KENDOOOOOO!!!

[queensarcaste]

Good news! I finally got in touch with Bob Souder (my new sensei) at Gulf Coast Kendo. I'm going to start classes! I had wanted to start last year, but because of the LPs I couldn't do any heavy physical activity for several months... It's unfortunate that since that time, the class has moved from Saturday mornings to Monday nights. I'd love

Comments

[bluesummers]

Thing is, if you're at a kendo school - and not a specifically Shinkendo dojo - then what you need and what I have are probably very different things. For example, I don't have the armor or the bamboo shinai. I bought all of my gear through the dojo/ISF; check with your school about it, because chances are you can order gear through them, and then you'll know it'll meet their exact requirements. (Some dojo are very particular about that sort of thing.)

Congratulations! It really is a joy to study.

[queensarcaste]

I won't get into armor until my sensei personally approves the transition, and not a second sooner. And the thing about my dojo is... it's sort of a temporary lodgings at the moment. "Gulf Coast Kendo" is acutally a NPO, and the sensei teaches at a whole gaggle of places, and students can take places at any of them (except for one) and the schedules change all the time. Because there are so few actual Kendo students in the US (he gave me the exact figure, it's hilariously low), he's sort of working on building up a student base before establishing a central dojo, or rather, dojos, as he would like to cater to the entire Gulf Coast (which, is as he sees it, is basically the Tampa Bay Area). So the Sarasota class is in a community center, in Tampa he teaches at the USF SAC (student activities center, or as it is known by sane people, the gym), and he also teaches in Braden at a really unique highschool, which is apparently a military highschool that uses budo to satisfy their PE requirement. He kinda got suckered into the HS thing