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As people in the West have been exposed to the Asian martial arts and have come to recognize their value, there has been a steady growth in more "exotic" martial arts forms. In addition, as martial artists who began study in the 1960s and 70s have faced the wear and tear of advancing age, they have begun to look for martial arts forms that do less damage to the body and still offer the physical and psychological benefits of systems such as karate and judo. Finally, large numbers of women are seeking participation in martial arts whose philosophy is attractive and whose techniques enable them to transcend the physical disparities in size and strength between the sexes. All these things have acted to make Kendo increasingly attractive to Western practitioners.

In the United States, the All United States Kendo Federation is the official body regulating the practice of Kendo. It was founded in 1995 when two other Kendo organizations, the Kendo Federation of the United States and the Beikoku Kendo Renmei, were merged. The AUSKF maintains twelve regional Kendo federations, each with a board of directors and officers. Today, there are some two thousand practitioners of Kendo affiliated with the organization in the United States.