THE WAY OF THE SWORD PROFESSIONAL

With the coronavirus pandemic, shutters have been downed at The Pune Kendo Club for the time being. In this endeavour he was helped by Subhrahmanian and another experienced kendoka he met - Siddhartha Sarma. as his student, which resulted in the founding of the Pune Kendo Club. But when he did accept Juvale, impressed by his moves, it became an inspiration for the Punekar to start his club back home to bring more people into Kendo. Tanaka was reluctant to take on Juvale who was not so evolved in the craft. Subhrahmanian introduced Juvale to Hirokuni Tanaka, a skilled Japanese kendoka and banker based in Mumbai, who taught very advanced students. The introduction with Subhrahmanian marked the beginning of JuvaleвЂ™s reinitiation into kendo. He basically wanted a training partner, as he was visiting Pune at that time,вЂќ recalls Juvale. вЂњRajagopalan saw my LinkedIn profile in which I had mentioned that I was learning Kendo in the UK. That adept was Rajagopalan Subhrahmanian, who was looking for a sparring partner in the city.

Sometime in 2016, Juvale resumed training after he was contacted by a kendoka living in the United States. With nobody available to help him advance his learning, the aspiring kendoka (Kendo practitioner) took a hiatus from the fencing activity. He had access to the best Kendo instructors and gear in the UK, but upon returning to India, he realised that people here are barely aware of the sport. Juvale began practising Kendo as a student at Staffordshire University in the UK, around 2009.

THE WAY OF THE SWORD PROFESSIONAL

The club was started a little over a year ago by 34-year-old Hrishikesh Juvale, an IT professional from the city. A recent addition to this long list is the Pune Kendo Club, where you can learn the Japanese martial art of sword fighting that evolved from feudal samurai culture.

Pune has a fascination for all things Japanese, with anime (animation) and manga (comic books) being the two most popular cultural imports from Japan. Japanese fencing or Kendo is gaining popularity in the city, with the launch of the Pune Kendo Club

The way of the sword