Today I was able to meet up with my sensei to talk about the prospect of creating a Ryerson Kendo Club. At first the meeting was very business orientated, where we talked about the issues surrounding the proposal, gym space etc.

I wanted to ask Kimura Sensei about starting nito-ryu. Nito ryu is a form of Kendo where it is two handed. It is very hard to achieve strong nito but it is available to try. When I asked him he first asked, “Why do u want to take Nito?”

I gave him my answer that Miyamoto Mushashi’s ( the founder of nito ryu) writing have really touched me and his philosophy of two swords is one, and one sword is two.

He told me to first wait and get my basics, if I don’t have any basics, doing nito will be really hard. Sensei then began to talk about his life. His experience in trying nito and his struggle coming to Canada.

Many martial arts like Karate, are great money making houses. By focusing on money instead of art, Karate has lost the spirit of Karate. My sensei also had the opportunity of dong that. He runs a business and if he wanted to he can open up a dojo. But in order to preserve the current spirit of Kendo he decided to separate his business and Kendo.

If he wanted to my sensei could have stayed in Japan. The community in Japan would have supported him and he would have been financially well off. Since everyone he knows would have supported him and he would be financially fine. But he wanted to challenge himself, and came to Canada and opened a dojo.

Hearing this was amazing, I never was able to talk one on one with Kimura Sensei but today, I learned a great deal. If you have the spirit and commitment you can challenge yourself and achieve anything.

I know this sounds so basic, but typically human beings forget their place.