Welcome to Dublin Kendo Kobukai
Learn Authentic Japanese Weapon Arts

Shimizu Takaji Sensei, a grandmaster of one of Japan's oldest martial traditions wrote these words. Read them slowly:

He wasn't writing about doom.

He was writing about Jōdō - The Art of the Samurai Stick - and why it matters more now than it ever has.

You already know he's right. You feel it in the relentless noise, the hollow productivity, the growing sense that achievement and meaning are not the same thing. The masters of this art spent centuries building something specifically for this moment - a physical practice, a philosophy, and a discipline designed to restore exactly what modern life strips away.

It is available to five people in Dublin this September.

Are you one of them?

Maybe you're like some of our students. They saw Donatello take a simple wooden stick and defeat an army of Foot-clan ninja. Or that moment in the Phantom Menace when Darth Maul first brandished his lightsabre staff? Or Kenichi or Aang wielding the stick with martial precision in anime? 

Whatever it was, you felt something. That pull. That quiet hunger for something ancient, disciplined, and real.

And it didn't go away.

Now imagine that feeling isn't just something you watch on a screen - but something you live.

These words weren't written yesterday. But they could have been.

You feel it too - that something is off. That the relentless performance of modern professional life, the back-to-back meetings, the endless notifications, the constant noise, is not the whole story. That there is a version of yourself that is calmer, more grounded, more present - and that you have simply never been given the tools to find them.

Shimizu Takaji Sensei spent his life pointing toward those tools.

He called them Jōdō.

The Way of the Stick.

And it may be exactly what you have been looking for.

In the early 1600s, a warrior named Muso Gonnosuke suffered defeat at the hands of the legendary Miyamoto Musashi - the greatest swordsman in Japanese history. Most men would have given up. Gonnosuke retreated to a sacred mountain, trained in solitude, and returned with something new: a system of techniques using a simple oak staff - the Jō - that could overcome even the lethal advantage of a sword.

Not through brute force.

Through intelligence. Timing. Positioning. Harmony.

The Jō has no cutting edge. It doesn't slash or stab - it redirects, controls, and guides. It meets force with movement rather than resistance. It finds the path of least opposition and - in doing so - reveals something profound about how a human being can move through the world.

It is, in the truest sense, philosophy you can hold in your hands.

ZNKR Jōdō - the modern standardised form taught on this course - is practised worldwide, is endorsed by the All Japan Kendo Federation, and carries within its twelve kata a complete system of physical, mental, and philosophical development. Its goal, stated plainly in its own founding documents, is:

"Defeating the opponent without attacking."

Read that again. In a world that rewards aggression, Jōdō teaches something more sophisticated, more powerful, and far more rare.

You do not need martial arts experience. You do not need to be fit, flexible, or in your twenties. You need nothing except curiosity and the willingness to show up.

Jōdō is one of the most intellectually rich martial arts in existence - and one of the most accessible for complete beginners. The techniques are precise, logical, and deeply satisfying to learn. The warm-up sequence alone - the same system used by SWAT teams, the SAS, and Navy SEALs - will transform how your body feels inside a month.

In ten weeks, you will:

Match winning demonstrations of Jōdō by the Irish Squad at the European Jodo Championships

Dublin Kendo Instructor Batman O'Brien (Jo) with Dublin Kendo Instructor John Kennedy (Tachi) in the Yondan category of the European Jodo Championships 2025.

Kata's demonstrated are ZNKR Jodo: 5. Sakan, 6. Monomi and 7. Kasumi.

Dublin Kendo Instructor John Kennedy opens with the Jo, with Dublin Kendo Instructor Batman O'Brien as Tachi in the Teams category of the European Jodo Championships 2025.

Kennedy performs ZNKR kata 1. Tsuki Zue, 2. Suigetsu and 3. Hissage. O'Brien then performs kata 7. Kasumi, 8. Tachi Otoshi and 9. Rai Uchi

O'Brien Sensei is the highest-ranked Jōdō practitioner in Ireland, holding a 4th Dan (Yondan) in ZNKR Jōdō, together with his training partner John Kennedy.  

O'Brien is a two-time Iaido Bronze Medallist, a Fighting Spirit Award recipient, a multiple-time European Iaido & Jodo Championship competitor, is enrolled in the European Kendo Federation Hall of Fame - and won Fighting Spirit (Teams) at the 2023 European Jodo Championships.

- Asakichi Nakajima & Tsunemori Kaminoda. Jōdō Kyohan. Japan Publications Inc. 1976

📅 Course Starts: Monday 31st August 2026
⏰ Registration Closes: Friday 28th August 2026 - no exceptions
🗓 Duration: 10 Weeks

Monday evenings:

18:00 - 19:00

St. John Bosco Youth Centre,

Davitt Road,

Drimnagh,

Dublin 12

Saturday Mornings:

11:30 - 12:45

The Ballybough Community Youth & Sports Centre,

49 Ballybough Road,

Ballybough,

Dublin 3

Choose whichever location suits your schedule - or attend both.

💶 Investment: €80 for the full 10-week course
(€60 for students and unwaged participants)

For context: a single personal training session in Dublin typically costs more than the entire course.

This is not a marketing device. This is arithmetic.

O'Brien limits every cohort to five students - deliberately - so that each person receives individual attention, proper correction, and the depth of instruction this art genuinely requires.

Five people. 

Ten weeks. 

One ancient path.

When these five places are gone, they are gone. The next course will not begin until sometime in 2027.

The masters wrote:

In a world of noise, distraction, and disconnection - these are not small things.

These are everything.

You have already felt the pull. You felt it reading this. You may have felt it for years without knowing what to call it.

It has a name. It has a 400-year lineage. It has a teacher in Dublin who has given his life to it - and who, from a hospital bed, with a needle in his spine and a diagnosis that would have broken most people, chose the path anyway.

And it has five places left, closing on Friday 28th August 2026.

Don't scroll past this time.

Registration closed Friday 28th August 2026.

The following are some clips from our seminars, competitions and public demonstrations. 

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