Gotten any concussions from getting smacked on the head?
Nope. The hits are not meant to hurt at all. You feel them but if they are done properly they do not hurt.
Have you ever taken a life?
Well, I, and many others, have no life outside of kendo. So kendo took our lives. Does that count?
Martial arts are love. I want to know what kind of training you do. What's the average class like?
Every dojo is different, and it depends on the level of the people in class (routines for beginners are different than for advanced people). But a very typical class with moderately advanced people would look like this:
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Warm up, stretching;
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Suburi drills; that is, drills with the shinai (our bamboo sword) where we practice basic cuts, swinging at the air;
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Line-up for "opening ritual": mokuso (quick zen meditation, to set your mental focus) and rei (bowing);
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Basics drills without bogu (our armour), such as:
- Footwork drills
- Exercises to practice our posture
- Exercises to practice our proper grip and/or proper cutting technique
- And other such basics (may or may not be with a partner, depending);
- Put on bogu;
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Basics drills with bogu (and a partner, always paired up):
- Kiri-kaeshi, a drill where you do a series of cuts, practices your footwork, distance, spirit and cardio
- Basic attacks on a non-defending partner; typically, we do a bunch of drills (say, 5 times each), and then rotate to get a new partner;
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Advanced drills, such as:
- Counter attacks
- Continuous attacks (attacking several times in a row without breaking form or losing your breath)
- Backwards attacking techniques
- and so on;
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Sparring (jikeiko). Basically just a duel/fight, trying to score points and doing your best applying all that you learned, or for experimenting some techniques you might be yet uncomfortable with. Sometimes it's very structured, we spar for X minutes and rotate after the call, sometimes it's free keiko, you pick the partner of your choice and there's no set time limit.
- Line-up for the "closing ritual" (mokuso, rei).
It varies though. Sometimes we put on bogu right after the suburi session and go straight into bogu drills, sometimes we spend more time without it and focus on the very basics. Sometimes a practice will focus on more specific techniques during the whole time, sometimes it'll be a revision of previous training sessions, sometimes it'll be spread on a variety of techniques, sometimes it'll have shiai (matches with actual referees judging the points, like a mock tournament), etc. so it does vary quite a bit, but the template above is the most standard kind of practice. It can be done with a lot of instructions and explanations in-between drills (especially if there are a lot of beginners), or very little, depending on the format, who's leading, who's present at practice, etc.
And of course sometimes there is kata practice, where we use bokuto (wooden sabers). We don't wear the armour as there is no contact during the kata. Typically this is done more often in periods preceding the grading examination dates, because most dojos are really bad at kata and neglect them and just go on full cramming mode.
