How do I get a kendo program into my school?

Question

How do I get a kendo program into my school?

Answer 1

The starting steps to get a Kendo club/program into any place is to have interest.  If you are the only person to want it, then it will never get off the ground.  You have to take into consideration a few things in terms of the number of people that are interested.

If you need to pay costs to hire a hall with a wooden floor, how much is that going to cost per person if you do not have additional funding, and will people be willing to pay that.  Will you have to pay a instructor/sensei to teach you and your fellow students.  Will you have to pay for insurance coverage, and so on.

The next problem to tackle is, do you have someone to instruct you.  Do you have a senior or experienced kendo practitioner that has the ability to provide the guidance, coaching, teaching and so forth to get your student group off the ground.

Can you get the venue for enough sessions?  How many sessions is viable, how many sessions are enough?

These are all very simple and fundamental points that you have to look at and address before your program will actually get off the ground.

Answer 2

Are you talking about a Aikido school? one of the Ryu type schools or a public/private school or university? I wish you could have been a little more specific on the question, but I'll go through the ranges here real quick.

First off why Kendo why not Iaido?  Iaido has no injury possiblities what so ever as to where Kendo...uh...ouch!!

There are a ton of associations and federations in Kendo out there that could help you get Kendo into your school I'm sure.  I still personally prefer Iaido and have been studying it for the past two years now for mediation purposes.  The sheathing and unsheathing of the Ken alone is in its self a art form let alone the 8 basic cuts and the endless possibilites there.  Kendo is just slugging it out with footwork so to speak not that I'm knocking Kendo I've heard a lot of good things about Kendo competitions and Kendo students.  Check into Kendo associations and federations via the web.  Any search engine will have the info you're looking for, I don't know what type of school you want to introduce Kendo to, but if it's a Martial Arts school your teacher should be the one who brings in someone qualified to teach Kendo to his students.  If you're talking about a Univesity maybe have a talk with your dean about it and more than likely he'll be able to give you more help than you may think.