Modern Japanese swordsmanship is divided into distinct categories: Kendo for “sparring” with the shinai or bamboo swords, Iaido for sword-drawing, and the various classical Koryu or “old schools” for the study of the ancient forms of swordsmanship passed down from the samurai era. One often hears it repeated that Koryu exponents never spar, and that the practice of sparring is completely untraditional in Japanese swordsmanship.

However, this is an inaccurate claim. Before the Twentieth Century, Japanese swordsmanship was not yet divided up into these rigid categories. All schools practiced some set of ancient “kata” or forms. All schools practiced some type of sword-drawing. And most of the classical schools in that era practiced a type of free-sparring that was the early prototype for modern Kendo.

This free-sparring practice was called “Gekken” or “Gekiken,” and it used roughly the same equipment as modern Kendo. The biggest difference was that there was no standardization, so the different classical schools were able to freely test their techniques against each other. For some reason, when Kendo became standardized as a sport, most of the classical schools ceased their practice of Gekiken and began to decry sparring as an unrealistic training method. Today, Gekiken is used by only a tiny handful of the classical schools, one of which is the Jikishinkage Ryu. Here is a video of Gekiken practice within the Jikishinkage style of swordsmanship. Anyone familiar with modern Kendo will note a number of differences. Speaking as an instructor of Historical European Swordsmanship, this bears more resemblance to the sparring seen in a historical swordsmanship club than it does to Kendo.