Ryuseiken Battodo

Japanese swordfighting

Al Kilgore
  • Male
  • Saint Paul, MN
  • United States

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  • Patrick Quint
  • Daniel
  • rawnshah

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Profile Information

What interests you about swordfighting?
Been so long, I have forgotten the original motivation...
but, I find that it balances my life.
How did you hear about us?
Online info

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Al Kilgore's Blog

Criticism

Very strongly, folks who feel they know something about the art defend their point of view. They are entitled to this, of course, within the scope of artistic criticisms. For the study of Kenjutsu we see this quite strongly, even though the reality of the number of folks training within Koryu systems is in fact miniscule. My point being that there are more people are reading about the sword arts on line than there are folks actively training in one of these arts. It is also true as a result of… Continue

Posted on March 27, 2009 at 10:30am

Surveying the differences between Gumdo and the root arts of the Japanese sword.

The following blog is not intended to offend anyone. I could have just as easily focused on the similarities, but, everyone can do that. I wanted to show a different perspective.

If you read this, and you seriously study a sword art, I welcome you as a kindred spirit.

Often, we find, we are more alike than different. This is intended to provoke scholarly thought on what we spend much of our time doing.





Surveying the differences between Gumdo and the root arts of the… Continue

Posted on December 23, 2008 at 6:12pm

Demon of the Western Provinces

RawnShah asked me to post this as a blog. It is part of the disscussion about Kojiro and his technique.



Hello, thanks again for a good site. I too am interested in the mythical technique of tsubame giri. I have read a lot about it, but the most interesting thing I have found is the statue on Ganryu Island. I have studied it well, right now I am trying to track down the sculptor, I have some questions for him. The reason is, the hands on the figure of Kojiro are in interesting… Continue

Posted on December 18, 2008 at 4:22pm

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At 10:36am on August 27, 2009, Patrick Quint said…
Just floating around the www when I should be working...;)

It was good to see you and your group at the Lantern Lighting Festival. It got me thinking about contemporization (making more accessible) of less popular martial arts, particularily ones, like kyudo and kenjutsu, that are so shrouded in myth and mysticism that a person misses what those arts are actually about. (What are they actually about? Elephino!) While one does not want to dilute the traditional aspects of the arts there's nothing wrong with doing, say, low-cost mini-seminars to give people a taste of what these arts are really like. There are many groups in Minnesota/Iowa that could benefit from a "seminar exchange", if you get what I mean. It might bring more people in that would otherwise be learning from a book (as you know, that's how I started with kyudo) and offer them a valuable opportunity. I recently attended a naginata seminar hosted by our own kyudo sensei (Carly Sensei) where an internationally reognized practitioner came to Carleton. Would people from your group have been interested in attending? I'd say definately...but did anyone let you guys know what was going on? No. I'm really thinking about two different things here: how do you find the people who want to train but have no idea where to go (or have a warped sense of what it is they are actually interested in) and how do you get schools that should be communicating to start talking? Anyway, that's how I came to find this Facebook for Kendoka.
 
 
 

Web sites & Resources

Matsuri: A Festival of Japan (2008) - Phoenix, AZ, Feb 23-28, Heritage Square

Battodo Ryuseiken in Japan. Also a partial site in english.



The Kodenkan of Tucson



The UofA Ryuseiken Battodo on the ASUA site



Tameshigiri.com - where we get goza. The ordering and shipping process are given.



Hanwei/Paul Chen swords



The Knighthawk Armoury builds some interesting realistic looking goshinken. They're expensive but they claim to be pretty durable (not yet tested by us).



Folding a Hakama the proper way



Woodall's Custom Workshop makes nice cutting stands for tameshigiri.


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