So I've begun looking at sports, which will probably start after the Kyoto trip. My two options I've chosen to go for are kendo and judo. Kendo is, for those of you unfamiliar with Nipponese sports, the rough equivalent to fencing. Judo is the rough equivalent of wrestling with a touch of MMA. Both are badass.
I'm covering my impressions of Judo in my Rashomon spoof, so pay attention to that. If you want a quick version of my impression, it's this: Judo looks pretty brutal and I think I love it. It's the only sport I know of where an eleven year old girl about five feet tall can flip over a two hundred pound man. It's also actually more brutal than American wrestling by a good amount.
Kendo looks pretty awesome. Tonight, a group of SYA students including myself went to the Sports center (about a five minute walk from my house, luckily) and watched a session. We were there for an hour, beginning with the last half of the little kids' class, and ending with the first half of the older student's session. Kendo looks fast paced, with a rather stylized and sporting version of kenjutsu as its core. However, if this were real kenjutsu most of these kids would have been meatloaf, so I guess bamboo alternatives to swords are a good thing. The fencing analogy is very appropriate.
Kendo has the major disadvantage of cost. If i do decide to stick with it, I can expect an equipment bill of around 700 dollars, minimum. Lesson costs are very low (around 22 dollars a month, same for judo) but the gear necessary is pretty costly. That could be an issue. If I can find used gear I can probably shave the cost down a couple hundred dollars, though. Still, that's a price that my wallet can barely at all handle. I may have to stick with just judo.
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