Imasato-sensei passed away on Septembre 23rd 2019

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The message of the death of our honorable teacher and honorary member of Ken Zen Kan Heidelberg, Imasato-sensei, has moved us deeply. It is a painful loss for our club and for me personally.

Imasato-sensei has been with our club for well over 30 years, even before it became an actual club, when only a few kendo enthusiasts gathered for practice. He has always supported us. Even our name goes back to him. Without Imasato-sensei, there may not be a Ken Zen Kan Heidelberg at all today.

He influenced all Ken Zen Kan Heidelberg members through his many visits, lastly in 2017. Any time he could not visit us himself, he sent other sensei to us, often his own students. Our seminars in Heidelberg with teachers like Ishikawa-sensei, Kawakami-sensei or Takita-sensei, teachers that are highly respected in Japan, are only thanks to him.

Because of his many achievements within our club, we granted him honorary membership in 2001.

This Octobre 19th we will hold the 19th Imasato Hai. This is a tournament that has been founded by him and carries his name.

Every time I visited Kyoto with Bärbel, we were able to stay with Imasato-sensei and his wife. Thanks to him we had the great honor to train at the Kodokan multiple times.

With Imasato Masayoshi we have not only lost our teacher but also a loving and caring person and friend. We will never forget him, always honor him and try our best to do kendo as he taught us.

Volker Stumpf
Ken Zen Kan Heidelberg e.V.

Advent tournament in Lich 2019

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The annual Advent tournament in Lich has come and gone – Heidelberg participated together with Luca Klein from Offenburg. The five of us fought in the categories 3rd – 6th Kyu, Ladies, Dan and Team.

One of us had an especially successful day: Julia Jonentz made 3rd place in her category, 3rd – 6th Kyu! To top it all off, she passed her examination for 6th Kyu afterwards.

Gianluca Maniaci also fought well in his very first tournament and even scored ippon! He also passed his 6th Kyu. Congratulations!

Leo Wolff and Simon Dehne defeated their first opponents in the Dan category but lost against stronger participants in later rounds. Luca Klein made it all the way to the finals and fought against Hiroyuki Ohno, reminiscent of the recent final at our very own Imasato Hai. After almost 20 minutes of close encho, he finally lost and earned 2nd place.

Last but not least we had our team fights and had to face “Katana Prime”, who went on to earn 1st place.

All in all it was a successful and fun day! Spending Advent Sunday in Lich is fun each and every year and we thank our friends from Lich and everyone who participated.

  • Winner of the day!
  • “Baden Light”
  • Winners 3rd – 6th Kyu
  • Winners Dan

45th German Team Championship 2019

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Last weekend this year’s German Team Championships took place in Hanau. Four of the six team members for Baden come from our club (Dominik Pitz, Leo Wolff, Jonathan Schneider, Simon Dehne).

Unfortunately, the Baden team was eliminated in the preliminaries against KenVO (who fought on to become 3rd overall) and Hessen 2.

Despite everything, it was an educational day and we are looking forward to next year already!

New kyu grades

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Congratulations to our happy examinees!

Three Heidelberg club members went to visit the Louis Vitalis seminar in Mannheim today and all passed their examination. We congratulate:

Dai Amakawa – 6th kyu
Kazuhiko Amakawa – 6th kyu
Matthias Mattke – 1st kyu

Great work!