I started taking kendo classes awhile back and have been looking into the history of the art. It was kind of interesting; if you look at this site:
http://www.spokanekendo.com/history.html

on the right hand side are a set of photos and about half way down are two older postcards from 1900. You can click on them to get a bigger image. They both show kendo guys....fighting on the ground. Now I do not know if the post cards were supposed to be serious or if they were some kind of "tourist/gag cards". But nonetheless it is interesting to see. And I do know that kendo allowed foot sweeps and trips until about a decade ago.

take care,
Brian

To see an example of the kendo trips and sweeps, this footage (from the old tv show "You asked for it") shows it at about 3:18 into the clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWQlx6CZMOo&playnext_from=TL&videos=7jViPym7ANE

take care,
Brian

Thanks Brian,

I believe it. Even if ground fighting wasn't allowed in regular competition, one would think Kendo as a whole would still have included some of the older, more practical battlefield skills, including joint locking and ground grappling, much like Judo disallowing strikes in competition but including strikes in the Kata and self-defense techniques.