It's the capital of Ibaraki Prefecture, a prefecture that borders the ocean, and Mito is home to one of Japan's most legendary private candle.

Despite me having over a decade in Japan filled with countless cultural experiences, I've never tried my hand kendo.

I don't think I was ever really ready to me.

The idea of trying Kendal was like that of entering Ah whole New World, and I wanted to approach it with the right mindset.

So I started morning quite early.

I heard of a shrine on the ocean called Ought I So saggy shrine, a popular and beautiful spot to watch the sunrise.

Maybe I was gonna fall in love with kendo and become a part of my daily life.

Or maybe it would just be one more experience in the bank.

I arrived hell before sunrise and spent some time trying to clear my head while enjoying the constant change of light happening in front of me.

It was beautiful, almost meditative, in its own way.

By the way, Thean Formacion about it being a popular spot wasn't wrong.

And as soon as the sun came up over the shrine, it was instantly understandable why I honestly can't remember the last time that I enjoyed in Ocean Sunrise or even spending any time at the ocean, for that matter.

I must have been enjoying it because before I realized that I had been there for well over two hours, the time got me thinking a bit more about the shrine itself, obviously completely distracting me from my upcoming kendo experience.

And I decided to head up to the main, trying to see if I could learn a little more.

Well, I could have opened my phone to find out everything I wanted to know.

I thought I'd rolled the days and see if I couldn't get one of the shrine's priests to talk to me.

I got lucky.

No, you see that?

I should have mentioned that despite the shrine being a very popular spot to watch the first sunrise of the year, the most beautiful data watch.

The sunrise was actually on the 29th of December.

Our conversation gradually drifted into talking about kendo, and he told me if I wanted to get off to a good start to focus on limiting my movement as much as possible rather than going for big dramatic movements.

From here.

Our conversation gradually shifted over to talking about shamisen, and before we realized it, we're out of time and he had to get going off Yoshi, the sound goes, I really enjoyed that conversation with him.

Having the opportunity to share a little bit more of the perspective of locals is kind of in the theme of this year, so I really appreciate him opening up the time for us today.

Plus, he left me of some really good advice for today's kendo training.

Speaking of which, it's time to get going to that.

So let's go.

All right, so let's talk history.

The Dough Joe, known as the Mito Togokahn was founded in 18 74 just as the era of the Samurai.

I was coming to an end.

He found her cause Alatorre wanted to preserve the lifestyles and cultures of Bushido in the Samurai.

Currently the Mito TOBA com is one of the most famous private candle Tojo's in all of Japan.

I heard that my instructor for the day was famously strict and that expectations would be running high, but nonetheless, I was looking forward to the experience.

Put it tonight using a photo I could have.

The demonstration was quite a sight to see.

There's always been something about watching the master of a craft that's appealed to me.

No, thank you.

Quickly interested why the shrine's priest gave the advice to me that he did, and it paid off because I was up next.

Didn't get off to the best start.

So no.

So we have kind of got a little They can go home.

That's a little way.

Took some time to talk about the hoc sheen todo style and how it gets its name, starting with Hoax in, which refers to the North Star stationary never moving and it told you, which can be summarized as a single movement with as a little movement as possible being key, I finally started to understand what the priest Mr Yoshida had told me earlier that day get up.

So they studied was I feel really fortunate to have had this experience.

This has been really impactful.

Admittedly, that was a lot more difficult than I expected it to me, but it was a really, really good experience to be honest.

Between you and me, the hardest part of the entire thing was the Faiza kneeling.

I am, I think, the one thing that stood out to me the most.

How similar that mean kendo strike is both in style and importance to the main strike of a Bochy in playing, the Shami said.

They have been playing the Shami said now for about seven years and that's still the one thing that we practice the most and just how much those two things line up, both in practice and execution.

Still to me alive.

So anyway, I should go say thank you to say and I see myself also, it was kind of hoping that I would get to wear the whole way.