Ewa and I were introduced to Jukendo after seeing Baptiste Tavernier on NHK. We were in Japan for a brief 3 month stay and thought it would be fun to try. Terada Sensei kindly agreed to train us despite Ewa turning up on crutches the first day. We spent that first afternoon in his driveway doing basics in the rain. I assume now his neighbours are used to such goings on. We try and give them omiyage often enough that they look on us fondly rather than as pests.
After a month of training in Kasugai we left Japan to continue our vague wandering around the world looking at shiny things. 2 weeks later Ewa was missing training so much she suggested we return and train a little more seriously.
It is now a couple of years later and I know there are days Ewa regrets that suggestion. Sore bodies and stifling humidity makes drinking beer on a beach in Fiji sound like a much smarter plan.
Most days however we think it is one of the coolest decisions we made. We both do Naginata and find that Jukendo is the perfect complementary thing to do. The complexity hidden in Jukendo’s simplicity reveals your weaknesses and laziness in ways which I can work around (nice way to say “lie to myself”) in a more complex art.
It seems that Jukendo is maybe going to have a bit of rise in popularity, or at least exposure, and so we thought we would start putting together a site for resources in various languages. Mostly this is stuff we might have found useful when we started. An awful lot of people have joined in on the idea and are doing an awful lot of work so we’ll see where it goes.
Please enjoy.
Simon
Enjoyed word by word of personal experience, I am into martial arts since 4 decades, enjoying Iaido, Kendo, Battodo & related arts of Samurai
Nice page! Let’s get in touch an maybe have some nice Keiko together some day.