Quote Originally Posted by Dkaris View Post
Out of interest does any one here do kendo at all?
Nope. Certainly isn't a cheap martial art to do.

Be aware that Kendo is pretty much a competitive sport rather than a fighting art. It's fine if you're more interested in the sport/competition aspect, but if you're more interested in the actual art of Japanese swordsmanship, I'd recommend looking into martial arts like Kenjutsu, Battoujutsu, Iaijutsu etc. They're also not cheap, but cheaper than Kendo (cos you don't have to purchase the armour!).

These clubs pretty much require you to pay for a year's worth of membership before they even let you do any training -- no free trial lesson. You are also required to purchase all of your own equipment too, so with Kenjutsu you'll need to pay for the Gi uniform (including hakama) and a bokken/bokuto (wooden sword). With Kendo you'll need to purchase these same things, but also the armour set (which is quite dear) and a shinai (bamboo sword) -- you'll still need the oak bokken too, as that's used for practising kata, whereas shinai are used for sparring and competitions. Don't let the fact that bokken are made from wood fool you, they can be extremely dangerous. During the Meiji Period when it became illegal for any unauthorised persons to carry metal swords and the samurai class was disbanded, some samurai began carrying bokken and some of them actually recorded higher kills using bokken than they did with metal katana! Part of this is because while a katana is a hacking/slicing weapon, bokken deal more blunt force trauma injuries which can cause greater internal damage (and infections), which can become fatal. A person who has his arm chopped off can continue living as an amputee, but there were cases of people dying from internal organ damage caused by bokken. So for this reason, nobody spars or competes with a solid oak bokken, only with bamboo shinai which are hollow on the inside and are designed to collapse to absorb the shock (much like the crumple zone of a car). They still hurt like hell if they hit you though! (like a massively bad caning... ouch!)