Valley View Kendo

Who's your money on 😄

Celebrating Mr Aaron Larson birthday with Taiko. Seeing Drum Tao tonight at the Black Box Theater. Make sure and wish him a happy birthday

Rochester taikai today! Thank you to Voss sensei for a perfect event. Great times...and our own Mr Larson took first place! He had to fight the most matches (from the very first to the very last), but it was well worth it

A night of practice in Rochester with visiting sensei from Japan

The girls of kendo...and Mr Larson. The ladies of Friday night classes at the Y

Congratulations Kara on making the trip to Summer Camp by yourself and passing your first exam. We are all very proud of you!

Valley View Kendo would like to send our sincere Congratulations to Taro Ariga Sensei on his passing of hachidan exam in Kyoto Japan, this past weekend. All of us here owe a great deal to Ariga Sensei for his help and guidance during the forming of VVK decades ago (without him, it would have been many more years, if at all, before our Kendo group even formed). A few of us were even lucky enough to have Ariga Sensei on our testing panel for our Shodan exams all those many years ago. No clue how he scored us, but we passed – so it’s a win :) It has been not only an honor, but a true pleasure to met, spoken to and been able to practice with Ariga Sensei, and I can not think of anyone as deserving of this highest achievement and honor in kendo. Thank you Sensei for all the years, and heres to many more!

Second session at the Y started tonight. Another promising group of beginners, along with a few returns from last session. Feel free to join us in Onalaska on Friday nights. Advanced classes are still on Mondays - we will have a new face or two there as well!

Our new home for Friday nights. Thanks again to the YMCA in Onalaska. Classes start in 30minutes!

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2025, coincidentally the 25th anniversary of VVK. We will be holding a few special events to help us celebrate 25 years of good kendo and great friends - so we look forwards to seeing you all. Dont forget our new classes starting at the Onalaska Y in just a few weeks, the perfect time for old students to dust off their bogu and jump right back into swinging, and a great chance for those putting it off to finally start. Thank you so very much to ALL of our past students for 25 amazing years (so many stories) and of course arigato to ALL of our present ones. Heres to another solid 25 years!