Dojo Portrait: Soryukan Aarhus kendo club part II

Other Members 

Adam Stahl is a trainer at Soryukan Aarhus kendo and has practiced kendo for over half of his life.

He started at Copenhagen Kendo Club, when he was a young teen interested in Asian cultures and trained there until university. At the Copenhagen club he gained a strong knowledge of kihon that he built upon when he moved to Aarhus in 2014.

In Aarhus, he was closer to his old national team coach "I got a place on the junior national team back when I was in high school. At the time there was nothing called the talent team. We were a close knit little group of very dedicated teenagers, that trained very intensely for the two years before the European championship in Berlin 2013". At Aarhus Adam quickly gained trainer responsibilities, that he shared with the clubs other sensei, Iraj Nikjou.

Adam is not just active in training, but also on various club boards of directors. He has been on the Danish kendo federation board several times. First in 2012, then 2015-2017 and from 2021 to 2022. He is also the treasurer for both Aarhus and Horsens kendo clubs.  ”I believe that one should take responsibility for the community when one has the ability to do so. And that means a lot to me, that there is good coperation all across the country”. And he is not just on the boards, he also does a lot to help out new clubs.

Aside from supporting Horsens , he also has traveled to Roninkai in Næstved several times and was even one of the judges for their first shinsa. “People in Copenhagen think I’m crazy, that I visit my parents in Copenhagen twice a month, when it’s 4 hours of transportation round trip. I think, “it’s only 4 hours””, so he travels across the country training kendo, visitting friends and family.

Adam is well known for being an extremely friendly kendoka. er kendt som en meget venlig kendoka. Han er well liked and naturally very moral. 

He also has a very ironic sense of humor that not everybody understands, but it is hard to be mad at someone that is so accommodating. His students say that he is really kind and and does a lot to make the newest members feel comfortable and like they can overcome any challenges kendo throws at them. And his mates on the national team say he is skilled, engaging and pleasant to be around.

Adam usually uses a kotogata shinai, and his favorite waza is aimen, because it is the ultimate test of skill. Men uchi is the most basic of techniques in kendo, and when you have truly mastered it, then you’ve really won the day. 

His best experience was during the national teams joint training in Budapest back in 2012. They were together over three days with national team members from Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Greece. They trained hard and when they were free they could go explore the city. It was a successful event that also garnered many friendships.

His hope for the future is that everyone will work together and there will be more group training events where all the clubs participate. And to pass 4th dan, the big test! 

Eske Christiansen has over the years been a team leader and delegation leader for the Danish Kendo National Team both in European and global championships. After summer vacation 2022 he will become the head chooch for DKF and be the bridge between the brutto and national teams and the board of directors in DKF. He has trained kendo since 1999-2000 with several pauses due to life events. An original member of Kenseikai in Copenhagen, he moved in 2007 to Aarhus, though he didn’t actually start training at Soryukan until 2009. Eske trains along side both his children, Silas og Nanna. Due to an injury he has not been the most active over the past year, but he has started to train jodan and hopes to improve upon it when he can again train full time.