Embu at the Royal Armouries

27th October, Leeds. Sunday 28 October was the final day in a week of Budo related events at the royal armouries.

'Bushido': The Way of the Warrior

A celebration of the splendour of Japan and its many customs. Take part in our Samurai school, be amazed by Japanese horse archery, and enjoy a tour of the Oriental gallery. There will be a handling collection so visitors can get a real feel for the culture, and oriental themed children's activities.

This really is an excellent museum to visit particularly if you are interested in Japanese/oriental weapons and warfare.

During the day we were royally treated and performed two 30 minute demonstrations to give the people visiting the museum (literally hundreds of them) a taste of what kendo is like. The first show was at 12.00 and took place in the tournament gallery. This area of the museum has a fenced off section where interpreters/actors demonstrate the techniques of European martial arts. It was very tight for a kendo display being only about 5 metres square but we managed and seemed to impress the crowd that had gathered. There were numerous enquiries afterwards and many people seemed keen to take the BKA glossy leaflet (as a souvenir?).

The second show was in the afternoon at 2.30. By this time the museum had really started to fill up. For this demonstration we were in the dojo (Yes! They have a rather splendid area with seating and oriental artifacts just off the oriental gallery). This is another area where the interpreters demonstrate various martial arts. It is a much larger area and more suited to a kendo demonstration. We once again went through all the key elements of kendo practice: Kata, kihon, uchikomi, kakari and keiko finishing off with a ninjin geiko (winner stays in) and finally a demonstration match between myself and Dave Bell. We seemed to be very popular, with the dojo area and the galleries above all being packed, so packed in fact that the museum staff received a number of complaints from people who had been unable to see. Lots of people seemed interested and took our last few glossies, many were keen to find clubs in their own area and we steered these towards the BKA website.

All in all it was an enjoyable day. It just remains to give thanks to: Ken Halls (for taking photos), also Do Shin Ken Yu Kai members: Joe Petrie, Gareth Mason, Mark Halls, Martin Larner, and Vai Ling Ng for their part in the display and Dave Bell representing the national squad. They all gave up their Sunday in support of the BKA.

- Gary O’Donnell, Do Shin Ken Yu Kai