Japanese Sword Arts FAQ Version 2.7
6. How did kendo originate?
The earliest swords known to exist in Japan were of Chinese style and origin and date to the 2nd century BC. These ancient swords are referred to as ken or tsurugi, depending on whether you use the sino-Japanese or Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese ideogram for sword or knife. From this term comes kendo, way of the sword, and kenjutsu, art of the sword. The first curved swords were also continental imports called kanto tachi, used during the 6th and 7th centuries. Japanese sword technology began to outstrip the continental blades around the 8th century, with the advent of the first Japanese curved swords. These swords were probably based on a second type of curved sword called a warabite-to.
There were no schools of swordsmanship in ancient times. Reference to the use of bokken (wooden sword) for fighting and training date back to 400 AD. This was followed by tachikaki, the art of drawing the sword. Tachikaki developed into tachiuchi (match with swords) by the 8th century, after which there was slow development in kenjutsu. Most scholars believe that by the early 15th century swordsmanship had acquired regional personality and formalized schools (ryuha) began to develop. This was part of a generalized trend of the times among Japanese arts of various sorts to formalize styles and lines of transmission.
Scholars have identified five such regional traditions in existence around the 15th century: that of the Kashima-Katori area, known as the Shinto-ryu or Kashima-no-tachi; that of the capital region, called the Kyoryu ("capital tradition") or Kyohachi-ryu ("8 styles of the capital"); that of Hyuga region in Kyushu, called the Kage-ryu ("shadow style"); that of the Chujo family in the Kamakura area (the Chujo-ryu), and the Nen-ryu tradition of the northeast.
One of the pioneers in the early development of swordsmanship was Kamiizumi Ise-no-kami. He lived in the 16th century and is credited with the invention of the fukuro shinai, a bamboo sword split 16 or 32 ways and completely covered in leather.
Shinkage ryu is a family of many ryuha which still exist today, all claiming descent from Kamiizumi.
In the 17th century, Ittosai Ito Kagehisa achieved a reputation for peerless swordsmanship and deep-thinking philosophy. He named himself Ittosai (one sword man) and founded Itto-ryu, the one sword school. It still exists today and strongly influences modern kendo.
In the mid-18th century, Chuto Nakanishi developed the modern four- piece shinai and the kote (gloves). The do (chestplate) and men (helmet) followed, and by the end of the century, the practice armour and weapons had been refined into more or less the form they are used today. The new equipment required a new set of rules for the dojo, and the new style of fencing ultimately became known as kendo, although that specific term was not popularized until the early 1900s.
From 1868 through the 1880s the Meiji government tried to move Japanese society awar from outdated arts like swordsmanship, closing traditional fencing acadamies and tightening restrictions on the wearing of swords in public, banning them outright in 1878. Kenjutsu was barely able to survive in this period. The Japanese police are credited with much of the effort in keeping swordsmanship alive during this period. In 1872 Sakibara Kenkichi was permitted to organize the Gekken Kaisha (Fencing Company) and hold public demonstrations and competitions. These proved popular, spawning a handful of other gekken groups. The involvement of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police in fencing promotions began in 1879; it was the police, who needed to establish standardized techniques and rules for training recruits, that took the biggest early steps away from old-style, ryuha-ideosyncratic swordsmanship and toward the homogenized sportive version of swordsmanship that eventually became modern kendo. In 1909, the first college kendo federation was formed, followed by the Zen-Nippon Kendo Renmei (ZNKR, All-Japan Kendo Federation) in 1928. This federation, along with the Zen-Nippon Iaido Renmei (ZNIR, All-Japan Iaido Federation), govern kendo and iaido today.