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the goals of training

Different people look for different things in Kendo training. Some seek the exhilaration of exercise and the challenge of hard physical training. Many Kendo students come to the art after exposure to other types of martial arts. They seek to broaden their knowledge of the martial way and, perhaps, to find a closer link to the samurai experience that they believe created these arts in the first place.

There is room for all these motivations in Kendo. At base, however, it is a special type of martial art. A modern development, it is highly ritualized and codified. It has little immediately practical utility in selfdefense. It is an excellent source of aerobic exercise and can present the trainee with an exciting tournament dimension. Most importantly, however, Kendo is a method for disciplining and refining the human spirit. It is this, above all, that it is designed to do.

An excellent summary of the goals of Kendo is provided by the All Japan Kendo Federation:

The concept of Kendo is to discipline the human character