Can I be left handed and still study kendo?

I've been wanting to study kendo for a long time and have been reading up on it for a while now, but I'm left handed. Is it possible to study kendo as a left handed swordsman?

Answer: The left handed, right handed or both handed, no problems.

Most of the people are right handed so they, including me, have to learn how to make the left hand stronger in kendo. Even though both hands are important in kendo, the left hand is seen more important.

However, we cannot change our hand positions when we grab a sword, the right hand should be near the hand guard and the left hand should be at the end of the grip.

You can read this article, More power in the left hand than the right hand. Why?, for more information.

Hope this helps.

Why is the left hand more dominant in kendo???

by Kate
(South Africa)

We were debating why the left hand is more dominant (why the power comes from it) rather than the right hand? Is there a historic reasoning behind it?

Kendo-Guide.Com: I am not sure if there are any historic reasons behind it but I can tell you from practical perspectives.

People say the left hand is important or is the power hand because the right hand can easily take over the control of your sword.

When we try to control a long stick in general, we tend to use the hand on the far end side of the stick. In kendo, the hand is the right hand.

Thus, I always tell my students this as well. “Relax the right hand”. Think this way. We should have both hands equally strong. But since the right hand tends to take over the control of our sword, we should pay more attention to the left hand.

Can we switch our hands? Well, technically you can. However, if we think about cultural aspect of kendo, we probably should not if it is for your convenience.

Samurai used to carry their swords on their left waist. Apparently, back in the old days, people had to walk on the left side of the road to avoid passing the left side of samurai (so they wouldn’t touch the swords).

Another reason why they walked on the left side of the road was that they would not want to have an enemy on their left side because it would be hard to counterattack their enemy coming from their left. (because their swords were on their left waist.)

Why the left waist? I don’t know. In Japan, we place (at least in the past) a great value on kata (forms). We call it “kata bunka (kata culture)”. When learning something, we should have certain forms. Thus, I presume they gradually decided, through experiences or to keep the society in order, to have their sword on the left waist.

That is my guess.

Hope this helps.

More power in the left hand than the right hand. Why?

by Winnie
(Hong Kong)

Actually the strength of our right hand is much stronger than that of our left hand, then why do we need to put our strength in our left hand rather than our right hand?
Thank you so much~!

Answer: The reason is exactly what you said. Since the right hand is usually stronger than the left hand, we have to balance it out. It is, after all, about balance. We want to have the same amount of strength in both hands.

Left handed kendo

by Chad
(Reno, Nevada)

Does it matter if a kendoist is right or left handed or is all the training in kendo designed to be done only one way?

Kendo-Guide.Com: Thank you for your question. There is an answer for this question here. Hope the answer helps.

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