The purpose of this study is to examine how Korean youths perceive kendo. For this research we made a comparative study of male and female youths. The subjects of this study were 2,026 Korean youths. Of them, 1,010 were male and 1,016 were female. The average age of the males was 20.8 ± 5.14 ( ±SD ) years and that of the females was 19.6 ± 3.21 years. The results of the study are as follows:
1) Male Korean youths are inclined to perceive kendo as a martial art. They consider kendo to be helpful for practicing courtesy, posture and self-control, but they put little value on kendo for the formation of internal qualities such as sincerity, reliability and humanity. Although their interest in kendo is high, the percentage of those giving up the practice of kendo after a while is higher than that of female practitioners. The cause for this seems to be their greater interest in other sports and cultural activities.
2) Female Korean youths perceive kendo as a sport. In particular, they consider kendo to be an effective activity for correcting one’s posture. They are fascinated by a cultural environment in which young or old, male or female can evenly compete with one another. Because of a prejudicial view that one can easily be injured in practicing kendo and that kendo is very difficult to practice fewer females take it up. But after starting kendo, the percentage of females who stay with it is higher than that of males. Females have a more positive view of the traditional understanding of kendo than males.
Today in kendo classes there is no time given to the cultural characteristics of kendo. But as Korean youths show a high interest in such aspects, there is a need to include the history and traditional values of kendo in kendo classes.
