I have only tried Kendo once.. and it was a pretty sad effort!
But I have watched a lot of it and one of my friends is 4th dan and I think it would be my choice of a martial art if I had more time.
It is full contact and they don't hold anything back.
Seems real popular too.. I have seen lots of kendo training and some big competitions.
Biggest kendo competition i saw was about 300 people going for it at once!
Amazing!
Only downside is the gear is pretty expensive.
All that armor and the swords and stuff, but WAY COOL!!

You can get all the gear in school or club you attend to and it's paid with membership fee...

Yes, I am sure they would loan stuff to beginners.. providing they were not big foreigners it should fit.
I believe students would be expected to buy their own gear if they were to continue learning though.
The kendoka I know all have their own gear.

You must buy the gear only if the club(school)doesn't have it or there are to many members,in any other case you get your gear when you pay membership fee like I said before...



sorry if my writing is bad,english is not my native language...

You do kendo in Japan?
Very cool

Where in Japan do you do kendo?

I want to do Kendo. I was thinking of starting a Kendo club here in my tow but, I wasn't sure of the rules and with no real teacher, it would just be guys in armor hitting each other with sticks, right?