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Tsurugi Bashi is the Kendo Society of the University of Cambridge. Our dojo is virtual: we practice wherever we can find a suitable space. What makes us a dojo is the spirit and commitment of all our members past and present; it is represented by our flag, which we bring with us and hang on the wall wherever we train.
We are a nonprofit university society, founded and intended for Cambridge students, but we also welcome other members. Beginners need to attend a 6-session training course before they can safely join a Kendo practice. Therefore we only admit new members a few times per year. The main intake is at the start of the academic year in October.
We sent two teams to compete in Mumeishi 3s (Team A: Matt Jackson, Matt Marley, Tomoki Otani, Team B: Periklis Akritidis, Eric Tung, Luke Regan) as well as girls to compete in ladies' individuals (Mikyung Jang, Junko Takata, Adrienne Li). Both teams got to fight three times, team A got into the second round and team B into the third (best 16) and was eliminated by the finalist. Damien Vadillo, Gary Tang, and Ricardo Antunes fought with other teams.
Yukawa Sensei visiting us from Japan talked about "Zen in the Kata practice of Kendo" in his guest lecture at the Engineering department. The talk was well attended and the audience raised interesting questions.
This year's gasshuku (Japanese for training camp) has begun. It takes place in Cambridge and will last for a week. Last year it was held in Dentsudai University in Japan, and this year several sensei visiting from Japan together with their students from the Dentsudai University joined us. Also this year, several kendoka from Wales joined our practice.
In this year's Univesity Taikai held in Canterbury, eight universities went head-to-head in individual and team tournaments. The team members Satoshi Yamazaki, Daisy Chen, Min Lin, Periklis Akritidis and Tomoki Otani, led by captain Daisy won an exciting team event after Tomoki had won the Kyu-grade individuals earlier that day. Last but not least, Daisy was awarded the fighting spirit medal for the ladies individuals. 2009 has been a particularly successful year for our society, and we hope to continue like this!