Yes Hunter I agree with you. The origianl post was " Kendo is the self defence sport that Eddie Murphy used in COMING TO AMERICA on the guy trying to hold up the restaurant. " First Eddie Murphy was using more Bo or jo-jutsu not kendo. Second the request was to learn self defence. Although the principals of armed and unarmed combat overlap, if someone off the street wanted to learn self defense, Kendo would not be my first recomendation. If the want to study Kendo for the art, great.

Outside of MA circles, kendo and self defense are different. I have never seen a self defense book explain the ma-ai of a shinai. Since this is a cycling forum, I was using the general level of understanding. Does Kendo teach un-armed applications of its techniques? I have not taken Kendo. However, in learning sword and stick arts, you learn the application of the technique with the weapon and without.

I was trying to gear the response to someone with little or no experience before delving into the correct vs popular definitions of MA. It is always good to see other people with a zest to keep things straight in the MA.

Bob