• Age: fifth oldest active kendo club in Denmark

• Population: Second Smallest

• 練志館 renshikan means a place to learn

• Membership Count: 1 man, 1 woman, 1 youth

• Trainer Count: 1

• Website: https://www.facebook.com/thykendo/

• Training Frequency: Twice a week.

• Training Level: Mudansha and yudansha mix.

Jens Møllgaard Jensen is the secretary for the Danish Kendo Federation and also been the president several times over. He began kendo in the year 2000 and is one of the most experienced homegrown kendoka in Denmark.

After he was deployed to Afghanistan as a solder in 2008-2009, Jens became the first dedicated DKF president to be able to focus completely on the federation. Until then all earlier presidents had their responsibilities split between the federation and a home club, which put a real damper on the federation’s development.

For better or for worse, Jens has always been a man of action in the federation, full of energy, new ideas and the what with to see them through. And this energy has helped push the federation to develop. Jens was also a national team member and participated both in the world cup in 2003 (Glasbow) and 2015 (Tokyo).

Jens has started two dojos in Denmark. He also was a major force in organizing Kenseikai when he lived and trained in Copenhagen. He has also been a key supporter in the start up of many of the new kendo clubs in Denmark.

Jens started in Aarhus in 2000. He started Soryukan kendojo with René Kragh Pedersen. At the time, neither him nor René had any martial arts experience, but simply had it in their heads that they wanted to learn kendo. Yukio Kato, through the assistance of DKF, gladly agreed to help them out. The new forening would pay him to come up every other weekend and train them and when he wasn’t coming, they paid his first student, David Mwaipaya, to travel up there instead. Jens became friends with both of them through their shared experiences growing kendo in Denmark.

In 2017 Jens started Renshikan in Thy. It is the only dojo that is 50% women, 50% national team members and has the only female national team member.

His favorit shinai is an extra large grip from Sankei (made of Keichiku bamboo). His favorite technique is kote nuke men and his best memories are all Goshikan’s summer camps and the friendships he’s made through kendo.

In terms of the future, “I want to focus more on getting my getting my dan rank in line with my actual experience level. But it is also important to me that I get the federations activities sustainable for the long term. My experience as a soldier has taught me fighting is more than just technique. It is about yours and your opponents’ feelings and the will to act instead of react. I would like to encorporate more of that into my kendo. I would also like to bring nuance to people's perception of struggle, so that it becomes more than just headgames, but a tool that can develop one's willpower, self-awareness and ability to act.”