<Begin Segment 7>

TI: Tell me a little bit about your father as a kendo instructor, the school he taught at, what was that like?

CS: Well, it started off a half a block from our house was Evergreen playground, they had a gymnasium there, and he started his school there. And it became a pretty big school, and then when Chuo Gakuen built, they built a big auditorium so we moved over there. And later on, when I advanced in degrees, I was helping him, too, and he also had other assistants helping him teach kendo.

TI: And about how large was the school? How many students were there?

CS: About sixty, I guess. Well, you saw that picture there, that was a special tournament with (a few of) the dojos combined.

TI: And when you think about kendo tournaments, describe that in terms of, you know, like the southern California, did they have large tournaments where...

CS: Oh, they had dojos all over the place. There was a video... ever hear of Torao Mori?

TI: No, I haven't.

CS: See, he was the Miyamoto Musashi of modern Japan, heads above everybody before the war. So the government sent him to the United States to learn western sabre to represent Japan in the 1940 Tokyo Olympics. He was so good when he switched over to western sabre, and the first year he was the California champ. And then could have been the national champ, but I think because of prejudice, they made him second, you know. And then he met a Nisei girl, so they married in Japan. And when they were married, Pearl Harbor came. And then after the war, he came back, and in Japan, kendo was outlawed. So he was famous before the war, but anybody after the war ever heard (about) him. But he came back to the United States and he was so good again, and he became the coach for the U.S. Olympic team.

TI: This is in kendo, or fencing?

CS: No, no, in fencing, western fencing. And if you know kendo, I think you could beat the sabre. 'Cuz myself, I give a kendo demonstration at UCLA, coach (of the UCLA team) said, "Come on down (to the gym)," and then he gave me the white uniform, gave me a sabre and said, "Duel those two guys," and I beat 'em. They were the two, one, two men on the team, so I got on the UCLA fencing team.

TI: I've never heard this before. So the skills in kendo translate well to fencing?

CS: Oh, it was just... we had more moves, and we used two hands, (and also used) one hand -- sabre is one hand. But the principles are the same, but we had more moves than in sabre, so it was very easy. That's why Mori-sensei became so good.

TI: How interesting. And so oftentimes, Japanese who were good at kendo could later on go into fencing maybe in college?

CS: Yeah. 'Cause this other fellow that I gave a demonstration with, he got on the UCLA fencing team, too, because both of us were beating everybody. [Laughs]

TI: So tell me a little bit about the tournaments in Los Angeles.

CS: Kendo?

TI: Yeah, kendo. You have a lot of dojos all around, and how would that be organized?

CS: I don't know. My father was, I don't know if he was a secretary or something of the association, and how they did it, I don't know, but we had tournaments all the time.

TI: Now, when you were being trained, was there any sense of it being like military training when you did kendo?

CS: Oh, no. That was, to me, it was sports, I just loved it. We'd go at it for hours. That's why I think I built my body at that time. Once or twice a week we'd go for two hours straight, just going on this, sweating profusely, you know, and just build up the stamina.

MN: In Japan, I understand kendo is for the upper class, because, well-to-do because you have to buy equipment, expensive equipment. What was it like here? Was it more well-to-do families who were in your kendo classes?

CS: I don't think so, 'cause half of the kendo people were Boy Scouts and Cougars. [Laughs] And they weren't, we weren't all rich. Even we, my father was the teacher, we weren't wealthy. Maybe they sold it at a discount to him, I don't know, but everybody had their dogu.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.