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Ritual Activity in Kendo PDF
Ritual Activity in Kendo PDF
Tyler Tran
Anthropology 130
6 March 2014
The art of kendo is deeply rooted in the traditions of the Japanese samurai, incorporating
both their legendary fighting spirit as well as their more introspective qualities. The name itself
reflects this, which is comprised of two words: ken and do. Ken is simply “sword” while do is the
more abstract “way” or “way of.” Quite literally then, kendo means “way of the sword.” Perhaps
the most recognizable do word for a Western audience is bushido—“the way of the warrior,”
which describes how an honorable samurai (and indeed human being) should live. Of great
importance to bushido is the aspect of humbleness, focus, and self-improvement. These qualities
are perhaps more obviously displayed in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, called sado, or
“way of tea.” These do arts stand in stark contrast to the jutusu arts such as ninjutsu, jiujutsu,
kenjutsu (“method/technique of the sword”) which are about learning how to fight in real
situations; in the case of kenjutsu, more emphasis is placed on learning the most efficient way to
kill. In kendo, on the other hand, the emphasis is on the mental growth of the practitioner, or
kendoka.
That said, one form is not better than the other. In fact, kendo in its present form is fairly
modern and as such is considered to be the modern sport descendant of the many schools of
kenjutsu that existed in feudal Japan. Its “official” history remains hazy to the majority of
kendoka, but kendo has developed away from its roots in such a way to be less about knowing
many things and not being killed and more about introspection, mental strength, and perfecting
only a few things. Indeed, it is this focus on the internal growth of the kendoka that leads to ritual
activities in the practice of kendo. In this paper, I discuss some of the standard rituals, keeping in
mind that individuals as well as individual dojos may also have their own unique ones.
A traditional kendo practice—keiko—is itself one large ritual containing many smaller,
shorter ones. Because so much of kendo is practiced with a focus and intensity that goes beyond
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a day-to-day mindset, it fits nicely with Paden’s ideas of ritual. The main ritualistic activities
during keiko are putting on the uniform, bowing into practice, putting on armor (bogu), taking
off bogu, bowing out of practice, and taking off the uniform—all of which are considered in this
paper except the two dealing with bogu. That said, all ritualistic activity in kendo is done with an
overarching, continued focus mindset. It may also be observed that that the sequence of the six
rituals listed above occur in a circular fashion with the “innermost” rituals completing before the
outer ones. If one takes this idea of a circle further, keiko becomes symbolic of the circular
journey of practicing martial arts: As a beginner, you learn the basics of your art and continue to
learn more and more advanced techniques as you grow, but after a certain point of mastery, you
return to perfect the basics. A similar narrative is of a martial artist who becomes a black belt.
The belt is a deep black at first, but as the years go by, it loses its dye and eventually turns white,
signifying the importance of both humility and returning to the basics. These concepts are also
reflected in all ritual activities of kendo, from the way we dress to the way we interact with other
kendoka during kendo, all of which will be examined in the context of these core values.
It is often said that kendo begins and ends with rei, or manners. Etiquette is a huge part of
kendo, and it begins with the way you dress. The uniform is comprised of two pieces—the top,
or kendogi, and the skirt-like trousers called the hakama. The kendogi must be tied with
horizontal bows; to do so otherwise would be considered bad etiquette and a reason to be marked
down in grading examinations. Whether you put the left side or right side of the hakama on first
is a matter of what sensei or dojo you are studying under. Either way, tradition dictates that you
ponder the meaning of the seven pleats that make the hakama distinctive: Jin (benevolence), gi
(honor/justice), rei (etiquette), chi (wisdom/intelligence), shin (sincerity), chu (loyalty), and koh
(piety). After both legs are in the hakama, it is pulled up to around belly-button height (kendogi
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tucked in), and the front sashes—himo—are wrapped around the body and tied in a horizontal
bow behind your back. This step is critical; not only is a vertical bow considered bad etiquette, it
is also a weaker knot and could become untied during keiko. The ritual of putting on the uniform
concludes with the back himo being tied in the front with the trailing ends tucked behind other
The next two rituals considered deal with how keiko is started and ended; without a
doubt, a lay person would consider these to be rituals, as they have close connections to religious
meditation. First, the sensei or most senior kendoka calls for everyone to line up facing the front
of the dojo, or shomen. Since it is considered rude to walk slowly and hold up everybody else,
people run or jog into rows before kneeling down into the traditional Japanese kneeling position
known as seiza. The instructor then gives the command for everyone to sit up straight, and a
brief period of meditation follows. For most kendoka, this is the time to focus on their breathing
as well as reflect on their kendo. At this point, the instructor calls for everyone to bow to shomen
twice by forming a triangle in front of them with their hands and bending from the hips. On the
whether practice is beginning or ending. These phrases are also used before doing drills with
other kendoka; the former means “please” as in “please train with me”, and the latter means
“thank you” as in “thank you for practicing with me.” In traditional dojos, the shomen has a
Shinto shrine to a god, so this act of bowing can be viewed in an almost religious sense of asking
and thanking a god for its blessing. Many modern dojos, however, do not have Shinto shrines
and instead opt for something more secular like a Japanese proverb. In this case, the ritual of
bowing to shomen can be seen as a sign of respect for the space used to conduct keiko.
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Especially in the U.S. where most dojos are run out of community center gymnasiums, this ritual
After bowing out of practice, the uniform must be taken off and stored with just as much
care as when you put it on. Thus, even though practice has ended, the focused, ritual mindset still
remains. Taking off the uniform is straightforward: it is the reverse of when you put it on. The
ritual of folding it correctly, however, is decidedly harder, and the complexity allows for even
more reflection and introspection. The kendogi is the simple part, for it is folded in a similar way
to a dress shirt at a department store. On the other hand, the hakama—with all its creases—is not
folded like anything you may have seen in stores. First, part of the hakama is held between the
chin and neck while a free hand pushes the pants divider off to one side to fold naturally. The
hakama is then laid out gently on the ground to prevent the pleats from completely messing up.
The innermost pleats are refolded first, using your hands to iron out the wrinkles. Then, with just
as much care, the hakama is flipped to the other side. Again, the pleats are reworked from the
innermost out, creasing well along the way. The hakama is then folded into thirds and the sashes
folded in a particular way to be both decorative and functional. Although attitudes towards
folding varies from kendoka to kendoka, taking extra time to get the folds right—even doing the
whole process twice—can induce an increased clarity and calm that further separates this
ritualistic activity temporally from the ordinary tasks of life that need to be done after kendo
practice.
Those are just a sample of the rituals performed in kendo; indeed, the practice of kendo
can be continually divided into smaller and smaller rituals. What should be clear even from this
sample, however, is that any archaeological evidence of these rituals would be extremely
minimal. Much of the ritual activity happens in the mind when the kendoka goes from a normal
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mindset to a more intense and focused one for kendo. Another reason that it would be hard to
find much archaeological evidence in the future of these activities is because of the pattern of
disposal most commonly used nowadays. Unlike before, we now have systems in place to move
all our trash into a single location devoted to storing waste. From an archaeological standpoint,
this means that all kendo-related artifacts would be removed from their context, making it much
harder to study in the future. Also, as stated before, many modern kendo dojos are general
purpose gyms. As such, anything a kendo group sets up has to be taken down at the end of
practice, making the presence of kendo there fleeting in the eyes of archaeological discovery.
Thus, perhaps the only way kendo rituals will be recorded archaeologically in context is
with equipment in storage and possibly with a shrine at the shomen, such as one of the old dojo-
temples preserved today in Japan. These artifacts, then, could only be preserved in their original
context if everything had collapsed in place and been buried over time—again, this is difficult in
the modern world. Even personal equipment stored in individual homes not be preserved in the
archaeological record (for the most part) because of the materials used to manufacture the
equipment; traditionally, the most of the equipment is made from a combination of cotton,
leather, and bamboo all of which would most likely not preserve under normal circumstances.
Possibly the only kendo artifacts that could preserve is the bogu which contains metal pieces and
lacquered bamboo. In any case, it is difficult to see how remnants of actual ritualistic activities in
kendo could be preserved archaeologically. Kendo is for the most part a life-long internal
journey, and as such will remain invisible to those who seek to study it in the future.