Japanese version
(English translation)
A standing statutory auditor from the company’s headquarter office visited my office located in Ohio for observation of the overseas offices. I was appointed as an attendant and traveled with him to the related companies.
Since it was my first time seeing him and no one has told me what kind of person he is, I was having trouble opening a conversion with him. While later, he asked me about my hobbies, and finally we started talking each other. I talked about Kendo and told him that I practice here in the U.S. as well. My impression of him was that he had gray hair and a quiet person. After a moment of silence, he opened up a conversation again and quietly said, “I’ve heard that there was a very strong Kendo player in the U.S. long time ago”, and then told me about the history of the Kendo player who he mentioned about.
Yozo Mori, a leader of the Hokushin Itto-Ryu Kenjutsu School, who trained under Chiba-sensei, achieved nationwide prominence during the last days of the Tokugawa regime. He returned to his hometown of Aizu during the Boshin War (Japan’s last civil war) and fought against the large government forces as a leader of several dozen sword fighters. It was a fierce battle even with his and his son, Torao Mori’s extraordinary sword fighting skills, and in his last moment, he looked proud and truly majestic.
Torao’s niece named her son after Torao, and brought him to the Noma Dojo established by Seiji Noma, founder of the Kodansha publishing for Kendo training. Torao became the master of Kendo at a young age and after that, moved to the U.S. to promote Kendo all over the country.
I listened to his stories with great interest because I often heard the name of Torao Mori-sensei. Ariga-sensei often mentioned that name when he told us about his story – what brought him to the U.S. Then I start talking about my sensei, Koki Ariga.
In the mid 60’s, a Japanese Kendo enthusiast from Canada desperately asked Mori-sensei, who lived and taught Kendo in the U.S. at that time, to teach Kendo in Canada, however, it never happened for some unfortunate reason. Instead, the Japanese Kendo enthusiast and Mori-sensei went to Japan to look for an instructor. At that time, Chuo-University dominated the Kendo national university championship and Ariga-sensei was the member of the championship team. Since Mori-sensei was related to the Dojo that Ariga-sensei used to belong to (Ohgi-Jyuku), Mori-sensei convinced Ariga-sensei to move to Canada to teach Kendo. Ariga-sensei respected Mori-sensei’s passion and dedication to Kendo and finally accepted the offer. Since then, Ariga-sensei has been teaching Kendo for 35 years in Canada and the U.S.
Even today, Ariga-sensei continues teaching Kendo at the Miami-Valley Kendo Club in Ohio, and the practice is pretty tough. The practice begins with repeated “Suriashi (footwork)”, and then “Uchikomi (repeated striking of set targets)” training for about an hour that may be too hard for someone who hasn’t gotten used to. After putting on “Men (a helmet for Kendo)” the practice moves to the basic drills followed by “Jigeiko (free sparring)”. His practice is very old-school and emphasizing basics. Back in those days, I secretly thought that the practice at the Miami-Valley Kendo Club is quite unique, as if brought in our time beyond space and time.
Ariga-sensei inherits his sensei, Torao Mori-sensei’s Kendo spirit and continues to step up effort to educate Kendo enthusiasts for further expansion of Kendo in North America. His achievements are extremely remarkable and respectable.
A while later, our car arrived in the first destination. We received a warm welcome from Ariga-sensei at the entrance of the office and headed to the meeting room. He is a locally hired manager of the company we visited.
February 25, 2000, I remember this day as oddly enough, but quite a pleasant day.