International Kendo Enbu Taikai IKET, 1-3 July 2005

StAKC club members Lewis Watts, Chris Burton and Michael Gratzke participated in the second IKET event which was – like last year’s - held in Edinburgh. Dmitri M joined as a spectator after Michael had met him on the street.

The term Enbu means that this event was an exhibition of the art rather than a competition. The core elements were the seminar on Friday afternoon and the martial art demonstrations and cultural programme all day on Saturday. They were flanked by training sessions on Wednesday and Thursday night and Sunday morning. There will be extensive coverage of all these sessions on the EKC and BKA websites which leaves to me the task to highlight the main features involving StAKC club members.

First and foremost, Lewis and Chris deserve praise for their dedication and stamina. Lewis in particular, who travelled back and forth between home and central Edinburgh every day braving the pre-G8 disruptions. Michael stayed over in Edinburgh and gained more insight in the night life of the guest sensei, BKA officials and kendoka from mostly Britain, Ireland and Norway.

It was Lewis who on Wednesday kicked off the event for our dojo by receiving the first cuts to his first set of armour by some of the highest ranking sensei from Japan and Britain. His enthusiasm carried all of us through the sessions and I find that his ear-to-ear grin after having been taught keiko-ho by Sumi sensei made it all worth the while.

Both Lewis and Chris displayed very impressive kendo in the exhibition fights in the kyusha section on Saturday morning. Strong spirit, good ki-ai and brave forward movement characterised both their bouts. Considering that this was their first tournament-style engagement and that there were no further groupings within the kyusha section (up to ikkyu participated!) there’s but one thing I have to say: Well done!

My own exhibition fight with Dave Spacey (shodan EKC) was very enjoyable indeed. Just in time I had found some of my voice which I had previously lost in a pub and we both did our best to show good kendo. Dave and I are in the same position as we are aiming to grade nidan in the near future and, therefore, we both worked on good posture and combined techniques (kote-men, tsuki-men, kote-do etc.).

While Chris and Lewis joined the ranks of the spectators to watch and learn I had the chance to contribute a little to the huge effort by EKC members to make IKET happen by taking care of the smooth running of the fights up to sixth dan. Only once I had to send a search party to summon a kendoka. He made it on time to the shiai-jo and even remembered from which side to enter.

There are too many exhilarating details to list and everyone has their own pet moments of IKET but the follwing will be on top of many lists: Sumi sensei raising his shinai to jodan during his fight with Chiba sensei (who is world-famous as a jodan fighter) made the crowd gasp in anticipation. Personally, I also greatly enjoyed watching Honda sensei fighting Budden sensei. They both were our guests in Dundee fairly recently on two separate occasions and in direct confrontation their individual styles contrasted nicely.

Next year there will be hopefully even more spectators at IKET and St Andrews Kendo Club should be able to send at least twice the number of people in armour.

Michael Gatzke, dojo leader StAKC