<Begin Segment 23>

SY: So I'm gonna switch over the subject and talk a little bit about your interest in kendo. Can you talk about how that started, when it started?

GN: The first time I saw kendo was actually in Tule Lake. They had a barrack where one end of it was used for recreation purposes, and I remember one day I saw people practicing kendo, and they had full equipment on too. So that was the first time. Then, I don't know if you remember Jack Paar, he had Mori sensei and his son demonstrate kendo, so that's the second time I saw kendo.

SY: That was on television, the Tonight Show?

GN: It was on, yeah. And eventually, when we moved to Gardena, Mori sensei lived about two blocks from us and so my younger brother, Tosh, became friends with Chris Mori, his son.

SY: And was Mori sensei the top, was...

GN: Yeah.

SY: He was one of the top kendo people locally.

GN: Yeah. And, but in the meantime what happened was -- and there was that Kokusai Theater on Jefferson and Crenshaw --

SY: The movie theater.

GN: Saw the samurai trilogy, Toshiro Mifune as Miyamoto Musashi, and so that film really intrigued me about kendo. There's a zen aspect to it, there's the bushido aspect to it, and so that's where I got interested in practicing kendo. And so now we're living in Gardena and so I started kendo at the Gardena dojo, at the Gardena JCI. That was in 1959. And so I practiced kendo for about a year over there. Then I had to start taking college courses in the evening, and because they practiced there on Tuesday night it conflicted with some classes I wanted to take, so Denker, the Seinan Dojo at the Denker playground, they practiced on Friday nights, and so Friday nights you don't have any classes, college classes, and so I asked for permission to change Dojo. You have to do that because you have a teacher there that you're studying under, and so that's what happened, so then I started practicing at Denker playground.

SY: I see. So let's back up and talk a little bit about the whole philosophy of kendo. What, what's the whole...

GN: Well, the Zen aspect is that you don't look at yourself as an entity or relative to your ego. You become part of the sword. You become one. Then when you do that you could sense your opponent far better than when you think in terms of yourself and the other person. And also you don't think about what you're gonna do. I mean, those are things you already practice. You're in a given situation, you automatically make your move a certain way.

SY: So do you learn first without the sword, or how, do you --

GN: No, you learn with the, with the wooden sword that you practice with.

SY: And you do exercises?

GN: Exercises and you learn certain technique that you hit, whether it's the forehead or the wrist or the torso, and then you have to execute that with a yell. It has to be simultaneous. Part of the reason for the yell is that you have to, you're doing the execution with your gut level feeling behind it. It isn't just the physical motion.

SY: And is it meant to actually strike the opponent?

GN: Yeah.

SY: So you, that's why you wear the, the...

GN: The mask, yeah.

SY: The mask. And so you aim for...

GN: The forehead.

SY: Part of the mask, part of the body that's covered.

GN: Yeah.

SY: So is it, can it be painful?

GN: No, the only one that's painful is when you get hit in the elbow, because it's bare right there. You don't have any kind of protection.

SY: And what's the, what's the purpose of it? In other words, do you get scored?

GN: Yeah. And it's subjective. It has to be a clean hit, whether it's on the forehead or on the wrist. There's different en garde positions. Some people en garde with the sword on top like this [holds arms up over head], and so you could hit the wrists either side, or strike the wrists. That would be a cut. Or on the torso, either side. You could also do a thrust to the throat. And then there's also what's called yokomen, which is a strike to the temple, either side. The one that usually is done is when you use one hand with your left hand and you hit the temple on this side [points to right temple].

SY: Wow. So there's no --

GN: That could hurt.

SY: Yeah, it seems like it would.

GN: Especially if it doesn't hit part of the frame but it hits the side of the head.

SY: Yeah, just, but, and you're also in great physical shape to, to do this, because it, because of the...

GN: Usually after practice you're completely drenched.

SY: Really? 'Cause you're constantly en garde, is that the...

GN: Yeah.

SY: And do you do, you don't do, you are always with an opponent?

GN: When you do some practice session you may not have an opponent. You exercise the hitting motion, or that one you will be jumping but other ones where you just go forward you won't have an opponent with you.

SY: So it originated as, as sort of a, with, I mean, it was an aggressive sport, or was it considered a sport when it originated?

GN: They don't consider it a sport. Martial arts is, in many ways is not a sport, because in essence what you're doing is you're killing someone, especially when it comes to kendo. So in that respect you can't really call it a sport.

SY: What, now was that kind of what fascinated you about it? Was it the, when you first saw it, was it the aggressiveness of it?

GN: The whole idea as an art. There's the execution, the form, the attitude.

SY: Yeah, very interesting. And you ended up becoming how, how long did you practice it?

GN: I did it until 1984 and I had to drop it when I got elected to the city council, didn't have time to practice anymore. There were so many activities in the evening that I had to attend.

SY: So at the height of your practice how many, how much time did you devote to it?

GN: Either twice or three times a week.

SY: Evenings.

GN: Yeah, in the evenings.

SY: And what stage did you reach in kendo, in terms of...

GN: As an instructor I received what's called renchi, then fifth dan in kendo. That was in, the fifth dan I got in 1976, so I had two more years before I could take a test for the next rank, but I dropped it in 1984. Yeah.

SY: So fifth dan is what level in terms of the total scheme?

GN: Well in the old days they, it went up to ten, but they don't give the ninth and tenth anymore, I don't think, so it goes up to eight.

SY: So it's comparable to, like a black belt.

GN: It is a black belt.

SY: It is a black belt, considered black belt.

GN: First you, 'cause you have your first degree black belt, second degree, third, fourth, and mine is fifth.

SY: I see. So yours is fifth and then it goes up to maybe eight.

GN: Yeah.

SY: So you were really pretty proficient, studied it.

GN: Well I did it long enough, from '59 to, it was '76 when I got my fifth degree.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.