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The reader will note an interpretive tone to this book. This is due to my background. I first became interested in Kendo while conducting research on Japanese culture. I have also trained in a wide variety of Japanese martial arts: karate-do, judo, aikido, and iaido. My professional studies as an anthropologist (someone who specializes in the description and interpretation of foreign cultures and societies) nicely blended with my personal interest in budo as a vehicle for physical and spiritual cultivation. I found that my studies in Japanese history, language, and culture, combined with the insight generated from the discipline of anthropology, substantially enhanced both my appreciation and understanding of the martial arts.

This advantage was made even more evident when I began to study Kendo. This art is highly formalized, heavily symbolic, and still very strongly linked to traditional Japanese culture. It has been molded by the Japanese historical and intellectual experience.

Very little written material on Kendo is available to nonspecialists outside of Japan, when we compare it to other martial arts. What are available are works of a primarily technical nature, or works on philosophy and the martial arts in general. Comprehensive yet accessible texts dealing with Kendo are rare. One of the many aims of this book is to attempt to partially fill this void concerning Kendo literature in English. In particular, as I put this book together, I kept in mind the questions I had when I began the study of Kendo, the concepts that seemed to help me, and the images that helped me make some sense out of my dojo experience. In many ways, then, this is a book that attempts to serve as a basic guide for beginning Kendoka.