Happy 2014! As you may have noticed, kenshi247.net has undergone a complete renewal mainly with the aim of making things more minimal. As part of this reworking I decided to remove pretty much all of the pre-2013 articles. Don’t worry – the content hasn’t been deleted – it’s simply been archived at the moment, and I’m sure will pop up in a different format in the future.
Whilst doing this cleanup I started thinking a lot about not only what I had achieved with the site since it started back in 2008, but also about the success of the keikokai I began pretty much in tandem with the site: Eikenkai.
Basically, the idea about starting my own kihon-based keikokai started in around 2006, when I began to be involved in a couple of friendly, non ‘official’ gatherings outside of my official dojo. These gatherings were more informal and, more-often-than-not, involved more kihon practise than I found in my dojo. However, I wanted to do something more than just a loose gathering of friends for a bash. Slowly I began to co-opt one of my sempai’s informal gatherings. It took a while, but eventually more of my friends than his were coming! Eventually I just said “I want to change the format” and went ahead and did so. The name change came a little later.
At this point we were still using public dojo on a lottery basis – we were never sure which space we could rent. After some hunting around and string pulling we were able finally to get a dojo we could pre-book on a yearly basis starting in 2010. Bar building our own dojo, this is the best situation we can hope for.
Since the initial inception already 8 years have passed!! The format of the keikokai is set, we have a proper home, have a strong core member base, and some of our members have become or are on the cusp of becoming kodansha. I can’t be sure, but I suspect that in the long term, the connections and friendships made at Eikenkai (not to mention all that kirikaeshi!) will have a deeper impact for me than the running of kenshi247.net itself.
At any rate, here’s to more Eikenkai in 2014 – happy new year!!
Frankly, I am extremely disappointed by the reorganization. For a while, you had a number of guest bloggers writing for you, of which Richard Stonell’s the articles on the Eishin Ryu tanka and the Myth of Chiburi (off the top of my head), were not only outstanding, but were commonly cited and extremely influential in the world of Iaido. Another example, would be an article by Andy Watson on Jodo.
By reorganizing the site, breaking the links leading to the older articles, and removing information, you contributed to further fragmentation of knowledge.
This is your site, you can do what you want, but what you did seems short-sighted, and I urge you to reconsider, and make it available. Perhaps you could do something as simple, as running a second virtual host, under the name of old.kenshi247.net with the old content.
This site reorganisation contributes to a “further fragmentation of knowledge” … ? The posts you mention, amongst hundreds of others, have opened up topics barely discussed in both kendo and iaido…. over a span of 5 years no less. Whether the articles are temporarily unavailable or not, I think knowledge has been spread.
I am very sad to see this change… and I am not alone with this.
I hope you change everything back.
Only the site’s look has changed. As I mentioned above, older content is simply being re-arranged and re-organised. I see no cause for sadness or disappointment!! I hope kenshi247 is and will continue to be “a very nice source and a lot of interesting articles … from different authors” for the foreseeable future.
btw, you guys might want to consider the time and effort it has taken (and continues to take) to keep this site afloat. Perhaps this change will engender a more proactive effort in support of the site?
I think everybody is grateful to you for the site. No question in that.
Well, probably what it means in reality is that some of the articles will reappear online while others will be re-edited and re-packaged in a more permananet “archived” format, i.e. as a downloadable pdf. Perhaps if I do this with portions of the content every 3-5 years it will mean I create something more …. what’s the word …. long-term? useful?
It also means that there’s a way for people to contribute to the upkeep and effort behind the site if they wish (of course as all the content would have been available freely for years before any repackaging then they would really have no grounds for complaint).
Feldin, feel free to get in touch if you wish to contribute. Not sure of your experience or what arts you do, but I’m pretty open. Cheers!
Sure, I will write you an email.