regular competition on the international stage – both on a European and world level, most recently at the World Championships in Taiwan.
The Dublin Kendo Club is the country’s largest kendo club in Ireland, and if you feel like a challenge, try finding their classes, which take place every Wednesday and Sunday at St David’s CBS Sport Hall in Artane, Dublin 5.
