How jayson got started and why he is still 1st kyu after 9 years

I started playing kendo when I was just 16 years old at the University of Newcastle. There I met Don Miller (later I was told he was a renegade kendoka...but that is a story for someone else to tell) the sensei of the club.

We had the most magnificent dojo, Don had some friends at the university and had this dojo/dance hall especially built in conjunction with the multi million dollar sports and aquatic centre being built at the time for the university...we had wall to wall mirrors, springy smooth wooden floor boards and proper Japanese bogu room.

Sadly Don Miller left to Japan to teach English permanently when I was 17 and the club fell apart after only 6 months as the older students finished their degrees and moved on to find jobs. As the numbers dropped from about 25 reguler attendees to 5 or less, we got moved out of our fantastic purpose built dojo to the squash courts. I temporarily quit.

About 18 months later (now 18-19 years) returning to university as a 'proper' student, i noticed some kendo flyers on the uni notice board. So I went along to the new training session and Naohiki Shimada a third Dan uni student from Japan. He was a fantastically strong player with the best Men cut i have ever seen till this day. I wish he could have played with Okazaki or Kirby. I trained with Naohiki for about 24 months before he finished his business course and left back to Japan. Another sad loss for the Newcastle club.

I then played Kendo on and off for the next two years at the struggling University of Newcastle kendo club (many very un-important things happened during this time which are not worth mentioning here) and I was still grade less. I finished uni at 23 and made the move to Sydney to find a job.

When I came to Sydney...i was excited about finding a Kendo club to join. I was originally going to join the Macquarie University Club...but found the Sydney Kendo Club website more appealing. I called Doug and he gave me the training times. I don't really remember my first training at Willoughby (I have a bad memory), but I do remember Doug telling me that I played pretty good for someone who had never graded. It soon became apparent to me that grading is important.

So all in all...I have been exposed to kendo much longer than my grade suggests...however it has not all been quality time. I do thank Don Miller for teaching me the fundamentals of kendo and I thank Naohiki Shimada for teaching me how to cut men. However I can honestly say my greatest progression has been at the Sydney Kendo Club under the guidance of Payne sensei and Itakura sensei.

On this note I would just like to remind everyone to keep playing Kendo, don't give up (its much harder to get back into than you think) and make sure the training you do during the week counts.