Patton, "We're gonna murder those lousy Hun bastards and use their living guts to grease the treads of our tanks!" That sounds awful and offensive compared to something like "Choose Glock to win the championships," or "Buy Kendostar because Kendo is life," and Gen Patton was putting it nicely. The Samurai of old and the modern Soldier and Marine seek to survive long enough to overcome, suppress, destroy the will of their enemy or to destroy the enemy outright so they are no longer a threat, or to put it in the words of Gen. The Three-gun shooter seeks greater accuracy, faster times and self development through the way of the gun.
It is directly descendant of the Kendo of the Meiji and earlier era's military techniques and tactics (which truthfully was stripped down and systemized from earlier ryu of Kenjutsu,) but it is stripped of the inefficiency and brutality of warfare that is not beneficial to the civilian practitioner who's goal should always be on self improvement through the way of the sword. That's exactly what modern post-war Kendo is. It is a sport that has roots in it's past military practitioners, but it's been stripped of the necessary inefficiencies and brutalities of warfare. I went and watched a high end three-gun shooting competition once and I was kind of pissed off to hear the inexperienced, unknowing civilian spectators judge the "practical" applicability of the techniques and equipment some of the contestants employed, as if to say this shooting sport was somehow a direct reflection of the combative techniques and tactics of Soldiers and Marines in war. It's just not the Kendo you are familiar with. Understanding it in the context of who the participants are and the purpose for which they train, it makes all the sense in the world that so many commenters are shocked by the violence of actions and that's okay because you're civilians who don't have to use your Kendo in any war-like context, but try not to judge the participants too harshly. Several years later, but what I see in the match is not the civilian Kendo so much as a legacy Kendo.
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