Step-by-step Exercises

On the first day of class, the curator taught us how to put on the kendo-uniform properly. At the same time, she explained to us the ideological meaning behind the uniform —— the five folds on the uniform represent five different traditional Chinese virtues: Benevolence, Righteousness, Propriety, Wisdom and Fidelity.

Then the curator distributed the bamboo swords suitable for our use to us according to 

everyone's situation. For me at that time, wearing a kendougi (kendo uniform) and holding a shinai (bamboo sword) made me felt great.

But soon the initial excitement was overwhelmed by the pain of the practice.

During the first few days of practice, I had a hard time holding the shinaiproperly and making movements for a long time. There is no denying that the initial basic training was boring and painful, and my hands even got blisters from rubbing against the hilt for a long time. However, the curator did not allow us to stop and rest in the middle of the training, and I was often injured because of the blisters on my hands, but could not rest, even though the blood stained the originally white hilt of the sword red.

The director was also very strict with our training. Whenever our movements were incorrect or irregular, she would point them out at the first time and ask us to correct them immediately. Under such circumstances, several freshmen who were not strong-minded and could not bear hardships chose to quit the training. Although I also considered quitting because of the pressure of hard training, I was shocked by the spirit of my classmates who were not afraid of hardship and perseverance in training, so I was determined to stay and persevere in practice. I think that the suffering and exhaustion in training is also a kind of hone for me, and since I had chosen to practice kendo, it is also worth the sweat and effort for it.