【Series ①】What Is the Practice That Made My Style of Kendo? - Yusuke Mikumo

I’m from Hitachi, Oita. The story of how I started Kendo is like a comic story. I was playing soccer with a friend at a nearby elementary school. The ball rolled toward the gym, so I went there to get it. I heard the sound of “Men” coming from the gym, so I looked inside. I was astonished by it, and that’s how I started Kendo. By chance, my kindergarten friend was learning Kendo, so I decided to learn Kendo together. I started with a trial course, and the coach told me that I’ve got a great sense, so I started Kendo. If I didn’t go get the ball, I couldn’t have started Kendo.

 

My father didn’t play Kendo, but as I started Kendo, he started watching All Japanese Championship games and lured me into Kendo. He said that Miyazaki Masahiro’s games are great, and I needed to play Kendo in his way. I remember the days when I repeatedly watched his games in slow motion while eating. Back when I was in elementary school, there was a time when I wanted to quit Kendo. Then, my father brought me to the last practice before the All Japan Kendo 7th Dan Championship, which was held in Nishikimachi of Kumamoto. I was able to ask Mr. Miyazaki for a practice. Mr. Miyazaki talked to me kindly, and it cheered me up again and made me continue Kendo. 

 

Just before the middle school graduation, I heard from my coach at the Wakamiya Kendo Club, my home club, that Ryukoku high school was selecting one more player to win at the Saga Inter-high competition. 

Since my coach and the coach of Ryukoku high school, Takayoshi Nishimura, were colleagues, I had a chance to go practice at Ryukoku. It was impressive and led me to Ryukoku. Honestly, if I compare their training intensity with other schools, the practice at Ryukoku was not so intense. However, their quality was great. Coach Nishimura always emphasized that “Quality over quantity.” They tried to concentrate on the limited practice sessions, and it greatly attracted me. 

The teammates like Ryutaro Nishimura, Terushi Kawasaki, Shinpei Kuriyama were top-class players, not only in Saga but nationwide. Keita Yamaguchi, who was a substitute player, won third place in the individual category at Inter-high. Tatsunori Ushijima working as a police officer is now very active also as a kendoka in Osaka. Among those great members, I felt that I might not become a varsity member but wanted to try. 

 

I was fifth in the ranking out of seven team members. I thought that it was natural to be seventh as I was just starting and realized that it was impossible to be a varsity member unless I worked desperately. It meant that I needed three years of desperate efforts. When the senior students graduated and the new team was formed, I still wasn’t a part of the varsity team.

In October or November of that year, I joined the team as a substitute competitor at Miyazaki High School Kendo Competition. There were three substitutes allowed to register, and I was the third one. Fortunately, the first and the second players didn’t win, so the coach said to me, “There is no other way, so you try.” My first try happened like this, and I didn’t lose the match and was able to become a varsity member.

 

Nishimura and Kawasaki became varsity members and showed their skills as soon as they entered. I thought they both were great, but also I felt the need to work harder. What did I do to become a varsity? There were a lot of great players on our team. I thought that it was important to observe the practice of other players.

Our school conducts practices not by two but by three. This means that there is a waiting time for us to observe other members. I tried to check how the other teammates play and what moves they make.

Not only from my turn but also from others, I learned how to make moves. I even remember the time when I asked Nishimura how he took his position.

 

I lived in the dormitory. However, other teammates from the same grade didn’t since they were from Saga. Only one or two students in the same grade stayed in the dormitory. Players from different sports and students who had a goal of becoming a Buddhist monk stayed in the dormitory since it was a Buddhist school. The dormitory was about two kilometers away from the school. It usually takes around ten minutes by bicycle, but I decided to run instead. I asked Yamaguchi and Nishimura to bring my school uniform since they were on the same route, and I ran in a sweatsuit. 

 

Ryukoku High School

Ryukoku High School is a traditional school established in 1878. Under the supervision of Yoshinori Toda, known as one of the best high school Kendo coach, this high school was known as a strong team with the records of second place at the Gyokuryuki and third place at Inter-high competition between 1975 and 1985.

The young coach Nishimura, who started to coach in 1983, instructed together with Coach Toda for several years. His coaching style was focusing on the number of practices as he started working alone, but he changed his policy to pursue Kendo that is faithful to the basics so that students can also actively take part when they enter universities. In 1998, ten years later, after many trials, they won at the regional competition and achieved first place at Inter-high in the following year, 1999.

Eight years later, Mikumo and his teammates became the top of Japan for the second time.