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A PUBLICATION FOR ALL THINGS RELATED TO
IAIDO, IAIJUTSU AND KENJUTSU
www.at-the-cutting-edge.com
JOCK HOPSON SENSEI
British Kendo Association’s
JOCK HOPSON
Sensei
R
ecalling 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.
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 nonEuropean countries.
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
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The S.S.Viet
Nam
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
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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
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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 ‘VietNam’ 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
Oura Sensei making grip corrections at the Yubukan dojo in Fukuoka
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.
The original article from the Mainichi Shinbun,
1965, and the English translation.
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.
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
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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.
Attracting a lot of Press while in Japan
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,
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
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.
Relaxing with Omura Sensei, his wife and Deb
Shigehiko Sensei who ran a small
budo equipment shop on the far side
of Ueno Park.
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 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.
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
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
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
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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.
Konishi Sensei and Yamaguchi Sensei
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
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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.
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.”
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, As the hot and sticky summer
mening we didn’t have to sprint halftemperature rose, my enthusiasm for
a-mile to the town square and the
kendo keiko fell. Encouraged by Dr.
public loos after a fiery curry the night
Hatakeyama I enrolled at the dojo of
before. Of course
Sasamori Sensei to
to keep the cement I had looked on the practice
learn the rudiments
of iaido as a bit like self abuse of Ono-ha Itto Ryu,
and slates coming
– “something best done in
in, I had to take
the knowledge
some supply work
of which, Dr.
the dark and on your own.“
locally in Wolverton
Hatakeyama
and Dunstable. Deb of course had
assured me, would lead me to
it easy while I was at work fending
‘fear no man’. The big crunch came
off stroppy teenagers. Re-pointing
though, one day in June, when Dr.
the chimney, fixing new roof slates,
Hatakeyama invited me for a “nice
installing the electrics – not a problem
friendly keiko” at the local police dojo
for Deb.
who were doing their shochu geiko or
hot weather training, and I could think
The Spring of 1979 saw me once
of no way to wriggle out of it. Then
again back in Japan, ostensibly to
came the blessed sentence “well,
prepare the ground for the British
if you don’t want to do kendo, we
Kendo Squad to attend the 4th World
could always go to an iai dojo, its air
Kendo Championship in Sapporo
conditioned“ – what an offer!
later that year. Very luckily, I had the
free use of an apartment owned by
Now from the time with Roald
a Japanese doctor who had been on
Knutsen doing iai in the early ‘60’s, I
holiday in the UK for a ‘fact finding
had looked on the practice of iaido as
tour’ of European kendo and iaido.
a bit like self abuse – “something best
An early picture Ishido Sensei
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.
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JOCK HOPSON SENSEI
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.
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
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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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
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JOCK HOPSON SENSEI
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
12
|
CUTTING EDGE
studying Japanese language
as well as kendo and jodo
at Kanazawa University and
his help as interpreter was
absolutely essential.
On an interest
ing and histor
ical note,
the sale of m
y lovely Veloce
tt
e Thruxton
gave me the
necessary qu
ick cash to
get back to Ja
pan in Septem
ber
where, as a ro
kudan, I manag 1987
ed to
take my kend
o kyoshi just
be
fo
AJKF raised th
re the
e bar to 7th da
n. An
very interestin
g process. W
e were all
numbered up
and herded in
to
a large
dojo and told
to get practic
ing. While
we all thrashed
about for wha
t seemed
ages, the grea
t and the good
w
between the
andered
participants m
aking notes
on their clipbo
ards. At the en
d of the
session we w
ere informed
th
at we
were all bloody
useless but, fe
eling
kind, we had
all passed and
were now
officially kyos
hi and not to
forget to pay
on the way ou
t and the men
jo would be
in the post.
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.
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
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
Iaido at the Heian Shrine
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
CUTTING EDGE
|
13
JOCK HOPSON SENSEI
1988
1962
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
14
|
CUTTING EDGE
1974
Jodo with Sarah in Jordan
1994
2002
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
2012
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.
. . . 50 years
and counting
CUTTING EDGE
|
15
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