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Recalling over 50 years of budo is never going to be a brief synopsis; but then again, Jock Hopson Sensei has got a lot to cover. In his own words, “since my recollections are

based on self-appraisal and often half-remembered events, it’s also pretty unlikely that I can do the job with any semblance of accuracy or of modesty either – but here goes”.

Cutting Edge asked Hopson Sensei if he’d be happy to share his memories; so what follows is an essay that plunges us back to the early sixties, and paints a picture of kendo in it’s infancy in the UK, and the ups and downs of a novice armed with little knowledge, but a lot of enthusiasm.

British Kendo Association’sJOCK HOPSON

Sensei

As a teenager I had developed an unhealthy interest in swords and

bayonets which could be bought at the time for just a couple of pounds from just about every junk shop and house clearance. Among my collection were a couple of wakizashi, a shin-gunto and a rusty old katana which I innocently polished up with emery cloth and Duraglit! My earliest attempts at tameshigiri were spent in my parent’s garden throwing spuds in the air, drawing and cutting them before they hit the ground, much to the amusement of the neighbours.

I first discovered the world of budo at the age of 17, during my final year at secondary school, when I came across a Judo Club which had just

opened in Streatham, South London which is where I became acquainted with weird words such as tomoe nage, o-soto gari, “Jesus that hurt”, and the like. Judo certainly paid off when I was made a school prefect and put into the school football team as a striker; the striking mostly coming into effect during the after match punch-up with the opposing team.

On leaving school I got my first (legal) motorbike and started work in a photographic lab in Farringdon Street in the City of London which was convenient for judo and aikido training at the London Judo Society (LJS) in Vauxhall under the marvellous Senta Yamada Sensei.

By great co-incidence, Charles Lidstone and Roald Knutsen were

Jock Hopson Sensei’s budo experience spans over 50 years. From London, he is one of two Europeans holding nanadan in iaido, kendo and jodo.Still very active on the teaching circuit in both Europe and non-European countries.

JOCK HOPSON SENSEI

The S.S.Viet Nam

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JOCK HOPSON SENSEI

teaching kendo at the Shinto Ryu Dojo which was held in the hall adjacent to the LJS and as soon as I saw them training I was hooked. The moment I could afford a shinai I switched over to kendo and, using a ratty old shinken with a split saya from my collection, started some extremely rudimentary iaido (the rule of thumb in the 60’s was, “never pay more than a fiver for any sword, and twenty pounds tops for a complete suit of samurai armour). At that time the British Kendo Association (BKA) was in it’s infancy and was competing for members, and influence, with the British Kendo Council, run by one of the Otani brothers, Tommy, under the guidance of the extremely scary Abe Sensei. Vic Cook and Victor Harris

were also training at the Shinto Ryu Dojo in Vauxhall over the same period in Autumn 1961 – Spring 1962. I remember in my nightmares, one of Tommy’s students who reputedly trained without armour, as being “too nancy”. If we spotted him getting off the bus in the Vauxhall area, we locked the dojo door, put the lights out, and sat quietly till he’d finished hammering on the door and went away.

After watching Seven Samurai about 49,000 times, I reckoned I had the makings of a pretty good ronin, but

without advanced instruction in kendo my path to daimyo was going to be pretty slow in the UK. Consequently we often resorted to asking any Japanese tourists or businessmen we saw in the street if they had any experience of kendo. We were extremely fortunate to receive visits from Koshikawa Hidenosuke Sensei 9th dan Hanshi, Takizawa Kozo Sensei

and Oura Yoshihiko Sensei, both 7th dan Kyoshi at that time. Takizawa Sensei kindly agreed to join Sir Frank Bowden and Charles de Beaumont OBE as one of the Vice Presidents of the BKA; Field Marshall Sir Frances Festing acting as President until 1969, followed by Sir Frank Bowden until 2004 and John Howell until 2009.

Oura Sensei, an All Japan Champion, ran his own dojo in Japan, and very generously made the offer of free training and accommodation to anyone who could get themselves over to Kyushu. So, on the principal of “if you don’t ask, you don’t get.” So I wrote to Oura Sensei and received a fantastic invitation to train at his dojo, the Yubukan, in Fukuoka, Kyushu. After hastily organising a gap-year from Goldsmiths College, ostensibly to conduct research into “The Development and Manufacture of Japanese Armour”, followed by three months labouring on a building site in Battersea and a generous subsidy from Babs Lord of Pan’s People (the lovely blonde one seen on Top of the Pops) I had the money for a single passage to Japan.

The adventure starts Getting on the train from Liverpool Street; the cross channel ferry; and a train through France to Marseilles; I eventually boarded the S.S ‘Viet-Nam’ just a few days before Christmas 1964. Thirty two days later, having docked at Aden, Port Said, Karachi, Bombay, Colombo, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Saigon (where in my innocence I thought they were setting off fireworks from the river bank as we came up the Mekong Delta) and finally Hong Kong; the boat finally arrived in Kobe on January

22nd 1965. Luckily, Oura Sensei and an English speaking journalist friend came to meet me in Kobe as I had only £5 sterling in the world and no return ticket, or any idea where Fukuoka was!

The training regime at the dojo was actually quite normal for Japan, but to say it came as a shock to the system would be an understatement. My inability to speak Japanese, a general lack of kendo fitness, the culture shock and general home-sickness made my stay in Fukuoka perhaps the most gruelling period of my life, both physically and mentally. Added to this, of course, was the fact that I had no return ticket and no money, so

making a Magwitch style escape over the mud flats was out of the question. But, the training was fantastic and Oura Sensei and his wife, and sons, couldn’t have been kinder or more insistent on correct technique in the dojo and behaviour outside.

The training regime at the dojo was actually quite normal for Japan, but to say it came as a shock to the system would be an understatement.

At the time, foreigners were still quite a rarity in rural Fukuoka and it was quite a shock as a ‘sophisticated’ Londoner, to have a trail of kids following me down the road remarking on; a) my big nose; b) my weird coloured eyes and hair, and; c) my enormous feet (actually a petite size eight ). But I managed to get my kendo nidan in Fukuoka and made a right fool of myself at the Zen Nippon Tozai Taiko Taikai in April where, billed as “the blue eyed kenshi”, I did an exhibition of kakari geiko. The first 15 seconds of which was absolutely brilliant, after which quickly disintegrated into an exhibition of a sobbing heap of humanity gasping for air.

Oura Sensei making grip corrections at the Yubukan dojo in Fukuoka

The original article from the Mainichi Shinbun, 1965, and the English translation.

My home stay with Oura Sensei and his family

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JOCK HOPSON SENSEI

After a stay of seven months, my time was up in Fukuoka and I met up again with Jim Matthie and Etsuko Horriie from the Shinto Ryu Dojo while I was waiting in Tokyo for a flight back to the UK. Jim had just arrived in Japan that summer and was living in Tokyo and training under Takizawa Sensei at the Saineikan, the dojo for the Imperial Palace Police Force which was actually within the Imperial Palace grounds. If anything, Jim had a much harder time of it than me – as the Imperial Palace Police are not known for their empathy and understanding. Jim was forced to hobble around the dojo on feet that looked like a pound of mince-meat wrapped in dirty bandages.

Unfortunately, I managed to contract amoebic dysentery and finished up being nursed in a privately run obstetrics clinic owned by Dr. Ohmura – a wonderful man who was to have a great influence on my life. In rooms either side of mine were women groaning and yelling in the final stages of labour, and in the middle, a very slim Hopson groaning and screaming out for more loo rolls, preferably from the fridge.

On my return to the UK in September 1965, I resolved to run the London Kendo Club (above), which was now at the Henry Fawcett School in Bowling Green Lane, Kennington, South London, along the same lines as the Yubukan dojo in Fukuoka. Within two weeks of getting back and introducing the ‘new regime’, club numbers had shrunk from fifteen to

six ‘walking-wounded’, and I had to radically re-think my teaching style.

I eventually qualified as a teacher from Goldsmiths College in 1967, and having been put off the idea of secondary school teaching after my teaching practice in Deptford, I talked my way into a job as a model-maker in the Engineering Department at the Science Museum. After ruining a perfectly innocent, and pretty expensive screw-cutting lathe, I moved swiftly on to the London College of Furniture in Shoreditch, where I managed an un-funded post graduate year in Furniture Design. It was a fantastic intake, full of bright, extremely competitive design students, and with the £25 from the Horatio Meyer Design Prize and the last of my savings, I swopped my tired old BSA Gold Star for the first of my many Velocette motorcycles.

Having not ruined anything expensive for a while, I was taken on as Manager of a newly-formed flat-pack furniture company in Maida Vale. During this period, my kendo training was divided between the Nenriki dojo, Hagakure dojo and the London Kendo Club.

After leaving the BKA in 1966 while I was In Japan, November 1968 saw the London Kendo Club was once again back in the soft, enfolding,

bosom of the BKA. We missed the inaugural Japan Airlines Trophy Taikai in 1968 but were able to participate in the second JAL in September 1969, where Deb and I were placed equal third. This was a much bigger event than it might seem as it was attended by an AJKF delegation comprising Takizawa Kozo, Nakakura Kyoshi, Ueda Hajime, Sakuma Saburo, Ito Kiyotsugu, and Sato Shiro Sensei who were on a kendo tour of Europe.

The presence of foreign kendoka excited a lot of Press interest, and although technically overwhelmed, we gave the contests our best shot. I was fortunate enough to gain one of the Fighting Spirit prizes at the Championship by beating two 6th dan opponents

The next big personal event was that Deb and I married in November 1969 in the Brixton Registry Office on a cold day in November. Thanks to several generous wedding presents, we had the finances to attend the first World Kendo Championships in Tokyo in April 1970. Although Fujii Okimitsu Sensei had organised the trip, he was unfortunately unable to accompany the squad to Japan. As I remember there were just nineteen countries represented, two of these being Okinawa and Hawaii, both technically American at the time with many countries being unable to field more than a couple of competitors.

The presence of foreign kendoka excited a lot of Press interest, and although technically overwhelmed, we gave the contests our best shot. I was fortunate enough to gain one of the Fighting Spirit prizes at the Championship by beating two 6th dan opponents, mostly by some sneaky evasive footwork on the edge of the shiai-jo. The squad was housed in the Takara Hotel in Ueno and we were introduced to Fukumoto

Shigehiko Sensei who ran a small budo equipment shop on the far side of Ueno Park.

The squad then transferred to Osaka, where we took part in a mass kendo demonstration at the Osaka Expo, in what was billed as the Osaka Individual Taikai, where Deb and Mike Finn (an ex-Shinto Ryu member who was then living in Japan) joined the UK representation. Within a packed few days I took part in the Meiji Mura Red/White match in Nagoya, the Osaka Expo Kendo Exhibition and the First World Kendo Kojin Senshuken Taikai where I was spectacularly unimpressive, losing to a constantly smiling, extremely whippety chap from Taiwan. After the Championships I took Deb to meet Dr Omura, and he and his wife liked her so much that he kindly offered to act as legal sponsors for us if we wanted to return to Japan for further kendo study.

Following the collapse of the furniture design company, I went to work at Wilson’s Grammar School in Camberwell. Like other schools I have worked at, craft teachers weren’t made too welcome in the staffroom. We had to ride in the back of the bus, had separate drinking fountains and so forth, and so I was pretty desperate to leave. We had already got our Cultural Visas for Japan and so as soon as Deb finished her course at Camberwell

School of Art in August 1971 we took the long, long journey by train across Europe and Siberia to Khabarovsk and Nahodka where we boarded the boat to Yokohama for the final part of the journey.

Safely installed in Dr Ohmura’s house in the western suburbs of Tokyo, Deb enrolled in the Joshibi Art School, bought a small motorbike to get to college, and I signed up for a Japanese Language course at Waseda University. This was at the time of the riots caused by the Japanese Government’s forcible purchase of farming land on which to build Narita Airport. The classes at Waseda were frequently drowned out by the sound of megaphones and when the riot police actually came onto the campus a pitched battle broke out with the students using scaffold poles, iai-to etc, and the police bringing the edges of their riot shields down smartly on the student’s trainers, followed by a swift clip round the head with their batons.

By this time we had both picked up several private language students

and some evening work at a language school in Todoroki run by a wonderfully disorganised lady who was so frequently “tired and emotional” that we were often paid twice, in used notes, and at the end of each working day. With so much excess cash-in-hand, a new bogu each was a priority and we once again made contact with Fukumoto Shigehiko Sensei – who had kept the British team supplied with shinai and other goodies during the First World Kendo Championships.

In April 1973 I was invited by Oura Sensei to the Sixth Kokusai Shakaijin (International World Citizens) Taikai which was being held in Fukuoka that year. With my flashy new bogu I flew down to Kyushu but, sorry to

say, the armour didn’t really have the magic qualities I had been promised, and I was back to Tokyo on the first plane with my tare between my legs.

Fukumoto Sensei kindly introduced us to a machi-dojo in down-town Tokyo, run for the benefit of local kids and blue collar workers. The dojo was run by Konishi Shiro Sensei who, as I remember, repaired blowlamps for a living

(surely the niche market to end all niche markets). The dojo was warmly supported by lots of local parents who sent their kids along to learn good manners and discipline. The dojo was strict but the teachers were patient and enthusiastic.

One drawback was the changing room which was the size of a large wardrobe. The parents frequently bought along crates of beer and gallons of sake for the teachers

Attracting a lot of Press while in Japan Relaxing with Omura Sensei, his wife and Deb

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JOCK HOPSON SENSEI

which had to be stored in the ever decreasing changing room space. Consequently, after every practice it was the duty of everyone over the age of eighteen to drink as much of the donations as possible to free up some space. Several glasses of cold sake on an empty stomach after training, followed by a trip to the local public bath to sit in water just short of boiling, is something everyone should experience – but not too often.

A frequent visitor to the dojo was Yamaguchi Yuichiro Sensei who, to this day, embodies everything I think a hanshi should be. Despite holding hachidan in both iaido and kendo he remained always a modest, self effacing and kind teacher who was a true example of ki-shu-bu-shin; a demons skill with a saint’s heart. He lived simply, rode a squeaky old bicycle to the dojo, and used a do that was worn through to the bamboo and taught hundreds and hundreds of children and adults the most straightforward and orthodox kendo that I have ever seen.

All good things come to an end though, especially visas, and in June 1973 Deb and I packed our things and made our way back to the UK on an extended holiday via Taipei, Hong Kong and Bangkok, finally arriving back to the UK in the middle of July.

January 1974 saw us back in Japan where I was working for the Ginza

American-English Centre. After my first week, the owner asked me to “try to speak proper American as the students can’t understand you“. As the other teachers included a couple of Poles, a guy from Turkey and an Australian who had got in on the strength of a swimming certificate which he claimed was a degree from Melbourne University and which the school owner couldn’t read because of the Gothic lettering, I thought the request was a bit bloody rich! However, thanks to the help from the mother of our kendo friend, Isao Nagai, we had a small 2DK (two small tatami rooms with a dining/kitchen area) in a heavily yakuza controlled ‘downtown’ area of Tokyo – not too far from Asakusa – and handy for the Makoto Dojo and Konishi Sensei. It was thanks to the hard work and encouragement by Konishi and Yamaguchi Sensei and other instructors at the dojo that I got my kendo yondan in 1974 at a grading in Taito-ku, Tokyo.

A frequent visitor to the dojo was Yamaguchi Yuichiro Sensei who, to this day, embodies everything I think a hanshi should be.

During the spring school holidays the whole dojo went on a kendo camp out of the City. The idea was to get the kids so exhausted that they fell asleep at eight, leaving the instructors to drink the rest of the night away. A great idea until, that is, the morning run at six o’clock. Groaning and holding their heads, the instructors set off with a swarm of kids bouncing around while Deb and I, using the old excuse of “I don’t understand the Japanese for ‘get out of bed we’re going for a run”, stayed in bed for a couple more hours rest. When we finally crawled out of bed we saw Yamaguchi Sensei, hachidan hanshi, going quietly about

the business of tidying away the empty beer bottles, clearing away the overflowing ashtrays and folding away the children’s bedding – all forty five of them. There was no fuss, no bother, no big deal, just a wonderful example of how the best, most modest people behave.

Work was really busy at this time, with Deb and I both doing seven-hour teaching days, so kendo practice was pushed to the weekend, and mostly doing local shiai, as the dojo was pretty keen on everyone competing at every opportunity. It was amazing how the twelve year olds would be given the train fare and lunch money for half a dozen of the dojo’s five and six year olds, an address, the starting time of the Taikai and instructions to get the little ones there by bus or train, with their bogu, get them fed during the day and get them back safely in the evening.

Finally we decided to return to the UK in time for Christmas 1974, and with money saved in Japan, planned to buy a derelict property to renovate. With central London being a bit too pricey, we started to look further afield and eventually found a derelict shoe factory in the north of Buckinghamshire which was in use as a refuge for several rusty combine harvesters.

The next three years was spent with Deb; digging drains, putting in windows, installing floors, electricity, gas, bricklaying, concrete mixing and the like. The best stage was when

the drains and water were connected, mening we didn’t have to sprint half-a-mile to the town square and the public loos after a fiery curry the night before. Of course to keep the cement and slates coming in, I had to take some supply work locally in Wolverton and Dunstable. Deb of course had it easy while I was at work fending off stroppy teenagers. Re-pointing the chimney, fixing new roof slates, installing the electrics – not a problem for Deb.

The Spring of 1979 saw me once again back in Japan, ostensibly to prepare the ground for the British Kendo Squad to attend the 4th World Kendo Championship in Sapporo later that year. Very luckily, I had the free use of an apartment owned by a Japanese doctor who had been on holiday in the UK for a ‘fact finding tour’ of European kendo and iaido.

As the hot and sticky summer temperature rose, my enthusiasm for kendo keiko fell. Encouraged by Dr. Hatakeyama I enrolled at the dojo of

Sasamori Sensei to learn the rudiments of Ono-ha Itto Ryu, the knowledge of which, Dr. Hatakeyama

assured me, would lead me to ‘fear no man’. The big crunch came though, one day in June, when Dr. Hatakeyama invited me for a “nice friendly keiko” at the local police dojo who were doing their shochu geiko or hot weather training, and I could think of no way to wriggle out of it. Then came the blessed sentence “well, if you don’t want to do kendo, we could always go to an iai dojo, its air conditioned“ – what an offer!

Now from the time with Roald Knutsen doing iai in the early ‘60’s, I had looked on the practice of iaido as a bit like self abuse – “something best

done in the dark and on your own.“ But when we got to the Shinbukan Ishido Dojo in Kawasaki and I saw Ishido Shizufumi Sensei’s iaido and experienced his clear, concise and logical method of teaching, I thought “yes, this is for me.”

For the first time, under Ishido Sensei’s tutelage, the cuts and thrusts of iai made sense, and having already spent eighteen years doing kendo at that stage, it was fairly straightforward to pick up. I worried about how training and teaching English in the evenings would work but sensei explained that, having paid my dojo fee for the month, the dojo was there for me to use and that if he were free when I turned up in the daytime then I’d get a one to one lesson – an unbelievable bargain. Along with just about everyone else in the Shinbukan dojo I was entered for the Kanagawa Ken Summer Taikai and, to my amazement, went home with a first in the mudan division. Mind you, I don’t think there are ever more than a handful of people in Kanagawa who are mudan at any one time, but nevertheless, it was nice.

Konishi Sensei and Yamaguchi Sensei

An early picture Ishido Sensei

I had looked on the practice of iaido as a bit like self abuse – “something best done in the dark and on your own.“

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After returning from the WKC in Sapporo, and once back in Kawasaki, I put it to Ishido Sensei that he might like to come back to the UK with me for a visit as I knew Vic Cook, Sam McKay, Loi Lee and Chris Mansfield had all been doing a bit of iai and didn’t have a high grade teacher. Len Bean had already been training kendo and iaido with Fujii Sensei in London and had already taken his kendo yondan and his iaido nidan at the Summer Budo Seminar in Kitamoto in August 1976.

Our first visit was to Glasgow to see Sam’s group and Sensei asked them to show him their iai. Then, very quietly, he asked me in Japanese, if he should tell them what he really thought or should he be polite. When they asked for his real opinion he was pretty uncompromising, but that set the standard for all his subsequent teaching in Europe – never “oh that was really wonderful – you are all so talented“ but absolutely honest opinion. We next went down to Brighton to see Vic Cook, and while we were waiting for Vic to finish work. So I decided to introduced Ishido Sensei to a great English custom – filling up on fish and chips, mushy

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peas, gherkins and pickled onions and sleeping it off in the park.

A word about Ishido Sensei: For nearly all of my time studying Japanese budo, I had been told over and over again “you won’t understand you aren’t Japanese,“ the sub-text being “so we won’t really expect too much of you, or get too upset if you get it wrong or do something stupid.” Over the years I had read lots of books on many aspects of Japanese history and culture, expertly written by learned Westerners and it dawned on me that “you won’t understand because you aren’t Japanese“ was actually pretty close to insulting or, at the very least, going to restrict any understanding of budo to the study of technique alone.

. . . how modern budo fits into, and reflects, a very particular aspect of “old style“ Japanese thought and social interaction that is in danger of being lost in modern times.

Along with Doctor Omura – who always tried to explain the why, as well as the how we should act in a social situation while living in Japan – Ishido Sensei was the first, and only budo sensei who ever made the effort

to explain the very particular do’s and don’ts associated with the more traditional budo arts and the proper relationship between shisho and deshi. For many years, I felt there has been the dichotomy between “sports budo” on one hand, and “traditional budo” favoured by those who somehow feel that competitiveness in budo is wrong or somehow impure. Thanks to Ishido Sensei’s hours of painstaking and careful explanation, a whole new fascinating area of study was opened up to me; specifically how modern budo fits into, and reflects, a very particular aspect of “old style“ Japanese thought and social interaction that is in danger of being lost in modern times.

In the autumn of 1979, I was taken on, straight from the City and Guilds Art School, as a carver and gilder in the picture Framing Department at the National Gallery. Although it sounded like a great job, it turned out to be less than ideal. On my first day I was advised to always carry a hammer because certain workmates sometimes had “funny turns.“ The workshops were in a basement with no natural light, so we were bought to the surface twice a day to stop our skin from going white and our eyes

JOCK HOPSON SENSEI

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from going pink. Still, with a baby now on the way, it was at least work and a steady income. For the next eight years I lived from Monday to Friday with Debs parents in Kennington, and just got home at weekends after thrashing up and down the M1 on a smart new BMW. Working in London was good for plenty of kendo and iai, but not so good for family life.

The London Kendo Club had disbanded in 1971 when Deb and I went to Japan, and it was only when we were back and working in London again that the need to have a dojo specifically for iaido and jodo training that led to the foundation of the Eishinkan dojo in 1981 at St. Francis of Chichester School in Camden Town. Ishido Sensei visited the UK again in August 1980 and the first Iaido Summer Seminar was held at Whitstone School in Shepton Mallet thanks to the generosity and help of Ric Schofield.

To say that Hiroi Sensei was “difficult” would be putting it kindly; irascible and short tempered, he would however persevere time after time with anyone who was genuinely trying.

The Summer Seminar in 1982 was with Haruna Matsuo, Ide Katsuhiko and Ishido Shizufumi Sensei. It was held at the Elephant and Castle, London and covered all three disciplines. We were also extremely fortunate to be instructed by Hiroi Tsunetsugu Sensei, a direct student of Shimizu Takaji Sensei, founder of modern jodo. Like many professional budo teachers, Hiroi Sensei held nanadan in iaido and kendo but his truly amazing skill was with the jo, and his knowledge of all the accompanying koryu systems associated with Shindo Muso Ryu. We were fortunate to have Louis Vitalis with us as well, Louis had been

studying Japanese language as well as kendo and jodo at Kanazawa University and his help as interpreter was absolutely essential.

To say that Hiroi Sensei was “difficult” would be putting it kindly; irascible and short tempered, he would however persevere time after time with anyone who was genuinely trying. He hated questions and would usually reply “don’t talk about it, just do it, learn with your body not your ears“. The full jojutsu syllabus includes hojo jutsu – restraining techniques with thin rope. Hiroi Sensei was incredibly quick at tying people up, a technique used apparently before the last war before handcuffs were readily available – great to be shown, especially if it’s not you that resembles a Christmas turkey and with everyone else falling around in stitches.

By this time the eyes and reflexes were no longer up to kendo refereeing and it was time to hang up the grey flannels and blue blazer, drape the red tie over the bedpost and do something far more sedentary, like refereeing iaido competitions, which have the particular advantage of a good long sit down whilst the competition goes on.

The BKA Summer iaido and jodo Seminar in 1990 was made particularly memorable by the attendance of Ishido Sadataro Sensei, Ishido Sensei’s father. His breadth of knowledge of several koryu schools was absolutely astonishing and in his haste to show us as much as he could in the time available we galloped at breakneck speed through all the Muso Shinden Ryu kata, with demonstrations of equivalent

techniques from other Ryu-ha, in an afternoon.

The evening was spent in a Chinese restaurant. After the meal, the owner and Kancho Sensei had a “battle of the brushes“ where they demonstrated their brushwork skills until all the tables tops in the place were covered with sheet after sheet of the most amazing calligraphy in every conceivable style from the extremely formal kaisho to the “which way up does it go“ sosho style.

In January 1996 I arrived in Johannesburg after a ten hour flight from Brussels, feeling “tired and emotional“ but surprisingly not jet lagged, as the plane was travelling South with only a two hour time difference. After relaxing at the home of Peter Furness the day was rounded off with a meal at a speciality restaurant serving ostrich, elephant, giraffe, kudu, crocodile etc and the dreaded mopane grubs – “How would

you like your caterpillars cooked Sir?” “The following evening was spent teaching jodo in Pretoria to a very mixed group with assorted martial arts backgrounds. But my lasting memory of Pretoria however, was surreptitiously trying to unpick the Union Jack from my track suit top in a packed pub full of cricket-crazed Afrikaners joyously watching wide screen TV while our lads were getting pasted in the final test – “well it’s only a game.“ The trip also included a trip with Buster Sefor, over two kilometres down a gold mine. I thought it was going to the “keep the white boiler suit clean chaps, see you in ten minutes for a cold beer” executive tour, but it turned into the “oh please God, get me out of this and I’ll never sin again” tour. I will never, ever, complain about the price of gold leaf again; those miners earn every penny.

Next was a trip to the far south east, to Pietermaritzburg, where we had a two hour basic jodo Seminar that evening. In hindsight I should have realised that while all the participants were white, English wasn’t always

On an interesting and historical note, the sale of my lovely Velocette Thruxton gave me the necessary quick cash to get back to Japan in September 1987 where, as a rokudan, I managed to take my kendo kyoshi just before the AJKF raised the bar to 7th dan. An very interesting process. We were all numbered up and herded into a large dojo and told to get practicing. While we all thrashed about for what seemed ages, the great and the good wandered between the participants making notes on their clipboards. At the end of the session we were informed that we were all bloody useless but, feeling kind, we had all passed and were now officially kyoshi and not to forget to pay on the way out and the menjo would be in the post.

their first language and while “just give it some welly me old son“ makes sense in the UK, it doesn’t mean a great deal to someone who speaks Afrikaans at home.

Anyway, back in the UK, things went along in a fairly smooth manner with jodo, iaido and kendo taking up about the same amount of my life as work on various BKA committees, including a long stint as Technical Director covering all three disciplines.

I eventually had to write a letter of apology to the Osaka Police Force for “impugning their honesty” when I asked the senior Police Officer to give me a receipt and his card when he went off with about a hundred grand’s worth of swords.

The following year the iaido Committee invited me to be iaido Team Manager when I took the UK Team to Kyoto for the 1st World Iaido Embu Taikai which took place in the grounds of the Heian Shrine. Drawing a sword is obviously a no-no in a shrine anywhere in the world – apart

perhaps from Canterbury Cathedral, and under orders from the King – so the whole international contingent had to attend a “service of absolution” beforehand by a Shinto priest and be issued with a very snazzy pair of white zori to keep the shrine grounds pure.

It was a pretty neat trip apart from getting the squad’s swords through the airport at Osaka. We had been assured that the Osaka police had been forewarned and “everything had been arranged” – nudge, nudge, wink, wink. What actually happened was that about thirty extremely precious shinken were confiscated on entry by a trainee who hadn’t been informed of the “arrangement”. I eventually had to write a letter of apology to the Osaka Police Force for “impugning their honesty” when I asked the senior Police Officer to give me a receipt and his card when he went off with about a hundred grand’s worth of swords.

More fun and games ensued at the training afterwards in the dojo of Morita Sensei in Tanabe, just outside Kyoto. We were asked to do

JOCK HOPSON SENSEI

Iaido at the Heian Shrine

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JOCK HOPSON SENSEI

a cutting exercise whilst walking in a large circle around the perimeter of the dojo. The instructor suddenly shouted – in Japanese – “OK chaps, now round the other way”. The Japanese – speakers immediately reversed direction and started walking and cutting, whilst the non Japanese speakers carried on, oblivious to the shouted instructions – we were knee deep in ear lobes in a couple of minutes.

Iaido was really starting to take off in Europe, and the French organised a large international seminar in Versailles in 1998. The Brits went over mob-handed by Eurostar, the crazy British Rail rules at the time meant having to send the swords the day before and pick them up from the Unaccompanied Luggage Department when we arrived at the Gard de Nord. No such problem when I went to Japan in the June to try iaido nanadan. Getting shinken in and out of Japan is pretty difficult and time consuming and, as the use of a shinken is mandatory for 6th and 7th dan exams, I was kindly loaned Ishido Sensei’s “lucky” sword. Anyway, it must have had special qualities as Louis Vitalis and I were both fortunate enough to slip under the radar on the day.

I went to Japan in the June to try iaido nanadan. Getting shinken in and out of Japan is pretty difficult and time consuming and, as the use of a shinken is mandatory for 6th and 7th dan exams, I was kindly loaned Ishido Sensei’s “lucky” sword.

Louis and Jolanda organised the very successful EIC/EJC in the small southern Dutch town of Sittard a couple of years later, and I made yet another journey to Japan, this time to try for jodo nanadan in Tokyo. I was kindly partnered in the grading

by Rene van Amersfoort for this one. Anyone who knows Rene will be aware that the term shinken ni (In real earnest) was added to the Japanese language with him in mind. The grading went past in a blur, just trying to stay alive, and the adrenaline rush left me trembling like a teenager at his first strip show! Louis and Rene passed jodo nanadan a year later and now Louis and I are, I believe, the only Europeans to hold nanadan in all three disciplines.

In 2002 I was invited to accompany Rene to the first of three seminars in Amman, Jordan. An extremely interesting and thought provoking visit which was organised initially for the students of Sarah Kabariti, but to which many police and army karate and taekwondo instructors also attended. At the end of the seminar we held a kyu/dan grading attended by one of Jordan’s Princesses and Senior Military brass. Among the participants was Prince Talal, a karateka, who caused a minor problem before the grading. We explained, as diplomatically as possible, that being a Prince couldn’t guarantee a pass for ikkyu. He said that as a Prince, his duty was to show his willingness

to everyone that he would try, even though he wouldn’t pass, and not to worry about it.

We held the grading and he, and another from the military, were unsuccessful – as we had expected. Next practice saw the guy from the military in tears and Sarah explained that he had just lost his job, not for failing, but for taking paid leave and not taking the training seriously. A real dilemma. We explained to Prince Talal that we couldn’t ever do a grading again if the price for failure meant the end of someone’s career and livelihood. Being a Prince must have some advantages I guess, as a General was summoned, backsides kicked and the poor guy re-instated.

The combined iaido and jodo Championships were held in Bologna in 2005 with the top -notch delegation from the AJKF in attendance. At the end of the Championships Ishido and Namitome Sensei put on an iaido embu. Namitome Sensei, as well as being hanshi in jodo is also hachidan in iaido, and an All Japan Iaido Champion. But due to a broken achilles tendon and severe arthritis in his knees, it was more comfortable performing standing iaido. When it

Jodo with Sarah in Jordan

was suggested to him before the embu that he should do standing forms to Ishido Sensei’s sitting embu, he replied that since everyone had made an effort to be there and participate, it was only right that he matched their effort with his own. Accordingly he did all his forms in the extremely difficult tatehiza sitting position, despite the obvious pain that it caused him. It made a real impression on me as to the great strength and nobility of his character.

At the end of the event he made a wonderful speech in which he told us that as a young man he had thought that true budo sprit could only be understood by Japanese. Over the years he saw the understanding gradually weaken and start to slip away amongst the younger Japanese generations. It took a visit to the European Championships to see that budo sprit was kept alive and well in Europe, and that he was profoundly grateful. What a compliment! Unfortunately, the official translator was, by this time, so tired and exhausted, that the poor guy simply translated Namitome Sensei’s speech as “Sensei had a great time, you all did very well, thank you all very much“ such a shame.

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1962 19741988

. . . 50 years and counting

2002 2012

1994

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