Great place to train with various Japanese traditional martial arts. Reopened in a temporary location, Chantilly VA. Contact on website listed.
The Capital Area Budokai is a rather unique place on the east coast. There are very few places where you can train in a such a wide variety of traditional weapons based Japanese martial arts.The Budokai offers instruction in several forms of Japanese swordsmanship including Kendo, a form of armored fencing with free sparing, as well as a number of forms of Iaido, which are forms based sword training, such as ZNKR Seitei, Muso-Jikiden Eishin Ryu, Toyama-Ryu, and Mugai Ryu. Other arts include Jodo, which is a staff based martial art and Naginata, a Japanese halberd. The Budokai even offers instruction of Kyudo, a form of archery, and has an indoor archery range!The facility is quite large at around 4,000sqft and has enough space for two arts to practice at the same time.The dojo is a non-profit and none of the instructors are paid. They are here solely for the love of the art. Likewise each of the instructors are certified and ranked through their respective governing bodies and have links back to Japan. There is no made up martial shenanigans here.