<Begin Segment 7>
MN: Now, did you take any martial arts like kendo, judo?
MT: Yeah, I learned kendo for, gee, how many years? Maybe four or five years until I was about twelve. After that, you had to help on the farm. You're all big enough, you don't want to be playing.
MN: How did you choose to learn kendo?
MT: To learn kendo? They had the uniform, you know, then your helmet and all that, yeah. Then we would go after each other. They just show you the basic of how to use it and then you could just learn to be quick and protect yourself. I used to love that because it was, you attack the other guys as hard as you want, take your frustration out. [Laughs]
MN: Where were these classes held?
MT: At the church. They take all the chairs out. Because they didn't have chairs that were bolted to the ground, there was just the folding chairs. So take all the chairs and take it out and then they have it there. And the teacher that's gonna teach us says, "Okay, you're going this wrong," or, "You should do this to get better on hitting." They tell you, "You have to hit below the elbow," for the arm, and the head is straight up or I call it yokome, you could hit the side of the head, but that's it. But they had it, never taught us where we could use a tsuki, they used to go for the throat one, they called that the tsuki. This is the yokome and then this is the tsuki, and me. But they didn't want us to do that one 'cause you're not very good and that thing is only about three inches wide. If you miss, you hit the guys in the throat because it'll go underneath your helmet. So they didn't like us to do that too much. They don't want to hurt the guy or kill 'em, they just want us to learn how to do the things. So they tell you, "Mostly hit where the head, like dual, kote, yokome, me," and you'll learn to do most of those. Never they should aim for the face. You don't have that. It's always where they got the... like on the helmet, they got that think mat on the side here, comes down to your shoulders, so you're supposed to aim for that.
MN: Now when was kendo classes held?
MT: Just on the weekends.
MN: After Japanese school?
MT: Yeah, after Japanese school.
MN: So on Saturdays?
MT: Saturdays. Saturday, or sometime on Sundays, but not too much. Even the teachers have to farm, and he can't be taking two, three days off. He'd just take off one day here and there and that's it.
<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.