Volume 5 Issue 8

MERRY

HAPPY

PARTY

Attending this years Christmas party / practice was (left to right standing: Big Bob, Craig, Dave, Little Bob, Jason, Scott, Terry, Sitting: myself, Sheyenne, & Yutaro.)

Little Bob gettin' some back talk from his daughter,

Detroit Rensei Tournament (6th Annual) This year the most famous kendo brothers in the world, are scheduled to come and help Tagawa host this tournament. For all the info on this, download the info here: http://www.midwestkendo.com/upcoming.htm 

 Schedule: We are canceling our normal practice on Sunday the 15th of February, due to the fact we should all be in Detroit.

Cleveland: I will put this info up ASAP

I've collected a lot of stories, quotes, koans, poems and haiku. Here is one I really like:

"When did the practice of Seppuku Start? (ritual suicide)."  Well, one story is this:

Back in the year 1156, there was said to be a samurai named Minamoto Tametomo who was reputed to be seven feet tall with extreme muscular strength. He possessed a three-man bow that was eight and a half feet long. At age seventeen, it was said his left arm was four inches longer than his right. Either by birth or practice, it allowed him to shoot arrows with terrific force. Once, in battle it was said he shot in arrow clean through one samurai and into another. Not much you think? Don't forget samurai wore armor then. His family clan was engaged in a "civil war" that pitched son against father, and when captured by his own brother, Yoshitomo, his father Tameyoshi was executed. They then severed his arm sinews and banished him to the outlands. Yet in his years of exile, his arms healed, and he fired his last arrow in battle at a boatload of Taira samurai, smashing through the hull below the waterline, causing the loss of all hands. Tametomo then retired and committed seppuku.

                                                          Author  T. S. Turnbull The Samurai