Mia is the most experienced student at Renshikan dojo and often leads practice herself. She started kendo because she was interested in martial arts and actually trained jujitsu for several years . She is the only woman on the national team at the moment and hopes more ladies will join the active kendo community. However she has a strong relationship with her mates on the national team and has never felt that gender was an issue. There are some who would say it’s not fair to not have a separate women’s team, but according to Mia, “if the argument for not having gender mixed teams is that women are physically weaker than men, that must mean that I have misunderstood the concept of kendo.” Her favorite waza is kaeshi and she uses an oval grip shinai weighted towards the handel.

Cian started kendo over two years ago, but because of coronavirus that is probably not the best yard stick. He started because of a kendo scene he saw in an anime and because he’s interested in Japanese culture. His best memory was from the summer camp where Toru Kamei-sensei visited. “It was super hard, but also super good.”