Excellent video. Thanks! Also, at one point ending near the 21 minute point I know for sure that if I had just come in right at that moment, I would have thought you were talking about fierce hockey parents back in Canada!

Not a question Andy -- Just a comment! Thanks for doing these videos. As someone with a more general interest in armed combat it’s been really great to find out more about Kendo. Great to here your opinions! I guess there are some areas of debate in any sport or martial art and it is really interesting to hear some of these explored. Thanks again for doing this series.

Thanks for the great videos Andy. We all appreciate it. I do shop at Kendostar a d look forward to receiving my most recent order! Yes, I'd like to see more materials, books etcetera. I think that would be great. Especially if there where translations of some of the works produced by the AJKF. Do you think it is in the works? Or is translation of materials even in their plans? What do you think it would take to get things like the grade book you have referred to translated? Also, the Kingston Kendo Club in Canada (just Google them) has a pretty nice textbook written about basic concepts and one for kata as well. Thanks again!

Thanks, Andy, for taking on my question - to be honest, I know the OP and some of the commentators on that thread, and it was also grinding my gears so to speak, but I wasn't sure if I was right/wrong as they are higher ranked than me in kendo. I agree that at full speed, it looked, sounded, and felt like an ippon on video...but again, who am I to judge? My follow-up question though was more around the theory of zanshin, and you may have answered it by saying that you attack with zanshin, and that it's not something that you add on afterwards. The argument posed is that you can't have zanshin without a valid strike - but my understanding is that zanshin and a valid strike are two separate concepts, and that in combination (along with other things), it makes "ippon." Is that accurate? Sorry for the all the questions; trying to reconcile what people ranked higher than me are saying to what I thought I had learned...thanks!

If you want better kendo at these types of tournaments then get shimpan who are not waiting for the Japanese athletes to score points.

Hi Andy, I agree with you on the shinpan topic. I'd like to have a human with an intrinsic error rate, rather than a calculator assessing ippons. That's because yuko-datotsu is something humans created and only humans can understand. There could be thousands of way to strike in such a way that a computer will award the ippon, still without displaying correct kikentai. Yuko-datotsu raises from an interpretation, and only the flexible power of our associative prefrontal cortex can ensemble all the elements to do it. That said, human error happens. My question comes into what you said about the shinpan who have been selected to be there: you said they are the best of the world, and I agree indeed. But how is this selection made? Is an assessment about how good they are at refereeing (with false positives and negatives analysis), or is just a selection made about how "famous" they are in the shinpan environment? Just asking because even if one of the shinpan from the team final is actually one of my senseis (Arialdo Bolognesi), he never told me about what criteria are adopted while taking this selection. Thanks very much! Interesting topic

I love seeing you all winded up about some comments, haha. Not that I want to see you annoyed but sometimes I read just mind boggingly stupid arguments about exactly the stuff that you talk about (shinpan decisions in this case) and feel like we that state "You don't doubt the shinpan" are in the minority and that people just want instant replay and electronic scoring in order to achieve "perfectly refereed" matches. Plus, talking smack about - as you said - literally the best referees in the world, saying that they are trash and should be replaced. Thank you for not being shy about talking how out of place these kinds of discussions are. I enjoy every new rant episode, don't burn yourself out putting out so much of these :) Cheers!

To my surprise in the last wkc i have seen other kendok'a booing.

Many, many years ago, I took a couple of kendo classes. I met one of the kendoka who showed me that he had a pad on his elbow so he could block do shots, since the elbow wasn't a proper target (although in a real swordfight he would have lost his right arm). He seemed to be proud of his clever trick. I didn't continue my kendo studies after that.

some people really believe the shimpan are some kind of superhumans able to see everything in super slow motion lol.

This is not tennis. I see what you did there :D

Hey Andry, I might expressed myself wrongly regarding the FIK rules for the crowd for manifesting during the shiai. Sorry if I have expressed in that way. What I meant was rules to force the teams to avoid this kind of behaviour from the competitors doing that sort of avoiding the tsubazeriai or the hooking thing, that I really disliked a lot (by awarding hansoku perhaps)? during the 90´s, if you were in tsubazeriai and stay for a long time with your shinai at the opponent´s sholder, blocking his actions, this could be awrdaded hansoku. The Shinpan just raise in to hansoku position and the shushin stops the match and request gogi to verify that. The same if the opponent comes hard for a strike, you block it, but then immdiatelly you go on purpose and use your left hand and make the movement or sort of punch upward to his hands in contact time to intentionally provoke his unbalance or even to generate the trap effect (the opponedt normally goes to the floor though). This was considered hansoku by that time, just to give some examples. Today I don´t know if these are hansoku anymore as all of them do that though. I must recognize that I have done that myself a lot of times, having awarded hansoku, but it part of the tactic right? But in the end, I got your point and thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts on that, I really appreciate it, and please do not feel like with hand tied on your back, as the intention never was and never will be that, and if fact was to know more oppinions and in a different and updted view over the modern kendo rules, as I ´m from the old kendo generation, with a different/traditional mindset. Thanks for taking my long texts and sharing your thoughts in the rant. Cheers

Funny that if you see the All Japan Kendo Championship and the 8 dan Championship, they are real shiais too and the kendo there is a pleaseure to see (dunno if thei carreers are at stake there too though). They are also tactical, the technic is also very, but very high and in the All Japan Kendo Championship, it is very phisical too right? There you can have matches betwween a 3 Dan and 6 Dan for example (see Umegatani vs Nishimura during his campaign for his first title). The fight as very tactical, phisical too and Nishimuira won by hansoku and this was somewhat controvertial but in the end, nobody said it was unfair. It was by the rules, do you get my point? I did not sense any trick or hidden strategy exposed for he crowd view anywhere (at least from what I have seen so far), so why the difference then?. I do acknowledge that a lot of them are policeman but not all of them right? Takenouchi is not from the Police core right? my point was why there is an clear discrepancy on what you see in the WKC and All Japan Championship in terms of kendo itself? Because we are talking pros vs amateurs . Of course, it involves, different people, culture, climate, whatever, but in the end, it is kendo right? It was a pleaseure to see Serbia playing well, Chinese Taipei, USA too, I really enjoy the kendo they have played. Phisical? Yes. Tactical, Yes. Unfair? No. It was simply kendo, and that was fine with me. On the other hand, It is clear for me that Japan using pros for WKC makes thing way too hard to win it. How about doing the same as NBA in the past where the pros cannot play in the Olympics or World Championships I guess (today is different I know), and to provide only Daigaku student instead? The have already the All Japan Championship and the one for the Police (which I also don´t like it). Share with us you thoughts about that (oh, and no hands tied behind your back ok?) If you feel not comfortable, fine if you skip that. Tks a lot! And sorry for generating so much discussion on your rant.

I feel that your Kendo Rants kinda like someone tied your hand behind your back...its not free from your mind, I felt that your tried to be polite and stick with traditional japanese kendo, mean while according to you this is SHIA for winning nothing to do with traditional. (But again, I understand...thank you for your Kendo Rants always very interesting). I just feel kendo need more commentator in english so others understand what is going on during the match. This is in japanese match with japanese commentator...kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aLuoq8580t7Og2Q.html (match eiga vs miyazaki as example)

Unruly spectators could be kicked out of the arena?

Armchair shinpan-ing...

this also one of the video with english translation...i think very helpful for young kendoist. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gbNgn5lzud7Rpp8.html (eiga vs miyazaki). Once again thank you, maybe you can make video with your comment during the match, I think it will helps the kendoist outside japan.

There's one good way to improve on all the rants about ruling and judging. Have Kendo in Olympic. Look how much Judo and Taekwondo have gotten through Olympic. And don't give me that Kendo should be practiced in Do way not a sport way. It's been a part of sport for long time.

I remember you in the other video saying that referees could be biased. Not sure why you’re contradicting yourself here. ‘That looked like kote to me, shinpan must have seen it as kote as well so it’s kote’ is a very weak argument. THIS IS kind of like tennis. Kendo competition is more like Wimbledon. There’s certain tranditions you need to follow. There’s a tight dress code, everybody needs to be quiet during plays, disrespect to referees will get you punished (look at the Serena’s recent match) and so on. Those referees have life time experience but still makes wrong calls. WKC is a disgrace to the sport. I’m all for the ki ken tai ichi spirit and as a kendoka we all thrive on reaching the best we can be. But trying to hold on to the tradition will only make worse of the sport. Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending Korean men’s team nor the crowd. I was there and it was horrible to see the crowd booing and yelling during the fight. To their defence, it was just another sport. They seem to take kendo more casual and less serious than most of us who train it. We desperately need a video referee on this kind of world event or at least some kind of solution to this issue. Shinpans are only human even if they’re 8th dan which is the highest level you can achieve in kendo. Somebody argued that shinpan have more experience judging than most of the people who are actually training kendo so we should trust their judgement calls. In fact, all referees across all sports have life long experience. But when there’s a video evidence showing what really happened, life long experience goes out the window. I’m not saying shinpans are useless. Most of time they make pretty good calls. Three shinpan is not enough. When you’re on the floor as a referee there is an on going pressure of the shiai. You have to be able to call out the points correctly, quickly. Sometimes you’re influenced by other shinpan who put up their flag first even though you try you’re best to see the game in objective view. Because you’re human. Humans cannot be objective. Just imagine that there is a match between takanabe, the fastest men striker of all time, fighting against some guy with 6th dan nobody heard of. Of course you’re going to have a biased view. When things are neck and neck, all sorts of grey area and shinpan’s biased judgement call plays a HUGE role. Japanese are always the crowd favorite , Some foreign team brings so call ‘dirty kendo’ style to the tournament. People hate it. Which flags will be lighter to the referees? As a westerner myself it’s easy to have fascination and fantasies about kendo as some mystical asian martial arts. But kendo is not about a mystical japanese martial art looking down on other fighting sports out in the world just because all they seem to care about is winning and modern technology. All fighting sports have their own set of rules. Kendo is just one of them. We have to admit that kendo shiai is a sport. Notice I said kendo shiai. Kendo itself can be a martial art, way of the sword, fighting spirit, bushido or whatever you’d like it to be. But whenever there’s specific set of rules with referees, it is a sport. period. Modern day kendo imitates what was real back in ancient times when there were people with real swords with no rules. We need to let go of tradition and embrace the change. People often say ‘this is the way it supposed to be’. It’s not true. Things change and evolve as circumstances change, as time passes. It’s just another excuse to rest on the laurels. Because to those people it means upsetting the fundamental underlying principles of teaching kendo. Only it’s not. We say we want to improve because we’re not perfect. It’s just easy to say ‘O it’s all about being human’ when we’re wrong and ‘I told you so’ when you’re right. But aren’t we contradicting ourselves by thinking in certain way just because we’re taught a certain way? Kendo is governed by a very formal, top-down heirachical, bureaucratic organization. Just think about how much our thoughts are governed by traditions and rules. Am I the only one who thinks like this?

Lots of back handed comments in this video rant.

You are ranting and cape-ing for the Japanese team mate.