{"id":2653,"date":"2025-11-07T17:37:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/?p=2653"},"modified":"2025-11-07T17:37:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:37:03","slug":"budo-beat-42-kakugo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/budobooks.jp\/?p=2653","title":{"rendered":"Budo Beat 42: Kakugo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The \u201cBudo Beat\u201d Blog features a collection of short reflections, musings, and anecdotes on a wide range of budo topics by Professor\u00a0Alex Bennett<\/a>, a seasoned budo scholar and practitioner. Dive into digestible and diverse discussions on all things budo\u2014from the philosophy and history to the practice and culture that shape the martial Way.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.<\/em>\u201d (Nelson Mandela)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday (Nov. 3) marked the 73rd Men\u2019s All\u2011Japan Kendo Championship, held alongside the 64th Women\u2019s event. (Kendo World videos of the men\u2019s and women\u2019s finals are pasted at the bottom of this blog post.) It always begins the same way, like a well\u2011rehearsed ritual. Around nine, the crowd trickles in, murmuring as the Nippon Budokan wakes up with that peculiar hum of anticipation and respect. Around 9:45, ten thousand heads tilt upward toward the Hinomaru suspended high in the rafters. The anthem rises, the bow follows, and then the great taiko roars through the hall like thunder, announcing that the day of reckoning has begun.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Budokan has its own pulse. The air hums like it\u2019s still echoing with the ghosts of every shiai<\/em> fought here. Conversations are hushed, respectful, as if people know they\u2019re in a temple. Cameras (well, smartphones actually) snap like insects. Competitors circle the green\u2011sheeted perimeter, loosening shoulders, testing footwork, pretending not to look nervous. Then the first match begins, and the whole hall exhales in unison before being drowned out by the kiai<\/em> of the first eight fighters, sharp and alive, carving through the air like battle cries from another age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just before the first \u201cHajime<\/em>\u201d, everything tightens into a single breath. A whole life in budo, the early mornings, the blisters, the keiko<\/em> that left you questioning your very sanity… All of it shrinks into that heartbeat before movement. In that suspended instant, the world goes quiet, and the air tastes like iron and sweat. Then the command comes, and instinct takes over. Cut, respond, adjust, survive. Fate doesn\u2019t shout or boast; it just stands there at the far end of the court, waiting to see what you\u2019ll do.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Two Hanshi sensei perform the All Japan Kendo Kata before the matches begin, continuing a long-standing tradition in kendo tournaments.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Last year when I wrote about the championships, my theme was bu\u2019un<\/em> (\u6b66\u904b), \u201cmartial fortune\u201d. It carries a certain old-school dignity, the sense that luck still has a role to play no matter how strong or prepared you are. You can train for decades, sharpen your waza<\/em> until it slices through thought itself, and yet the budo gods might still turn their backs. Bu\u2019un<\/em> favours some and abandons others. It\u2019s what makes budoka human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this year, sitting in the same grand arena and watching another generation of kenshi<\/em> fight their hearts out, I found myself drawn to something beyond luck. In budo, bu\u2019un<\/em> hints at the random side of things. Those invisible factors that decide whether your strike lands clean or glances off by a hair\u2019s width. And kakugo<\/em> (\u899a\u609f), resolve, is what bridges that gap. You can\u2019t control fate, but you can decide how you meet it. That, to me, is the heart of budo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The early rounds at the All\u2011Japan Championships are merciless. Big names vanish before you\u2019ve even finished your can of hot coffee. One blink, one late men<\/em>, a flag that hesitates, and that\u2019s it. The atmosphere squeezes every breath out of you because everyone here can already do kendo. They wouldn\u2019t be on this floor otherwise. Now it\u2019s about who can stay honest when the world shrinks to the space between two shinai<\/em>. Who can stare their own nerves in the face and still step in.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A competitor focuses as he prepares for his match. His tenugui reads \u300c\u5fcd\u8010\u300d (nintai), meaning \u201cperseverance\u201d or \u201cendurance,\u201d the quiet strength to endure and overcome.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

These thoughts came to me after bumping into one of the competitors, a former student at my university. I won\u2019t say which prefecture he was representing, but it wasn\u2019t his first rodeo. The first thing out of his mouth was, \u201cI\u2019m so bloody nervous.\u201d All I could muster was, \u201cJust do what you always do, mate. You belong here. Believe in yourself and enjoy the ride. I can feel something good afoot brother.\u201d It was the best I had at the time, and the moment it left my gob I knew it sounded painfully clich\u00e9d. I wished I\u2019d said something wiser, something that cut closer to what I really meant; that if he could just meet whatever was coming with a calm heart instead of wrestling with what-ifs, he\u2019d be fine. You can\u2019t outthink fate, but you can meet it with resolve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy to see fate as some mystical or unfair hand that deals out wins and losses, but in budo it\u2019s usually stripped bare. Fate is the moment when all your careful training still isn\u2019t enough. It\u2019s the opponent whose rhythm neutralises your best technique, or the referee\u2019s call that reminds you this isn\u2019t a world you can control. In that sense, fate isn\u2019t cosmic at all. It\u2019s simply life, unpredictable and indifferent. What matters isn\u2019t the roll of the dice but the resolve you bring when it lands against you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind that calm acceptance is something deeper. The best kenshi<\/em> don\u2019t waste energy resisting fate, they meet it head on. Every opponent, every exchange, becomes part of the same ongoing dialogue with life itself. You win, you lose, you bow, you move on. That rhythm is what makes the All\u2011Japan Championships beautiful. Everyone out there, from the first\u2011round dropout to the eventual champion, understands it without needing to say a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kakugo<\/em> is a strange thing. It\u2019s not the same as confidence, and it\u2019s not the same as optimism. It\u2019s more like the silent agreement you make with yourself when you stop expecting the world to be fair. You train, you fight, you bow. You might win, you might not. But you do it anyway, without bitterness. In that acceptance lies real freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word kakugo<\/em> literally means to be prepared, but in budo it\u2019s more like being ready for anything. Not ready as in expecting victory, but ready as in accepting whatever comes. There\u2019s a line in one of Musashi\u2019s writings that goes along the lines of, \u201cThink lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.\u201d That\u2019s kakugo<\/em> in a nutshell. The less you cling to your own success or failure, the clearer you see what\u2019s in front of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One competitor lands an excellent, pinpoint tsuki strike in the first round.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I watched my former college student step up for his first round. Like most of the opening matches, you could feel the tension before the referee even said Hajime<\/em>. He pressed forward, applying steady pressure, but the tightness in his shoulders betrayed him. The nerves were slowing his strikes, holding him back from what he was capable of. In truth, almost every first-round match looks like this. Nobody wants to lose straight out of the gate. It\u2019s ironic, really. The harder you cling to the idea of not losing, the more you stop yourself from truly fighting. But it\u2019s also human. We\u2019ve all been there, trapped between hesitation and resolve, trying to remember that kendo only comes alive once you let go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For the second year in a row, the women\u2019s and men\u2019s championships were held together at the Nippon Budokan. With four courts running simultaneously, it makes it a bit harder for the Kendo World staff to cover every match.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That tension in the first round is part of the process. Every competitor has to face it. Some never quite shake it, carrying that tightness through every exchange. Others, after years of living in that space between fear and action, finally learn to release it. That\u2019s when kakugo<\/em> begins to take shape. The moment when anxiety gives way to acceptance, and acceptance turns into freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the middle rounds, the whole atmosphere changes. The early panic burns off and settles into something taut and deliberate. Each movement is measured. Every breath counts. Across all four courts, players stand frozen for what feels like eternity, waiting for the other to move first. To an outsider, it might look like nothing is happening, but inside that stillness there\u2019s a storm. Timing, instinct, doubt, and fear collide in silence. This is the true heart of kendo: a dialogue between fate and resolve. Who will take the risk? Who can hold their nerve a heartbeat longer? Who trusts themselves enough to step in when the moment opens?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Last year\u2019s men\u2019s champion, Takenouchi Yuya, is defeated in the quarterfinals by a perfectly executed d\u014d strike from Kunitomo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a kind of beauty in watching someone lose with grace. The fellow I\u2019m referring ended up losing in the second round. After a hard-fought match, his opponent landed what was judged to be men<\/em> and that was that. He froze for a moment, then I thought I saw a faint grin flicker across his face. It wasn\u2019t the stiff smile of politeness, but a subtle one of acceptance. He bowed, gathered his gear, and walked off the court. There was something quietly noble in that moment. He had faced what came his way and met the result with dignity. That\u2019s kakugo<\/em> in its purest form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nishimura from Kumamoto, a two-time consecutive champion in previous years, returned to compete again. He fought well but was ultimately defeated by his high school k\u014dhai, Hoshiko. I had the chance to travel with Nishimura-sensei to the BKA seminar last year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have heard it explained that at a certain level, kakugo<\/em> leads naturally into mushin<\/em>, the state of no\u2011mind. Once you\u2019ve accepted everything that can happen, fear loses its grip and the body begins to move of its own accord. You stop hesitating. You stop analysing. You simply respond. This isn\u2019t passivity. It\u2019s the deepest form of readiness. The mind and body become one, unhindered by judgment or ego. The paradox of budo is that the more you surrender to what might happen, the more freedom and precision you gain. You start to see clearly because you\u2019ve stopped trying to control the outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Budokan today, there were flashes of that. You could tell when a competitor had let go of the outcome and entered that flow where every movement made sense. It wasn\u2019t always the champion who reached it. Sometimes it was a player who lost in the quarterfinals, but in those exchanges, they embodied the ideal of budo more perfectly than any trophy could measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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