Disclaimer and Stuff

Firstly I would like to say that all of the material contained within this blog is of my own opinion and any inaccuracies in technical content or other's personal quotations are completely my own.

Secondly I would like to thank everyone in advance where I have used photos of you or photos you have taken. I have quite a library of digital photos and virtually no record of who took them so I hope you will take this general thanks as adequate gratitude. If there are any photos of you or taken by you that you would like removed please let me know.

Thirdly, some articles have been published on my dojo website if you would like to read them in an easier format
https://www.ryoshinkan.org/more-detail/shugyo-blog-highlights


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Saturday 19 March 2011

Nukitsuke revisited

It could only be a Friday night when I write on a publicly viewable blog that I just had an Epiphanic moment in the shower with the use of a blue Bodyshop foot scrubber.

My last post was bothering me, I hadn't finished my thoughts on nukitsuke and the sayabiki/sayabanare moment. I could sense Peter West's fingers approaching his Mac keyboard to remind me of a continental-sized aspect I had missed in my argument. And then it came to me with the momentary use of a foot scrubber. I thought back to the video of Morishima Sensei doing an embu in Mierlo. I thought about how I tried to get some feeling into nukitsuke. I thought about all the photos of Japanese sensei in the pronounced moment of nukitsuke (in monochrome photos wearing montsuki).

The initial parts of the draw are done with the hands. During the moment of sayabanare the left and right hands "talk" to each other to communicate when and when the kissaki is to be released and has been released (that sentence wasn't a typo by the way). And now the bombshell; the sayabanare is done with the hands but the final sayabiki is done with the upper body....

...you knew that already!?

Well, if you did then I guess that just says that I have just acknowledged it in my blog.

Anyway, that's the feeling that was missing in my observations, that was why their kissaki's were too wide of the mark at the end of the draw, that's why the moment was being lost.

...and this is why I think that swords which are too small are a bad thing...