Yokota Kendo Club

Welcome to the home page of the Yokota Kendo Club.

We are currently reworking the site in an effort to make it more informative and useful to our visitors.

The Yokota Kendo Club meets on Yokota Air Base, Fussa City, Tokyo, Japan. We are the oldest and longest continually running martial arts group on any US military base in the Pacific theater having been in operation since April 17, 1992. We are a branch of the Keitenkan Dojo in Akishima city which is run by our head instructor, Kazuto Miura (kendo 7th-dan, iaido 4th-dan).

What then, is kendo?

Reduced to the simplest terms I can manage, Kendo is the modern sport and marital art of Japanese fencing that has grown out of actual mass combat with the sword on the battlefield.

That being said, we perform kendo today as a sport. Competitions are held as individual one-on-one matches or teams competing one person at a time. Schools exist all over Japan and in over 40 foreign countries. There are local, national, and international competitions and championships held regularly. While there are several national and an international federation governing the sport, the actual method, theory, and evolution of kendo is tightly controlled by the Japanese source. In fact, to attain higher levels of qualification, practitioners must come and test in Japan where the only authorized tests are held.

We train in kendo as a traditional budo, a martial or military art. Kendo practice is full of ritual, manner, and exacting ways of doing things. These exist to instill discipline, respect for self and others, and help develop confidence and skill. Together these foster development of a strong spirit and sense of self that will serve the kendoist well in all pursuits of life.