Tankendo (Way of the Short Sword)
短剣道A Japanese short-sword sport, the sister discipline to jukendo. Bouts are fought in kendo armour, with target areas extended by thrusts to the torso.
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Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Tankendo (Way of the Short Sword)
Tankendo is the Japanese short-sword sport, the sister discipline to jukendo, the sport of the bayonet. It has no founder in the personal sense: it grew out of research into the use of a short blade begun in the Toyama school in 1921 under the impression of First World War experience, and it connects technically to kodachi, the short-sword work of the old schools. Its regulated form came only from the All Japan Jukendo Federation, which introduced the practice in 1978 and from 1982 placed a grading system under it. Bouts are fought with a short shinai about fifty-three centimetres long. The armour is kendo armour but modified: the forearm guard is worn only on the right hand, and padding called urabuton is added under the right armpit, because strikes are delivered there that kendo does not know. Valid targets extend the kendo set with a thrust to the torso and a close-range thrust made after the defender has immobilised the opponent's arm. A bout is won by taking two points out of three. The short weapon determines the character of the discipline. Against a long weapon you must get inside the measure and stay there, so tankendo works with a sharp entry, with control of the opponent's arm and with a thrust from close quarters — a different answer from kendo, where the solution is a well-timed cut at the edge of reach. Tankendo and jukendo bouts are staged together in Japan, and outside Japan the discipline is only marginally spread.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.