Posted on: Sunday, October 5, 2003

BOOK MARK
Reflecting on the discipline of kendo

By Wanda Adams
Advertiser Books Editor

Kendo Elements, Rules and Philosophy by Jinichi Tokeshi; University of Hawai'i Press, paper, $20

If you think kendo, "the way of the sword," is about fighting, this book by a longtime student of the Japanese art will enlighten you. As you read this very lucid collection of essays on every aspect of kendo, it becomes clear that kendo is more of a way of life than a way of the sword — a form of discipline, a way of thinking and ordering one's priorities.

Jinichi Tokeshi is a physician, a professor of medicine at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawai'i and also a yondan (fourth level) in kendo. Here, in painstaking detail, he discusses everything from the proper responses to a good hit ("Mairimashita!" "I have received your strike!" — or you can just say thank you) to kendo as a spiritual art. The book ends with an interesting series of short statements by important kendo personages.

This book will be of most interest to those who have studied kendo, but Tokeshi — in true kendo form — humbly notes in the preface that he will be honored if some readers decide to pursue the art based on this text.