Mysterious victory but
no mysterious loss.

This reads…”Kachi ni Fushigi no Kachi Ari”. This means “There are mysterious victories”. What does this mean?

When we compete in competitions and win the matches, we can come up some reasons of the victories. But these are not very clear.

If we really know why we can win matches, we can keep winning, don’t you think?

This is why it was said that there would be no one who could win All Japan Kendo Championships two years in a row.

But as we all know, Miyazaki sensei from Kanagawa Police Force won the championships two years in a row and he did it several times.

After Miyazaki sensei, there has been no one who has won the championships two years in a row.

And in the 14th World Kendo Championships, Japanese male team could not win the tournament. And probably it is going to be very hard for Japan to win continuously from now on. It is not a bad thing because this means that the world kendo is improving.

So these prove that there are no absolute and definite victories. When we win a competition, we can kind of analyse the reasons for our victories but probably we can only guess.

On the other hand, when we lose, we can find the reasons why we lost a match. It is very funny actually.

And this is called, “Make ni Fushigi no Make Nashi”. That means “there are no mysterious losses”.

And these phrases are put together, “Kachi ni Fushigi no Kachi Ari. Make ni Fushigi no Make Nashi”, to remind us to be humble especially when we win matches.

It does not matter if we won or lost a match, we should analyse the reasons for the victory or losses thoroughly, since ongoing self-improvement is the goal of kendo.

Katte Kabuto no O wo Shimeyo. This is another saying to remind us to be even more prepared (ready) after winning a battle.

Kabuto is a samurai helmet and O is strings to tie a samurai helmet.Katsu is “to win” so “katte” is some form of “katsu” (sorry I do not know the Japanese grammar well).

So basically it tells us the important of zanshin. Even you know you execute a valid cut, you do not stop and end your shiai. You show zanshin and get ready for another fight.

That is why kendo does not see a great value in victory, maybe. It is a great thing to accomplish but it is not the goal in kendo. Isn’t it awesome?

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