Fourteen years of ice hockey, then a scoreboard at the Swiss Kendo Championships.
Way of Life #12, “Clearing the Mind”, is a portrait of Pâris Hehner (4-dan · Swiss national team) at Budokan Lausanne. What follows is transcribed from the subtitles of the film — Pâris Hehner’s own words, in the order they are spoken, under the chapters of the film.
Study, work, people I don't get along with... Then I come to kendo — and I can clear my mind.
From ice hockey to kendo
At first I played another sport — ice hockey. Fourteen, fifteen years of it — and I'd lost the love. Then I saw the Swiss kendo championships — I worked the scoreboard.
That got me interested. My father and mother do kendo too. So I decided to begin.
Something to continue
Maybe four years into practicing. I was maybe 18, 19 years old. I began to feel kendo was something to continue.
Alone on the team
I joined the junior national team. But I was the only one in Switzerland — alone. Then COVID came.
After COVID I kept on — and came back to the team. Now there were many friends — a good atmosphere. That atmosphere made me decide to stay.
Clearing the mind
A sort of reset — different from the everyday. Study, work, people I don't get along with... Then I come to kendo — and I can clear my mind.
Touching Japan in the dojo
In the posture — and the ceremony of it. And the family feeling. Enter the dojo — seiza, rei.
Then we gather and talk — that's where I touch Japanese culture. And people come from Japan, Korea — meeting them is fascinating.
The dojo is a place where people come together.
About this series
Way of Life is a series of short portraits of people who live the way, filmed by KAIDO Inc. in dojos across Europe and Japan. One person, one word, a few minutes.