No Reservations Crew blog

Hello Kendo

January 28, 2008, 2:12 PM  |  Comments (3,864)  |  Permalink

By Christopher Martinez

Hi. I\’m Christopher Martinez, editor of some of your favorite No Reservations shows. And Sweden.

Yeah, Sweden. I\’d appreciate you not sharing with me any further insights on the that show until after publication of my 3 volume critical analysis/after action report with the working title, \”Sweden: An ABBA Joke Too Far\”.

Moving on…

For no particularly good reason I\’ve been allowed to accompany the ABNR crew on the shoot for the upcoming Japan show which I\’ll start editing when we return. Actually Chris and Lydia are aware of my longstanding interest in Japan
though to be honest I may have failed to mention that it\’s primarily in the 10th century
Heian Period but hey, I\’m here now and that\’s what\’s important.

\"Thumbnail Our first day of shooting brought us to the Budokan which, as an American, I of
course associate with a really old Cheap Trick record but which the Japanese
associate with serious cultural stuff like Sumo wrestling and Kendo.

We\’re here to do a segment with Kendo master Tadao Toda.

My work, in a few weeks, will be to make the above statement meaningful to you.

Kendo can be misunderstood as Japanese swordplay with bamboo practice swords.

This is akin to describing the sun as a big light bulb that doesn\’t work at night.

Tadao Toda will be harder to express.
Telling you that he\’s won the national championship 8 times won\’t do it.

Two things that won\’t be in the final edit might help.

Firstly.  From the moment we got there and met him, everyone on the crew started
referring to him as \”The Master\”.  No one told us to. It was just closest you could get
to describing this \”presence\”.
All of those martial arts movies are trying to fake what Tadao Toda actually is.

\"Thumbnail Secondly. Standing just outside the door to the dojo were a few officials of the
National Kendo Association. Guys who are around Kendo every day of the week.
You might expect them to be talking shop, on the phone or reading the paper.

No way.

You would swear that the world\’s biggest baseball fans were getting to watch Babe Ruth
take batting practice. Ninety minutes or pure pleasure watching the master show how it\’s done.

My work is cut out for me.

COMING UP!!!  I\’ll try to write something about Tony and the crew and their zany hijinx on the road.

Posted By: no reservations crew

3,864 Responses to “Hello Kendo”

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    July 26, 2011 at 5:53 am

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    July 26, 2011 at 7:17 am

    I can’t really help but admire your blog, your blog is so adorable and nice . 

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