I think In near Future,Kendo will be come as competetion in Olimpic games. It'll be good deal...
Andrew - 12 years ago
To my mind kendo operates in an amateur environment (company teams and policemen excl) bring the Olympics in and it goes "pro". Maybe not in $ terms but certainly in approach - weights, sports science, sports phycologists the list goes on. Will we be forced to make changes to make kendo more entertaining for TV. Will we see the rise of "pro coaches" charging by the hour verses what amounts to a yearly fee to cover hall hire and insurance?
Without getting too carried away I suspect Reiho would be the least of our probs as we contend with a probable shift in why people choose to do kendo and importantly what they hope to gain from training, much less the general environment we operate in.
Thks for the great blog !
Ciao
Andrew - 12 years ago
To my mind kendo operates in an amateur environment (company teams and policemen excl) bring the Olympics in and it goes "pro". Maybe not in $ terms but certainly in approach - weights, sports science, sports phycologists the list goes on. Will we be forced to make changes to make kendo more entertaining for TV. Will we see the rise of "pro coaches" charging by the hour verses what amounts to a yearly fee to cover hall hire and insurance?
Without getting too carried away I suspect Reiho would be the least of our probs as we contend with a probable shift in why people choose to do kendo and importantly what they hope to gain from training, much less the general environment we operate in.
Thks for the great blog !
Ciao
Andrew - 12 years ago
To my mind kendo operates in an amateur environment (company teams and policemen excl) bring the Olympics in and it goes "pro". Maybe not in $ terms but certainly in approach - weights, sports science, sports phycologists the list goes on. Will we be forced to make changes to make kendo more entertaining for TV. Will we see the rise of "pro coaches" charging by the hour verses what amounts to a yearly fee to cover hall hire and insurance?
Without getting too carried away I suspect Reiho would be the least of our probs as we contend with a probable shift in why people choose to do kendo and importantly what they hope to gain from training, much less the general environment we operate in.
Kendo could loose a lot and gain just a little in the Olympics. Taekwondo is the proof.
Jason - 12 years ago
I'm not sure the right answer here and there are some unappealling aspects to the Olympics to me, but here's what I don't understand about the anti-Olympics crowd: It seems to boil down to "the competition would ruin the reiho."
My response, however, is that Kendo is already inherently about competition. There are hundreds (thousands?) of tournaments, none more critical than the All Japans; and no international event yet a bigger deal than the the WKC. Why would participating in Olympics necessitate any worse (or better) ettiquite and decourum than those events do, since the competitors would all be the same people with the same sensei and the same sense of respect for self and for others? Wouldn't we have the same judges? Why would we need technology-scoring-based systems any more than we do now? I just don't get those arguments.
I voted No. However, with the improvements in technology (witness the taekwando electronic scoring using the Hall effect, according to one of my students) and the continuing pressure fron the Korean's, we would do well to prepare for it. Either accept the inevitable or, as the Koreans are doing, put a lot more effort into building an effective alliance against the notion. I suspect that the Koreans have taken a leaf out of the Japanese whaling handbook and already built up a substantial alliance of smaller, Kendo impoverished countries... Ie with "gifts" etc. we may have already lost the battle!
Frank
Xose - 12 years ago
It could as long as Reiho remains part of the scoring element. It would be great to see Kendo in the Olympics.
I think In near Future,Kendo will be come as competetion in Olimpic games. It'll be good deal...
To my mind kendo operates in an amateur environment (company teams and policemen excl) bring the Olympics in and it goes "pro". Maybe not in $ terms but certainly in approach - weights, sports science, sports phycologists the list goes on. Will we be forced to make changes to make kendo more entertaining for TV. Will we see the rise of "pro coaches" charging by the hour verses what amounts to a yearly fee to cover hall hire and insurance?
Without getting too carried away I suspect Reiho would be the least of our probs as we contend with a probable shift in why people choose to do kendo and importantly what they hope to gain from training, much less the general environment we operate in.
Thks for the great blog !
Ciao
To my mind kendo operates in an amateur environment (company teams and policemen excl) bring the Olympics in and it goes "pro". Maybe not in $ terms but certainly in approach - weights, sports science, sports phycologists the list goes on. Will we be forced to make changes to make kendo more entertaining for TV. Will we see the rise of "pro coaches" charging by the hour verses what amounts to a yearly fee to cover hall hire and insurance?
Without getting too carried away I suspect Reiho would be the least of our probs as we contend with a probable shift in why people choose to do kendo and importantly what they hope to gain from training, much less the general environment we operate in.
Thks for the great blog !
Ciao
To my mind kendo operates in an amateur environment (company teams and policemen excl) bring the Olympics in and it goes "pro". Maybe not in $ terms but certainly in approach - weights, sports science, sports phycologists the list goes on. Will we be forced to make changes to make kendo more entertaining for TV. Will we see the rise of "pro coaches" charging by the hour verses what amounts to a yearly fee to cover hall hire and insurance?
Without getting too carried away I suspect Reiho would be the least of our probs as we contend with a probable shift in why people choose to do kendo and importantly what they hope to gain from training, much less the general environment we operate in.
Thks for the great blog !
Ciao
Kendo could loose a lot and gain just a little in the Olympics. Taekwondo is the proof.
I'm not sure the right answer here and there are some unappealling aspects to the Olympics to me, but here's what I don't understand about the anti-Olympics crowd: It seems to boil down to "the competition would ruin the reiho."
My response, however, is that Kendo is already inherently about competition. There are hundreds (thousands?) of tournaments, none more critical than the All Japans; and no international event yet a bigger deal than the the WKC. Why would participating in Olympics necessitate any worse (or better) ettiquite and decourum than those events do, since the competitors would all be the same people with the same sensei and the same sense of respect for self and for others? Wouldn't we have the same judges? Why would we need technology-scoring-based systems any more than we do now? I just don't get those arguments.
I voted No. However, with the improvements in technology (witness the taekwando electronic scoring using the Hall effect, according to one of my students) and the continuing pressure fron the Korean's, we would do well to prepare for it. Either accept the inevitable or, as the Koreans are doing, put a lot more effort into building an effective alliance against the notion. I suspect that the Koreans have taken a leaf out of the Japanese whaling handbook and already built up a substantial alliance of smaller, Kendo impoverished countries... Ie with "gifts" etc. we may have already lost the battle!
Frank
It could as long as Reiho remains part of the scoring element. It would be great to see Kendo in the Olympics.
P.S. Keep up the good work with your articles.
Regards,