UCLA Kendo Club

Home | Practice/Join | Achievements | Kendo Etiquette | Club Officers

A "Brief" History

The UCLA Kendo Club opened in Winter Quarter of 2002 under the head instruction of Masaharu Makino, 7th-Dan instructor from the Long Beach Kendo Dojo. The club received sponsorship from the UCLA East Asian Languages and Cultures department through Dr. Asako Hayashi, a professor of Japanese Language. In its first year, the UCLA Kendo Club established its board of officers and trained a team sent to represent UCLA at the 2004 Harvard-Radcliffe Intercollegiate Kendo Tournament. The tournament is currently the largest intercollegiate kendo tournament in North America. In its debut in intercollegiate kendo, UCLA Kendo faced schools such as Harvard, Yale, and Cornell to win the team tournament and receive the prestigious Shoryuhai Trophy donated by former Japan Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. Since then, The UCLA Kendo Club has been three time national champions.

The UCLA Kendo Club was founded with the desire to introduce a unique life-long activity to UCLA students, providing them the opportunity to receive proper instruction, whether they wish to practice leisurely or to become avid competitors. The UCLA Kendo Club strives to practice and teach proper Kendo, balancing competitiveness and self-cultivation. Our club has grown significantly since being established and has gained recognition as a top competitor in the growing collegiate Kendo community.

The UCLA Kendo Club currently consists of a committed group of roughly 40 participants ranging from undergraduate to faculty. The majority of members are new to Kendo, but the senior students and instructors have since been committed to introducing the fundamentals towards developing strong Kendo. While the club remains small in comparison to the UCLA community, the UCLA Kendo Club is always evolving and participating in any viable community events such as participating in demonstrations with other clubs.

As a community at UCLA, our purpose is oriented towards providing students opportunities to attain educational benefits as well as personal and social enrichment that derive from participation in extracurricular activities and stimulate on-campus discussion and debate on a variety of issues. As a competitive club, we participate in various tournaments, such as regional Southern California tournaments and intercollegiate tournaments such as the annual Harvard Shoryuhai tournament. Last year, we hosted our first annual intercollegiate tournament titled "Yuhihai" (great leap), and will be repeating the event this coming February 2009. With the support of our UCLA Recreation, SCKO, SCKF, teachers, officers and members, the schools year to come will prove to be very exciting.

Watch us

Be our friend

>>> NEWS <<<

December 24th, 2011

The 5th AnnualYuhihai Collegiate Tournament will take place on April 8th, 2012. Please don't wait till the last minute to register We hope to see you all participate at this year's Yuhihai.

~HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE~

September 4th 2011

Curious about Kendo? Come see our booth during UCLA's Annual Enormous Activities Fair at Wilson Plaza: Sept. 19th from 10am-2pm

If you can't make that then come see our table at UCLA's Sports Jamboree at the IM Field: Sept 21st from 2pm-5pm

March 27, 2011

Congratulations to UC Riverside - Team A for winning the 4th Annual Intercollegiate Yuhihai Kendo Tournament. To see the results of Yuhihai please click here

Thank You to all the schools, shinpan, volunteers, and to anyone who help make this tournament possible.

.

UCLA Kendo Club in the news! Check out our radio interview HERE!