What's Kenjutsu?

STEALTH kendo IS the McDojo

Maybe is from Mcdojo it self..haha

One has to investigate the lineage of the ryu... for example I found that the most reputable is Katori as it is declared as Japan's national heritage. Many who teach, claim to be genuine but could have deviated from original discipline. STEALTH martial arts center in Shah Alam as posted in the other topic also teaches kenjutsu (apart from Kendo) but dunno originating from which school.

• What's "kenjutsu?"

Before the collapse of the military government in 1867, all sword fighting in Japan was collectively known as kenjutsu. "jutsu" is a word meaning "practical technique," and is used in many different Japanese words that have nothing to do with martial arts. For instance, "fine art" is bijutsu or geijutsu. "technology" is gijutsu, etc.

When the samurai class was abolished, all martial arts were viewed with a certain revulsion by the public at large, which was trying to forget its military history. The myriad sword schools, or ryuu, were shut down by the government, and swords were confiscated from the entire populace. In order to keep the art from disappearing entirely ex-samurai began to condensce the ryuu's into a single system, which they could tout as a martial art meant to expand the mind and build character, instead of a lethal killing system. Thus, kenjutsu became kendo, with the "do" character meaning "path" or "way." Almost all of the former kenjutsu instructors changed to kendo so they would be allowed to continue.

It was the same with other martial arts. Jujutsu became judo, for instance. ("jujitsu" is a western mispelling.)

There are still countless dojos around the world touting that they teach "traditional kenjutsu." I am hesitant to call them all outright fakes, but the vast majority are simply scams. Ironically though, all of them claim that all the rest are scams except themselves, of course. Before 1867, the country was closed to foreigners, and no samurai would have even dreamed of exporting kenjutsu techniques abroad. Even up until WWII, the art of the sword was considered an intensely Japanese Only thing, and it is extremely unlikely that any of the techniques would have been exported. By the time Japanese martial arts were being openly exported to America following World War II, 80 years after kenjutsu ceased to exist, it is nearly impossible that any teachers of "traditional kenjutsu techniques" would have still been alive.

Regardless, there are countless people who claim to have some distant relation to such-and-such kenjutsu teacher. The point is, calling your martial art "kenjutsu" is an active attempt to associate yourself with an art that officially ceased to exist more than 135 years ago. People may have many reasons for trying to do this, but I will leave that to the reader to decide.

Be extremely skeptical of people claiming to know or teach kenjutsu. Especially if they want a significant amount of money to teach you.