Welcome to Practice
So You Started Kendo. Now What?
Maybe you've finished a beginner course. Maybe you've only been training for a few weeks. Maybe you've reached the point where your feet occasionally do what you ask them to do.
Welcome to practice.
The basics don't disappear when you stop being a beginner. If anything, you discover just how much there is inside them. Footwork. Posture. Distance. Timing. The way you hold the shinai. The way you strike. The moment you choose to move.
You practise them again and again. And somehow, they are never quite the same twice.
your practice
Kendo Week no. 9
Kendo Week no. 9
Kendo Week no. 9
The most important week in Kendo
Kendo Week no. 9
What happens after beginner course
The beginner course ends and the structure that came with it dissolves.
Until now, you trained with the same group, at roughly the same pace, guided through the same progression. Now you step into regular keiko — mixed levels, bogu and non-bogu, people working on different things, and training that is suddenly much less designed around you.
That transition can feel intimidating. It is also how you begin becoming part of a dojo rather than simply attending a course.
This is why Week 9 is the most important! This is the moment when people can drift. Not dramatically. There is no decision, no moment of quitting. Just a session missed, and then another, and eventually the gap becomes the new normal.
It doesn't have to go that way.
You don't need to know everything or keep up with everyone around you. Just keep training. Ask questions. Watch the people ahead of you. Get corrected. Try again.
And remember: the people who trained beside you, helped during your beginner classes and celebrated those small early victories with you are still there. Reach out.
Someone will be there to remind you why you said yes in the first place.
KEIKO
Kendo training is called keiko
A typical keiko might include warm-up, suburi, footwork, basic striking practice, kirikaeshi, paired exercises and, as you progress, training in bogu.
Exactly what you do depends on your level, your dojo and the session.
But one thing remains remarkably consistent: repetition.
You repeat movements until they become more natural. Then someone corrects one tiny detail and suddenly the movement you thought you understood has become mysterious again. This is normal.
→ Want the beginner's-eye version? Read: What to Expect From Kendo Training at a Local Dojo
KIHON
Early Kendo involves a lot of Kihon - the fundamentals
How you stand. How you move. How you hold the shinai. How you coordinate your hands, feet, body and voice into one committed action.
At first, progress can feel like learning separate pieces.
Move the right foot.
Don't drag the left.
Relax the shoulders.
Raise the shinai.
Breathe.
Kiai.
Strike.
Now do all of it at the same time.
Eventually the pieces begin to connect. And then you discover that people who have been practising for decades are still working on many of the same fundamentals.
This is either reassuring or deeply inconvenient.
There is more to kendo
Where does your Kendo go from here?
You might want to grade. Compete. Attend seminars. Practise kata. Travel. Help beginners. Eventually teach.
Or you might simply discover that showing up for keiko every week is something you don't particularly want to stop doing.
Both are perfectly respectable ambitions.
Still deciding whether Kendo is for you?
→ Discover Kendo
Looking for your next course, seminar or opportunity to train?
→ What's Next — Kendo Courses and Events in Ireland
Or just want to keep reading?
→ Visit the KendoEire Blog
