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I do agree with the others that practicing once a week is less than ideal, but I it seems like I'm disagreeing with several folks in saying that physical muscle strength is very important. It is also important to know what muscles to exercise and how to exercise them. Anaerobic muscle groups (not powered with oxygen) are the most important for kendo. These are your "fast twitch" muscles. On the other side there is aerobic muscle groups (they are powered with oxygen). These are commonly known as "slow twitch" muscles. Most people (incorrectly) use their slow twitch muscles to do kendo. When the sensei says "you're too tense" it's because you're using your larger slow twitch muscles. When the sensei says "you're using too much power" it's because you're using your slow twitch muscles. Basically, a lot of form, posture, etc., problems come from people using slow twitch aerobic muscles.

So the question is, how do you use anaerobic muscle groups instead? These muscles tend to be a lot smaller. They're also harder to feel and use if you haven't used them a lot in the past. I'm fairly certain most people don't know these muscles exist, but they're there. In order to use them (in most kendo-related cases), you have to relax your bigger slow-twitch muscles. They have to go limp. Then, fast twitch can take over. Lifting the shinai over your head, doing okuriashi, swinging, te-no-uchi, holding a strong kamae... you need strong fast-twitch muscles for all this. MANY people spend years and years (and sometimes their entire kendo careers) building the wrong muscle groups because if they switch, they'll become weak and slow again. Slow-twitch muscles allow you to do one cut (a really hard and painful one, usually). You can do a pretty fast swing this way too. So people think they can get by and improve, but they always hit a wall, and usually end up injured at some point. If I had my way beginners would just exercise the right muscle groups before they're allowed to swing a shinai. Sort of like how a lot of kyuudo dojos do, in a way. Until these (weird, normally unused) muscles reach a certain point, you'll be physically incapable of doing correct kendo.

Basically, that's a long way of saying you should definitely be exercising these muscle groups at home as much as you can. There's a magic base-line for fast-twitch muscle strength that will physically allow you to do kendo correctly. Without a high enough base strength, you'll never swing without tensing up. You'll never move your feet really quickly. Basically, you'll never hit that "elite" level and your cap will be "okay" and maybe "somewhat good." You'll start to feel the difference after a month or so. You'll notice you're using your left hand more than your right. You'll start to actually feel te-no-uchi. And, your shoulders will be strong (and relaxed).

With that in mind, here's my daily home routine. Note: I actually use a lighter shinai (37) with all of these. It allows me to focus on form, te-no-uchi, etc. But, it also prevents me from using aerobic muscle groups when I'm getting tired.

1. Lunge w/ cut (horizontal to the floor). Knees should be at 90 degree angles, so don't over extend. Focus should be on keeping back straight, using te-no-uchi- at the end of your cut, and driving your center of gravity straight down below your core.

2. Matawari. Similar to #1. Keep your back straight and drive the center of your core straight down.

3. Grip Training. I use these donuts. Squeeze using pinky and ring finger. Both hands.

4. Katate Suburi. Just left hand. Focus on the form of the swing. If you can't swing with one hand without tensing your shoulders, choke up on the grip. If your floor is too high, sit on your butt with legs outstretched and back straight. This'll work out your core some. Then, switch to right hand (holding in the position your right hand normally would). Focus on relaxing and not using your right hand much on the swing, and then practice squeezing at the end for te-no-uchi. Shouldn't be a workout for the right arm katate-suburi. Just practice for good form and not using it.

5. Small Katate Suburi. Same thing as #4, but you're practicing hisashi-men with one hand. Focus on not letting your shoulders roll forward, tense up, etc. And, practice the te-no-uchi at the end. You can do this one standing with short ceilings.

6. Okuriashi w/ Metronome. This is so I can actually measure progress in okuriashi improvement. Each tick on the metronome is either right foot moving forward or left foot coming back into position. Tick: Right foot goes forward. Tick: Left foot catches up. Start with a slower speed that is easy and focus on keeping your center of gravity right in the middle of your feet. Then, slowly speed it up until you find your ceiling. From there, you can increase the speed little by little and get your okuriashi faster. This'll also be a really good workout for the weird muscles required for good okuriashi when you're pushing your ceiling speed up.

As for how many / how much of the above you should do... I don't actually have a number for you. I just do each of the above until I feel slightly uncomfortable, then stop. Then I write down the number / time / etc., on a spreadsheet so I can track it. After going through all 6 (you don't have to use the order above, I tend to go back and forth between things), do it again until you've gone through all six four times. For the first three times through, just go until you're somewhat uncomfortable then stop. For the final set (fourth time through), do as many as you can. Main thing is you're increasing your averages slowly over time. The important thing is consistency and exercising even when you're tired. In fact, the only way to get better is to exercise when your muscles are tired. This actually activates gene sequences in your DNA that tell your body to get stronger. If you don't stress your body enough (i.e. be consistent and do your exercises every day) this won't happen, and your muscles won't actually get physically stronger. Exercising once, and then letting yourself recover fully is almost as bad as not exercising at all. Your body will always try to change itself so that it feels comfortable, so if you're always sore and working out, your body will try and catch up to that. Once it does, you have to up the ante.

With anaerobic muscles, you don't want to push them really really hard. They're more like "sprinter's muscles," so they can't take a ton of stress over long periods. Also, if you keep working them out beyond "somewhat uncomfortable" you're not getting much benefit out of that. The most efficient (and safe for injury) method is to stop when you're feeling it a little bit, then move on to another exercise while you let your muscles recover (they'll recover quickly--in minutes--if you're actually using anaerobic muscles).

One other thing I'll add... I do think endurance is important, but if you do proper technique, and build up anaerobic muscle groups, high-endurance activities get a lot easier. When you're not tensing and using your big muscles, you move much more freely and can do kendo a lot longer. My dojo is one of the toughest for endurance I've been to (and I've traveled around quite a bit). It only got easier after I started working on anaerobic muscles. No matter how good at running I got before, practice was still killer. Really, kendo is more like sprinting than long distance running... though some could argue it's a bit like long-distance sprinting. There's a reason why the high-ranking sensei can do kendo for a really long time. You also don't see them breathing as hard as everyone else. Part of it is efficiency in their skill, but another part (I believe) is that they use muscle groups that don't use oxygen to power them. So, no need to breathe so hard. Faster recovery. etc.

tl;dr Exercise your anaerobic muscles

I started kendo about three months ago, so I can tell you where I'm at:

Footwork, footwork, footwork. Every week most of the time is spent on footwork and yet I still don't feel confident about it. I know I'm improving because my sensei said so, but I feel like I have a long way to go before I can even begin to feel confident in it. Ki-ken-tai-ichi is still not there for me.

At my dojo we had shinai from the very first day, and we practice swinging in each class as well. The first few weeks were men-focused, but we moved on to kote, and dou most recently. Dou is taking some time to learn to do properly.

My stamina has definitely improved, and I notice a bigger improvement if I practice several times throughout the week rather than just at class. Now I can actually make it to the end of class without feeling like I'm going to pass out! Initially, however, it was definitely a struggle. Just after the half hour warm-up I would be completely exhausted.

I still wear work-out clothes (no hakama/keikogi yet) and own no bogu. However, my sensei did start encouraging people to buy their own bokken just last week.

Early on, I bought this book to help me learn all the terminology. I highly recommend it - it has helped me immensely.

Just wanted to add I'm turning 44 this week and just started kendo in October of last year. So I sure hope you aren't too old!

Honestly you are super young man. While there will be youth that are starting as well, you're at the age where you have some maturity and can probably apply yourself with more focus. The sensei that ran the seminar I just went to over the weekend is 70 years old and still going. So just imagine you have over 50 years of kendo ahead of you.

A couple of resources I found that are really helpful:

http://suffolkkendo.co.uk/KendoTrainingHandbook(rev5).pdf

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4805312319/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Enjoy!

If you don't know japanese I found kendo books really difficult as a beginner. There are just so many terms in japanese that you will spend more time looking things up than reading. Plus there is a lot of info there you just won't be able to digest without some time in the dojo. You can still get something out of them, but be aware it can be dense. I came back to most of my books after a year or two of doing kendo and understood them a lot more.

My favorite book on kendo. Salmon sensei writes in a way I find really accessible to western kendoka. I like his blog too.

http://www.amazon.com/Kendo-Comprehensive-Guide-Japanese-Swordsmanship/dp/4805312319?ie=UTF8&keywords=kendo&qid=1462375770&ref_=sr_1_2&sr=8-2

The best history of kendo book I've found.

http://www.amazon.com/Kendo-Culture-Alexander-C-Bennett/dp/0520284372?ie=UTF8&keywords=kendo&qid=1462375770&ref_=sr_1_7&sr=8-7

Books that I found really good are:

Kendo: A Comprehensive Guide to Japanese Swordsmanship

Kendo - Approaches for all Levels

Kendo Kata: Essence and Application I wish this would come back into print so it would be easy for people to get and less expensive.

This is the book I refer too. It's pretty good: http://www.amazon.com/Looking-Far-Mountain-Tuttle-Martial/dp/0804832455

[Kendo: A Comprehensive Guide to Japanese Swordsmanship by Geoff Salmon] (https://www.amazon.com/Kendo-Comprehensive-Guide-Japanese-Swordsmanship/dp/4805312319/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521676294&sr=8-1&keywords=kendo+a+comprehensive+guide+to+japanese+swordsmanship)
Very interesting and informative book. Covers everything from proper etiquette to wazas to how to put on bogu. My sensei gave me a copy.

There are two books on amazon about Haga Junichi and his style of kendo

Junichi Haga's Secrets of Kendo, Volume 1

Junichi Haga's Secrets of Kendo, Volume 2

If you have Amazon Prime you can borrow them for free. The books are very short, more like lengthy articles than books really. So I'm not sure if you want to pay $6 for them.

Essentially it's an old style of kendo that has a heavy emphasis on realistic combat with a sword rather than shiai. So, no sashi men/small men, more frequent use of tsuki and katate waza, less restrictive footworks, and grappling from tsubazeriai is allowed.

If you talking about bokkens cold steel make I really good one for ~18USD each https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Steel-Training-92BKKC-Polypropylene/dp/B00U1IBZJ6/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=cold+steel+bokken&qid=1557372547&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Ono-ha itto-ryu tends to be the most influential ryu-ha in terms of the development of modern Kendo.

This book has a lot of info: http://www.amazon.com/This-Kendo-Art-Japanese-Fencing/dp/0804816077

I really recommend the following book when it comes to historical and philosophical facts:
https://www.amazon.com/Shambhala-Guide-Kendo-Philosophy-Spiritual/dp/1570629277

With my wife we ​​use a bag forGolf equipmen for our bogus, easily enter both bogus and our shinai and bokken. But we only use it for travel (it is quite large), for daily use she made me a bag for my shinai with old pants.

___

Con mi esposa usamos una bolsa para equipo de golf para nuestros bogus, entran facilmente ambos bogus y nuestros shinai y bokken. Pero solo lo usamos para viajes ( es bastante grande), para el uso diario ella me hizo un bolso para mis shinai con un pantalon viejo

There usually aren't schools that teach all of the arts you listed. I know of a place on the East Coast of the United States that teaches all you listed except jukendo/tankendo though and has a WMA group. It is going to take a lot more than 20 hours of practice to become competent at any of those weapons and some of those arts are kata exclusive, or predominantly practice as kata.

I was part of a club about 10 years back that used this as their text book, but I think it might be discontinued.

https://www.amazon.com/Kendo-Definitive-Guide-Hiroshi-Ozawa/dp/4770021194

The kendo reader might have some material applicable to your WMA practices: http://www.kendo.org.uk/files/KendoReader.pdf

I don't think you are going to get much out of practicing any of these arts. From my conversations with various HEMA people, the one thing you likely would get out of kendo that isn't as prevalent in HEMA is the focus on seme, but that takes years to develop.

Ozawa sensei wrote a quite thorough book called Kendo: The Definitive Guide

I also reference this Japanese-English dictionary of kendo from time to time: https://www.e-bogu.com/Kendo-Dictionary-p/kok-pub-boo-kendictionary-.htm

I know several people that use these:

http://www.amazon.com/Mueller-Sports-Water-Bottle-Natural/dp/B001IV2HZG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1348087799&sr=8-3&keywords=straw+sport+bottle

I spent 20 bucks in 2007, and I'm still using this

Kendo: Culture of the Sword
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520284372/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_4RNSAbX333491

With palm facing up, left side of forearm just below the joint? Do this and wear one of these during practice until the discomfort is gone.

Chronic rhinitis - can be caused by contamination of the body due to malnutrition. In recent years, many harmful components have appeared in food: dyes, flavors, etc. If you have a lot of food in your diet, some of these components, and if you often eat such harmful foods as crisps, popcorn, sweet fizzy drinks, sausages, canned goods, margarine and other trans fats, your body gradually becomes contaminated, and this can be also the cause of such diseases:
Asthma
Weak immunity
Various skin conditions, frequent itching and irritation of the skin
Allergy
Stones in the kidneys
Psoriasis
If you suffer from such diseases, you need to periodically detoxify the body. About how to do it right, you can read in Vlad Miller's book:
https://www.amazon.com/pH-Test-Strips-Balance-Accurate/dp/B06XG6Z2XC/ref=sr_1_3_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1496663079&sr=1-3&keywords=ph+test+strips