As a pleated garment, the hakama requires some care. It is not necessary to wash it after every practice. The loose nature of the garment prevents it from becoming too soiled during practice. After a session, hang it up to air. If necessary, the hakama should be washed by hand or on a gentle machine cycle and allowed to drip dry. Hang the hakama up and permit the legs to fall free. To preserve the crease of the pleats, you can clip them together with clothespins as the garment dries.
Folding the hakama for transport to or from practice or tournaments also requires some care to preserve the crisp lines of the uniform. The diagram shows the process of folding the hakama. You can also use special knots to tie it together, also illustrated on the next page.
Hakama folding
The keikogi is the quilted cotton top worn tucked into the hakama. When one is dressing, the top is donned first, and the hakama is drawn up over it. Keikogi are much like the quilted tops that judoka or aikidoka wear, although they have a pair of ties at about chest height on the right side to keep the keikogi neatly in place during practice. The heavy fabric of the top helps in protecting the torso (and particularly the upper arms) from stray blows during matches.
Hakama folding
Kendoka wear uniforms that are most often dyed a rich dark indigo blue. The distinctive blue keikogi in Kendo is said to be dyed with a special medicinal pigment known as aizome. The dye in the best of these garments tends to rub off on the skin, and is said to help promote healing when a student is bruised or cut during training. Hakama are also dark blue in color, although not dyed with the same substance.
Students, depending on the preferences of their instructors, are also free to wear other colors in training. All black training uniforms, all white uniforms (particularly for women in some dojo), as well as uniforms composed of a hakama of one color and a keikogi of another are also common. In modern times, children often wear an unbleached white keikogi with black cross-stitching, known as a shiromusashi.
The colors worn in Kendo, as in all the martial arts, are types of symbolic statements. The dark blue or black uniform colors are associated with the samurai's traditional role as representatives of social order. Dark blue is also associated with the god Fudo, the immovable. White is thought of as the color of purity and death. Combinations of dark and light are often thought to express the duality of in-yo (or yin and yang), a phenomenon traditionally thought to underlie all existence.
Kendo utilizes the kyu/dan system of ranking pioneered in judo and used in many martial arts systems today. Unlike many of these systems, Kendo does not use a system of colored belts to indicate rank. In Kendo, rank levels are demonstrated by performance. Beginners start at sixth kyu and move up in rank through the kyu levels five, four, three, two, and one. At this point, trainees are eligible for dan ranking, the point at which a black belt is awarded in other martial arts. Dan ranks proceed numerically up through tenth dan. At the fourth through sixth dan levels, an individual is entitled to the title renshi. At eighth through tenth dan, a Kendoka is given the honorary title of hanshi.
Individuals vary in the time it takes to advance in Kendo rank. Generally speaking, it will take from two to three years to advance through the beginner kyu levels. Standards vary from organization to organization, but there is also usually a mandatory time limit that must be spent in training before the next promotion. This is especially true of dan levels, where the amount of time spent in grade gets longer the higher the dan level. It is generally held that kyu examinations below first kyu may be held at individual dojo. For promotion to first kyu and above, however, the aspiring student is required to participate in a promotion shiai where Kendoka from a number of schools are tested by high-ranking instructors. This is to ensure that the rigorous technical standards of Kendo are adhered to.
training weapons
The use of a mock sword known as a shinai is what makes the art of Kendo possible. Japanese warriors traditionally trained with katana (the long sword) and a hardwood replica sword termed a bokken or bokuto.
Bokken or Bokuto
During the centuries when warriors actively pursued their calling, the process of learning swordsmanship was one that entailed an intense study of basic techniques through solo movements, as well as choreographed patterns with two students, known as kata. Free fighting, while liberated from the constraints of kata, was also real fighting. Combatants could use either a real sword or the bokken, but the results were often deadly. Even the wooden training sword can be fatal in the right hands. The famous swordsman Musashi Miyamoto, for instance, used a wooden sword with fatal effect in a number of duels. With live blades, the probability of injury was even higher. Japanese swordsmen figured that, in any duel, they had one chance in three of coming out unhurt. The samurai felt that if two opponents of equal ability crossed swords, the extreme sharpness of the katana probably meant that both would be killed or seriously injured. If a warrior fought someone of superior skill, he expected to die. Only if the fighter was confronted with an opponent of inferior skill could he hope to emerge unscathed.
Combat, in other words, was the proving ground of sword skill in feudal Japan. Once the country was unified in the seventeenth century, however, the samurai did not have as many opportunities to refine their swordsmanship. Controlled free fighting that was nonlethal was impossible with a real blade, and only marginally better with a wooden one What was needed was a relatively safe training aid that would permit a type of free fighting without fear of injury.
The shinai, a fencing foil of split bamboo bound together with leather, is what emerged. A more detailed description of the evolution of Kendo is presented in Part IV, Wind, but after a century or so of evolution, the shinai was developed in its modern form.
shinai specifications by class
| Class | Length | Weight |
| Adult | < 1. 18 meters | >468 grams |
| High School | < 1. 15 meters | 415- 485 grams |
| Middle School | 1.10 meters | 300-375 grams |
The shinai is different from a real or wooden sword in a number of ways. In the first place, it is longer, the handle having been lengthened to accommodate the protective mitts worn in Kendo. In the second place, the shinai is not really a cutting implement at all. It is roughly tubular, and so has different aerodynamic properties from a real or wooden sword. The shinai is also much lighter than the other two. A glance at the different swords used today in various martial arts concerned with swordsmanship shows an evolutionary progression toward a nonlethal implement that can mimic the action of a sword. What modern Kendoka use, in other words, is a type of symbolic sword that captures the essence of the swordsman's intent, but can by no stretch of the imagination be thought to impart a complete knowledge of swordsmanship. In fact, the reason for the inclusion of kata training in Kendo is, in part, to familiarize students with how to use a wooden sword, which requires greater use of the hips and different use of the hands. The advantages of paired work with bokken, hearkening back to traditional patterns of training, is emphasized through the study of kendo no kata (see Part IV, Wind). Finally, no swordsman's studies are complete without training in iaido, where real katana or replica swords known as iaito are used.
Shinai and its parts