From 10th Anniversary 1998-2008 Booklet

Yasuyuki Miyoshi, Daniel Wagner 2008

Foundation and early years

Imperial College Kendo Club was founded by Koichiro Yoshida when he started his studies at Imperial back in the academic year of 1998/99. He had been an experienced kendo player since early age and had continued his kendo practicing in the UK. Since founding the club, he was to become widely known in the UK kendo community and for his active contribution to the community and for his passionate style of kendo. He founded the club with his friends, amongst whom was Takeo Fujihira who took the post of treasurer. The newborn club was run and managed by those two young students and their friends for years to come.

Initially, the club had no experienced players apart from Koichiro. He had already known the UK kendo practitioners and had asked Mr Terry Holt, the head of Mumeishi Kendo Club to become a supervisor of our club. Therefore, IC kendo club started as an informal branch of Mumeishi Kendo Club. With this connection, there were many occasional visits from members and friends of Mumeishi to practice with Imperial students and to teach them. The teacher who has stayed with the club since its foundation is Ms Emiko Yoshikawa. Another teacher then was Mr Emmanuel Aggugini-Levi also from Mumeishi. They have spent two evening a week to standing in front of beginners. Thanks to their patience and enthusiasm, the beginners continued practicing. At this time the club didn't have any bogu yet. The only equipment were some second hand shinai which Takeo stored in his flat and carried to and from every lesson in the Southside gym.

The first batch of kendo armours arrived from Japan in the summer of 1999. They were donated from schools and dojos in Japan which Koichiro and Ms Yoshikawa had asked for second hand bogu. Occasionally, kendo players who had visitted Imperial would leave their old bogu behind for us when they left the UK. The number of bogu and the available sizes were still limitted so beginners came to every lesson to win the opportunity to wear the armours.

From the second year, the club has already officially started competing in the UK kendo championships such as Mumeishi 3's, Bowden cups, University Championships, Lidstone Taikai, and sometimes even championships abroad. Before the recent founding of the UCL kendo club, Imperial also accommodated kendo practicing students from other institutes and colleges of University of London. Therefore, the club had a unique atmosphere of students and otherwise with very different backgrounds and often its teams were unusual mixtures of players.

The club establishes itself

After the initial hurdle of missing equipment was taken, the club soon established itself in the British kendo community. Imperial College Kendo Club is well known in the UK for its energetic and passionate kendo style. It has also a reputation to be a dojo which put a lot of emphasis on the basic skills. Because of its convinient location and openness to outsiders, the club receives many visitors who contribute to the unique practice experience at Imperial.

In the accademic year 2003/04, Itsuma Tanaka became the president of the club. He was able to build on the previous experience of the IC kendo club to start the club's annual beginners' taikai. This was designed to encourage beginners to keep up their progress by competing against each other by performing basic skills they learn in the first two months of their experience. The beginners' championship was featured in the previous Japanese kendo magazine Kendo Nippon which reported on British university kendo clubs on the occasion of the 12 th World Kendo Championship held in Glasgow in 2003. The magazine also featured interviews with Itsuma and Sensei Yoshikawa, who was British national quad member at the world championship. Some of the club members travelled to Glasgow to watch the world championship.

Hosting the University Championship 2004 and 2005

After winning the team competition in the UK university championship in 2003, following the tradition, Imperial has hosted the championship in 2004. This event was the most successful in the club's history so far. The competition was dominated by Imperial clean sweeping the podium for both individual and team competition and even winning the flighting spirit award. Following this victory, the club has again hosted the championship in 2005.

Recent developments

In 2004, Mr KC Yung joined the IC kendo club as teacher. With his dedicated attitude to kendo, and his vast experience in competitive kendo as member of the Hongkong national team, his teaching had a strong influence on the club over the following years. Mr Yung left Imperial in 2008 when he moved back to his family in Hongkong.

In the summer 2007, Mr Yung suggested chi jin yuu - wisdom humanity courage as our club motto. Since these virtues accurately describe its self-conception as university club, the motto was immediately adopted by the club. Emiko Yoshikawa's mother, a teacher of calligraphy in Japan, wrote the calligraphy for the club banner which was inaugurated as shomen during the annual beginners' competition in December 2007.

Not only Mr Yung left the club in 2008, but also the last member of the first club generation lest Imperial. Yasuyuki and Takayuki Miyoshi have been with the club from the very beginning, all the way through their studies as undergraduates, postgraduates and PhD students.

With one of our teachers recently gone and many experienced players graduating and leaving the college, our club lost some of its competitive strength. On the other hand, it's membership is growing, and the club has a strong foundation of dedicated beginners, which leaves much to hope and to expect for the next ten years.

The meaning behind the club banner

On our club's banner there is a calligraphy of our club motto:

The Japanese reading of our motto is "Chi Jin Yuu" which means "Wisdom Humanity Courage". These are three virtues which we are trying to achieve in our kendo, in our academic work and in our lifes in general. Our club motto reminds us that we should constantly seek deeper understanding, that we are part of a society and should treat each other with respect, and that we should never ever be afraid of a challenge.

The club motto was suggested by Yung-sensei and chosen by our members in the summer 2007. The calligraphy was written by Yoshikawa-sensei's mother, a teacher and practitioner of calligraphy in Japan. The banner was inaugurated as the club's shomen on our internal Christmas competition in December 2007.