It's a great sport, requiring speed, agility, and lightning reflexes.. But it's a sport.
Kenjutsu is an attempt to preserve the classic fighting art of the Japanese sword. There are a variety of surviving schools, as Kokoro says. However, during the feudal period in Japan, there were thousands... Mostly gone to the dustbin of history.
If you wanted something approaching realistic sword combat, search out the various historical groups practicing medieval combat. Hard to find, but they are out there.
I don't think either kenjutsu or fencing really aligns with a sword style used by a rogue/assassin in video games - those characters tend to use dual short swords or daggers which might more closely relate to kali/arnis rather than kenjutsu/fencing. In fact, I'd recommend that you look into those arts first if you haven't already done so, since it may meet your training goals.
I can't speak to fencing since I don't have any experience, but I can tell you that authentic kenjutsu is VERY rare in the United States. There are only a handful of schools that teach it, and most of them are in the North East US (Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, New Jersey). So you are mostly constrained by what schools are within a commutable distance for you. Most of what you will find is either kendo (basically a sport version of kenjutsu) or iaido/battodo. Some schools of iaido include a little kenjutsu in their curriculum, but for the most part training is limited to solo and paired kata. I don't believe there are any koryu (traditional) kenjutsu schools that still actively practice sparring as part of their curriculum, and only a small number of iaido schools have any kind of sparring activity. If you actually want to get fighting experience, then kendo would be a better option for you.
However, many Japanese-styles tend to emphasize a one-cut one-kill philosophy, so the emphasis is not really focused on making multiple attacks really fast as you were originally asking, but rather finding the right opportunity to strike and then ending combat with a single decisive cut. Basically, you can't realistically approach swordsmanship with the expectation of wanting to replicate what you see in a game or movie. I can tell you that what you see in those types of media looks almost nothing like what real combat would look like...game developers might use actors for rendering animations, but it is all to make the game look interesting and not reflect real combat.
I would not recommend fencing bc it is, as Mark put it, entirely for sport. Though it teaches good fundamentals of swordsmanship for rapier, and saber, etc, it is far from maintaining it's true historical roots.
In short fencing does not equal swordsmanship. It's inaccurate for the most part. It's glorified sword tag. You hit your opponent first, if he hits you as well immediately after you hit him, you get the point, but in theory you are both dead.
If you are interested in that line of swordsmanship (renaissance etc), I would recommend you learning historical fencing and stay away from the olympic style.
You can even learn Historical Medieval Swordsmanship with Arming, Hand and Half, Longsword, etc.
And Kenjutsu is great as well. All swords were made differently, and are wielded differently and have different technique than other swords. Separate histories and the likes.
Kendo is not practical because there are lots of rules to follow such as ki ken tai ichi. Another thing is each bout can last from 20sec-2min while fencing can be settled on average 10sec. But why is this important? Because as humans we learn by doing things and the more we do it the better we become if you reflect and aim to refine. Fencing offer that repetitive type of drill in a bout which helps build up your muscle memory and before you know it your parry and riposte would come out automatically.
So my choice goes to fencing but remember that there are 3 systems. The foil/smallsword, the saber, and the epee/rapier. I started as a foil fencer for half a year, then a saber fencer for 3 years, and I tried epee fencing for a year but then I went back to saber fencing because it's too slow.
So ....if the keyword is "assassin/rogue" that simply translates to "rush in and rush dafuq out", then you should definitely try saber fencing with a mixture of epee fencing. Fencing emphasis on 1vs1 type of combat. It's evident in their obvious and most fundamental combination. Parry and riposte.
But the best choice is to go stop by both of the classes and ask if you can watch the class or try it. I'm sure you'll come to a better answer if you see things first hand.
kenjitsu is fencing, there are hundreds of styles of kenjitus
real life is not a cartoon,
I would check out both and see which one has the better program, teacher and is the better school. I would pick by that. A good teacher makes all the difference and largely determines how good of a practitioner you will be.
Learn both of them its worth the money and you can meet more friends.
I want to learn both, and in the end i will learn both. But which one should i try first?
I kind of like a style that involves multiple quick attacks
similar to "assassin" or "rogue" type characters in video games
So any recommendations?
Please say why you recommend me learning one over the other! Thank you :)
