Interview with Alex Bennett - 7th Dan

This is an interview with 7th Dan, Alex Bennett. In it he talks about the mindset for keiko and ultimately for all your Kendo. As what you do in your keiko feeds into your gi-geiko.

This is a wonderful interview for me because Alex has a knack for easily communicating the fundamentals of Kendo. In particular his discussion of seme and of the winning/overcoming first with the spirit then with the cut.

The Cut is the Exclamation Point for a Sentence Started with Seme

My read is that the cut is almost like an exclamation point at the end of the notional sentence: "I have overcome you and myself". A sentence that starts and owes its substance to seme.

This is the first part of an interview with Bennett Sensei. The whole interview is for sale in Kendo-Guide.com. I haven't really thought about getting it at this stage but if the rest of it is like this interview and you are interested in lifting your Kendo game this would be gold.

UPDATE: Okay, in the ten minutes since publishing this post I have bought the digital download of the entire video. (Yeah, I am a hopeless Kendo geek!)

Ganbatte!