Shugyo

Hatsunuki: Ryuto, Yokogumo and Iwanami

2012-01-05T23:36:00.005Z

Well I'm covering a couple of sessions now and still keeping on a koryu theme. I am finding lots of things interesting to work on the more time I spend delving into the various koryu kata but I have been keeping myself busy with Shoden and Chuden recently.

I focused on Ryuto recently, trying to do it by a factor of 10 against other forms as I realise it really is a form that requires some kata mileage in order to be good at it. Like most other forms it's performance is related to leg power as the entire speed is dependant on getting up quickly. The bits I am trying to focus on in particular are:

Ensuring that the draw is done with a relaxed attitude so that the sword glides out smoothly instead of it being snatched. Snatching the sword tends to cause the action to stop at it's conclusion which then halts the form. By drawing smoothly the draw leads nicely into the block without pause.
Getting the weight accurately balanced on the knees at the end of the draw so that the left foot can quickly be brought into position and action.
Trying not to spend too much time posing once the stand has taken place and the blocking sword brought out of the way. At the same time I don't want this to be a rushed moment.
Ensuring the body is turned to face the opponent before stepping in to cut.
Being careful not to reach for the sword as the cut takes place but to rather let the left hand catch the sword at the end of the moment.

I have tried to emulate Ishido Sensei's timing of "tatum-tum" but it is very difficult. It might be better for me to do the form less sharply and more gracefully given my size but I still want to be able to do it quickly. I think I have written this all before in a previous post.

I want to jump forwards to Iwanami now. I train in guilt that I always tend to skip this kata a little bit, not doing it more than once or twice compared to the grating I have been giving the other Chuden katas. I'm not sure why I had this reluctance but it's probably to do with the difficulty I have in controlling my weight distribution and being able to slide back cleanly and rapidly. Still, I decided last week to give this one a bit more attention and set to work on it. The first thing I was steered to do (in fact this bit of advice came a long way back) was to try to get the body moving back without the whole body coming up first. After that it is a case of nice timing as there is a propensity to do this form quickly but without much in the way of meaning. It's difficult to write about the mental block I have around doing the sweeping cut but it's probably hesitance about doing something quite strenuous like this cut while both feet spend a bit of time off the floor. Perhaps I don't understand that bit properly...

Jumping back now to Yokogumo. I like this kata and I think it probably has a longer history than Shohatto and would thus be a primal seed of all the seated kata. Chuden, being shorter in distance and timing than Shoden, tends to move quite quickly and I have been aware that Yokogumo may well lend itself to speed training in iaido. To this end, and on the basis that generally my iaido is a bit sluggish due to my size, I have decided to make this form "one of my own". By this I mean, I am putting a little bit of me into the version of this that I want to do. In my opinion (only), the rapidity of the form is created thus:

The sword is drawn approximately half way out before the hips rise (although they are tensed while the sword is moving to lend themselves to a quick movement forwards).
The last half of the draw and the nukitsuke is performed at the same time as the hips rising and moving forwards into quite a quick draw.
At the end of nukitsuke, the feeling in the feet and lower body is to be pushing the body forwards into the kirioroshi. This doesn't have anything more than a very subtle effect on the posture, most of the contrast is felt internally.
The furikaburi footwork is similar to Seitei mae and should be done simultaneously with the sword-work of furikaburi and the following kirioroshi. It should really be done quickly.

These last two points are the ones I was working on last night in particular. The diagram below sort of shows what I mean in terms of the tension and position after nukitsuke:

In Shohatto, even if nukitsuke is created with a forward feeling of the body into the draw, the final position should be quite well centred and upright. The rear foot is gently pushing back, the knee is gently balanced into the floor and the front foot is gently pushing forwards.

In contrast to this, I feel, the feeling in the body is slightly more forwards. This is more so in the lower body where the rear foot is quite strongly pushing back, the body weight positioned so that the rear knee inclines some force down and back and the front foot being pushed strongly forwards.

At this point in Yokogumo, to create a fast furikaburi-kirioshi action, the tension is released in the lower limbs and hips and the body quickly moves forwards and under the sword as it is raised and quickly brought down. I spend quite a few goes just practicing this intermediate sequence and it can become very fast after a while.

I think this is something I am going to go onto practice a bit more in the next few weeks as it has the propensity to become either something quite nice or at least be good for my development of lower body strength.

The koryu marathon.....not.

2011-12-23T19:04:00.005Z

Okay I should point out now that this wasn't a marathon, I just set myself the target last Wednesday of doing each shoden form once, chuden twice and seated okuden three times. Not actually that many kata considering what some people put themselves through but I was trying to work on quality rather than quantity.

So WTF does that mean exactly?

Well, my expectations of myself are that I shouldn't have to do shoden forms lots of times before I feel satisfied in any session that I have done one well. That may sound a bit arrogant, I don't mean it to be and I don't claim to have mastered shoden or anything high sounding like that. What I mean is that I try to challenge myself to do shoden forms to the best of my ability with one strike only and not gradually working myself up to pulling a rabbit out of the hat. It's actually quite a nice kind of training, one slows down, one focusses and one's rhythm feels a bit more meaningful....almost like doing an embu but with no one actually watching.

I don't claim to have the same experience in chuden or okuden which is why I give myself 2 and 3 times each kata respectively but I do still have the expectation that the kata should feel fairly stable by the time I get to the final go at each form.

My more recent focus in terms of curriculum has been hayanuki and seated okuden. For those of you who are newish to this iaido malarky, hayanuki is an exercise of going through all the chuden forms continuously. The sequence tends to be specific to different teachers although our dojo (and I think Ishido Sensei as well although I have heard him recite a different order once) is 1, 2, 3, 6, 5, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 and as one comes back into iai hiza at the end of one form so this should transition into the beginning of the next.

Many people go through this almost as a kind of athletic exercise and I also do this sometimes if I think I have been physically lazy in any session....but to be honest I don't find it very satisfying to do this kind of throcking other than the satisfaction of making you puffed out. What I much prefer is to do hayanuki with a perceptable ebb and flow so that each form is done just to the same ability as doing them individually but with a kind of critical connection between each one. Practitioners of Gohon no Midare might understand what I am trying to get at here. What I think I mean (although I'm not sure I am explaining it well) is that the quietness of the connection between each form should amplify the action within the form just as the Kan- (of Kankyukyojaku fame) elements of the kata (such as furikaburi and iaigoshi) contrast the -kyu- elements (such as kirioroshi).

I have also become something of a fan of doing hayanuki one handed (err...that is the right hand) as it does force one to become even more sensitive to the course and position of the sword. My sensei commented on Wednesday that my noto was much better when I did hayanuki one handed than with two and I guess the reason for this might be that the left hand has an even more positive grip of the saya than it normally would.

Anyway, that's my chuden practice at the moment, on to seated okuden.

I used to kind of push seated okuden to the back row of my mind, to me they consisted of:

Three nice opening kata
Two interesting diagonal kata
A stupidity sandwich of two ridiculous kata with a good one in between

Plus they were in tatehiza.....again! Just when you though chuden was going to knacker your knees and feet up, here comes okuden! Some of you will shrug and say

"what's the problem?"

but I'm sure more than 50% of people would say

"ugh, I hate it when my toe knuckles are bleeding at seminars"

"what is that funny lump growing on the top of my foot?"

These are all valid statements and questions (i.e. I have also suffered them) but I guess I now want to find what is there in okuden which is worth training for. I think I am starting to find that special thing but I first want to share something which has been going through my mind in the last few months which is.......do the inner and primary principles of MSR/MJER iai echo through the various teachings? That is, are there parallels in raw technique between the forms in one set to the other? I don't think it is something that I will be able to answer anytime soon and my money would be on Richard Stonell finding the answer first. But let me demonstrate what I mean by the following simple diagram:

You can probably see what I mean. Let's put standing okuden to one side for a moment but you can see that the first kata of each set is a basic maegiri (front cut) as I would think would be the same for nearly all koryu iai. Rotation followed by a nukitsuke and kirioroshi is common to both shoden and chuden and a block to a cut to the lower leg is common at all three levels. I mentioned this at the Koryu Seminar in Poland recently and tried to show where the commonalities lie. I'm not sure why I am interested in this, it just seems elegant, as a scientist would say. I think it's elegant because it shows possible evidence of a gradual evoluation of the kata. Furthermore (and I know that some people are mad about this but I don't know why) it shows how some kata work as counterattacks for other katas or at least how some katas are counterattacks to the counterattacks to earlier katas (yes, you read that right).

Kasumi, as an easy example, shows clearly what to do if the enemy dodges the nukitsuke in Yokogumo (or Shohatto for that matter). What happens if the enemy does a devastatingly strong cut in Toranoissoku? Then get lower and use the higher point on the sword to block as in Sunegakoi.....it goes on.

Anyway, that's just a diversion but it helps me to keep interested in okuden when my toes are screaming in pain not to be bent back any further.

"It's in the interest of academic study!" I scream back to them.

"Come down here and say that!" they scream back.

I have already developed a keen liking of Tozume, enough for me to pick it as one of my koryu forms for my 6th dan grading and from that anchor point I have worked on the others.

Kasumi I really like and for years haven't been able to do it with any sharpness, due largely to the length of my sword and lack of training of course. Something must have clicked recently and the double cut has become quite sharp. I like the way that this form can be upgraded to reflect one's proficiency which I will explain here:

In the elementary stages one performs Yokogumo, rotates the sword and draws the left knee forwards to perform the returning cut. The right foot then moves forwards as furikaburi and kirioroshi are delivered.
In the next stage, the sword is almost fully drawn before rising up. At the last moment the body rises into nukitsuke and continues the rest of the form as above.
In the later stages, one does it like Ishido Sensei after some 60 years of training.....well anyway, dreams aside, the initial draw and returning cut are all performed within the raising up of the body and the kirioroshi is just poked in with a final shift forwards of the body. Gahhh...

Since the Gothenburg seminar this year where Ishido Sensei taught our group the seated okuden, the other kata have become more interesting and more challenging as the final objectives were revealed. I won't go into them now but will save them for another blog soon and will continue my exploration of the other forms shortly.

In the meantime I wish everyone a very enjoyable Xmas and look forward to seeing and training with you in 2012 (the Chinese year of the chicken kebab!)

Getting back to it

2011-12-16T20:09:00.002Z

When is it a good time to come back to this? Maybe I should ask myself why I stopped posting.

Many of you I am sure are aware of the situation in Europe regarding the grading and some of you will know about the repercussions from the last European Iaido Championships. I like to hope that some good will come from the bad but hoping isn't the only thing to do.

I wanted to take some time away from the post and in fact away from the focus on my 6th dan preparation. I think in the last couple of months I have tried to drop myself into what I guess is a typical iaido training situation. I have done some helping and developing of our own dojo members, I have been doing some koryu exploration for myself and I have been teaching some in Poland for which I am very grateful. Not forgetting also that I have been painfully busy with work and in developing internal processes and strategy in the BKA, something that has eaten into not a small amount of actual training session time.

My own sensei has said nothing about my 6th dan preparation since the grading, something I am grateful for as I am sure he understands that what I don't need is any post-event debriefing, reconcilliation or citation. What I needed, and what I got, was space. And time.

So, what's brought me back? I think if I was going to name one thing it would be the very sad loss of Christopher Hitchens. I won't spend more than a paragraph in this blog trying to explain who he was, his reputation precedes him but he was, in his own words, a contrarian. He was to others a humanitarian, a sceptic, an atheist but to most, a formidable debator. His writings and his spectrum of live debates are a testament to his clear thinking, wit and ability to communicate. I admired him intensely and doubt there will ever be more than one person in anyone's lifetime like him.

I don't pretend to be anything like him although I try to see things as he saw them. To a degree it changed who I am. His death reminded me that his way wasn't to sit back in depression when things were bad but to take action, even if that action was just to communicate your feelings and thoughts.

And so I found myself this evening, having read his obituaries, starting to kick myself that I wasn't communicating anything when this blog appeared to have gained a little bit of interest to people. So here it is.

Where is it going?

I'm not going to mope about my failure at the grading, I am going to use this next duration of time to make myself even more ready to take the grading than I was before. And my hope is that I am going to do it with a little more clarity of thought than I had before.

Let us begin, by going backwards.

I like koryu. I like the fact that it offers a bit of freedom of taste and personal interpretation to the art. I like the fact that a lot of the original form or meaning is lost in time and we sometimes have to interpret it for ourselves. I like the fact that there are some forms which I find devilishly hard to do and that some people who are junior to me can do them with a whole lot more ease, style and sharpness. It is something of a leveller and I like that idea.

I like taikai. They prove nothing. They test everything. They are a context where we sometimes show a little bit of what is going on inside of us. At other times they are opportunities for us to pour on decoration and pretence and in fact hide everything that we are inside. For me, when I do win, I have about five seconds of the joy of victory and then I only feel gratitude and warmth to those people who have been able to come to the taikai and put in the same effort that I have. Sometimes it doesn't matter if the judges are watching or not - the taikai is a conversation with the other player and is unique in that regard with a solo-kata martial art. Taikai will push, pull, stretch and squeeze you. It will sometimes make you do iai in a way that you have been told to not do but in the heat of the moment, a little bit of rule breaking is the only thing that will see you through. For me they are not competitions with anyone but yourself. I am careful to try and display my trophies and not store them away. Not to display them for anyone else, I don't have any need or purpose to communicate how I have done in taikai to anyone, but to remind me that if you start something then you might as well do it to your very best ability and effort.

I like gradings. I like having an objective and I think it is useful to most people. Most of all though, I like the idea of transition. I like the idea of a person taking a discrete period of time and using it to change themselves entirely. Call it shugyo, call it a moment on the road to Damascus, we have an image of what we should be like for a particular grade and then we push ourselves to become like that image. Only when we get there do we realise that our initial image wasn't completely accurate - or maybe we see that the image has changed because our perspective has changed. Some things are subjective and relativistic but that doesn't stop them from being real or useful to us.

Despite the kind words and feedback that I got from the grading, I'm not a 6th dan yet but I am going to make myself one.

Let us begin...

6th Dan Grading

2011-10-10T18:37:00.002+01:00

Well, I didn't pass. And neither did anyone from 5th dan to 7th dan, some 23 people approximately in total. It was something of a whitewash.

Just got home so more later. Prepare your sense of humor in the meantime...

Footnote

2011-10-03T15:02:00.002+01:00

Just as one likes to afix theme music to events, I have decided I would pick something nice, 80's and with distant stares...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9WdUgn0XkU

Iaido Training Session 75 and 76 - the final tying of the straps...

2011-10-03T14:26:00.003+01:00

Well, I had my last training session at the dojo last Wednesday. I managed to spend a bit of time doing my warm-ups and stretches and found the following training a hell of a lot easier. Sensei had me slow down the approach in Kesagiri and it certainly showed a better contrast of Kankyukyojaku that way.

I spent the rest of the evening going over my 8 form sets (4 koryu + 4 successive seitei) and got some work done on Project Delta. I realise (and I'm slightly glad of it) that this is going to be a more long-term thing.

We had a mini-taikai practice at the end and gave each other some feedback. I need to keep my ochiburi in a bit more at the end as it has the propensity to go wide.

On Saturday I went to Hilary's and spent about another 90 minutes doing my 8 form sets. I am quite liking Tozume now. The key is definately getting the hand and hasuji angles right as one prepares to draw.

So, only the pre-event seminar, the European Championships and some drinking stand between me and the grading some 5 days and 23 hours away. I think I have done all I can for the time being to prepare and there will of course be lots of training time in Andorra (not too much sitting around listening I hope). I have had to think about and answer some questions in the last few months, the biggest one being, what if I don't pass?

I am quite stoic about this actually. I realise that three factors determine if I pass:

1. The opinion of the examiners: the level they determine is appropriate, what they perceive on the day, how they are feeling, what they think about me.
2. The decision from on high about whether anyone will be allowed to pass.
3. My long term preparation and the performance I display as well as my short term condition (i.e. how hungover I am).

I really have control over only one of those with a small influence on the others. The main thing I can do is train, it serves the means and it serves the end. I will do the best I can do and I that's all I can do. I don't know if I have trained enough yet but I have trained. It just remains to be seen if it is enough.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those who have wished me luck on this examination and supported me in all kinds of other ways. It reminds me that while Iaido is mainly a solo martial art, it isn't one that you do alone.

Iaido Training Session 72, 73, 74 and 74a

2011-09-28T10:11:00.004+01:00

I wonder again, am I unable to get much writing on this blog done because I am so busy with work and martial arts foolery or am I using that as an excuse? I think it would be interesting to have a read through my past posts and see if a trend underlies it as I am pretty sure that my preparations have gone through a few phases and I am now in the quiet and hardworking one.

I haven't had anywhere near the same frequency of "revelations" in the last few sessions; I have been trying to build up kata mileage and consolidate my technique. As Peter commented to me, my focus is now on how the training feels rather than what conscious concepts I can pull out of it. This I think is important.

Session 72 was the evening before the European Jodo Championships and I remember us working into the iai time with some jodo preparation so not much done there. The championships were an effort in themselves in mental juggling and emotional control, I'm sure they were good for me somewhere although I wouldn't be surprised if I have reduced my life expectancy by a few days (insert smiley tongue-out emoticon here).

The Wednesday after the EJC (session 73) we were visited by members of the Austrian Jodo Squad who came to do a bit of Jodo and then join the Iaido class. They are very nice people and it is easy to see the hard efforts they have put into their training. We ran through seitei in a variety of ways as there were something like 15 people in a 9-people space. I didn't pay particular attention to my training that evening but I was happy to be getting some in. My feet are still particularly stiff and I am having to spend a good 20 minutes at the beginning of a session in warming them up and stretching the toes.

I joined Hilary's class on the Saturday (session 74) and asked to be left to do just iai. After a long stretching session I started working through the katas doing Seitei first and then combinations of my 4 koryu plus 3 seitei, making 4 combination sets. Tried to focus on centreline management as well which was good in that dojo which has lines all over the place. Daniel Silk had kindly arranged a squash court for the two of us to do another hour after the normal two hour session which I found very useful. I was able to calm myself a bit and work on composure within the form. I do find any kind of time restraints on an embu practice to be quite destructive at the moment. I guess it is personal taste (and maybe a liking for pouting and scowling through my eyebrows) but I feel the essence of iaido is in the zanshin and any feeling of a clock ticking completely wipes away that ethereal mist and it becomes a mechanical tempo exercise instead of an emotional expression. This is something I think I would like to discuss further with other high grades and get their feelings on it.

I also noticed that towards the end of a three hour session, my legs and feet were finally starting to warm up and do their work and the whole performance became easier and sharper. I have to keep this in mind for my grading and ensure I am training right up to the examination and keeping warm while others are on. Whoever is around me, don't let me sit and watch, get me doing exercises at the back!

On Sunday after Jodo practice I did another two hour iaido session, I can't say much more than that.

So where am I with stuff...

Shohatto - not too bad although I have to be careful not to stall after nukitsuke. My toes are making it a little difficult to move into the kirioroshi but I hope through stretching and ibroprofen that that can be worked out.
Oroshi - once I can sit in tate hiza not too bad. I have to learn to lean in slightly into the nukitsuke and not let the sayabiki pull me back.
Tozume - once the legs are working I have managed to arrange the hasuji to work the nukitsuke properly. This is such a critical failure point if done incorrectly. Maybe I should work on this and Oroshi tonight...
Ukenagashi - Again not bad to need to push the seme a bit more before leaping away to the right.
Mae - good, if my feet and toes are working.
Ushiro - see above, I want to slow the draw down a bit and engage my hips forwards into the nukitsuke a bit more as I was able to do a few months ago.
Ukenagashi - not too ragged. Starting slowly and building the tempo up makes a nice kata.
Tsukaate - actually going faster than maybe it should. Not sure if I should slow it down, it might seem instinctive to do so but I believe this form is about certain and direct delivery, not posing.
Kesagiri - again, nice done slowly.
Morotezuki - I need to work on this, the feeling this kata used to have isn't so obvious to me now.
Sanpogiri - I also need to work on this. I understand the important points in each component movement but haven't yet pieced them all together.
Ganmenate - no complaints from me.
Soetezuki - I want to practice this a bit more and get the flow back.
Shihogiri - not too worried about this.
Sogiri - need to get the buttocks working here!
Nukiuchi - happy that I haven't yet cut off my left arm.

Only 11 days, 3 hours, 17 minutes and 29 seconds to go. I received a nice good luck message from Dougie Evans the other day. I have also received lots of votes of confidence from other people as well as some disbelief that I am cramming as much training in as I can at the moment. I want to stress that for me the importance is in changing my iaido in light of the grading rather than passing 6th dan itself; the grading is a means to an end not an end unto itself. I don't mind if I don't pass (well, at least after a good cry and a beer I won't), I have trained for it, that is the most important thing and for me at least, here is the evidence of that.

Well, back to work. It's my last official iaido training session this evening before the European Iaido Championships and the grading. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttt!

Iaido Training Session 71

2011-09-09T19:37:00.002+01:00

Things don't always go so well...

Arf! It's funny how sometimes it's hard to disbelieve in biorhythms and rubbish like that and how they might affect you. Tonight was an ideal opportunity to get some consolidatory practice done, there were a few people in the dojo, enough high grades to supervise and some space for me to swing me steel. I wanted to work on Ushiro for a bit for a couple of reasons, a) to see why David Mc was having problems with this one at the weekend and b) to even up the hole in the knees of my hakama.

For some reason it just wasn't feeling good. Something of this I suspect is down to the fact that my feet are quite painful at the moment. The joints of the big toes and balls of the feet are all a bit swollen making seiza and tate-hiza quite painful. Not so much that I can't sit down but I can't do it in the relative comfort I normally have. Some might say I'm getting old, to that I say "shut up and stop talking in my head - GAAAHHHHHHHHGGG!!!"

Anyway, Harry observed me for a bit and said that Ukenagashi wasn't bad. I noticed that I am getting fairly good at not swinging the sword over my should before the cut (unlike some others in the dojo - ahem!)

I went onto the standing forms to see what kind of mess I could make of those. Kesagiri isn't too bad now especially as I have discovered the secret "special way of doing it"....you want to know what it is? It's a secret....

...

...

oh, okay then. It's this. Most people, in an effort to make sure that the upper cut is at a diagonal don't rotate the sword enough. The result is a) the grip isn't strong, b) the hasuji isn't correct, c) it becomes difficult to arrest and reverse the movement at the apex of the cut. Turning the sword so that it is near enough vertically cutting downwards gets rid of all that. One will still find that the cut is inclined enough to hit all the targets and it becomes incredibly easy to reverse the cutting angle at the top.

....however chiburi while gripping the koiguchi is still bloody hard. I'm hoping that the montsuki sorts all that out as I'm convinced that some of it is down to how my uwagi fits.

Sensei worked me on Morotezuki and Sanpogiri quite a bit which was interesting but I now have to reconstruct the latter quite a bit...I hope I have time before the grading...

We all did an embu at the end, I went up on my own. I didn't feel very good, even nervous. When I had finished, Sensei said that the quality was quite low and I didn't look confident. It was true. Some days are better than others....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfm0nGiN46o

Iaido Training Session 69 and 70

2011-09-01T14:56:00.003+01:00

Making the most of efficiency here and squeezing two sessions into one post. I test-drove my montsuki and hakama in the last two Wednesday sessions to see how they might affect my iai. The answer - they do. A bit.

First the bad bits. Ukenagashi was comical in that the arm movement tends to make the left sleeve slap you in the face. I had to slightly modify the speed to stop this from happen.

Other than that....not much really.

The good bits, it fits nicely, the hakama is very light moves nicely. Apart from that not much to report.

My sensei gave me some very good feedback on the last two sessions concerning lower body preparation for Mae and Shohatto. My left leg is not quite as active as the right and there is more tension on the entire right side. I worked on trying to get a balance of tension on both sides by rising up and getting both sides with an even feeling. This is a good way of getting the body moving and having a feeling of pressing forwards by pressing inwards.

Did some embu training last night and found I need to:

Shorten my forward movement in Shohatto to join up furikaburi with the taisabaki.
Speeding up the Tozume link between the two opponents.
Lower my arms in the Chinugui position in Ukenagashi.
Introducing some merihari into Morotezuki.
Sharpening up Sogiri without going into koryu timing.

More later.

Life on board the Marie Celeste

2011-08-19T17:07:00.003+01:00

Those of you that follow the blog frequently will realise that I have recently been kidnapped by aliens and am currently being taken to their planet for experiments. I am trying to negotiate my release but the fact that they communicate only through the medium of tap dance and farting is making the whole process quite tricky. This is the best excuse I can come up with to explain my lack of recent posts (other than my dog ate my laptop which none of you would believe in light of the alien abduction story).

Anyway to the truth. I have been busy. Really busy. Even now I am just finishing off some work before I go out for a drink with one of my best friends who I haven't seen for over half a year and only lives about 3 miles away. My last post was an attempt to write about the Swedish Summer Seminar which I got half way through before "the summer happened". Since that time my work has exploded somewhat (which being self-employed is a really good thing) and budo training has similarly taken an upward curve. I guess it's better to be training for my 6th dan rather than writing about it but the guilt has still lain like an iron cross strapped across my shoulders....well perhaps not that bad, more like a hangnail.

I don't want to go into too much detail about the last few weeks so I will summarise it below instead and try to pull out the developments at the end (if I get that far)...

Swedish Summer Seminar

Brilliant as mentioned in the previous post. Lots of clarification on seitei. I spent the koryu doing okuden with Momiyama Sensei which was fabulous and Ishido Sensei spent quite a lot of time with us. I loved the three versions of Ryozume which I will have to consign to keyboard soon before I forget. I also won the embu taikai which was a bit of a joke as I don't even remember what I did. It reminded me that I hate embu taikai but read more in the BKA summer seminar.

At the Dojo - Iaido Training Sessions 63 and 64

Yup, went to the dojo, did some training, helped some students, got ready for the Nationals...

BKA Iaido Nationals

Won the 5th dan individuals meeting Harry in the finals which was very nice. I really tried to calm everything down and I think I was quite successful. I went with my 3-man team into the knockouts and then got the proverbial but it was also nice to be with two other people who were giving their everything to win even when we were against really strong teams.

At the Dojo - Iaido Training Sessions 65 and 66

Well despite the fact that the entire world was exploding (i.e. the BKA summer seminar was coming up which I was in the middle of the organisation of) I managed to make it to the dojo and get some training in.

BKA Summer Iaido Seminar

Didn't get in as much training as I would have liked to as my hands were full translating (not using sign I should add), organising, lunching, drinking and generally running around like a headless chicken. I think for me this was academically very rewarding as in the space of one month I had listened, translated and regurgitated everything Ishido Sensei had to say about seiteigata. We had an embu taikai and I was determined to do something different. I focussed on calmness, quietness and a change of timing. I won the knockout and the final and it actually felt good. I wasn't nervous anymore. I took haste and effort out of the kata and it all snapped together quite nicely without my interference, thank you very much. I think this experience itself started to show me the difference between renshu and keiko. If I had spent the embu concentrating on making sure that my foot timing was correct then I think it would have fallen apart to busyness but I just let it all go. The previous renshu had made sure that the keiko was at least technically acceptable and I could focus on other things such as visualisation, johakyu, metsuke etc.

At the Dojo - Iaido Training Sessions 67

Saw the sensei's off and then zipped off to the dojo. Did the usual practice and I think, if my memory serves me right, I tried to get the lower grades to do some more koryu.

Polish Summer Seminar

This was nicely preceeded with some walking in the Karpacz mountains with my Polish friends. I had somehow ended up being the sole deliverer of the seminar which was at once very liberating but also incredibly tiring. Everyone was wonderful, really enthusiastic and patient as I wanted to ensure that as much new information was transmitted as possible. I spent quite a bit of time pulling bones out of the Japanese version of the ZNKR Iaido manual, which as I explained at the seminar, had a lot of information in it that had not been translated as it would have significantly delayed the delivery of the English version. Furthermore a lot of the info might have been taken a bit too literally and set up as dojo rules (especially those points concerning dojo "architecture"). The seitei part of the seminar I made sure focussed on grading points and special considerations on how to deliver the kata. I tried to make sure that I put in as many points as I could remember from Ishido Sensei. It was nice to see people coming from Slovakia and Czech who also gave me immense mental support (they are very experienced and enthusiastic iaidoka). We had a small taikai and a grading which went very well and I was inspired by a father and son who had been training for only about 6 weeks who took part and tried some koryu. The son won fighting spirit, he well deserved it. We did some MSR on the last day and I tried to draw together the closeness of Jikiden by showing how different branches of Shinden looked (some Shinden is closer to Tosa Jikiden than to other branches of Shinden). The notion I was trying to convey was the fact that the styles are all trying to embody the same thing, the harmony of sword, body and mind.

I would right now like to thank everyone who came to the seminar (especially those that came from other countries), was involved in the organisation and gave their utmost to train.

At the Dojo - Iaido Training Sessions 68

After initial seitei run through we did some embu and review sessions on katas 1, 5 and 9 which was very useful.

And so...

Where am I now? Still on board the ship but a few things have happened over the last 2-3 months:

My right arm seems to have completely recovered. I think this is due to a change in my ochiburi and a reduction of shock doing nukitsuke through relaxation and gradual tension.
The resultant ochiburi and nukitsuke are much smoother and sharper.
My left toes are now painful instead, I think through overstretching them when my toes aren't all that bendy. Going to have to ensure they are properly warmed and stretched (with hands) in future.
I feel a lot calmer in my iai now and giving myself thinking space in the kata.
I am losing weight, albeit slowly, my target is to reach 80kg by the time of the EIC.

I now want to focus the next few weeks on only practice and embedding good stuff. I don't want to do much analysis or pulling apart. I am going to organise a few separate training sessions and hope that the last year of research and study can be implemented and made solid in my performance.

Ah well, I'm just looking at my alien hosts, they are standing waiting with what looks like fire hose. I wonder what they want....

Gothenburg Iaido Seminar

2011-07-12T22:04:00.003+01:00

Right, I was putting off writing this as I was so busy and realised there was looooot of information to capture. It was an absolutely excellent seminar as these smaller ones tend to be. I think a lot of people have sensed that Ishido Sensei tends to toe the line when he is with a big delegation but offers fantastic personal experiences when there is only one or two other teachers with him. I will cut through all the timetable stuff: we spent day one doing seitei and day two doing koryu with a taikai and a grading.

I grabbed sensei to the side during one of the breaks to ask him about the 'feeling' of the kissaki when sayabanare takes place during nukitsuke. On a previous post I had noted that the three options that I had played with were:

To begin tensing the tsuka so that the kissaki leapt out of the koiguchi.
To keep the right hand relaxed and gradually accelerate the kissaki on sayabanare
To keep the mune slightly pressed against the base of the saya and bring the sword level before the kissaki advances.

The answer I got was so simple I should have anticipated being surprised (which is logically the most stupid thing to write): the feeling should be to make the kissaki move forwards. Making it travel out sideways to conclude with a sideways cutting action is not correct. The sword must make a forward cutting action.

I am kicking myself a bit because I have translated numerous times his explanation on how and why sayabiki works which captures this forward movement quite elegantly. Still it now leaves me to work on creating this forward movement in the most relaxed fashion.

Now to go through the kata one by one:

Mae - nothing much to say here. The kata is so intricately described that just doing it right is a rewarding thing.
Ushiro - the option of rotating while the feet stand is applicable for nidan's and above. Sensei explained and demonstrated how the kata could be done with someone a) completely obstructing the clockwise direction and b) partially blocking the anti-clockwise direction. The effect of course was an action made similarly to Atarito where the majority of the draw happens in a rearward direction. It was also emphasised how important it was to maintain one's new centreline once turned and moving into furikaburi. Using Lukasz as a foot model he also showed how lifting the heel was important in moving forwards in furikaburi adequately.
Ukenagashi - here is where the fun started. I should add that I am unsure how much of this following explanation is Ishido Sensei (and his dojo's) own interpretation of Ukenagashi and how much comes from on high. Anyway, the process of movement was now a) to prepare by placing the hands and looking up to the left, b) to raise the hips and position the feet simultaneously with elevating the sword up to the chest with the minimum of sayabiki, c) to stand and draw the last 75% of the sword in one action. This has an interesting effect of making the vital part of the form happen naturally very quickly. It is also very easy to make it busy and I spent quite a lot of time constructing the kata in slow bite-sized portions (it tasted of chicken).
Tsukaate - again not much to say

Gaaahhh....just been kidnapped by Munchkins - call the wizard!

Iaido Training Session 62 - Isle of Widget

2011-07-04T12:38:00.006+01:00

I am calling this a standard Iaido Training Session as within 1 1/4 hrs of being left alone in Vic Cook's home dojo I managed to do more training than I normally do in 2 hrs in our dojo.

Harry and me were visiting Vic and Terri for a few days to primarily help Vic with his 6th dan Jodo prep. On the last evening there we asked Vic if we could use the dojo to do some free practice and for him to come and have a look after an hour and give some feedback.

His dojo is amazing. One can only get about 4-6 people doing Iaido at the same time and maybe 2 pairs doing Jodo but the floor is great, the dojo looks fantastic and there is a delightful smell of fresh wood. I only remember that smell being actually inside a building while in temples in Japan.

Anyway, Harry and I went through Seitei then I went into Omote, trying to work on technical correctness and body movement throughout the forms. Towards the end I did a hayanuki run-through to get my beats up a bit.

It was while on the Island that I had what I can only call a moment of epiphany while watching a falconry display. One of the birds demonstrated was the peregrine falcon which, to my surprise, turns out to the fastest animal on the planet (and not the swift). It was explained that they carry no fat, they are pure muscle unlike other birds of prey like the bald eagle.

Above: The peregrine falcon - all muscle; Below: The bald eagle - a lard arse of a bird.

Anyway, seeing the falcon in action just made me realise that part of my challenge to myself for 6th dan must be about losing more weight and getting fitter. I'm not planning to be able to fly at 250mph but I do notice that there aren't many fat 8th dan hanshi's in iaido. And so begins my 1,940 calories per day diet to get me down to 80kg...

Anyway, back to the dojo. I asked Vic to watch an embu of me doing five koryu and three seitei including my target forms. At the end he gave me some very useful feedback saying:

My iaido was sometimes so fast that it wasn't telling the story and I had to make greater contrast in my timing.
That my nukitsuke also tended to stall a bit at sayabanare.
That my outer technical side was very good but my sense of timing within had to be more evident.

Anyway it was a really good opportunity to do some personal training (one small box ticked) and get some feedback so well worth it.

Now onto the Gothenburg seminar writing marathon...

Iaido Training Session 61

2011-06-16T01:02:00.016+01:00

Sweat, Tenouchi and Feedback

I find it slightly useful to have some engineering background knowledge as well as a working understanding of physics in the study of iaido. I'm not suggesting that one should spend every training minute pondering on the physical dynamics of a movement but it has it's benefits now and again. One of those engineering aspects that became a bit more obvious this evening was that of closed-loop control which I will explain later.

Anyway, this evening was a great session. With no sensei and a decision to not teach (too much, thanks to Harry who took over teaching responsibilities) I spent a good three hours just training. I started at about seven o'clock and spent the first hour or so working on Shohatto as planned. My main focus was on ensuring that the footwork was energetic enough and in balance with the cuts which I think is getting there slowly. I also experimented with a few kinds of feeling with the nukitsuke. I also tried something that Peter West explained to me concerning trying to get the body to go between the left and right hand while doing nukitsuke. This certainly has the effect of ensuring the left hand doesn't linger during sayabiki. The three feelings I tried were:

To keep a certain amount of tension in the grip while doing nukitsuke so that the kissaki flew out the saya a bit during sayabanare. This does cause a bit of a jerking action though which is something I am trying to eliminate as it detracts from the final cutting action of the draw as well as sometime flicking the kissaki up above the cutting arc.
To keep the right hand relaxed at sayabanare and slowly build up tension so that the kissaki smoothly reaches the correct angle and height.
To reverse the tension of the right grip so that the mune of the sword pushes against the bottom of the saya until sayabanare is completely achieved. This has the effect of bringing the kissaki up to the right height directly before beginning it's horizontal path.

I asked Harry to look at the three of them and while she couldn't tell the outward difference between 1 and 2, 3 seemed contrived. I decided to abandon that method for now (I suspect it is a Jushin Ryu thing anyway) and keep to method 2. I have to be careful to make sure that it doesn't become lacklustre and I think as I described in a previous post, the timing of sayabanare is very tricky.

Anyway I worked on the rest of the elements of Shohatto and then started working through the rest of the koryu, settling for one form each unless I came across a particularly challenging form. I stuck with Ryuto for about 10 times to try and get this feeling a bit more natural. Again this is a form that has so much content although it looks quite simple in its construction. The final cut is a bit of an enigma as it is supposed to be done mainly one handed and one shouldn't try to reach up with the left hand to reinforce the cut until the sword is well on the way (at least, I think). In any case this last cut has always been a bit unsatisfying for me so I tried varying the size of the cutting arc. Natually, too small and it caused the body to tighten up, too large and it delayed the timing. There was a nice medium that I think I found which was a bit larger than what I normally do and embedded itself nicely with a grounding of the final posture. Speed isn't something I have much of a problem with this form now but try to keep the movement fairly linear instead of flailing around can be difficult. I think that's why it needs so much practice at a medium to slow speed - it's far too easy for the form to become busy.

I carried on through, working through Gyakuto's kaewaza and to the end. I commenced Chuden by doing a quick jump through hayanuki (although it wasn't particularly "haya"). One thing that has taken me recently is the way that Ishido Sensei manages to get his sword out while the body is still quite far back. By making sure that the final forward body movement into nukitsuke is fast he ensures that the cutting portion of nukitsuke is done with the feet in the correct place. If you watch Kasumi you will see this even more. I have been dripping this into Chuden a bit recently, more as a way to challenge myself to get my ass moving.

This reminds me of the importance of the difference between seiza and tatehiza. While I expect most people prefer to sit in seiza given how much more painful tatehiza can be, the practical benefits of tatehiza are huge. Why is this? I think simply because that you are much closer to that very maneuverable position that I will for arguments sake call "iai hiza" with the toes of the left foot engaged with the floor and the right foot placed properly on the floor so that one is propped up and ready to move (similary to the ready position in Gyakuto as the sword is drawn downwards/forwards before evading). From this position it is possible to:

Move forwards as in Yokogumo (and backwards in a kaewaza or regional difference)
Move forwards and up as in Inazuma
Move backwards and up as in Toranoissoku
Step back and anticlockwise as in Takiotoshi
Turn left as in Urokogaeshi and Namigaeshi
Stand straight up to walk as in Torabashiri
etc...

From seiza it is possible to:

Move forwards
Drink tea

Of course I'm joking here, the first four basic forms of Shoden Omori Ryu are there to develop one's ability to turn and cut but you may notice how the majority of the kata from seiza have a forward moving dynamic. From the feet under position, moving forwards and standing up by placing a foot in place under the body is possible but creates an extra movement that is otherwise absent in tate-hiza. As painful as the sitting position can be, it's versatility is the heart of iaido (I believe).

Anyway, over to feedback and control. There is an engineering function known as PID control which forms the basis of complete system control. It is, if set up correctly, the perfect way to control a system. Closed loop control means that the output of a system is used to feedback into the control. A good example is the cruise control of a car; the speed of the car feeds back to the controller and if it is less than the set speed then the controller increases the gas to the engine, if it is greater then the gas is reduced. In fact, the act of a human driving a car has exactly the same set of processes but we tend to ignore the human interaction as it is a) complex b) subject to human decision and c) requirement of someone to sit there controlling it. PID control prevents a) the car spending hours reaching 70mph and b) constantly jumping the speed up and down about the set speed. PID stands for Proportional, Integral and Derivative. Maths geeks will know most of this but for those that actually have a life:

Proportional means that the input signal is multiplied or divided by a set constant (as speed in rpm isn't the same as accelerator pedal pressure).
Integral means the longer the delay between there being a difference between the set point and the output value, the greater the output signal becomes (if the car takes a long time accelerating up to the desired speed then the accelerator pedal is pressed down more).
Differential means that the rate of change between desired output and set ouput determines the next output signal (if the car suddenly shoots off from standstill to 50mph in 4 seconds then the pressure comes off the pedal to stop the speed overshooting 70mph).

The total function of PID is that you get a control system that doesn't overshoot, oscillate or take forever to reach its desired output.

...and what the hell does this have to do with iaido? Well, it's this - doing any kind of movement by a normally functioning human requires careful coordination between input signals, desired outputs and objectives around how fast one wishes to achieve the desired output. Just like picking up a sausage, doing iaido requires this further coordination. Is being aware of this control mechanism beneficial to actually doing the desired operation? Dunno. But perhaps being more aware of how our control control systems are tuned can help us understand how and why some people perform better and worse depending on the person, the time and the environment.

How so? If you have ever trained in iaido in either a small room or close to a wall you may notice how wonderful your beautiful sword sounds as it cuts through the air. You may also notice how your overall form feels better, sharper, better coordinated. Is this just because it sounds better? Maybe not, it's very possible that this very instant feedback is being used by some of the conscious and subconscious processes in your grey matter to improve things like timing and applied power.

I certainly have had the experience of training in a massive hall where the sound of the tachikaze was dissipated almost completely and it felt like the hardest and most overpowered training I had done. In that situation it becomes necessary to rely on other sensory input routes other than aural. Kinaesthetic would seem like a good replacement.

Ok, this posting is becoming a bit long and I will have a "training at Vic's dojo" and "training with Ishido Sensei" article coming up shortly so I'm going to post this and continue this topic as and when I can. Sorry for the delay, been busy with work...

Iaido Training Session 59 and 60

2011-06-09T16:02:00.003+01:00

A week goes by with a whoosh if one forgets to keep on top of their blog. Anyway, the last two sessions have been fairly good training fodder times where I have spent most of the lesson on Chuden and Okuden in order to improve my tatehiza. I have done some token work on Seitei but have tried to focus on using Koryu to improve my posture, the naturalness of noto and basically get my legs to carry my fat arse a bit more dextrously.

I rather like the way my Shohatto is going but I am feeling that there is more and more to work on. Chiburi hasn't caused me much arm pain now that I have worked out where the right points are of relaxation and tension in the movement. At the other end of my koryu targets, Tozume has revealed it's difficulties and I am aiming to work on them. For me, the key difficulties are:

Getting my rear foot under and engaged early enough so that I can use it to drive me forwards into the first cut.
Turning the sword properly so that the first draw is secure, cuts the right angle and remains large enough without going below horizontal.

In between, Chuden remains a good training ground for my legs and Yamaoroshi in particular is moving ahead well.

I have a lot of work cut out in incorporating a slightly newer way of doing koryu noto which I think I have written about before in using the residual tension of the extended right arm to be the thing which actually moves the sword instead of an active effort to ram it in.

I have this Wednesday night of relatively undisturbed training time to work on:

Doing about 30 mins of Shohatto.
To carry on through the rest of the Koryu kata.
Doing about 30 mins of Tozume.
To check all technical points of Seitei.
To have 5 mins rest.
To have myself video'd so I can do a quality check.

Iaido Training Session 58

2011-05-26T19:22:00.007+01:00

Glimmers in the Dark

Some things in life, especially experiences, are almost ephemeral in nature. Take, for example, trying to nail jelly to a wall. The more you try, the harder it seems. Or howabout the act of not thinking about elephants - not a difficult task in concept but actually nearly impossible when attempted. It is the act of attempting something that can render it seemingly impossible.

If you practice iaido I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.

My self-appointed mission to achieve a 6th dan grade that I believe should be worth the work put into it has driven me to research, train and improve those things that I already do and know. It has also compelled me to work at things that I think most people don't even consider to be part of dan grading preparation (I won't go into that now). Finally I have been hoping to uncover a "secret" of the art. Something revelationary, even approaching transcendence. Perhaps a lot of other iaido practioners are like this too - wanting to discover something quite unlike those material things that avail themselves in life's normal activities.

Yesterday evening showed a glimmer of this, albeit a faint one. It was a strange glimmer, almost like believing that the answer to life, the universe and everything is the number 3, only to discover that it is the one true Three. What do I mean by this? I mean there are some beliefs that are supported by logical and rational thinking. Some of these beliefs are further bolstered by something of a "faith" that one is correct as it seems in harmony with the nature of others who are more advanced in teaching the thing that we focus on. Ultimately all beliefs are made concrete through an experience whether it is eye witness, aural or kinaesthetic.

I arrived slightly later than normal and joined the training as Sensei started working people in kihon prep with some cutting practice with us being made more aware of the timing of moving the sword first and then moving the body and sword as one into the cut. We worked through nukitsuke, chiburi and noto, all the while I tried to ensure that I was relaxed during these movements as this has been something that a) I have been wanting to develop anyway and b) had shown some improvements in my form.

We then went into 5-form embu practice with us reporting back at the end of each cycle how we felt about our performance. For me, as usual, my lack of lower body strength was causing me problems. The dojo was very crowded with some 12 people training and I made sure I confined myself to Shohatto and then Chuden or seated Oku forms. As we went into the second set I decided that I would work on the more basic Chuden forms in order that my lower body was exercised.

I was soon called over to do my embu practice in front of sensei and I decided to focus on Shohatto, Yokogumo, Inazuma, Urokogaeshi and Tozume. Nothing flash or complicated but all requiring good lower body movement.

I was drilled to go through Shohatto a few times and it was in this kata that this slight revelation took place. Sensei told me that I was too focussed on the movement of the arms in nukitsuke and not thinking of the movement of the sword. Furthermore I wasn't accelerating my left hand to do sayabiki anywhere quickly enough. I also knew that he wouldn't be very sympathetic to any grinding noises as the sword came out of the scabbard so I opted to ensuring that my arm and hand work was as relaxed as possible. Then in one of the few draws I did, it happened. The sword seemed to move effortlessly, sharply, in time with the body and accurately. That was it. It just happened.

As I moved into Chuden I attempted to incorporate the same thing into Noto. Once or twice it worked well. Very well in fact. The sword went in silently without the obvious appearance of effort. This was in fact key to the movement. Sensei told me not use my right arm to pull the sword in but to use the body's tension to resheath the sword. I think I could see what he meant, I relaxed the arm and at the point of full extension, as my body moved back the tension brought the sword in smoothly and effortlessly.

As alluded to at the beginning of my article, as I tried to repeat the feeling more so it moved further away. After a few modifications of my Tozume, Sensei was happy and let me go and practice again. I knew that it wouldn't come back for a while so I decided to help out and work on Project Delta a bit.

One can smile knowingly and think "yes, of course, relaxation is key" but it's never as simple as that. Iai feels like it needs effort, it often responds positively to effort, it seems natural to apply effort. These I think are all true. The only thing I can say is that there seems to be a stage when the effort made to sculpt the movements needs to be put down and the movements themselves to appear and to live. A painter doesn't need a brush in his hand to admire the beauty of art. A car mechanic doesn't need a spanner to drive a car.

And you don't need a hammer to nail jelly to the wall, your head will do just nicely. Better still, just eat it with ice cream....

Iaido Training Session 57

2011-05-23T09:46:00.001+01:00

Oops, I let this one go by a bit too long, 5 days is a long time to remember what one did in a few hours.

Chris Sensei got there at normal time and got everyone to do continuous five-form embu. I started by going through seitei 1-5 and then only progressed the other kata if I was generally satisfied with the katas in the set. If not then I would include them in the next set. It took quite a long time to reach even no.10. I included Mae and Ukenagashi each time these being probably the most useful and most difficult respectively.

Sensei worked on my footwork on Ukenagashi quite a lot, this has become a bit of an institution and I wonder how long it will last. I am referring to the need to plant the left foot somewhere along the shin of the right let rather than at the right knee. To me it seems a little academic that one should try to rise almost completely vertical. I realise the need to not get thrown out to the right but seriously, if someone is coming in like a fighter jet I don't really think they are going to have time to be impressed with your ability to stand like a pole dancer.

Still I carried on working on it and it did reveal some interesting points about feet preparation.

I have also been working on noto especially regarding kojiri control as mine tends to flick in random directions at the point of saya-iri. I find if I concentrate on all the positions and vectors of the left hand then it tends to improve as well as slowing it down enough.

Been really working on using the right parts of the foot on Sanpogiri and it is improving it nicely. The final turn and step especially work better when the ball of the foot is engaged.

Sogiri was a bit of a pain tonight and I revealed to myself that I really don't like the first kizeme bit. Sensei told me to execute it as I would in Somakuri and that seemed to "real" it up a bit.

I had to leave a bit early so not much more done than that.

Iaido Training Session 56

2011-05-12T20:54:00.000+01:00

Well not such a useful session last night. Did quite a comprehensive warm up and stretch and then went through Seitei. The balance of high grades to low grades is quite skewed down at the moment so we spend a lot of time going over very basic points, not much to even stimulate me into thinking about stuff (ya know, stuff).

Did a bit of work on Project Delta which is good although one side of it sometimes is a bit resistant to change. The other side of it responds quite well although this is largely down to most of the input being new. Still the effects of the more resistant side are showing when they do change.

Can't say much more than that really, I spent most of the evening teaching the lower grades how to walk without falling over or digging trenches into the floor.

This is all a bit of a reminder that I need to set up some separate training sessions as it is nigh on impossible at the moment with out limited space to devote time to my own practice.

Squad Training May 2011

2011-05-11T11:15:00.004+01:00

I decided to use this opportunity to skip Jodo for a change and just focus on Iai. As Greg and Jock were there I was allowed to be left alone most of the time to practice with everyone else and got the one or two bits of feedback which were really useful.

Northampton is also a nice big dojo with a smooth floor although it does have the propensity to rip the feet up a bit. We worked gradually through Seitei and concentrated on:

My footwork.
Body balance.
Relaxing Ochiburi so that it didn't kill my right arm

To be honest it's been a long time since I trained so hard as even at the summer seminars I tend to end up translating and sometimes doing a bit of teaching. Jock gave me some useful feedback especially about my noto and how high my right hand was going. In discussion with him I resolved to make my objective direction closer to 45 degrees to the side rather than focussing at the front (which a lot of people actually do). It's simply impossible with my length of sword to maintain that forward seme without having my right hand come up to shoulder height. That or my arms are shrinking.

I am also discovering something of a hidden beauty in Ushiro. Where previously we "stood" the feet up and turned, the instant turn which is now required creates its own Jo-Ha-Kyu. It is impossible to start that turn quickly without getting into a twist. In the previous method one could spin around on the knee once the feet were standing and I often thought that this detracted from the kata somewhat especially when considering the importance of a gradual build up of speed on the first 5 kata of Shoden Omori Ryu.

I was warned not to push the sword down on Kesagiri (naughty me although I can trace the source of that error). I also consciously affirmed that a slightly stronger angle away from vertical on the first draw of Morotezuki did wonders for the stability of that cut although I now have to be careful about footwork on the thrust preparation. I was told to just focus on squaring the body up and this would be enough foot movement to do the tsuki prep.

The rear thrust on Ganmenate was coming up too high and I am going to have to work on that as I have been doing it that way forever!

As I reached Shihogiri both my arms were starting to hurt and I was allowed to give it a rest and help the others. It was really good turn out for iai as there were a lot of new people all of them showing some good promise.

While I'm on here, I was asked by Peter West to translate the individual terms for Kan-Kyu-Kyo-Jaku and I have pasted them below:

Kan (yuru, yurumeru etc) means to go slow, to slacken and to loosen. It has a feeling of slackness or leisure.
Kyu (isogu) means to rush, hurry up. It has a feeling of urgency or haste.
Kyo (tsuyoi) means strong, mighty powerful and robust.
Jaku (yowai) means weak, feeble, fragile and faint.

At the end of the day we did some Koryu and I was given the beginners group to look after. Suddenly I had a mix of Shinden, Jikiden and someone who couldn't do seiza. And there began my tri-mix delivery of koryu teaching. It was quite funny as I had to show both versions and then do some standing Oku and I began to feel like a walking internet terminal. We got everyone up to Ryuto/Ukenagashi so I am now waiting for the shrapnel as Jikiden teachers throughout the UK ask these students "who the hell taught you to do it that way?"

Anyway, I'm glad now that I have done all those seminars with Oshita Sensei, I hope it was useful to them.

Iaido training tonight so another entry later or tomorrow.

Iaido Training Session 55

2011-05-05T21:59:00.002+01:00

The feet have it...

My first night back after a very welcome 2 week holiday. The holiday did wonders for my arms, I couldn't feel any residual stiffness or pain in them. Although I arrived early I decided not to go hell for leather on the first session back and did some Jodo to warm up with the others.

As the session started properly, I handed the session over to Harry for her to teach us some body and feet moving exercises. I won't go into too much detail but these revolved around removing the arms from the equation and focussing on moving either with one foot continually forwards or by stepping. At the end of each step we checked our leg and feet positions, aligned the hips and made sure we weren't sticking our budo bellies out. This obviated many problems in people's posture. For myself I found it a good exercise to work on the straightness of my back and I have a tendency to curve it. We then tried Mae and Ushiro doing just the feet and it was quite hard work but really showed up where and when we were using the hips.

We went through Seitei as usual (in the real order for a change) and tried to incorporate as much as we could from the moving exercises as possible. I am certain it really helped.

For the free practice I went through Shoden and then went around to help the others. Project Delta had some attention and I turned up the strictness on this this evening as I didn't want to appear to be soft with this particular activity.

We finished with George, Alex and Yuki doing a grading prep embu.

Watching the movies that Aurelien took while at the Kyoto taikai was very thought provoking. Most of all perhaps for me was watching Morishima Sensei especially his demonstration of Moniri given what we had been practising on this evening. His swordwork on this form is quite good although I wouldn't say it is far beyond what a lot of people do now. What makes him stand out is his body movement. He makes an impressive amount of movement without visible effort and without his body swaying or losing balance. I have extracted this clip out to demonstrate what I mean...

It is easy to see that his upper body sits steadily, without swaying, on top of his hips. His hips themselves are clearly the centre and focus of his movement and at the end of each cut his feet are properly engaged with the floor - not sliding, not twitching to gain balance but perfectly poised. If I can get a larger element of his style of moving into my standing forms I will be quite a bit more happy about my 6th dan grading...

Iaido Training Session 54

2011-04-15T18:09:00.003+01:00

A special early arrival at the dojo this evening to ensure some personal training. I did a full stretch and then went into my Kusawari no Shohatto training with an emphasis on smooth feet movement and softening the ochiburi. I had about 40mins of just doing this (which is quite a long time in our dojo to train without interruption).

The iai class started after some jodo thwacking and we worked through Seitei with the normal abstract order and with relaxed and focused practice. Space was at something of a premium so after this we divided into groups and I worked the higher grades into ironing the creases out of their first 5 shoden waza. No time to go into great detail now but I thought that the mere fact that someone does koryu does not mean that all seitei-instilled attention to detail is lost. We then worked on a few standing okuden before finishing.

Did a bit more progress on Project Delta this evening which was good although a bit restricted by certain factors at the moment.

Not much more to write about on this occasion, I think the pre-session practice is paying off and I will be booking some extra training after my forthcoming holiday.

Poland Open Iaido Taikai 2011

2011-04-15T12:26:00.009+01:00

I wanted to do a cover of this event as for me it was one of the most significant development experiences I have had for quite a while in iaido. This year the event was organised by Tenshinkan in Warsaw and received competitors from Poland (of course, there were 3 of them), Slovakia, Czech and Hungary. The invited teachers were Robert Rodriguez 7th dan renshi, Henry Schubert 5th dan, Harry Jones 5th dan, Jose Abraca 5th dan and me. This was the second time that Harry and me had worked with Robert and it was an honour and a delight to do so. Robert and Jose are both Suioryu exponents and with Henry being Jikiden we had virtually all the koryu covered for those at the event.

After arrival we had a delicious lunch/dinner in a restaurant in town where I had the most wonderful calves liver I have ever eaten, in fact it might have been the best meat I have ever eaten. On return to the sports centre we then started an iaido seminar from 5pm to 10pm! Quite a change from daylight training.

Henry, Harry and me started on the lower grades in the main hall. Henry demonstrated a very useful exercise with a swordbag to get people to use metsuke properly. I talked a bit about minimising and simplifying the kata's movements to make it as smooth as possible. Actually in the end all three of us gave them all quite a comprehensive briefing on various parts.

All too soon it was break time and Harry and me were asked to look after the high grades upstairs. We focussed quite a lot on Mae and Ushiro in order that they seized that moment of sayabanare and used their hips in both the nukitsuke and kiritsuke. I won't go too much into it now but I have been trying to ensure that a forward hip movement is used in these parts of the kata recently. It's quite difficult to do, especially in Ushiro, but I believe it is absolutely necessary otherwise fumikomi doesn't take place. We then wiped through Sogiri and tried to get them to understand how seme occurs between cuts. It is my strong belief that this happens when one moderates cutting power and relaxes at the ends of the cut so that it is clearly visible that the next cut is primed and ready to go. Posture, metsuke and sword position are all critical in making sure this is manifest. I also believe that the only way to train in this is to "clear one's desk" and get rid of all unnecessary strength and movement.

The end of the seminar arrived and we went downstairs to do the final rei.

On Saturday was the individual championships and after the usual explanations we began. It was very surprising to see the how the level has changed in this area of Europe. Lower grades are much more capable if one looks at their duration of training and some of the halcyon members of Poland I am sure now have problems defending their titles.

Judging is also becoming a more and more useful experience for me although I do sometimes find myself going into monitor mode where one sits back and relaxes and waits for an impression to be formed of the competitors. At other times, especially when the match is going to be close among people you know, one has to literally count the ongoing score between the competitors during that shiai.

Our sayonara party was held in the same restaurant we had lunch in on the first day, no liver unfortunately.

On the Sunday we began with the team event and it was great to see Slovakia take the victory. Just before the grading, the 4th, 5th and 7th dans were invited to perform an embu. I did:

Shohatto
Ryuto
Yamaoroshi
Tozume
Ukenagashi

and was sat right at the front end which was actually quite nice for not being distracted by other people. I could hear Henry behind me though doing similar kata to me (maybe).

This was the point that made it for me, for the first time I started to feel the 6th dan within some sort of reach. I was able to relax during the embu but maintained my concentration, performed without rushing and did what I thought were good kata. I'm sure some videos were taken so I hope I can review my performance at a later time.

I could write for ages about the whole event really but time is a bit tight this week (I still have to write about last Wednesday) so I will summarise how I am feeling about things at the moment in my preparation:

I think that I am starting to discover/uncover stuff that was never really explained and I guess that that was intentional. The use of the hips, feet and upper body in Mae/Shohatto is something that I have had outlined to me but I am finding I am starting to fill the gaps a bit.
My arm injuries are recovering well, partly due to changing ochiburi.
I can feel my iaido slowing down a bit. I think this might be a good thing as I am now trying to balance quite a lot of stuff (even newly found stuff) into short moments.
Overall I am feeling a lot less lost that I did about a year ago where my main challenges were working out what the problems were.
I definately can feel an overall improvement by relaxing and extracting power from my technique.

Anyway, to finish, a sincere thanks to my Polish friends for everything.

Iaido Training Session 53

2011-04-07T01:31:00.004+01:00

I managed to get to the dojo extra early this evening with a view of doing some solo iai practice - perhaps the only way I can do it without either wearing blinkers in the dojo or training somewhere else. I was glad to see the return of Cezary Wozniak to our dojo looking healthy and fit.

While I got the others doing some pre-iai jo training I went to the end of the dojo and did some preparatory work which I haven't done for a few years now. I call it Kusawari no Shohatto (Shohatto of splitting grass) and it is basically a repetition of shohatto but instead of using the dojo as a linear reference of direction, I start looking at whatever vertical line is in front of me, in this instance the double doors' split. Each shohatto must focus the whole kata on that line, the nukitsuke, especially the kirioroshi and then the rest of the kata keeping that line in front. Once one kata is finished I then look to either the left (or right depending on the evening) for the next structural vertical line and then do a kata to this line. I keep working my way around until I have just exceeded 90 degrees. It is surprising how many vertical lines there are in a building. In the diagram below I have shown 16 directions but I think I actually did about shohatto about 25 times this evening.

Why do I do this training? Firstly it greatly reduces the monotony of solo kata practice. Secondly, it is surprising how difficult it is to remain aligned when you're not relying on 3 walls in your vision. Thirdly, the vertical line does wonders for focus, accuracy and relaxing the cut. If you cut too hard then accuracy is greatly reduced.

Once this was over and we started the session, we did the blind cutting balance exercise before going through seitei in an abstract order as usual.

We entered into free practice and I started working through Shoden, again trying to only do one form of each so that I could maximise focus. Chris Sensei gave me some useful chiburi advice again, actually quite similar to that which I detailed a few posts ago but with also focus on relaxing the hand and then using the grip to generate the cut. Doing this and focussing on the timing of the body rising adds tremendously to the sharpness of this movement. It's annoying that I am sure I was doing this right years ago and I think my arm injury changed the way I did it for the worse.

I also quizzed him on how tall people should do Yamaoroshi considering the proximity of the enemy. It was nice to see how he did it without compromising his posture, I need to work on this soon as it was a much sharper action.

Anyway, that'll do for now...

Iaido Training Session 52 - The mewling pussycat

2011-04-01T15:17:00.004+01:00

The dojo is gradually filling up again as people remember that the Xmas holidays are over. We ran through Seitei once each form tonight after doing the blind cutting practice. A bit too busy to do much training myself so I started working on George for his 4th dan.

We did some coaching rotation so I got to do a bit of training on my achilles heel - Toranoissoku. I am gradually getting used to the action of the sword but being quite tall (and too heavy for my skinny little legs) I often lose balance stepping back. I worked at ensuring my foot went straight back on Wednesday by trying to feel my foot pushing out. Inevitably it is the angle of the hips which has so much effect. I'll explain more.

While this form seems to rely on a strong sweeping action of the sword, if the left hand and side of the body isn't used adequately then the sweep loses kime and tends to swing. I have been shown how using strong sayabiki, the sword itself gains stability and focus. However, overturning and thereby rotating the hips has the tendency to point the rear foot back towards the centreline of the body thus creating a narrow and unstable posture. See below.

However, if sayabiki is inadequate then the whole sweeping action loses it. A simple concept is to keep the hips square while turning the shoulders. This seemed to do the trick. In fact relative to the hips, this created an even stronger sayabiki than turning the hips (of course).

When I had done this bit a few times and got the feet and hip position right, it showed obvious improvement in the sword control.

The next bit also causes problems. While I believe that a quiet return leading to a devastating cut concludes Inazuma quite appropriately, Toranoissoku requires a rapid return and cut. The opponent hasn't been cut themselves at this point, only their sword has been balked and a quick counterstrike is necessary.

I refer readers to Richard Stonell's brilliant article on Eishin Ryu at this point. Well worth a read through and a study to get the right taste to these forms...

http://kenshi247.net/tag/eishin-ryu/

My teacher tried to get me to do this, fast and light, using the downward action of the body to augment the upward lift of the sword. That also sounds easier than it is as often the sword will get into place first and park itself while the body gets seated. I managed to get it right a couple of times and I could feel when it was working and when it wasn't (with a typical ratio of 1:100). I fully believe that the overall success of this form relies on having strong legs and hips and so it is certainly work in progress.

Bideford Spring Iaido Seminar

2011-03-30T14:25:00.009+01:00

Technically speaking I was teaching on this seminar so the notion that I might learn something through experience deserves me to be strung up and pelted with potato peelings. Anyhow, it was an enjoyable weekend and I did learn some stuff, from watching what people were doing, talking to them about it and also sharing some of Martin Clark's thoughts and experiences. He is a very good teacher when allowed to spread his wings at these events as he otherwise keeps a low profile when other high grades are around (to his credit).

We started the first day trying to improve our balance during nukitsuke and kirioroshi by swapping our legs out during the furikaburi. I found this very useful as it forced one to slow down the furikaburi in order to fit the leg movement in...and this is where things go wrong.

Furikaburi is quite a tricky action in Seitei. It is described in the following sequence:

With a feeling of thrusting behind one's left ear, lift the kissaki up in a parrying action ensuring that the kissaki does not drop below horizontal.

Sounds easy doesn't it? And yet there are a few more conditions which have to be considered and are taught orally:

The right hand must not cross the centreline. It may join with the centreline on the sword's ascent to above the head but the hand and arm must not obscure the vision of the exponent.
The sword therefore must pass in front of the exponent to execute the guarding/parrying action of the furikaburi.
The sword must cut at the apex of the movement.
The apex is defined by the tsukagashira being above the hairline.

These all tend to make this movement more complex that it seems. I have tried to show this on the diagrams below:

What is a bit more obvious to see from the diagrams is that:
a) The right hand remains quite static in it's position throughout a lot of angular movement of the sword.
b) This movement should be done keeping the edge of the sword pointed at the opponent.
c) The upward inclination of the sword is gradual and once it is started, the sword does not disincline again (i.e. the upward angle of the sword is maintained).

Many people (myself included when I am not concentrating do a number of the following things:

a) Bring the sword across the body and let the edge drop.
b) Bring the kissaki and tsubamoto straight up onto the centreline in too steep an angle.

It's a bit difficult to write about these things but very easy to see them. I urged the people at the seminar to slow down and make sure this movement was correct especially checking that the sword was thrusting past the left ear.

The image shown of Ishido Sensei is actually him doing furikaburi (check out the left hand). You can see how flat the sword is while the right hand is hardly moving.

The rest of the day was spent going through seitei. One bit of advice which I gave the others which I intend to use more for myself was to stop using all forms of power. This only has the effect of making the kata "lumpy" but by trying not to use power then it created something of a "tabula rasa" or I like to think of it as a clean workbench to work from. From there one can start to add contrasts of feeling, timing, speed and power but one first has to ensure that one's technique is pretty much correct first. With training this should be easy to achieve once one stops trying to throttle their sword.

I'm just trying to remember the points that me or Martin made, here are some of them:

That at the moment that nukitsuke is made, the hips must be moving forwards. This is combined with the upper body twisting into the cut.
That the feet should remain apart during iaigoshi.
The importance of driving the body forwards with the foot doing fumikomi in Ushiro.
The importance of not crabbing sideways during furikaburi on Ushiro (so easy to do).
Ukenagashi remaining relatively contained.
Using the hips to make the thrust on Tsukaate.
Securing the feet well to make the static kirioroshi on Tsukaate.
Getting the timing of the sword and front foot synchronised on Kesagiri.
Softening the hands during chiburi of Kesagiri.
Making a large draw using the tsukashira as the pivot on Morotezuki.
Ensuring the feet don't come too close together before the thrust on Morotezuki.
How to make the very subtle distinction of hikinuki and ukenagashi ni furikaburi on Morotezuki (i.e. don't lose sleep about it).
Using the body and large cutting action on Sanpogiri.
The importance of changing ones position related to the centreline on Ganmenate.
How to change and select your own timing on Ganmenate including making contrasts of timing and speed.
Making a direct draw on Soetezuki.
Getting the movement active to make the thrust on Soetezuki.
How to avoid rediculous positions of chiburi on Soetezuki while still following the ZNKR seitei directive.
Contrasting the distance and timing of each cut on Shihogiri.
Letting the caterpiller reverse into the marshmallow a.k.a. assuming gedan no kamae
Creating seme at the end of each cut of Sogiri but keeping the cuts soft so that the successive cut is easy to initiate (and must be visibly so).
Filling the time available in Nukiuchi and making full proper movements.

I sat on the grading panel in the afternoon to examine the ikkyus, shodans and nidans. Luckily Tony Devine was sitting next to me and I could seek advice from him. I consider myself to be an utter novice in gradings despite writing the Examiner Mentoring Programme. It is very difficult to maintain concentration and not miss obvious mistakes. After a while though I believe that one develops a bit of a gut instinct for seeing the good parts of people's performance. I saw that a lot especially from the more senior-in-age candidates. Where they were unable to do things fast or sharp I could sometimes see calmness and maturity.

Anyway, a great weekend (for all I hope) and a good chance for me to draw seitei points to my own attention for training (tonight).

TTFN

Iaido Training Session 51 Part B

2011-03-25T13:47:00.004Z

Ok, had some time to think and now some time to write....

Shohatto: Not feeling too bad providing I don't race. Nukitsuke needs a little more time (and some training) to get the tempo right.
Sato: In contrast to the above feels quite good.
Uto: As above
Atarito: Footwork needs some work.
Inyoshintai: Yokochiburi needs some work.
Ryuto: Not bad for a big guy
Junto: He's dead
Gyakuto: Ok
Seichuto: Ok
Koranto: Ok
Gyakute Inyoshintai: Deflection needs some work
Batto: Better now left hand is working more actively

Yokogumo: No problems although noto needs some change.
Toraissoku: Balance issues on block.
Inazuma: I like!
Ukigumo: Forever work in progress but feeling quite good about it.
Yamaoroshi: Feels like I've been working on it but need to check about tall person's nukitsuke.
Iwanami: Ramping off the kirioroshi seems to work.
Urokogaeshi: Ok
Namigaeshi: Need to work on hip strength.
Takiotoshi: Thrust needs some work.
Nukiuchi: As batto

Kasumi: Getting better
Sunegakoi: Difficult at my height
Shihogiri: Improving speed
Tozume: Responding to training nicely especially with a more diagonal draw.
Towaki: Working on the Ishido Sensei tempo...
Tanashita: Push/pull working better...who's ever gonna do this anyway?
Ryozume: Ok
Torabashiri: Starting to like this one

Yukizure: Ok
Rentatsu: Work in progress on draw.
Somakuri: Work in progress on all
Sodome: Getting more flow'ey
Sodesuregaeshi: Yah, no problem
Mon'iri: Not sure about the flow of this one.
Jinchu: Becoming strangely stable at the mo.
Ukenagashi v1: Not bad
Ukenagashi v2: A bit staid
Ukenagashi v3: Coming on
Ukenagashi v4: Responding to training (especially after this session)

Seitei-wise, I really want to get Kesagiri a bit tidy.

That is all (for now). Don't really have much to write really, having spent the whole session training, everything is still simmering over and not much bubbling to the surface. This weekend might tell me more...

Iaido Training Session 51

2011-03-24T23:49:00.003Z

A hard working evening. We ran once through Seitei and then I decided that some free practice wouldn't go amiss. I hid myself to the side and went once through all the koryu, to the end, non stop.

Didn't manage it.

Well, eventually I did but not non stop. I tried to make sure that each form was given 100% concentration and not like a session of throcking. I thought it went quite well, ran into a few problems here and there.

This is going to be one of those short posts. Right, there ya go...

Nukitsuke revisited

2011-03-19T00:04:00.002Z

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...

Iaido Training Session 50

2011-03-18T22:30:00.004Z

Standing on the shoulders of....other dojo members

Woot, made it to 50 sessions and my arms haven't fallen off yet. Wednesday and the couple of days following makes me realise how grateful I am to be part of a dojo filled with people who are willing to listen to my vague feedback to them about their iai, not really helping them at all, just so I can meditate on what was bothering me for the next 2-3 days. I'm sure once I am older and more dribbly that they will have their vengeance, like putting earwax into my liquidised food, but for now they happily exist as petrie dishes for my thought experiments and directionless mutterings and my development to 6th and the end of rational thought.

My teacher told me about one year ago that my Iaido training had to move it's focus away from the "What" and onto the "When". This post is devoted to that thought.

We expanded our abstract order training of seitei to 3 forms each this week (wow) and with no direction of what, where and when any emphasis should be placed. We then separated into free practice, Harry and me doing Chuden and the others doing seitei bits and pieces.

I was now caught and bothered by Lucy and Aurelien's nukitsuke from Mae. I couldn't help noticing that the sword was coming out a little too directly and easily and with little sayabanare going on. I spent a bit of time explaining how sayabiki converts into sayabanare at the moment of release of the kissaki from the saya. This in itself is a difficult thing to time. It is necessary, especially in Muso Shinden Ryu, to not finish the final sayabiki until the sword is actually cutting into the nukitsuke. This is of course quite a small movement with the saya compared to the larger movement of the sword and one can either make the saya move in slow motion (which then lacks any sharpness to the movement) or moderate the earlier part of the movement into a final acceleration. Tricky indeed. Suffice to say, the entire control of the left hand on the saya is a complex one. I have tried to simplify the action in the diagram below:

This implies (and correctly I believe) that sayabiki comes and goes a little bit or rather, it's speed is modulated during the nukitsuke action.

Sayabiki is first used to facilitate the removal of the saya from the sword.
Sayabanare accentuates the release of the kissaki from the koiguchi and provides impetus for the sword to travel forwards.
Sayabiki is finally used to emphasise the cutting action of the nukitsuke (whether or not one actually cuts or merely subdues is based on opinion).

I guess my point around this is that just at the moment of sayabanare there needs to be a building up of feeling, a moment of tame, rather than simply pulling the sword out and casting it at the opponent. I'm not suggesting that this is a long moment but something needs to be there. This is the way I originally learnt this form, that the form demonstrated saya no uchi no kachi and hence that in the Seitei description one puts the hands on the sword gently. The draw is to be done in a way that prevents the opponent from attacking. If at any moment the opponent gives up then one can avoid attacking them. By drawing the sword out quickly then one has not appreciated the meaning of this technique and in Seitei, this kind of draw is quite unique whereas nearly all the other forms require the hands to be put on the sword sharply.

But looking deeper into this point, this is what I think: that at the moment where the decision is finally made to draw the sword, this is the point where you are most likely to die.

By this I mean that this must be the final moment, where the enemy's attempt to attack is maximised and is thus the most dangerous point for you. The Seitei manual describes this in the line "kisen o sei shite [komekami] ni nukitsuke" or "seize the moment of opportunity and draw to the opponent's temple". I think this "seizing of the moment" is an important point to express in one's kata if we are attempting to import Katsujinken (the sword that saves or wins) into what would otherwise be Setsuninto (the sword that kills). I also believe that whether one intends to allow the opponent to live or not, the moment of this decision needs perceiving, living and tempering . It is a moment where one has decided to kill. It is also the moment that you are about to die.

It reminds me of a nice proverb which reads quite well in Japanese:

勝利の瞬間
兜の绪を締め

Shori no shunkan
Kabuto no himo wo shime

At the moment of victory
Tighten the helmet straps

The meaning of this of course is that the very moment of victory is the moment when the opponent is at their most dangerous and you are most likely to lose. Perhaps instead of the Seitei manual saying about "seizing the moment" that the phrase "squeezing the moment" would be more appropriate.

From a practical point of training, I am pretty sure that at a high level the only way to actually see this moment would be through looking at a slow-motion video, however if the sword is merely accelerating out of the saya with no point of tame then clearly this moment does not exist. In fact I think that the setting of the front foot position is probably just the second where this moment exists.

Anyway, after watching the others go through considerable pain to analyse and change what they were doing I encouraged them to play around with the various versions of Koranto to lightent the moment somewhat. Hopefully that will make them hate me less.

Kiyome and the Flow of the Ryuha

2011-03-14T10:17:00.003Z

Some part of me is hesitant to write about this particular subject as my thoughts on it sit more comfortably with Jodo than with Iaido. Why is this? Iaido, by it's nature where the effectiveness of technique is sometimes difficult to test, generally tends to be far more detailed and technically strict in it's teachings. Jodo, on the other hand, while not lenient in the area of technical correctness, is more forgiving in it's allowances for personal physical interpretation providing the effectiveness of technique is convincing. It is not the absence of flexibility in Iaido which makes me reluctant to write this in an iai context but rather the tendency towards uniformity. Perhaps if I didn't do Jodo I wouldn't feel the same way. Anyway, getting on...

I want to reflect on some thoughts I had while flying to Poland recently and getting towards the end of the book "Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine. Those of you who have read it or are familiar with Douglas's works will know that the book is an account of their project to see and record species which are approaching extinction. In one part of the book Douglas recounts an earlier visit to Japan where he had the occasion to see Kinkajuji, the temple of the golden pavillion in Kyoto. His tour guide informs him that the building dates back to the 14th century. Douglas mentioned that it was incredible that a building so old should continue to look so spectacular. The tour guide responded that the building itself had been rebuilt numerous times, sometimes because of fire, sometimes because of general degradation. Douglas challenged the tour guide on this saying that surely then this isn't the original building. "Oh yes, it's the same building. Exactly the same as from the 14th century and it's been rebuilt many times." Douglas concludes, quite nicely in the book, that this is a contrast in the way of thinking between the East and the West. In the West we tend to attribute the permanence and age of a building by it's physical materials in the walls, the pillars, the bricks, the roof, the floors etc. In Japan at least, the building is a manifestation of a design, an intended use, an image that an architect may have dreamed up. No permanance or nature is given to the materials of the building itself. The building lives and exists through it's form through design and it's use.

This is connected to the tradition and process of "Kiyome" or purification. Whole shrines and temples are dismantled and their materials renewed. Much work goes into ensuring that the "new" building matches the previous design as closely as possible. Often the work is carried out with the assistance of the monks and priests of the site. We might interpret this as refurbishment when it comes to buildings but this is a skeletal image of what actually happens. Through this process the building is regenerated, given a fresh life and most of all, purified but loses none of the original dream of the designer.

The underlying principal in all this is that the nature of the temple or the shrine is in "the intention of the architect" and this is a phrase I would like to use when thinking about how kata must inevitably vary as they are passed from generation to generation, from varying physical body to varying physical body, from personal mind to personal mind. Where experiences and the environment change the visible material of the kata. So what is the Ryu if the "software" goes through such inevitable change? Surely only the intention of the architect.

To explore this further perhaps it is important to make distinction between the two "tendencies" of kata with regards to Iaido. In one extreme, a kata may have been the result of an actual combatitive experience and the survivor of this experience may have thought that what action actually saved the day was worthy of preserving and teaching to others. In this sense, the technique is a wholly practical one and is the response to a certain situation. This might be referred to as a "Jokyo Kata" (situational kata). In the other extreme, an experienced swordsman might have recognised that certain "exercises" in technique, timing and movement within a mental context would facilitate the creation of a well-rounded martial artist where nearly any situation might call upon the range of well developed techniques to save the exponent. These are referred to as "Toho Kata" (sword methodology kata). Some people actually divide kata up into these two category; some consider all kata in a style to be either one or the other; some consider that all kata are Toho but have to be learned through the context of Jokyo, the latter of which should be essentially cast aside as soon as it's use subsides. I fall into that category of people who believe that the last interpretation is the most accurate.

In any case, even with the most attentive of soke of a style, change is inevitable in a ryuha. While we may spend sleepness nights worrying about this (or not) I believe the grace of it all is in believing that each stage of a kata being passed from one person to another is another phase of Kiyome, of ritual purification where the architect's intent is transmitted and the materials renewed. In this case it is not realistic for a teacher to assume that even the best student should produce a carbon copy of his taught form. By passing a kata from an elderly teacher to a younger student, the kata may become invigorated with youthful energy. It may lack some of the smoothness of well trod wooden floor boards but provided the architect's intentions are preserved, Kiyome has taken place without detriment to the design.

A good example of this is the contrast between Ishido Sensei and his main student Morishima Sensei. The two of them are separated by about twenty years in age, Morishima is a bit taller than Ishido Sensei. Their koryu are slightly different, the former being quick and light, the latter being large and vigorous. You can see slight variations in their delivery of form and often one will favour a different kaewaza to another but the similarities are very deep. You can see how Morishima Sensei has embedded critical factors taught to him by his own sensei but which have been smoothed and moderated by the elder. Even greater contrasts are obviously visible between Ishido Sensei and his European Monjin where body build, transmission variances and lifestyle differences have created sets of interesting variations, each containing some aspect of Ishido Sensei and all with a larger or lesser emphasis.

Maybe this is what we judge when we observer others' performance. Some will be able to display the architect's intentions very clearly, some will have more subtle and smoother features to be viewed. Some, who have misinterpreted or never understood the intentions, might be viewed with critical eyes regardless of how vigorous, strong or fast they are. Lucy Earley explained to me recently that Ishido Sensei performs the draw in Batto/Nukiuchi quite slowly and smoothly these days. He used to show off a bit with how quickly he could do this draw. Both ways of making this sudden draw are surely valid, one fast to the point of being invisible, one so smooth and subtle that it is unnoticeable and thereby it's a fine, fine thing that Iaido is available to everyone regardless of their strengths or limitations.

I do not imagine for a minute that I will ever be able to do Iaido as well as or better than Ishido Sensei but maybe in trying to replicate his splendid halls of stone, my brick-built toilet block will suffice...

Iaido Training Session 49

2011-03-14T10:06:00.002Z

More Shinsa Training

Last Wednesday we spent another evening devoted to shinsa training through embu. I like this kind of solid practise and it stops me being distracted by other people.

Key points for me to remember:

Chiburi from shoden needs to be more clearly accelerating into the cut whereas seitei can be a bit more steady.
The first cut in Tozume needs to be a little more diagonal (this needs some work).
Yamaoroshi tempo mustn't become labored during the drawing process even with circles considered.

Ochiburi took a lot of hammering this evening and my legs and elbow felt it the next day. I am working to try to get the right hand to move more directly to the objective position rather than orbiting over and around my head. It's funny because I have been trying to get Lucy to do this for ages and now I am working on it myself. Shohatto as a whole is starting to feel more solid now that my focus is on footwork and I need to train ochiburi so that it becomes a favourite part of the kata rather than an Achilles heel (much like Soetezuki used to be for me).

I think the time is getting close to having another video review and then maybe take a break from the shinsa training to do some broader koryu training. I would like to ensure that my koryu kata for the grading are the "best of the bunch" rather than the few I could manage...

More coming up in a separate post...

Iaido Training Session 48

2011-03-08T10:28:00.005Z

Shinsa Training and Kigurai

So this session we had Chris Sensei back at normal hours and a chance for me and a few others to do some dedicated examination practice. After the normal random ordered seitei run through we divided out and Chris Sensei gave us some briefing on what to work for for the grading. Of particular note is the notion of not leaving the grading panel with a question mark about whether you pass or not. This is a good reason for aiming for one grade above which you are a candidate for.

We all did an embu practice with 5 forms of our own choice and I used Shohatto, Tozume and three seitei. Sensei asked us if we were satisfied with our performance and if so, by how many kata. To be honest I wasn't happy with any of mine as I felt I had rushed through them and couldn't catch up with myself. Shohatto was unstable, Towaki wasn't a big enough initial cut and the seitei disappeard from memory.

We tried again and I swapped Gyakuto into the first kata. Sensei leapt on me and said that my koryu was now too much like my seitei. It was technically correct but the merihari had gone. I thought this might be the case as I was utterly focussed on getting it technically correct but I guess it must have looked robotic. I did it a few more times with a feeling of ebb and flow and he preferred this. If I was to summarise what the final form had as essential criteria I would say that it had to have:

The ebb and flow of timing and speed to create the merihari
A certain flourish to show competence and confidence with the technique
An observation to good shisei even if at parts of the form one is made to lean forwards

I think these are especially true where one is tall and with a long sword and has difficulty in being naturally sharp.

Sensei made me do a peer evaluation of my Tozume in front of the others and after a few goes managed to get my posture to become part of the form.

We gradually did more and more practice on various parts of our embu with a special emphasis on my own about maintaining kigurai, that elusive quality that sits somewhere between pride, awareness and keeping a bloody straight back. It was interesting to see the difference it made in Sensei's posture when just standing in Keitoshisei....and I guess this is the point (and the one I try to make to others frequently). Why stand with the hands in such a place that the middle finger touches the side seam of the hakama? It's not the way that most people naturally stand so why do it in Keitoshisei?

I think the direction of thinking is reversed here. We often hear teachers saying "Be natural" and "Do this naturally" but I wonder if sometimes we miss the hidden half of this point, which is this:

Use your training to make good habits a natural part of your body and your movements.

If one stands as naturally up straight in a relaxed posture the hands tend to fall forwards of the thighs. What is this saying? Maybe it's saying that there are a lot of other things wrong with our "natural" (or bad) posture. By forcing oneself to pull the shoulders back slightly, to tighten the stomach muscles and to incline our hips slightly forwards, maybe our posture is improved as the fingers certainly naturally find their way to the side seams.

It's a long shot but a fairly logical one. Once cannot afford to be too natural if one is naturally "bad". Sometimes the learning of new and good habits brings a new and improved natural.

Iaido Training Session 47

2011-02-24T12:14:00.008Z

"Tome" and "Tame" and How "Nukiuchi" Should Nukiuchi Be?

It's barely credible that I am writing this given all the computer nonsense I have had to get through over the last week. Still, at least I don't have to buy a new Mac as I might have done if the power cut had kicked in as it did.... :-P

Last night's session was almost a carbon copy of last week's to be honest, the normal Seitei run through and then splitting into Seitei and Koryu practise. The high grades wanted a play at Standing Oku so we started to work through those (or rather they started to work through those and I came over and criticised frequently).

Before getting on about Koryu blah I want to reflect on a question I posed to the group last night. What I saw was that some students were doing Seitei Nukiuchi very very quickly and being the sceptical type that I am I wondered how and why this was happening. I asked if everybody thought that the purpose of Nukiuchi was to dodge out and back as quickly as possible. Nearly everyone thought yes. I responded by saying that this might well be the case but if it was so then it was the only form in the entire Seitei and MSR koryu set that had this as a feature. They looked puzzled. Surely, I said, it was important to gauge the timing right and currently it looked like the Tasmanian Devils in the class weren't giving any thought to the timing. Now I think about this more I can see this argument/discussion on this form looping back to something very fundemental and basic which I will get to shortly.

Last week while working on this form I informed the class that many of them were not moving their right foot back adequately to avoid the enemy's cut. Most of them had sorted that out this week. I discussed with them briefly that surely there must be a 'development' of speed at the apex of the draw up and back. It is possible to do this form very sharply especially if one aims to squeeze the kensen up to horizontal as sayabanare occurs instead of leaving it at it's drawn angle i.e. hanging down the back. If one is nimble footed as well it's possible to do this form during the echo of a clap. The question I ask is, should you?

With this form, the course of the enemy's sword is not specified however it is unlikely that it is a vertical cut stopping at horizontal albeit it might be possible to cut your enemy's head without you skewering your belly on their sword but this is a tad risky. Of course, this is as much a Toho form as any other so in reality one might dodge and enter from the left or right but keeping to the prescribed form as much as possible it becomes more viable to imagine the enemy making a horizontal cut or a kesa cut. Once their cut has cleared your entry path then the counter cut should take place pretty quickly. If we imagine the kesa cut, there is a time between the enemy's sword just missing your shoulder and passing across your body to clear at the hip. One can imagine doing this perfectly by the body just evading at the right moment and using this short period of the sword passing by to evade the rest of the body, prepare the sword and deliver the counter-cut. Easy-peasy. My problem is that I don't even think people are mentally visualising this.

In a way not dissimilar to Jodo's Tai Hazushi Uchi, there surely has to be a precise moment of actually clearing the opponent's sword. I'm not suggesting that this should be a long time and definately not suggesting that one should stop but should there not be a contracted moment of tame?

I did a little hunt around the net to find examples of Nukiuchi and I was delighted to find this demonstration by Yossi Luria Sensei of Israel who I hope doesn't mind me using his demo video project here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm0Kcdl4cgQ

Yes I realise it would be very easy to critisize this demo as it would be to do so for anyone's videod performance but this demo actually says a lot. There is a definate moment when some work is being done at the apex of the draw and this is just enough in my mind to show that point of tame.

Anyway, I mentioned earlier that I would show how this loops back to basics and fundementals of this forms and here it is...

If one does this form too quickly they tend to make their hands go forwards where their head was and therefore sacrifice their right hand and ergo, their life.
If one does this form too quickly their upper body tends to be left behind making it a very convenient target for the attacker's sword.

There you have it, the seen and unseen reasons for working on timing on this form rather than raw speed.

Anyway, we spent a bit of time on Yukizure and Rentatsu, these being quite technically complex forms considering how simple they look. I wanted to stress to the kodanshas that the body position and sword position remains virtually unchanged in the draw of Yukizure. This can be seen below in that the body and sword are already in the correct position for the finish of the drawing cut.

The feet take a natural position for this draw, not dissimilar to Soetezuki although not quite a turned around as the seitei form. With the head turning into the metsuke only, this movement is quite minimalist in nature but allows a smooth and discreet transition into the first and second cut.

Anyway, back to rebuilding my compyoota...

Iaido Training Session 46

2011-02-17T17:52:00.004Z

Why we fight

Considering how long we are dead for I think there is often a danger of forgetting one of the outcomes of doing martial arts i.e. it should be something that one enjoys and gets something out of. I guess last night's practise revealed to me how much that had been missing of late as it was, almost by accident, a very enjoyable practise.

We had a very full dojo, I was in charge, we had the whole evening ahead of us. As usual I got everyone to go through Seitei together, twice each form, in an abstract order and with a focus to deal with each kata as a "mini project". This gave me a little bit of time to slow things down and work on posture and in seconds of spare time spot the faults that I had identified with my own performance in others. I find that immensely enlightening and realise that often it is good to do the reverse i.e. to spot faults in others as a means of evaluating if you are doing it wrong yourself. Quite often these are unconscious human responses to particular technical challenges, like for example, performing noto without twitching the thumb to lightly grip the mune.

We went on to split the groups up with some guys doing seated Oku, a bit of Shoden and the rest working on Seitei. I spent most of the time working with the seated Oku group. This in itself can be quite hard work even showing the forms once or twice at a reasonable level of intensity.

Anyway, we got through them all and finished the practice. I don't know quite why but I somehow felt the practise very enjoyable. I am sure part of it was doing some light exercise and stretching before the training to get the endorphins flowing and feeling physically well. Anyway, a gentle reminder of a good reason to train and one not to be forgotten.

Iaido Training Session 45

2011-02-10T01:00:00.002Z

What happened to our dojo? One minute there's about 4 of us in there, rattling around like peas in a tin and then there's barely enough room to swing a cat (ana). Lucy is back from Yapan for a bit, we are being visited by Andrea Setti and four of our beginners turned up tonight (although they remind me that tonight was their one year anniversary since beginning training - oops).

Anyway, I was determined that I should get some practice in so we started with everyone doing a couple of shots per seitei form. I insist that we don't do them in order these days as I am sure it tends to make people's mind see it as an objective to get through them all as soon as possible. I prefer to do them in a more abstract order, the first one of each being done slowly and expansively and the second being at normal speed. By having this abstract order it is my hope that everyone views each kata as something of a mini-project to work on while we train.

People started filtering in and all too soon our 10-person training space was filled with about 12. It becomes too dangerous to even try practising at this so most of the high grades dropped out and helped teach.

After a while I was getting itchy feet so I asked everyone to stop, for the lower grades to clear to the sides and got everyone else to do a 7-form embu. This was repeated at the end of the lesson with a 5 form embu.

So what did I do. Well I focussed on the bits that I know were highlighted in the recent video analysis including:

Making sure the front foot is placed before nukitsuke is executed
Ensuring furikaburi actually passes by the left ear (this by the way makes a much nice rhythm to the kata instead of just launching it above the head)
Lifting the elbow into ochiburi
Keeping my posture straighter instead of leaning back
Doing noto without moving my thumb
Trying to relax the hands so that hikinuki and ukenagashi ni furikaburi happens more naturally
Driving the sword forwards and out on the draw of Kesagiri
Making a larger initial cut in Sanpogiri
Keeping wakigamae moving and keeping the sword behind me in Shihogiri

I think I am doing quite well on this so far and want to keep up this attention to detail while I focus on some of the other stuff that people have advised concerning hara and posture.

Thanks for tuning in...

Iaido Training Session 44

2011-02-06T16:31:00.004Z

Quite a nice quiet class tonight so that I could work on my own stuff and have some beginner's presence to keep me on the basics. One of the things that stuck in my memory of this evening was demonstrating how the feet need to assume the cutting position just a slight moment before the cut is delivered thus ensuring stability. My nukitsuke in one demonstration just seemed to fly out on a really regular arc once I had ensured that my right foot wasn't moving during the actual drawing action. This is definitely something I need to work on more so that it happens when I train at regular speed. It is something which adds to the technical challenge in that obviously you shouldn't be standing there for a second while your sword lags behind but equally it makes no sense to try and draw and cut when you don't have a secure posture.

I used the evaluation of the last embu video as well to fix some other things such as making sure that I didn't open my thumb when I did noto. I realise that this is actually quite a deeply embedded bad habit as it felt quite foreign to do it right. Looking around I saw lots of other people doing it with this bad habit as well - oh well, at least they're keeping in line...

One of the things I really wanted to get right was the upper cut of Kesagiri as well as I had realised that while it might feel really good to swish the sword up and down in one action, most of the time I am not actually making a cut on the upward action, the monouchi is in fact following along the same path as the tsuka more or less. Once I tried to ensure that the kissaki was actually moving forward into the cut then this did two things:

1. I could hear the tachikaze - a good sign that I was cutting

2. It gave me ample time to join this with the rising left hand and establish a grip for the downward cut.

In fact it felt like there was time to do a kata (would'ya believe it?) rather than just a flurry of movement a question mark left hanging in the air. I have tried to demonstrate this difference of movement in the image below.

I was also able to work on the first cut on Sanpogiri which bothered me that it is far too small. This is a difficult one, easy to do in a linear action such as Morotezuki, more difficult to do when your body has to enter inside the movement. I will work on this more at the next session.

I am trying to incorporate a lot of Chuden into my training at the moment as I find this one of the best leg strength developers in iai. Toraissoku is my kindly nemesis which is training me to get my big ass up and moving. Quite often this kata doesn't come to life until after a good 20 minutes of solid repetition. Once that is working better then Inazuma seems a lot easier. Chris Sensei told me that my final cut of Inazuma was too dependent on my body and left me to work that out. I realised what he meant after a while and started to ensure that my metsuke was kept correct during this dropping and cutting action and that seemed to work (well, he said that was better anyway).

I have been working on one of the Okuden kaewaza versions of Ukenagashi as this might be a selected koryu if I have to pull one out of the hat. It is one which I feel I can do quite well (a right foot seme-seme-seme then a "leap" off the line to deflect and cut in one action while still keeping the right foot forwards). It is the fact that I feel good about this form and that I get very little feedback on it that is now bothering me. I think I will have to get Ishido Sensei to give me some feedback to work on this at the next opportunity.

Anyway, till next time.

...ooh, thought I would post this rather entertaining photo of a couple of BKA peeps a whole lifetime and hairstyle ago...

Evaluation of Embu on 19th January 2011

2011-01-31T19:30:00.006Z

I have spent a bit of time reviewing another embu session, this one taken on 19th Jan. If I manage to get the video on the page then please excuse the French affectation in my clothing. I forgot to pack a shitagi and ended up wearing a black t-shirt underneath to the effect of looking like an 80's ninja.

Anyway, it was good to see some things are maintaining some form of quality. I was really pleased with the first draw of Morotezuki and then a bit dismayed that that didn't convert well into Sanpogiri. I will have to spend a bit of time on Wednesday working out why.

I have got to consciously work on my Noto. This analysis is very good at showing that there is something wrong, the thing wrong being that I am doing exactly what I castigate our students for - opening their thumb to do Noto! I guess I will have to relearn this aspect of iai as it is something I do on nearly every form.

Furikaburi also requires a bit of work (by that I mean a lot). I was quite surprised that my furikaburi or Mae and Ushiro are failing on a couple of critical points, most notably not going past the left ear at all. I know that I can do this right as I have done it before but maybe I am getting in a bit of a rush.

From the forms perspective, Ushiro is suffering the most, possibly because a lot of very basic elements are not working and Ushiro shows them as the worst.

Anyway, I'm going to close this review for now as I have become slightly drunk. I have uploaded the 2nd part of the embu as I can't seem to edit some of the unwanted parts of the 1st part out.

Iaido Training Session 41, 42 and 43

2011-01-29T11:03:00.003Z

Well it's been a relatively calm start to the training year. I have begun to use my shinken again and am ensuring that I do a very good warm up and stretch before training.

In session 41 most of my time was taken up with the beginners and it gave me a chance to slowly build up my own technique as we looked at elementary kata. It becomes very obvious that many of the problems that beginners experience is a need to rush the kata and I believe this is borne out of a feeling of being unbalanced in their posture. This is further caused by a lack of training and strength in the legs and hips. Certainly during any session, as the muscles in my lower body start to warm up and start to work I can feel the entire stability and sharpness of my form begin to improve.

We were also visited by Inbar Oren from Israel at this session so I spent a bit of time with him trying to work on various bits. It's funny that some dojo and sensei encourage loud and dynamic breathing. I have always been of the belief that the breathing should be natural and where it is required to be dynamic it should be silent. This is all possible I am sure. Anyway, horses for courses.

Session 42 I decided to get stuck into some of my own training and begun with some blind-step-cutting as I have decided to call it. I think I described this in Session 39 and have sensed two effects, one that I get better at doing the exercise myself and two that my overall kata stability has improved. The outward effect is that my posture has widened slightly and my feet are less likely to find themselves close to the same centre line in any forward posture. I may spend a Shugyo entry looking at the static physics for this at some time but not right now. During the rest of the session I did a bit of work on Okuden Suwari Waza as I think these offer some of the most difficult technical challenges in the whole of MSR. Shihogiri/Yosumi is perhaps one of the hardest forms of all, not purely through the number of opponents but in the fact that they must all be dispatched rapidly but without getting busy. This busy-ness occurs through a few different media:

In the flurry of turning round, one's metsuke gets lost.
The stability of each cutting posture begins to fail through weak foot positioning.
The stability of the posture during the turns degrades.
The control of the kissaki suffers.

I don't think anyone with an ounce of physical fitness can fail to do this form fast; to do it fast with all the elements important to a form like Seitei Mae however....well, it feels like I am strolling in the foothills of Mount Yosumi. I have seen Ishido Sensei doing the all the variations of this form and he doesn't fail at each cut to deliver a decisive and convincing dispatch at every point while linking each opponent together into one continuous form.

I do feel like my Kasumi has improved though, I don't know why but I suspect it is by me disintegrating the form slightly and ensuring that each component doesn't suffer by continuing into the next. I further believe that training in MJER at the Okehampton Seminar helped me a lot as this version of Kasumi is far more component focussed and expansive.

In Session 43 I started by helping a complete beginner, Robert, to learn Reiho and then went through Mae in staggering slowness with him although being an Aikido Yudansha he picks things up very quickly. For me to do Mae at this speed was a great technique builder for me and I could feel where the energy had to be put into the components of the form.

In my own training time I decided to work on Chuden. Chris Sensei got me to reduce the movement in my noto and it did start to feel nice and smooth. I got as far as Iwanami and the lesson drew to a close. I finished by getting George to do a little grading demo and gave him some written feedback.

I have an embu movie that George took for me on Session 42 for me to review but it is quite massive being an HD movie so I am going to close this post for now and post another one for that review.

Fair thee well.

Iaido Training Session 40 and Hatsugeiko

2011-01-06T15:03:00.003Z

With the closure of our Monday night beginners class we have now incorporated about 6 new people into regular practice. Last night we received the first three. This creates a refreshing set of circumstances in terms of teaching very basic techniques again. In fact the whole dojo comes more alive when there is more than one training group rather than everybody doing the same thing. I think that part of this is that maybe the optimal teaching group size is no more than one teacher to 3 or 4 students.

It puts some of my "Project Delta" into the backseat but it is all good development for me.

I spent the first 30mins or so just correcting and providing confirmation for how to do reiho and it is amazing how much detail is in it. We then worked on Mae giving emphasis to the Jo Ha Kyu facet of the initial nukitsuke. Again, it is easy to forget how much activity is happening in this simple movement. We got stuck into Ushiro for a bit before I went down the other end of the dojo to supervise the Okuden Tachiwaza group who were murdering some Shinden Koryu.

Before I knew it, the session was up with minimal training on my part. Oh dear. Still the arm is recovering and doing even better from doing some light weight training.

Roll on next session!

Happy New Year.

Iaido Training Session 39

2010-12-31T17:38:00.013Z

Well, the final session for 2010.

I started the session with Harry taking some photographs for the illustrations for Chris Sensei's Shoden Manual.

I gave some thought to the session afterwards concerning the first 4 kata, Shohatto, Sato, Uto and Atarito. These are considered to be the basic kata for Muso Shinden Ryu and teach one to respond to an attack from any direction while still being able to react to various distances as per the requirement of Shohatto. I really like these forms as they all require a slightly different approach and becoming proficient in them is extremely useful to the performance of other iai forms. If one is able to draw almost directly from taito in any direction then this very conducive to being able to draw quickly and smoothly elsewhere.

When I have taught Shoden before I have asked the students to try drawing to various angles by shouting out a clock-time reference after learning this method from Ishido Sensei some time ago. Being able to do these forms well shows through when one can easily turn to any angle almost automatically and move the body into a strong cutting position.

The basic kihon for learners is to come up on the knees while only breaking the koiguchi before turning and moving the front foot into its objective position. As one improves one should avoid coming up on the knees first and try to turn raise and move the body in one smooth action. This action is now recommended for mid to high grades performing Seitei Ushiro.

Anyway, getting back to the session, after the shoot I returned to using the bokuto. I decided to do some work on cutting balance and practiced cutting from a feet together position with my eyes closed and alternated moving the left and right foot forwards and making a cut. At the end of each cut, with my eyes closed it was easier to determine where my centre of gravity was based and where any lacks of balance existed. This exercise tended to make me step my foot out to the side slightly but when I visually checked, my feet were exactly the right lateral distance apart.

I then worked through seitei. Sensei gave me some points about making better use of the body when preparing for thrusts as well as making other elementary movements smoother. I think that working naturally slower as I do with the bokuto is very good at moderating my overall speed of iaido. Hopefully this is one of the facets required for 6th dan.

So, I suppose for this final entry into the blog I ought to set out some short term objectives for 2011 (especially in case I fall off the roof tonight at the party):

Firstly start doing some muscle development training to get some symmetry in my arm strength and thereby hopefully getting my injury sorted out.
Do another Seitei video review and include my chosen koryu.
Carry on working on my balance exercises.
Continue with "Project Delta".
Do a lot of work on Tozume, Ukenagashi and Oroshi.

Anyway, that's it for 2010. Happy New Year to all you have taken the time to read this blog and thanks again to those who have commented or provided other feedback.

Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu!

Iaido Training Session 38 and some thoughts from 2010

2010-12-24T23:06:00.003Z

Ah, some peace and quiet at last on Christmas Eve for me to catch up with some budo stuff. Last Wednesday was the last training session before the non-existant dojo break for Xmas and there was only a few of us down so it was a pleasant session.

I am working with Cezary to help develop his Okuden Tachiwaza which is going slowly and steadily. I started off using just the bokuto to continue to give my arm a rest but then felt a bit compelled to use my shinken again. I found that I had got used to the bokuto's length and had to have a few double takes at doing noto. Doing Okuden Tachiwaza doesn't have much in the way of horizontal nukitsuke or ochiburi so it wasn't too hard on my arm but I have decided to give in to just using the bokuto for the next few weeks. I will see how I feel at the Kangeiko on the 8th Jan...

I wanted to add something here, to say something to all the people who have given me feedback and advice from this blog since it's beginning. I have read everything you have written or said very carefully and while I sometimes cannot completely incorporate the feedback you have kindly provided, it has in some way influenced what I am doing and how I train in the future.

One of the quite common bits of feedback I have received (and this has been from about 3 people) is the surprise that I have put so much emphasis on physical technical correctness. I have written very little about feeling, mental state or emotional content and to this I should respond honestly. The extremely pendantic level of detail I am applying to my training is only part of the training itself that I am undergoing. Let me explain point by point:

Firstly, no matter how I or anyone else justifies doing a more mental or "spiritual" approach to their training, it is the raw and visible technical correctness which will gain most attention on the day of the grading. No matter how alert, aware or intense ones' approach on the day, if they muck up technically, I strongly and assertively believe that they will fail their grading. I don't want to fail and so I am spending a lot of time and concentration on "perfecting" the physical side of the art given the time that I have allocated to training since 5th dan.
One of my own personal objectives for my 6th dan is to drastically reduce and eradicate technical incorrectness. While I realise that technical development continues until death, I want the achievement of my 6th dan to put me in a place where I can work on other stuff rather than sheer technical correctness. Whatever one thinks, there is another side to physical training other than just getting it right (e.g. depth and fluidity of performance) and I want to use this training objective to get to that place.
I do focus on other parts of the martial arts training however these are incredibly difficult to regurgitate into speech or type. The feeling I get when I do a taikai or an embu, the rush of excitement that I feel when I accelerate into Koranto, the natural pauses that occur in a form which seem to be dictated by something outside of oneself - these are all things which are very personal and though primarily this blog is for my own benefit, I am not yet ready to record these things. By analysing them and describing them I am probably misinterpreting them and would be doing them no justice by writing about them at the moment. I find it easier to talk about feeling and the training behind this when doing Jodo, for me Iaido is just a bit too personal to reveal at the moment.
Spreadsheets and Iaido - WTF?!? Well, one uses the resources that are available to them at the time. Perhaps warriors of old took themselves into the mountains and trained for a year living on berries and nuts. I am not likely to be doing this anytime soon. What I do have at my disposal is a professional experience in statistical analysis and some knowledge and experience in coaching and learning styles. By doing this kind of analysis, provided the input data is accurate enough, I can focus my training on those things that really need it rather than "throcking" or focussing on something which actually is adequate for my level.

I will finish this section by quoting something which I will talk about again in the future. This relates to the broader areas of my training including those which will develop my character and my emotional bearing. I will not reveal them in any detail now but all the training that I am writing about is only one of three arms to my 6th dan preparation. Let's call this Project Delta (as it is a kind of triangle of development) for a laff and I can then refer to it again later. Certain things must take place though before I talk about them so there's no point prompting me on them, suffice to say, personally training myself is only one of the three bits of development.

Anyway, the main point of this emotional review is to say thank you to everyone who has given me any feedback on this blog, whether it's some advice or just a point of praise - every single bit of this feedback prompts me to carry on doing this.

30mins to Xmas day, I'm off. Have a good Xmas and I look forward to training with you in 2011.

24th November 2010 Part 4

2010-12-20T13:22:00.005Z

OK, final section...

Concerning the evaluation, I have scored everything according to the database I set up and posted at one of the earlier blogs. Some people fedback to say that it was too detailed and I considered this and set out to see what useful information I could get back by going to this level of detail.

Statistics, being a large part of my work, showed where areas of relative competence were in comparison to areas of needed concentration in practice. I averaged the overall kata scores and median'd the technical scores. Each was then given a red/amber/green status depending on whether it was the worst, below average/median or above average/median.

From the graphs of these scores it is easy to see how the RAG status applies:

Obviously from this one session it appears that Mae and Sanpogiri need a lot more general work.
Noto can clearly be seen to be a problem from the tech scores. Of course as more data are added then some anomolies will disappear (Mae being the first form would have been the most "cold").

So, yes it does take a bit of time to review the videos, score the performance and then analyse the data. I think though the last time I did this it became easier and easier to do as well as quicker.

What other news? Oh yes, I was advised by one of the readers (Mark) of this blog that a rest would be of much use especially if I was suffering an injury. The good news is that that is exactly what I have done and my arm is slowly recovering. I actually missed last Wednesday's practice as I was a bit knackered after Poland and work that day and I think that this is all helping, as well as Xmas, to recover. I must ensure that I start to build up strength in it again though with some gently weight training over the holiday (maybe lifting beers).

I was in Poland the weekend before last and ended up having to deliver an iaido seminar singlehanded (although with the higher grades help) which had simultaneously Shinden, Jikiden, Seitei and Suioryu going on. It was a very enjoyable event (for me anyway) and good to see everyone working so hard. It is easy to spot people improving in the durations that I don't get to see them train. For me it was also an opportunity to work on stuff while I was demonstrating and teaching. The thing that came through the most was using the left hand even more during nukitsuke to get an effect on the sword. This seemed to work very well with the kissaki moving out with what felt like natural ease. I also worked a bit on Ryuto in trying to get the thing to fit a larger body.

So to conclude this entry my to-do list includes:

To reconstruct my noto so that my right hand doesn't fly up to shoulder height. I think this will be done through the obvious effort of keeping my right hand down, allowing the sword to go more to 45 degrees rather than forwards and of course to use a bit more left hand.
To watch my shoulder on nukitsuke.
To monitor my furikaburi in Mae and Ushiro and make sure I'm not breaking the "law".
To get Sanpogiri sharpened up in term of timing and stability.

There! Four things to work on at the next few training sessions instead of a billion! It was worth doing the spreadsheet afterall....

24th November 2010 Part 3

2010-12-20T12:54:00.002Z

A bit of editing error here, oops. From 7 - 9.

Easy to identify a problem with standing noto now.

Pretty pleased with Soetezuki though as this used to be my least favourite form.

Evaluation of embu on 24th November 2010 Part 2

2010-12-20T12:22:00.002Z

Moving onto forms 5 - 6

Very easy to see especially using slo-mo:

- Good: timings of draw, hikinuki no kaburi, stability of cuts
- Bad: Noto left thumb opening and right hand way too high, yokochiburi right hand too high

Onto video 3...

Evaluation of embu on 24th November 2010 Part 1

2010-12-09T21:42:00.004Z

Yay, big hairy embu evaluation time!!!

I call it an embu, it's not really, more of "a practice run for evaluation" and scoring.

Anyway, I've completed Seitei 1-4 on the attached film.

Using the progress log I designed I can tell that Mae is the worst than the rest and within the component techniques, kirioroshi is the worst (bouncing and cutting too low). Furikaburi and noto also have some habits of dropping below horizontal and opening the thumb respectively.

I think I can only post so much into one blog entry so I will move onto the next post.

Iaido Training Session 35, 36, 37 and one Koryu Seminar in Okehampton

2010-12-09T17:18:00.004Z

Once again I have managed to get delayed in writing these blogs up. The last few weeks has seen my training progress downwards somewhat from folded steel to lumps of wood. How did this happen?

I started regular training on session 35 with my now regular warm up but as soon as I started kata practice my right arm started to bloom with pain. Harry suggested that I use a bokuto for this session and I took this piece of advice.

It is a funny thing to train with a bokuto at this level. I think one realises quite quickly that there is no point trying to use excess strength because the sword isn't heavy and it won't whistle much either. It does however make one concentrate on the body and the feet a lot more though.

I worked through the session like this and quite liked the after effects of not having a burning in my forearm for the next day.

That following weekend was Oshita Sensei's Koryu Iaido Seminar in Okehampton organised by Peter West. I was invited to go and translate which I was delighted to do as Oshita Sensei's advice is always a) very practical and b) very close, if not identical, to what Ishido Sensei teaches. Koryu aside, there are of course some stylistic differences but these are easy to classify into what is good advice generally, what is good advice for me now and what is good advice for another me in another time. I arrived Friday afternoon a little ahead of Oshita Sensei and Peter and thus used up the time doing some Jodo training Mike Reilly in preparation for his 4th dan.

Sensei arrived and we started with some seitei practice. Sensei went through some points of clarification which were presented to the 8th dans at the central seminar this year. What was very nice was the fact that he was able to specify whether these points where absolutely necessary for us to ponder over or whether we were already obeying them in some other format (difficult to describe this point).

On Saturday morning we continued with a bit of Seitei before starting koryu. Shoden Omori Ryu was practiced and I always enjoy learning these Jikiden versions as I have said before, it helps me to use other feelings and parts of the body in the iai when I have other models to emulate. I also led David Parker and Themis Woellwarth through the Shinden Shoden although to be fair most of the techniques are almost identical.

Sunday saw a continuation of the koryu into the Chuden and Okuden, all of which were equally enjoyable to try the Jikiden versions as well as practice the Shinden.

Throughout the whole seminar I continued to use a bokuto and plastic saya. It really helped me to work on effortless sword action, body movement and balance while not having to worry about the screaming pain in my arm. This, I consider, a bonus.

Sensei went onto discuss the requirements of leadership to the group while relaxing in the bar afterwards, it was very enlightening.

The following Wednesday I carried on with the bokuto working through the seated oku and trying to get my legs to work better. Chris Sensei showed me a slight change in the timing of Shohatto, something I am sure to struggle with in the forthcoming duration. We also all had a go at Sodesuregaeshi, experimenting with some kaewaza.

Last night's practice was a quiet one with only myself, Steffi and Eiko there. I thought I would use the time to simply go through all of the seitei and koryu kata and then do a bit of work on the forms with kaewaza. Some of this is in preparation for this weekend's Iaido Koryu Seminar in Poland which I am supposed to be teaching at.

I also helped Steffi with her learning Shoden and laid it on quite thickly about Junto. This form is of course quite different from others. My original teacher told me that it wasn't actually iaido in the clearest sense as it did not have a combatitive engagement to it traditionally. Instead, it was trained in in order that if a competent swordsman were to be called upon to carry out Kaishaku duties then they would be able to do so.

In my opinion I feel that the training of Junto/Kaishaku should be different from the other kata as well. For whatever "practical" purposes one has for training in iaido they might not apply or begot from this form. Instead, as this form has no real "practical" purpose i.e. we are unlikely to be called upon to cut off a friend's head while they disembowel themselves, we should use it in another aspect. For me, this is the training of "The One Cut". This means that in other forms, one is always carefully balancing the full committment to a cut against the necessity to defend oneself and possibly changing the technique or direction. This is something of an enigma how one can instill 100% seme and generate 100% tame but I guess this is the purpose of training. In Junto/Kaishaku however, this necessity is not present. All one need do is delivery the one perfect cut. It has to be perfect, there should be no second chances. This does not mean cutting as strongly as one can but merely that one's whole mental focus and emotional strength are coupled with a natural level of physical power to make this something like what a karateka feels when he has to break a very challenging piece of wood. So this is it, The One Cut. Just my opinion.

From last night I ascertained a few things:

1. Doing a long warmup and stretch and definately very beneficial to training. I noticed very few of the usual pains and I was able to move myself off my feet with a fraction of the effort I normally experience.
2. My legs are definately getting stronger and this is helping my iaido no end. Seated okuden in particular which requires getting up swiftly is far easier with responsive legs.

I'm just experimenting with Windows Movie Maker to chop up a video of one of my embu that I did a few weeks ago. I'll post it when it's finished.

Tally ho!

The Four Levels of Zanshin Part 2

2010-12-07T13:24:00.002Z

Peter's FB post reminded me that I hadn't properly explained a previous blog post concerning The Four Levels of Zanshin

To expand their meaning I have described how they relate to kirioroshi and would refer readers to Ogura Sensei's interview which can be googled to get even more detail:

1. Sekka no kurai - The body of a rock - This is a reference to a spark from rocks when they are struck together. This means that the actual delivery of cuts is instantaneous with no warning of its impending delivery.
2. Tsuyu no kurai - The rain dripping from a leaf - This describes how one builds up to the cut just as a drip of water will accumulate at the tip of a leaf very gradually and then gravity finally overcomes viscosity and the drop falls.
3. Bonsho no kurai - The echo of the ringing of the buddhist bell - This describes the after effect of the cut - no movement, no signs of action or intention, just the low, deep echo of the event.
4. Hei no kurai - The fart that cannot be heard - I would suggest that this means that without any warning or sign, people around you just fall over dead. While humerous this does I believe have some reason of rhyme to it. It almost captures the previous three as one who can dispatch all their opponents with no apparent movement or effort.

The first three (which are supposed to be the legitimate levels) are of course not in order of the event i.e. first their would be tsuyu in the preparation of the cut, then sekka as the cut is delivered and then bonsho as post-cut zanshin takes place. The order is I believe supposed to indicate levels of expertise in the order in which they would be naturally learned.

First one learns to cut quickly, using effort and speed but ultimately where good technique means that natural speed and power occur without undue effort. This is Sekka no Kurai.

One then learns how to develop the johakyu leading up to the cut such that an opponent is unable to defend, dodge or counterattack the oncoming cut. One's taisabaki, balance, ashisabaki, ma-ai and merihari are all instrumental in developing the "build up".

Finally, the unmoving, unfettered mind and body which exist after the cut can be felt only like the echo of a bell, slowly fading as the event of killing one's enemy slips into the past. This is what we understand by the word Zanshin.

Anyway, just some of my thoughts and interpretations of things that I have heard or read from more senior practitioners and teachers. I have tried to visualise these aspects into my kata of late to what I think is a positive result.

Iaido Training Session 34

2010-11-21T22:23:00.004Z

And so we continue on the yearlong slope down towards the grading. I have in the last week or so conversed with many people about the European Iaido Championships especially concerning the grading. Those of you in the know will know that it was something of a massacre with only one 6th dan candidate passing out of all the 5th, 6th and 7th dans. I certainly thought there were at least a few who were worth their salt in this grading including my good friend Henry Schubert whose mental image I use for how people do Jikiden (this isn't to say that there aren't other people more experience than Henry, only that I have worked more with him than any other Jikiden person in koryu).

The results of this examination have crystalisd my drive though, I now realise that I cannot at any rate, take my foot off the accelerator in training myself for my 6th dan. Too much training may not be enough.

Anyway, on this particular Wednesday 17th, no sensei and so we all had a party. Not really, but we did all work on koryu. Even given the drive I am feeling to train more, my right arm was then and is still feeling the effects of last week's overenthused ochiburi's and I wasn't in the mood for lots of training. I spend some time with Raj and now have him up to Tsukikage! He's doing very well and is very enthusiastic to learn and train new forms.

I spent a bit of time "testing" my balance at end of cuts and think I will work on this next week with a bit of sayu ashi giri training. George filmed me doing an embu but can't download it yet to evaluate it. I am wondering if there is a budo training app for the iTouch.

Iaido Training Session 29 to 33 and everything else

2010-11-17T12:41:00.004Z

Should I have shaved on the morning of the European Taikai?

Well it has been a busy period, I have missed posting onto my blog several times but the sheer number of events both martial artistic and work related have kept me away from cold evenings huddled around my computer screen.

Since my last training blog post thingy I have:

Taught at an Iaido and Jodo referees seminar in Warsaw
Co-delivered the Jodo seminar and grading in Darlington
Been to the European Iaido Championships

Obviously it is impossible for a person with as shabby memory as my own to recall each and every details of my training recently so I will stick with the highlights...

In the Dojo

Training has been fairly quiet recently, without Lucy and Aurelien there the atmosphere has been a bit calm and staid and sometimes difficult to motivate myself to doing pre-taikai training without the whole representation of our dojo there. I have been working a lot on koryu lately mainly to try to strengthen my legs and make it look somewhere close to the same level as my seitei. As usual, Chuden has been my choice of forms in the main and I have learned quite a bit about Iwanami especially in terms of how to turn and do the driving cut. Weight distribution seems to be key with this form and it cannot be performed properly if this weight control is lazy. Trying to get the right balance of large and small technique is also interesting with the first three forms and I think this is something I need to personally research.

Raj has also compelled me to think about Jikiden quite a bit to the point of asking one of the Polish guys to show me some of his Omori Ryu to remind me of the finer points. It is quite an interesting feeling to do a different ryuha even one as close to Shinden as Jikiden is. There seems to be a more obvious contrast of large and small movements in the techniques and I guess a lot of this is from me emulating Henry Schubert's expansive way of doing the kata.

I think I now want to start doing the videoing process of tracking my technical progress and have asked George to bring his camera to the dojo. Guess it's time to break out the spreadsheet...

In Poland

Jock Hopson Sensei, Harry and me were invited along with Robert Rodrigues Sensei to deliver an Iaido and Jodo referees seminar in Warsaw. It was a very pleasant experience, not much to say on the Iaido development front though only that the event reminded me how much a skill like judging and examining requires soooo much experience. Jock saw things that I hadn't even noticed during both events of the taikai and the shinsa.

At the European Iaido Championships

The event this year was held in Paris and the BKA team was fully prepped through a 10-hour coach ride from Waterloo, through a wormhole in the Paris orbital and deposited somewhere in Albania.

The event was preceeded with a one-and-a-half-day technical seminar and then a half day referees seminar. I don't want to dwell on this event too much and you will have to ask me personally on my opinion of that event - it wasn't pretty! Suffice to say, it is always an expectation that seitei will change slightly through time, I am however surprised though when it changes from being practical to utterly impractical and actually impossible to demonstrate rationally. Perhaps I should forget it for now.

The taikai event was interesting though. I won my pool and went through the tournament to be beaten in the final by Michael Simonini from Belgium. He has lovely expansive technique but manages to keep it very much under control by not being overly tall but well built. You can see his depth of practice by the sheer control he maintains over his body and sword. The event also allowed me to pit myself against Claudio Zanoni from Italy, my good friend. I have had to change my Iaido in the last few years to beat Claudio by removing the heaviness as much as possible. Claudio is light and sharp and able to maintain a strong posture and I have had to try to do the same. I also went up against Matti Pajaujis from Sweden who only entered into the 5th dan category from last year's grading. Matti is more compact and robust and his cuts are very sharp. Both Michael and Matti were, I think, the only ones to pass their 5th dans when they took it in their group.

So what did I learn?

From Kishimoto Sensei:

At 5th dan don't start the embu by standing up and sitting in a different pose such as tatehiza. Start a kata from seiza, this is much more preferable to the judges and examiners.
When performing Chuden forms with a one-handed oblique draw, the sharpness of the cut relies upon keeping the yokote of the sword in the saya and then using the hips and chest to get the sharpness of the movement. This is different to Shoden which uses a more regular balance of sayabiki and sayabanare to create johakyu.
Try to use breathing to generate the timing of drawing and cutting especially the tension created by squeezing the breath.

From Rene Sensei:

Try to turn the hips more to face the body forwards in the stepping cuts.
Be careful not to use your right arm as a rifle scope on nukitsuke.
Regulate Shihogiri timing more to avoid jumping from one cut to the other.

From Momi Sensei:

Watch the footwork on Ukenagashi to create the proper "i" position and not stepping the left foot to far forwards.
Avoid stepping off the centreline too much in Sanpogiri.

Doing some pre-taikai training with Aurelien and Daniel also was a bit enlightening when Dan was having problems with the "new" footwork with Ushiro. He was finding himself off balance and I rationalised, tested and proved that keeping the back stock straight was essential in being able to do this rotation quickly. The period also reminded me that young 3rd and 4th dans are liable to rush through furikaburi and not be able to create the right merihari.

Having examined the fight on film and listening to things people have been saying as well as watching performances, I have concluded I need to work on the following items as well as regular kata training:

Improving my cutting technique to ensure that my balance is absolutely perfect at the end of the cuts.
Continue improving nukitsuke to keep my sword down and thus my shoulder (an action that Peter West Sensei keeps reminding me to work on, thanks Peter.)
Ensuring that the raising of the hips with Ochiburi is absolutely synchronised and sharp.
Ukenagashi footwork and timing.
Ukenagashi footwork and timing.
Ukenagashi footwork and timing.
Make sure that the first draw in Sanpogiri doesn't take a shortcut in front of the face but actually passes over the head (see video above - it's very obvious on both of us).
Maintain flexibility overall but carry on working on lower body and core strength - this makes iaido much easier.
Start to rebuild strength in right forearm to avoid injury - throwing painkiller-numbed chiburi's around is leaving me a message right now.

Well lots to work on again, I have also noted that although the dates for the EIC 2011 are different to this year, I have now done my penultimate EIC at 5th dan and there is a dizzy slope down (or up) towards my grading. The clock is ticking.

Iaido Training Session 28

2010-10-18T22:27:00.002+01:00

A really excellent session this afternoon at Hilary's dojo in SW London. We started with some usual warm up cutting exercises which naturally knackered my right arm during nukitsuke. We next were able to go through each Seitei form 3 times spending our attention on control and making sure each element of each kata was balanced and significant. It was a really good opportunity to do some technical tweaking.

After this was a session of free practice and I managed to get a couple of embu practices in. I am still finding a combination of three koryu plus either all the odds or all the evens of the Seitei makes a nice long but concentrated duration.

We finished with a grading practice and I did Towaki exactly how I wanted to, enough tame to control the form and give it some meaning and enough seme to drive the form at the right okuden speed. It was a bit weird at the end of the form as it kind of went automatically and I wasn't aware exactly of doing the form. Strange.

Anyway, a nice session.

Iaido Training Session 27

2010-10-15T17:47:00.005+01:00

Why does Chuden make so many references to clouds? Because I've discovered that you need to climb mountains into the clouds to get your legs strong enough to do the bloody forms!

Prior to this training session I had spent the weekend hiking and scrambling up a few Welsh peaks with some friends. Though I missed a Jodo training session having this nice time away it does have the effect of strengthening up my legs and hips, or more likely, reminding me how pudgey I am becoming sitting at a desk.

This Wednesday in question, we were visited by Aram from NY who is an absolute gentleman and it is always great to have him train with us.

We started going through the seitei in front and back sequence as before and I do find this order to be of benefit in waking up the brain a bit. Each kata starts to become an individual challenge rather than just another step in the sequence.

I noticed that Aram's cutting, while quite powerful, tended to bounce at the bottom of the cut thus inclining his body forwards in a slightly jerky motion so I spent some time with him getting him to put the power into the right place (i.e. at the commencement of the cut) and avoid forcing it through the vertical stroke. The use of tenouchi to motivate the cut, to focus the cut and to brake the cut is so important and I am finding it more difficult to teach these points as it starts to become second nature. I realise that there is a slight difference in emphasis between Ishido Sensei (who I learned this tenouchi from) and Oshita Sensei, however both use a graduated tenouchi to control the sword and I think that this is something vitally missed by lots of people. There is a lot of talk of using tenouchi and shibori at the point of the sword hitting the opponent's head but this kind of misses the point.

(Note, images will enlarge if clicked)

Tenouchi is a continuous action of adding energy to the sword (and I mean the literal physics-based energy, not the woo-woo) starting by moving the sword, accelerating the sword, focussing the power of the sword and braking the sword. These are all smooth transitions and can be easily emulated in "normal life" - try:

a) shaking an umbrella
b) hammering in a nail

If you are confident and competent in both these activities then you will spot the parts of tenouchi being used to certain degrees. When I learned how to do kirioshi from Ishido Sensei it became very obvious that the arms (and by that I really mean the shoulders) do less and less work and rely more on the inertia of the sword being driven by the tenouchi than by rotational kinetics.

It's an interesting movement to study as the whole framework is dynamic: your grip is accelerating the sword, the sword is accelerating your arms, your arms are accelerating the point of grip, the grip further accelerates the sword etc. I think it is this mechanism of positive feedback which really accelerates the kissaki at an exponential rate and marks the difference between Joe public swinging the sword and someone who does iai. It also underlines the important of tenouchi. Have I already said this?

Anyway, this coaching session went on for nearly 30 minutes and I found various things that Aram was doing which was causing problems, one being pulling the rear foot up with too much effort.

I interspursed this with working on my Chuden which felt much smoother with my legs feeling a bit stronger. I hope to continue some kind of regular exercise to keep this muscle firmanent in place. My sensei pointed out that my left hand wasn't being used properly in Yokochiburi and I have to train this tomorrow at the Saturday class. Not enough to simply place the left hand on the hip: it has to utilise as much energy as the right hand.

Iaido Training Session 26

2010-10-07T15:24:00.003+01:00

An early arrival at the dojo on this evening allowed me to spend a bit of time doing embu practice. My typical sequence at the moment is two kata from each koryu set and then either the odd or the even numbers of the seitei. If I can do this as "one movement" without anything being too bad then I am pretty pleased with myself - it certainly takes a lot of concentration.

As the others arrived and I started the class I could think of nothing more mind numbing that just allowing people to do free practice (= 50% standing around thinking about stuff) or everyone doing seitei 1-12. Instead I thought I would keep people's concentration a bit alive by starting with 1 and then going to 12, back to 2, then 11, then 3, then 10 etc. This seemed to make the thing feel a bit less like "7 kata down, 5 to go..." kind of practice.

As we went into free training I decided to work on the first three okuden suwari waza. The first two offer some specific difficulties for me. Kasumi is a bugger to do with a long sword (although I am the proud owner of the "kotsu" or bones of the form) and Sunegakoi is a bugger to do with long legs especially as you should end up at the same height at the point of the block as if you had one knee down.

I then spent some time working on Shihogiri and its myriads of kaewaza. I find this form so interesting in the pressures that the exponent is supposed to deal with, I really think that getting this one sorted would really move ones understanding of iai to another level. Ahh well, still quite a way to go...

Anyway, I then decided to spend some time helping Raj Jeer, one of our new visitors from the Midlands and with a Jikiden original background. He is always working so hard on his seitei and I saw him go through it a few times and asked him if he knew any koryu. On the basis that he didn't I thought I would put all that Oshita-sensei-translating time to some use and taught him the first 6 Omori ryu kata. I found this very enjoyable actually to have to spend some mental bandwidth remembering exactly what I was supposed to do. Raj picked it up well.

I would like to close on a mention of warming up. I have now put myself in the habit of spending about 20 minutes on warming up and stretching if I arrive early enough at each section. I try to do this systematically and stretch further than I would have to do in actually doing a kata. I am hoping that this will build up some core strength, improve flexibility, reduce wear and tear a bit and it definately makes me work better and for longer. I simply don't feel so fatigued towards the end of a class or the next day. I heartily recommend it.

Right I'm off to march up mountains in Wales...

Iaido Training Session 25

2010-09-23T01:15:00.002+01:00

Not a fantastically vigorous session tonight, a lack of a sensei and some required coaching for the upcoming Europeans kept me distracted from getting my ass in gear.

It did however allow us to look at the footwork of some of the seiteigata and I thought I would like to look at this, specifically with regard to sanpogiri.

In fact let's look at it, and I will say no more for a while...

The Four Levels of Zanshin

2010-09-20T12:45:00.004+01:00

Just thought I would record here the learning points from the Eindhoven summer seminar concerning zanshin from Ishido Sensei.

The explanation came up while Sensei was trying to get a better expression of zanshin in various parts of the kata when other people demonstrated. Two particular fine methods, both relating to the assumption of jodan no kamae, were explained. The first involved Ishido Sensei standing in chudan awase with the exponent, a position from which the student had to take jodan no kamae without allowing an opening. This created an incredibly sticky feeling in the movement and the student being extremely focused on the person in front of him. In the second instance and relating to Shihogiri (and could be adapted to Sanpogiri easily) he arranged four people around the exponent where the imaginary opponents would have fallen. Given the necessary close proximity of these opponents, this created a very congested area to move around in and more affected the finishing parts of taking jodan no kamae.

The diagram shown is the best I can do to summarise the ideal scenario for getting some practice in this with five other helpful dojo members. I must try it when there is a free and quiet moment.

To follow this explanation, Sensei went onto describe the various levels of zanshin affecting mind and body, they are as follows (in order of "depth"):

Sekka no kurai - The body of a rock
Tsuyu no kurai - The rain dripping from a leaf
Bonsho no kurai - The echo of the ringing of the buddhist bell
Hei no kurai - The fart that cannot be heard

The last of course raised quite a laff!

Anyway, back to work.

Iaido Training Session 24

2010-09-16T13:44:00.002+01:00

Quite a lot of leg and chiburi work done tonight in order to sharpen ochiburi up a bit. I definately need to start initiating the standing before the sword starts on it's way.

Brought some cardboard box targets for Ukigumi, Yamaoroshi and Iwanami tonight as well which was interesting. It really shows a) how difficult it is to draw on these forms and b) how much initial distance you realistically have to take at the beginning for the form to make sense if you are tall (especially Yamaoroshi).

Sensei changed our Yukichigai 2nd cut timing a bit this evening as well. It certainly does stabilise things a bit but does take out some of the continuity.

Used Koranto a bit again to clean up some points as well as some hayanuki which I defo need to put into my training schedule to strengthen up my legs, improve stamina and kata quality while panting like an apoplexy victim.

Iaido Training Session 23 - Using Koranto and Changes to Chiburi

2010-09-13T20:36:00.007+01:00

This particular Wednesday gave me the chance of some good practice with only 3 other students there. I decided to leave them alone as much as possible, do some practice and get some scrutiny.

I started on some basics and worked at Shohatto for a while until starting to become a bit dissatisfied with it. I should be honest here and state that my love for Shohatto comes from the ability to really put some dynamic and decisive zip into the last cut. The synchronising of the body movement with a more natural furikaburi allows one to make this final cut appear well and truly, final. After a bit of a thrash though I wasn't feeling the zip was there anymore and I remembered what Ishido Sensei had said only a few weeks previously - "use Koranto when in a fix and in need to sort out problems".

I did this and could feel a much more pronounced looseness in my posture to the point where the tip would bounce and lose much of its sharpness. I tried to visualise what I was doing and "spotted" my head bouncing forwards with the cut, this meaning that my upper body was doing the same and so I worked on pressing my neck into my collar during the cut. Sure enough, this straightened my upper body, extended my spine and improved the stability of my cut. I tried this in Shohatto and it proved successful. I don't like to leave things simply fixed but thought about what had caused this, I concluded that too much upper body leading on the nukitsuke was being carried through into the kirioroshi. I needed to moderate this inclination in the early part of the kata too. Once again this led me to another link in the chain of cause and effect - my hand is too high in nukitsuke and I am peering down my shoulder. Well more work to do here and at least I know what to work on.

Around this point my sensei arrived and put me through some of my basic paces starting with chiburi. According to his instruction I was too used to bringing the sword to the side of my head and then lifting it over. I needed to use the elbow more proactively to bring the sword straight into position to perform ochiburi. I have summarised his teaching point below and I believe that a picture paints a thousand words so I won't try to explain it too much. The sequence on the left shows how I was doing it. It can be seen that the elbow starts moving down only to lift back up again. This causes the course of the sword (shown in red) to take several turns before going into chiburi. On the new way, the upper arm should stay in place until the forearm is virtually vertical. From thereon the elbow should be used thus straightening out the swords course. I have shown this on the right sequence below and the final image shows all the sequences overlaid to show the clearer course of the sword and arm.

This will take some time to get used to especially as I have done quite a lot to get the right amount of flexibility in the hand to make a good chiburi.

Sensei was then kind enough to video certain parts of my forms, starting with Yokogumo. The point of this was to show where the saya control was not so smooth. The nukitsuke was okay but noto shows a) a bit of a lack of sayabiki and b) too much effort returning the koiguchi over the sword (the saya judders a bit). For you dear reader who may be grading soon, please observe the amount of sayabiki on nukitsuke as this is how it should be...

I was quite pleased with my foot positioning on this form, I just hope the 6th dan grading panelists have got mirrors to watch my kata from the rear!

The next point was noto on standing forms such as Sanpogiri. See below:

From this I gleaned:

First cut may need to be bigger by using tenouchi and wrist position with more concentration.
Position of hands when walking needs to be lower (it looks like I'm about to grab).
Lateral head position in Jodan kamae is too over to one side.
Head elevation in Jodan kamae, looking down too much.
The body is being used too much in noto instead of using the left hand more.

This last point was the reason for me being filmed. While I am able to moderate my right hand movement on noto I am using the body too much and not the left hand enough to do sayabiki. This needs some augmentation including lowering the right hand objective position as well as ensuring that the course is 45degs out to the right front instead of 25degs.

What else did I do?

Oh yes, a more smooth sword drawing in Seichuto and thus moving away from the basics slightly. Did some target practice on Ukigumo with a chair and my bag, I may well bring a cardboard box down next week to practice kata Chudan 4-6 on to make sure I am doing it right.

That's all folks!

2 Summer Seminars, Iaido Training Session 22, What I did last summer and The Living Tenouchi

2010-09-02T00:03:00.006+01:00

Well here I sit, the other side of two summer seminars, lots of things I should write but a memory relatively devoid of smart comments or suggestions. I made some notes which I would like to post for the benefit of those reading this blog but otherwise I think I will emphasise the subjective conclusions after this sequence of events.

The Iaido seminar in Eindhoven with Ishido Sensei was in my opinion one of the best I can remember. I found it personally very useful and relevant, maybe this is due to me being more attentive to taught detail or maybe it just really was better than before. I picked up so much stuff that I hadn't known before and made a real special effort to absorb as much koryu information as I could.

The emphasis of the seminar seemed to be about "Jiri Ichi" (lit. fact and theory as one) which refers to ensuring that one's logical understanding of the kata is practical and is delivered practically as the theory dictates. It's a bit of a recipricol relationship between the "ji" (fact) and "ri" (theory) - both can be either right or wrong. Ishido Sensei also noted the importance on concentrating and training on what you are told and taught and not doing hard training of the wrong thing. This sounds obvious but looking around throughout the training it was even more obvious that people hadn't picked this up and were training really hard but incorrectly. There seemed to be much more emphasis this time on doing it slowly but connecting all the component bits together smoothly.

As the seminar progressed so understanding began to unfold. Things that had just been done during the kata because of command became justified and real. A really good example was the way in which people take jodan no kamae in Sanpogiri and Shihogiri. When four opponents are spaced around the exponent it makes their assumption of the kamae completely different, it was quite enlightening to watch.

Changes to the seitei forms were few although I was surprised to see a rapid transition in Ushiro: we now have to get our feet under quicker and smoother at all levels. Two years ago it was stated that this was a wise option for high grades; it now seems that everyone should be aiming to do this. Ah well, a small practical change isn't a bad thing.

Ishido Sensei also made it quite clear as to why someone would be seated in seiza wearing a daito, this being that historically it wouldn't happen but in order to train the exponent to use the sword efficiently from a physically restrictive position, seated iaido was created.

I made some notes of individual koryu kata here, I would recommend that these aren't taken as verbatim or carved in stone, I have known teachings to change on a yearly basis and so these should be considered snapshots only:

Shoden

1. Shohatto to Atarito: these katas are basic forms teaching one how to move in any direction and any distance. They aren't meant to signify that there are only four directions from which you are attacked, simply that it builds flexibility in the student's movements to move in any direction. By changing the elevation in the sword angle on the draw, one creates Seichuto. By standing up, one creates Koranto.
2. Inyoshintai: From nukitsuke, the elevation of the body is a straight upward slope and does not come up and then drop down into the cut. It is also paramount to keep the back straight on the second nukitsuke to avoid an opponent's cut.
3. Ryuto: after drawing the sword, all the weight should be on the knees with the body inclined (even slightly crouched) forwards. The body twists and rises while raising the sword into hane ageru (beating the sword upwards). Flap the right foot out at the same time the left foot rotates to point at the opponent. The angle of cut is determined by the imagined inclination of the enemy and can thus vary. A flat horizontal cut determines an almost upright oppontent.
4. Gyakuto: raise the hips and put the hands on at the same time. The left foot can step back on the ukenagashi but this of course adds time. The first cut is to the uto followed by a small left foot step and large right foot step (this is a general trend for iaido).
5. Koranto: basic form is left, right, left right. The kata should contain clean and whole techniques and is good to train in when a plateau is hit in one's progress as this kata contains all the basics without the difficulty of working from seiza.
6. Gyakute Inyoshintai: same as honwaza, use the centre of the blade as the fulcrum. The block is to protect the knee so there is no great need for the kissaki to scrape the floor.
7. Batto: offers the question, can you draw in a restricted space? The knees must be spread in such a way to centralise the cut.

There were sessions in Okuden as well but I will keep these to myself for now, I may publish them later.

I think overall, the main difference in this seminar was the visual clarity that all techniques were demonstrated with. Very little was left to personal interpretation and this was reflected in the fact that very few questions were asked.

I took as much time as I could actually joining in with the training and spent some good time with Yoshimura Sensei and his group. We worked through a lot of the tachiwaza from Okuden and I think it was very useful. Sensei also had a look at some of my grading forms and I received some very useful feedback about Towaki.

Zipping forwards now to the BKA summer seminar which was patronized by Oshita Sensei and Morita Sensei. Again the explanations were very clear and after the demos I was assigned to be with Morita Sensei who got the 7th dans and me to set a pace at the front of the dojo for everyone to follow. This meant about two hours of solid seitei practice which was very useful for me as I could take no breaks. I instead found myself realising that I wouldn't be able to keep up the same intensity throughout as I began to run out of steam towards the end. Instead I backed off the power and tried to get the sword to run itself a bit which seemed to work quite nicely.

Over the next day I worked with the koryu group with Oshita Sensei and made the most of re-learning some Jikiden Ryu. I find this study very useful for my own iaido as it shows what may be a more original version of the kata. I don't like to think that I am learning a new style when I do this and I also don't like teaching what I have learned about Jikiden to others as it makes me feel like a fake. I just find that it tells you a lot about your own system which you might otherwise take a lot longer to discover...

The koryu taikai was a lot of fun, it was nice to do some koryu embu and not think about seitei at all. This gave me a chance to work on my grading forms and I did a combination of shohatto, Yamaoroshi and Towaki. The final with Dougie I was quite tense with as I knew that he could make his techniques very large and bold but I think I did my best and smoothest against Harry's in the semifinals. Anyway, I won.

I love Oshita Sensei's approach to technical composition and he has a great way of showing how to make cuts and draws using minimal effort. His teaching of where to put effort into the cut is subtly different to Ishido Sensei (who doesn't seem to worry too much about that particular aspect, his cuts just happen) and is very useful to the student. It was with this in mind that I subtitled this post, the Living Tenouchi. During this evening's practice I tried to physically examine how both tenouchi's worked and reached what I think is for me a satisfactory conclusion. Whether tenouchi is used to begin to move the sword (as per Ishido Sensei) or used later to add focus to the cut (as per Oshita Sensei) I don't think it too critical concerning whether to do one or the other. What is important is that tenouchi shouldn't be a blind, open-loop process. The one and only time that I have performed a kirioroshi as perfectly as I would believe to be satisfactory was when I was trying to feel the mass and impetus of my own sword. I now believe that the secret of good tenouchi is that it doesn't only put power and speed into the cut, it is used as a gauge of position, momentum/impetus, velocity, angle etc. I'm supposing that maybe, the power focus of tenouchi can happen whenever you choose to put it in but the feedback function of tenouchi telling you what state the sword is in is of absolutely prime importance in indicating where and when to engage the power of the cut.

Anyway, after so much training over the last month or so, I found my arms quite naturally doing good cuts this evening although my feet are hurting a bit especially in tatehiza. This could be well down to overeating as well.

Anyway, it's getting late and I have to work a bit tomorrow so I will close but must think about getting a cardboard box down to the dojo to practice Chuden forms on soon....

Iaido Training Session 21

2010-07-29T10:50:00.006+01:00

It's getting a bit tricky to keep on top of this blog at the moment what with work picking up and the fact that I am organising 2-3 events for the BKA at the same time. This, I hope, is actually a positive reflection as it means a) I'm getting my ever fattening ass off my chair more frequently and b) I'm doing more budo stuff generally rather than just regular practice. In fact I had a look at my calendar recently and found that the 15th August will be the first regular Sunday morning Jodo practice that I will have been to in 10 weeks! I realise that a) holidays are fun and b) doing taikai and seminars is of course brilliant practice but I do miss normal regular training in the dojo. I think there is something very special and different about training in your own dojo. Even being at a seminar with your favourite Japanese sensei is probably not as "embedding" as regular training.

Anyway, spent a bit of time last night getting some photos done for my teacher's Shoden Iaido Manual which meant me holding rediculous, mid-move poses for a while although it is quite a good thing to make sure that the techniques are correct. I also discovered some bits about some of the faster moves that I hadn't realised before. For example it never occured to me what the drawing action in Batto (MSR) actually required in terms of movement and direction of the sword. When I saw it on camera it made me think about all sorts of ways to improve my movement (using the left hand more of course being one of them).

I spent most of the rest of the lesson coaching Ray, one of our ikkyu's and resident photographer, for his koryu taikai and 1st dan grading in Brighton. At the end of the session we all took turns to do embu's in groups. I feel quite at home with Shohatto and Yamaoroshi for now but Towaki definately needs some practice. The second cut is easy enough but I am for certain out of control on the first draw. I watched Morishima-sensei's embu of this and it looked brilliant - really direct, simple and devastating. I am a loooooong way from that. I think I would probably fall over if I actually hit something with my sword at the moment. I guess next week might be a good opportunity to get some feedback from Ishido Sensei in Eindhoven.

BKA Nationals 2010

2010-07-12T15:18:00.002+01:00

The Cold Fire...

Not much to report on last Wednesday's practice to be honest so I will focus on our National Taikai which took place last Saturday for Iaido and Sunday for Jodo. The theme for this blog entry is what you gain out of losing and I can certainly say that it is significant at this point.

This year gave the 5th dans the opportunity to do one koryu for their individual's and then follow up with no.2 and no.6. Throughout the early part of the competition I varied my koryu to get the feel of what was working but then settled on Oroshi as things started to get serious. In the end I finalled with Harry and knew that this was going to be difficult. I knew that Harry could be very smooth so I aimed for sharpness and tried to make the forms look like a real fight. Everything seemed to go smoothly and then...I lost 3-0.

I was a bit surprised as I came off as was Harry and we asked if either of us did anything wrong. Nothing seemed to come to light.

As we went into the team event again I lost a flag once and was a bit perplexed. The forms felt quite vigorous. I started to suspect that this vigour was getting the better of me and maybe was too fast for some judges' taste. In the final we were up against our same dojo with Harry as the last player as was I. We were even when Harry and I went on and I thought about how to get this shiai.

I cooled, I calmed...I did the kata. It went smoothly again. I don't think I went any slower to be honest. I won 2-1 (I wasn't surprised to drop that one flag).

There was something different though and I think I have sensed it in doing Jodo Kage before, a certain coolness and quietness to the performance which gives it a fire of its own. Maybe it's tame, maybe it's something else. It seemed to work and felt very nice.

First day back home after the event so might write more on this later.

Iaido Training Session 19 and 20

2010-06-24T00:59:00.002+01:00

I have discovered (not the first person, I’m sure) one of the best methods of training and improving Seiteigata – teach it to beginners. I spent a good half of the lesson just trying to instil a bit more understanding of Seitei to our lower grades including a member of the Monday-night beginners’ class.

By carefully explaining both the rationale and the methodology I found it can really remind you how and what to do. It sometimes feels like a wakening up after having spent so much time improving “performance” and somehow putting to the back of your mind what the basic movements are.

I handed over to Harry about half way through and set my sights on tackling one of the most challenging kata for me – Sunegakoi! This kata which for those whose memory of Okuden might fail them is similar to Toraissoku but requires one to move groin-scrapingly close to the floor to block the shin before swiftly forwards and delivering the coup-de-grace.

This is, for someone as lanky as me, quite difficult. I find that getting my toes under quickly enough to be the first stumbling block and then remaining balanced as the leg moves back to be the next. Then, just when I think that that’s the easy bit done with, I have to move an overly long sword into a blocking position that seems to defy the laws of biology. The moving in and cutting is the easy bit but the fact that one should remain at the same height more or less for the duration of the kata is of course quite a struggle.

Anyway I asked my teacher for some help and looked at how he moved the image I have memorised seems reasonable enough, I think I just need to get my legs strengthened up (surprise surprise). Actually not surprising is the fact that I used to be able to do this with relative ease and it is only through lack of practice and perhaps a widening of the waistline that is causing the problems I am now facing. In my personal opinion this kata warrants a lot of practice on my part as I feel it is the one in seated Okuden that I have most problem with purely from a flexibility and strength perspective.

At the end of this session our teacher commanded us through the Seitei, Shoden and Chuden which I found quite invigorating. I think I need to get the endorphins running some time to get my iaido really working.

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 18

2010-06-10T10:54:00.006+01:00

Not much to say about tonight as there was quite a lot of talking going on. Shame really, last week was so active at the seminar that I was hoping to keep the inertia going. I was chastised a bit for my hips not being stable during noto so this is something to work on I suppose. Apart from that I spent the session working on Shoden. Ah, just remembered, I must combine the preparation for the tsuki on Gyakuto into the forward movement to make it a bit more cohesive.

At the end of the practice we were made to do Koranto with ever decreasing number of steps and I thought I would make it more challenging by throwing in a double kiritsuke at the end. It was surprising how easy it was once I had forgotten what the feet were doing.

Right arm is feeling a bit painful today probably due to the rather large amount of ochiburi's I had to do. That particular part of the technique is feeling better I think largely due to following:

Making sure there is a small rotation of the sword in the hand prior to lifting it. The most reliable time to do this is just after kirioroshi. It is much more fluid to do this while lifting the sword but also much more likely to get the angle slightly wrong (a tiny bit seems to be enough to throw off the whole movement).
Really allowing the hands to relax as the sword approaches the top of the head so that the chiburi action can be initiated by a squeezing of the grip rather than a flinging of the arms.

Anyway, that's it for now, might throw in some more memories of Villingen soon.

Villingen Seminar 2010 - The Hikinuki Armistice

2010-06-08T13:28:00.010+01:00

Well having returned recently from this most excellent seminar I thought I would put finger to key and try and record some of the stuff that was conveyed.

I think the thing that most bothers me at the moment is how much people have got themselves into a flap about hikinuki/ukenagashi ni kaburi. The first thing to consider is that this isn't by any means all that new. Ishido Sensei first conveyed this small change to us at the Hagakure Iaido Seminar back in 2006 (I wrote an article on the seminar which can be found at http://www.daedalusdesign.co.uk/hosted/iaidojodo/articles/articles-hagakure06.htm). At that time it was clearly explained that it was absolutely necessary for the tsukagashira to be leading the upward movement into furikaburi and there was no necessity to keep the tip up during this process.

This principle still exists for all those movements where it is necessary to bring the sword up by going through ukenagashi (i.e. last cut of Morotezuki, cuts 2 & 3 of Sanpogiri, 2nd cut of Shihogiri).

Within one or at most two years, the principle of hikinuki was formalised into the Seitei system. This basically meant that a small drawing-out motion was necessary while bringing the sword up. It was pointed out quite clearly by Ishido Sensei that this drawing out was delivered by turning motions of the body along with a gently contraction of the arms. It has best been demonstrated with one person holding a saya in which the exponent's sword was inserted. From there on a movement, once again through ukenagashi, would lead into furikaburi.

I once asked the question, why go through ukenagashi, and both sensei's Ishido and Kishimoto both explained that it was the most efficient way of moving the sword. As an engineer I find this response to be reasonable and logical. Furthermore we have been urged to keep the sword as close and as aligned with the centre line as possible. Again this makes complete sense in keeping unnecessary movements to a minimum.

So what constitutes going through ukenagashi? Simply put, ensuring that the sword is slanting down from the tsukagashira means that this can be called ukenagashi ni kaburi. The amount of slant is a matter of taste and physical specifics but obviously too vertical would mean a lack of control over the sword, over horizontal and it is no longer ukenagashi.

Why am I posting this? I think perhaps due to the number of people that have thanked me for this blog during the Villingen seminar I thought I would try to give something back which was useful. I sincerely don't think that this ukenagashi/hikinuki thing is something which people need lose sleep about. If one tries to move the sword naturally, succumbing to it's natural inertia, the sword moves exactly as we are told to.

Anyway, perhaps it would be good to clarify these movements in their respective kata:

1. Tsukaate - after the rear thrust, the hikinuki is made naturally by turning back to face the front. By allowing the tsukagashira to be the leading part of the sword, hikinuki and ukenagashi is naturally performed.
2. Morotezuki - after the front thrust, the hands are slightly withdrawn towards the body as the turn is made. From thereon, leading with the tsukagashira produces the desired movement. After the first cut, the turn is made and the sword brought naturally above the head using the tsukagashira to lead the sword up.
3. Sanpogiri - After the first cut, as the body turns the sword is naturally rotated up once again using the tsukagashira as a lead. As the sword reaches its apex above the head, the te-no-uchi action can bring the kissaki up and over in a smooth motion to continue into the cut. The third cut is delivered again by moving the tsukagashira up as you move under and through the sword.
4. Ganmenate - After the rear thrust, use a similar motion to Morotezuki by gradually retracting the arm as it lifts the tsukagashira up over the head to cut (not forgetting to actuate the whole body one body width to the left).
5. Shihogiri - Like Tsukaate, the thrusted sword is gently retracted by both the hands and the turn of the body as the tsukagashira leads the sword above the head into the first cut. The second cut is performed the same way as the last cut in Sanpogiri.

I hope that more or less makes it clear. Again I don't think these aspects were introduced to trip people up; they are merely there to represent the most natural, efficient, smooth and realistic action of the sword.

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 17

2010-05-20T00:33:00.004+01:00

Flexibility, stability and mobility.

All wise aspects of iaido teaching or merely rants from tonight's posting.

Mostly both.

To be sure, these are aspects which I believe are the key physical benefits from practising martial arts. Because they are output benefits means that they are aspects which are exercise during training and thus the performance of the art is greatly improved if these factors are well developed in a person.

...sadly these are factors which I am finding not up to scratch in my own iaido. I have quite nicely settled into a good training regime. I turn up, I warm up a bit and I then slowly work through, one at a time, each koryu kata. I rarely repeat a kata unless it is one of the sticky ones like Ryuto or Ukigumo (in which case I stick to doing it about 3-4 times only). I don't believe that my current shortfall is either a lack of understanding on the construction of the kata or a lack of ability to demonstrate the unique points of certain kata. My problems lie in the execution of basic movements in the kata.

For instance:

the angle of inclination of my sword in nukitsuke is often too "down"
I am frequently in a state of uncertainty just before I start to draw - I think this is born out of a lack of confidence around timing of the foot and sword.
My yokochiburi is inconsistent - often jerky, too large or too small or based on hand movement rather than sword movement.
Noto is a constant pain in getting the balance of spontanaeity without losing control

Aside from those points, I can walk okay.

My training regime is focussed on just exercising and improving those basic points in the various scenario in different kata, therefore I don't spend too much time on any kata.

I completed Shoden and Chuden tonight (it's amazing how little gets done in two hours when you practice slowly and methodically) and worked on a few seated koryu. Doing so much Chuden is showing where my lack of flexibility, mobility and stability is most prevalent. I think that just doing repeated training is the best thing for this - I need to build up more lower body and core strength. I am enjoying working on these by doing a bit of slow training of Urokogaeshi and Namigaeshi. Both are quite challenging in those three factors as rising and turning in tatehiza is quite rare in the koryu.

I have also added Shihogiri from Okuden Surawiwaza to my list of koryu to focus on, I think it's a very good stability developer and will also hopefully go onto building natural cutting speed.

Well at least I hope so.

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 15 and 16

2010-05-13T23:18:00.003+01:00

Thankfully due to the now, more focussed, approach to my training I can remember what I have done for the last couple of weeks.

During last week's practice everybody wanted to go through both okuden sets so we started with suwariwaza and then finished with tachiwaza. The sheer number of kaewaza reminded me of a friend's interpretation of what Oshita Sensei had recently told his students - "focus on the hon-waza; when you have got that right then do the kae-waza". I wanted to share this with our dojo members but at the same time make them aware of the various kaewaza (not that I know them all, far from it). It is tempting to indulge in kaewaza practice but it sometimes reminds me of people who run off and do various styles in order to deepen or broaden their iaido experience while not realising that they are just thinning it. While these two activities are separate, they are not so far apart. Kaewaza exist as representatives of regional differences which are grown from local senior sensei spreading their interpretation amoung their dojo members and possibly visitors from other dojo. I have seen such variations not just in the execution of technique but in the order, naming and assignment of technique as well. Influences from Jikiden and Jushin also sometimes prevail.

Bringing the focus into last night's session, with the return of my sensei from Japan, I decided to work through each koryu form, once each only, in order to a) refocus on honwaza and b) improve individual aspects through varying kata. I decided to not give myself second chances, I would do each kata only once and if I didn't do it to my satisfaction then tough - move on.

I actually found myself making more progress than normal. I think the "one kata only" introduces a certain urgency to technical detail rather than throcking technique. Legs are feeling a bit odd today having done only suwari waza last night (and quite a lot of seiza/listening practice) but it was good to focus only on my own training for a change.

I am still set on trying to lift all my koryu up to some semblence of 6th-dan'ness although will eventually give more priority to my chosen few koryu for presentation.

I also considered my upcoming schedule today, I am going to Villingen, Eindhoven and Brighton so about 3 weeks of intense practice (and some scrutiny I hope).

The last couple of weeks

2010-04-29T23:31:00.002+01:00

Well, here I am, the other side of the BKA Iaido and Jodo Referees Seminar. I have since my last blog actually been to the dojo to do iaido 3 times but the last seminar took something out of me and I haven't had the time or inclination to write.

I think possibly some of this has been caused by the rather grounding effect that Ishido Sensei has on people. I spent nearly one and a half weeks with him, training at different dojo and of course absorbing nearly everything that he has said to nearly everyone during this time. If nothing else, my Japanese has improved.

I have found that the majority of his advice to me has been about getting the basics right (surprise) and it has, as I have said, been quite a grounding experience.

I have for the last couple of weeks found myself standing in the dojo unsure what to actually practice. This hasn't been overall a difficult period; it has caused me to view what others are doing and try and appraise my own iaido through comparison with others. I sincerely think this is a good thing. It has caused a bit of a hiatus in the physical side of my training and last night's practice made me realise how quickly leg muscle tone can say bye-bye.

Just after my last blog I also spent a weekend in Poland teaching koryu. I found this to be quite an enlightening experience as well - there's nothing like forcing yourself to do things correctly when showing them to other people.

Anyway, down to the technical side of things, I will try to summarise all the things that Ishido Sensei has instructed me in the last couple of weeks, some of which are "new"ish, some I knew but just had started to fail to do them properly, some I was doing okay with them....

Preparation in mae and shohatto is much more critical than it seems. The gathering of the grip, the realignment of the tsukagashira, the closing of the knees...these all need to be deeply embedded before the sword is drawn and much before the hips are raised.
The correct level of the sword and the arm in nukitsuke is far lower than is normally presented. One should clearly be able to see the upper flat of the sword.
Sayabiki needs to not only clear the sword out but also add to the cut in nukitsuke.
99% of people don't do the prescribed furikaburi in mae and ushiro.
The build up to the cut in kirioroshi must be sharp - not hard, or fast but sharp.
Kirioroshi is generated by a gripping action of the hands.
The front foot must take position first both in nukitsuke and kiritsuke - this closing but not overlapping of the gap has been a major challenge for years for me.
The right hand position after ochiburi is of course the same for yokochiburi and the forward sword angle is about the same as well - no need for the kissaki to aim inside so much.
Noto needs to project the sword out to 45 degrees - no more, no less (this makes it considerably easier).
One shouldn't load the weight onto the bending knee when lowering the body during noto.
Ukenagashi - don't get me started!
Okay then, the deflection must occur as part of the body rising (hane-ageru).
People's sword position is often correct, it is the body position which is often wrong. It should be the same as kesagiri but about 15 degrees to the left of the centreline.
Tsukaate opponents are REALLY close and the rear thrust can allow the right hand to go past the left elbow.
Morotezuki - hikinuki is performed with only a slight pulling caused by the turning of the hips - after that the lifting of the sword is more or less the same as ukenashi ni kaburu.
This kaburi is meant to represent the most efficient way of moving the sword and should keep the sword as close to the centreline as possible.
At the end of each cut in Sogiri, there must be a feeling of seme rather than just setting up a rhythm.
The cuts need to have a sense of urgency.
Ukigumo needs the same intensity of practice to get right as Ukenagashi (10 of these to every other kata).

Jodo had lots of learning points as well but I think that is the kind of information that requires people to buy me boxes of chocolates or boxes of money for me to reveal....

Anyway, I think that's enough for now. I will try to get back into the habit of doing this blog but other duties are always calling....

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 14

2010-04-08T00:49:00.004+01:00

This evening marked the last iai practice with our sensei for a while as he sods off to Japan to try for his 8th dan Iaido. This means hopefully that I will now be able to spend a bit of time just working by myself and getting some shaku in.

This evening I set myself a plan of combining my four chosen koryu with three seitei into 7-form circuits thus gradually making my way through the seitei but getting the koryu practice stuck in as well. I did the 28 forms (woo hoo - 28!) and then my arm started hurting. It was a bit achey before the practice and I think that most dreaded ailment - gardening - might be responsible.

Perversely I am finding the koryu easier to perform well at the moment, seitei is becoming a bit of a drag.

Ah well, this is it for now, not much to report really. Next Wednesday I will be sensei wrangling to maybe no blog for a little bit.

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 12 and 13

2010-04-02T10:38:00.003+01:00

Session 12 - Koryu Development

So I am now more or less decided on my range of koryu to pick from depending on the shitei waza:

1. Shohatto
2. Oroshi
3. Towaki
4. Ukenagashi

I spent this session after being filmed (posted later in this blog) trying to work through shohatto and oroshi as slowly as possible and get the legs in time with the sword. This it seems is more challenging than it appears.

One of the things that I have had uncovered for me is the way of "levelling" the sword as sayabanare is achieved so that it flies in a relatively flat plane into nukitsuke. Counterintuitively, this isn't achieved by consciously flicking the kissaki up. Instead if one exerts a slight amount of pressure so that the back (mune) of the blade presses against its lower face of the saya, at the point of sayabanare the action of the grip changing the force to motivate the kissaki forwards then seems to automatically bring the kensen up to horizontal. This has the additional benefit of course of stopping the sword either rattling in the saya or the kissaki cutting the koiguchi. I stress though that this pressure only seems to work if it is applied lightly.

I am feeling more at home with all my koryu at the moment and I'm pretty sure this is coming about with a strengthening of my legs. More on this in the next blogpost thingy...

Session 13 - IAIDO AND THE ART OF SEIZA

Quite by accident rather than intention I spent most of last Wednesday night's practice physically trying to answer the question posted on this webforum...

Kendo World - Why Iai Kata from Seiza Are Wrong...

I found this post originally quite annoyingly provocative and the post had been answered to death before long. However during our initial warm ups I decided to spend the whole session just doing Mae, Ushiro and Ukenagashi. I found myself remembering that Iaido is 75% (give or take a chunk) about the feet, in fact the whole form was either made or broken by not having the feet right despite what the upper body did.

I rediscovered a bit of truth with nearly every response on the forum supporting good reasons why iai was done from seiza, not least the reason which I regurgitated from Ishido Sensei that:

Iaido was originally all performed outside and standing. In order to make the training harder, more and more exponents begun their forms from a more prone position, stating the rationale that if one could move quickly and fluidly from a more compromising position then it should make one's performance from a standing position even more expedient.

I am feeling the after effects of this training a bit today, in a good way, and I am hoping that it kicks the rest of my performance into shape a bit. I am definately feeling better all round for having my lower body become stronger.

Anyway I think I will do more of this type of training for the duration. My own teacher was quite pleased when I made all the movements in seitei very softly and simply and emphasised that the synchronisation of certain parts of the body, blended with the stillness of other bits are what made a good 6th dan.

To finish I am going to use this blog to critique my own little koryu embu that I did for the record in session 12:

1. Shohatto - maybe needs a little bit more forward movement on nukitsuke; timing of ochiburi and standing needs improving (actually I worked on this in session 13 by triggering my stand just before the sword started moving from the head); need to keep the end of the chiburi movement more forward (also worked on this in session 13 with mae); need to stop pushing sword down at the end of noto.
2. Oroshi - working on moving noto; need to maintain posture a little bit more during kata.
3. Towaki - need to keep body more stable on 2nd cut.
4. Ukenagashi - actually I was quite amazed that I could get my lard-ass to move this quickly; need to move a bit more off the centreline and forward on the cut.

For those who weren't on the new L2 Coaching Course I recommend VLC Media Player for anyone who wants to use video for a similar purpose. It supports most file types and has slow and fast features for viewing.

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 11

2010-03-18T02:32:00.008Z

Letting go.

Hard to do but exciting with iaido, easy to do but with a different kind of exciting with bowel control.

There's nothing like getting everyone else to partake in your practice for ensuring that you do some training yourself so given that I had the run of the dojo this evening with a bunch of mostly low grades (thank you London Transport) I decided to get everyone to go through the first few forms of Shoden.

I explained where the style came from and what the teaching purpose of Shoden was i.e. to develop basics, to understand distance, to get the body to move. After explaining and showing Shohatto we all went off and gave it a try. I first asked Cezary to film me doing Shohatto so I could see how I was doing. He filmed me from various angles so I could get a good perspective of the overall performance and he also pointed out that my noto was quite agressive and tending to turn my hips.

During the course of the evening we progressed through to Inyo Shintai. During one of the earlier forms I was asked about whether to stop at the end of nukitsuke and I responded by explaining the difference between tome and tame. The former means to stop and has a nuance or resting - something to be avoided in a kata. The latter means to accumulate or as Yuki added, to charge oneself up (which I thought was a brilliant translation) and is what should be happening at those moments of stillness in a kata where it seems that something is going on but it is difficult to perceive what it is. During this explanation I tried to demonstrate two variations of timing between nukitsuke and furikaburi - one by "stopping" (and by this I mean not resting but "tameru'ing") and one just carrying on moving. This was interesting for me as while I had seen my sensei doing it once or twice I had never done it myself. I did it and surprised myself how easy it was to carry on through from the nukitsuke into a seme action and then into kaburi and kirioroshi. I will have to ask at the right time if I should attempt to do this at the grading, I have certainly seen a few high graded Japanese do it at an embu (not that that should allow me license to do it myself I understand).

The lesson pretty much carried on like this until Sensei arrived and we wrapped up for the evening. On getting home I reviewed the videos and am still quite surprised as many of the problems I thought I might still have are gone and I have improved in areas that I wasn't paying much attention to.

Things that immediately grab my attention are:

The sword is springing up into a horizontal position just between sayabanare and nukitsuke.
The timing of my feet and my sword are pretty good.
My shoulder isn't too high and the grip looks quite strong.
The seme leading into the furikaburi seems adequate (maybe a bit short but I don't want it to drag).
The bringing forward of the saya is well timed with the furikaburi.
I am not overextending my arms or overcutting the sword in kirioroshi.

Things I need to be careful of though:

My head is a little bit too far forwards in nukitsuke.
There is a little bit of rocking going on with my body movement during the gaps in forward movement (like my body is settling back after braking hard).
My head is too far dipped when I am looking down.
The noto needs to be calmed and made smoother with no extraneous body movement.

Apart from that I am slightly filled with a bit of confidence although I have to go through the videos with a fine tooth comb (AKA VLC media player and slow-mo). The one video which did surprise me was the one taken from the front. Usually I hate my iai from this perspective as everything looks unbalanced and without much effect but this doesn't show up so much this time.

Anyway I am posting one or two of the videos on this blog for posterity, please excuse the funky wall decorations (and the appearance that I have a mohican...).

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 10

2010-03-15T08:51:00.002Z

Session 10 which nicely coincides with 1000 hits on this blog (I have to assure you they weren't all mine). Saturday at Hilary's, I'm finding it a lot easier to get even minor improvements by only focussing on one or two kata per session. Thankfully Hilary wanted everyone to do shohatto today so that's what we all did for about an hour.

I'm finding that focussing on getting my feet under me earlier helps to get the posture right but tends to tip me a little bit too fast before the sword is ready now. I guess I need to be more active with the draw and try to get a little bit more merihari into the movement. I think I now am feeling the need to be filmed and do some detailed analysis of my kata, I'm sure I will see the roadblocks a bit easier if I do some visual critique.

Anyway, I'm re-finding the strength in the lower half of my body again and it's taking a lot of strain out of the upper half. Ochiburi feels more stable but I am still having to work on keeping my belly tucked in a bit and not leaning back.

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 9

2010-03-11T16:32:00.004Z

This is probably where I should add and confirm that the last year or so has seen a decrease in my iaido "fitness" due to lack of concerted practice. Having to get people through their grades and the unexpected fullness to the dojo had me put into a bit of a teaching position which is probably one of the best ways to lose ones physical build of the muscles required to do Iaido smoothly and in control.

The last few weeks of training since starting my 6th dan preparation in ernest has led to a noticeable strengthening of the legs and the reduction in tendonitis is, I'm sure, caused by a development of arm muscle (which is obviously much better at brakeing a cut than joints and tendons).

On this particular Wednesday night I was compelled to do a little embu before we started practice. I chose my star forms for the time being, Shohatto and Towaki, and had Ushiro, Tsukaate and Soetezuki assigned as Shiteiwaza. Rather than doing the reiho in the clipped military style I have been used to I decided to try and do it completely silently and as polite and smooth as possible. I could feel the seconds slipping away but was aware that my forms were quite short (except Shohatto which, and this may come as some surprise, has it's seitei version, Mae, as the second longest form in duration of all the seiteikata, beaten only by Ushiro). I tried to replicate the same feeling in the closing reiho and finished to find out I had gone to 6 minutes and 19 seconds! Oops.

This is quite rare for me as I am fairly used to taikai timings and making sure I don't go OT so I was less surprised and more disappointed that the allocated time didn't leave time to do a nice polite reiho. I was asked to repeat the reiho only once (which I got down to 39 seconds for each of the opening and closing sequences) and the katas only once (which was down to about 3 mins 45 secs). The fact that I could ramp it up to more optimum timing was no surprise but it still left me wondering about the validity of a 6min time limit for a kodansha grading. I can understand wanting to stop people from doing a full dance of the 50 swords for their grading but this feels a bit like the tail wagging the dog. Should grading-enforced time limits affect the nature of the iaido form? (That's a question for consideration rather than a prompt for an answer)

I then set about focussing on Shohatto and Towaki for the rest of the practice (of course while picking on those around me). My sensei indicated that my initial footwork on nukitsuke had to be more defined and in time with the sword (MSR having a kind of double step, a difference to MJER and Seitei). It was very difficult to do, almost elusive and I reaaaally had to slow everything down to work out where the sequence was going wrong. I eventually reached the realisation that my feet weren't getting under quickly enough when I kept finding myself skidding across the floor instead of stepping. I put a concerted effort into pushing down with the backs of my feet as I was rising to both propel me up as well as getting the toes under quicker. This seemed to get my feet ready a lot earlier. It still wasn't quite good enough for my sensei's approval but I think this is work in progress as I need to get the right foot moving forwards before my hips are at their maximum extension. I'm still bumping along the floor a bit too much during the kata but it is slightly coming together. I was informed that if I focussed on keeping my composure during noto then it would add a sharpness all of its own which I tried to a nod of approval. Gotta keep that one noted down!

Towaki training was a bit less complex timing wise but I was told that the first draw needed to be bigger and dare I say it, "cuttier". This is quite a bit different to the way that some of my contempories perform this nukitsuke with the first action being a bit of a flick followed up by a bellowing roar for kirioroshi. It is more obvious to me now that both cuts need to be equal in power and speed and this may mean ramping the power off the second cut and more focus in the first.

A little bit of Chuden at the end underlined the need once again to ensure my posture and composure was maintained as well as an alternative way of doing noto which I will not write about here but will give it a try and consign it to blog later.

That's all for now...

Iaido 6th Dan Training Sessions 6,7 and 8

2010-03-07T21:53:00.004Z

Ok, so I'm lazy!

I am combining this post with last Wednesday's training evening with this year's Iaido Spring Seminar which I have just got home from.

Wednesday night I thought would be nice to get stuck into some seated okuden with a few of the other highish grades from the dojo. This was because a) I wanted to explore the seated oku which I had tasked myself with training for my grading b) because we don't do it much and c) because I am getting a lazy fat arse which needs some more training.

I explained the "kotsu" of Kasumi, the first okuden suwariwaza and we worked on it for a bit. I swear this is a nice form and I hate it because it sooo bloody difficult to do with a large heavy sword. I think this form alone requires more than the usual amount of dedication and training to get right - where else do we do a right-to-left cut? It is however a fantastic kata for developing merihari, its sudden ebb and flow of speed is quite unique, I just have to learn how to do it without my tendons popping out of my arm in fear.

Working through the rest of the set really revealed some interesting facets of my iai, most notably that I am very much out of practice. I remember actually being quite flexible and agile with some of these forms but now feel a bit clunky and unbalanced especially with forms like Shihogiri/Yosumi. I realise that this can be fixed with some dedicated practice but I am a bit aware that I need to "catch up" with myself before challenging more to the kata in order to get it to "6th dan-ness".

Onto nicer things, Towaki and Tozume came out quite shiney. Both of these are potentially koryu forms for my grading. Towaki I think is becoming a favourite, Tozume is a little too much like Tsukaate to make it distinct for the grading although I feel quite able to pull a good one out of the hat, as it were. Towaki however allows a bit more challenge, personal interpretation and expression.

I'll jump forwards a bit now to this weekend's seminar because of its Towaki relevance. For the benefit of the readers of this blog, in case you don't know Towaki it begins in tatehiza facing the front. You draw and cut an opponent to the right front diagonal across kesa finishing with the sword outside of your right knee. You then move to the left front diagonal and perform kirioroshi.

During training today I was quite keen to give this a bit of a go when we had some peer-reviewing exercises with each other. At one point my sensei came over and suggested that I go for the Kanagawa version rather than the Tokyo version. The difference being that the former makes the second cut with the right knee forwards, the latter requiring a full step out with the left leg. My teacher explained that the former version was much more compact and looked a lot sharper. I gave this a try and sure enough it was indeed much easier to control especially the speed. I think I will continue to train with both version if anything just to try to get the second version sharper (I'm sure it will help all my iai anyway).

Harry had a look at my Shohatto and noted (as Chris Sensei had done previously) that I was leaning too far back and sticking my belly out a lot of the time and we worked on trying to create the right tension in the belly and chest. For me it means having a bit more tightness in the lateral part of the abs (in fact I can feel a bit of fatigue in them now) rather than pushing my belly out (which with me is easy to do ;-p). Ron Sandford from our dojo was also able to help me with this a bit.

I went onto ask Mathew Cook and David Green for their opinion on Towaki and both agreed that the Kanagawa version looked a lot better. For me, this kind of peer review is important, as well as getting technical feedback from my seniors it is also very nice to have people give feedback who don't have any more advice to offer other than that. The feedback is quite raw in that sense and sometimes that is just as reinforcing as more expert opinion.

At the end of the Koryu training session each group was asked to do an embu and so this was quite a nice opportunity to try some of my Koryu forms with a bit of pressure. I did Shohatto, Seichuto, Yamaoroshi, Towaki and Ukenagashi. The two shoden forms came out more or less how I expected they would. I would still like to feel more in control of the timing and slow parts of them down but there is a part of me that drags me through the form rather quicker than I would like. That might be quite a natural instinct and something best not fighting against so I will have to ask Chris Sensei a bit more about that. Yamaoroshi came out quite good and I was quite happy to do this with a bit of pounce and scarper. I have always admired the blinding speed that Ishido Sensei can do this at and he has often expressed that most of the chuden forms cannot be realistically executed unless done at a fairly rapid pace due to the close proximity of the enemy. At the same time however it is important not to get busy and I felt that I managed to just stay out of that saucepan.

Towaki was by far the best form, I will have to ask Tony Devine if he saw it and get some feedback as he is something of a specialist with these tight, sharp forms. Finally Ukenagashi (the seme and quick draw version) - I didn't get quite the right amount of "linger on the centre line" as I wanted but the cut came out good.

The rest of the seminar including the previous day was nice to get some long practice and I am grateful to Tony and Nobby for pushing us through the Chuden and standing Oku quite quickly.

To conclude this posting (and I think it would be a good idea to start drawing up conclusions after each session posting):

Towaki should be almost a certain koryu for me - it can be big, sharp, clearly visible and have the capacity for some merihari demonstration.
I need to keep my shohatto dynamic and not sit around after nukitsuke but at the same time keep everything definite.
Tummy exercises are a must and I have got to keep an eye on my posture development.l

That's all for now...

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 5

2010-02-26T15:39:00.008Z

My Sensei has had it made clear to him now that I am ramping up my training to prepare for my 6th dan, I thought I would drop a hint to him on Wednesday in case he thought that I had been thrown out of my house...

It seems strange to me now how much one can feel that they have absolutely no competence in what they are doing one week when the preceding week (or hour or minute) one can demonstrate an uncanny naturalness in demonstrating a technique. Like the story of the centipede who, when asked how he ever walked, found that he no longer could when he gave it any thought, to change, reconstruct and integrate new factors into ones form can lead straight back to being stuck solid.

In this instance it was a period of reforming my shohatto, the only kata I practiced on this particular evening. I was told by my sensei that the mechanics and tempos of what was going on required more attention to their individual emphases, some requiring vehemence, some accumulation, some moderation, some spontaneity...the resultant juggling act had me dizzy.

For example:

The hands need to grip the sword with a feeling of compressing the centre rather than lifting.
The above however must be done without thought or intention but should be generated by a feeling in the body.
The projection of the sword with the right hand must be exactly matched by the retraction of the left hand. This must neither be too fast or too slow - the essence of shohatto is suppression and warning rather than outright attack.
At the right moment however the attack must overtake and overcome the enemy.
The right hand should fix the mune of the sword against the bottom of the saya whilst retaining a virtual tension to make the sword leap out at sayabanare.
Up to this point, tame must dominate without the kata losing its exuberance and dynanism.
The kata must remain un-busy must must also flow and accelerate but retain control and moderation - all the time!

All of the above sound very philosophical, I have witnessed them all becoming physical manifest in my seniors. It is very easy to talk about them and understand them from a mental perspective, it is also easy to perform certain aspects of them in isolation, it is easy to contrast them with poorer executed technique - it is something else entirely to exhibit them consistently.

I said to my sensei to please come back in two weeks and that I would need some time on it. He said not to let these points restrict the dynanism of the form - all changes would have to be taken on board with a combatitive pace on and it was pointless to try to integrate them at artificially low speeds. The battle commences....

I spent quite a lot of time trying to implement these factors often finding that they reduced the speed of my kata to a crawl, I think I am going to have to work at these things approaching from both ends of the speed scale and hopefully meet in the middle.

I am slowly getting used to looking down my big nose after cutting to offer the correct metsuke - I had no idea that my snout could create seme towards a downed opponent.

So not wishing to be too pesimistic I will do my best to identify my good points about this form....

Err...

Ah yes, I have now discovered how to make the sword reach a horizontal plane earlier just before it flies off to nukitsuke - I'm going to keep this to myself for a while just in case I'm pulling a Eugene but it seems to work quite well and I'm not breaking any rules. I'm gradually getting my right shoulder down a bit at the end of nukitsuke and must work on cutting from the belly to cement that position. I believe my furikaburi is right on the spot at the moment with it's plane of movement back being preceded by an adequate amount of seme and a following continuous cut without it being rushed. Kirioroshi is a bit low at the end and I need to moderate that a bit - I think I'm getting too enthused with cutting big! Chiburi is still a bit unsure and I nearly scalped myself on Wednesday trying to do a Shoden-style ochiburi timing but it is at least getting "stronger" and isn't hurting my arm as much as it used to. Noto comes and goes but I definately need to keep my left hand far more forwards of the koiguchi than I have done in the past - it fixes everything!

More training tomorrow at Hilary's once I have finished fixing everyone's swords....

Have a good weekend dear reader.

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 4

2010-02-20T18:45:00.006Z

I guess part of the reason for this blog is to identify inspirational moments in my training; hopefully those items of clarity that occur and will make the difference between me being a 5th dan and a 6th dan (or a rock and gonad as some of my dojo peers would say) will become either more manifest in my form as I write about them and consign them to memory or will give me a record to look back at in order to set my direction in the future. As one progresses in their chosen art I believe those moments appear to become more rare, almost as if you are running out of diamonds scattered in the rough. Perhaps those enlightening moments change in their nature, becoming less about learning and understanding a point which is explained to you or discovering something you are doing wrong and more about realising the expediency and efficiency of "good" toho (swordsmanship or sword methodology) through training and research alone. The surprises get generated from the inside rather from the outside.

But why blog them?

Why not just write them down privately?

I have to take these questions seriously if I am to take my own 6th dan preparatory training with any sense of honesty and not just consider the shinsa to be another stripe on the sleeves following a foregone conclusion of me passing - I sincerely don't believe this is the case and even if there was a guarantee of leniency to the degree that I need not do much more than turn up for the shinsa, this is not how I want to take my 6th dan grading. Just as it did for my 5th dan, I want it to change the way that I do iaido.

Perversely, maybe I am seeking feedback from people who read this blog to the point that it becomes useful. If that is the case then it is a fairly new concept for me. I don't go out my way to get feedback from people, I prefer to train in iaido by myself and listen and filter general teachings of iaido to a larger population, discarding that which I don't believe and incorporating that which I do. I am quite keen on self-critique of my iaido by reviewing a videoed training session than have people tell me what I am doing wrong - arrogant I know, but it's just who I am.

I hope that the opening of my eyes and ears for feedback is one of the reasons why I blog this and that it marks a change in the way I train. Anyway with this confession now firmly in the conscious ether, and possibly forgotten, on we go with diairy (get it?).

On this Saturday I got myself to Hilary's dojo for a hopeful stab at some undisturbed practice and thankfully she put me down the end with the other gradees so I could get stuck in with some training. This was after a bit of cutty practice during which I was quite glad to notice that the extra arm-strengthening exercises I am doing (including climbing) is reducing the tendonitis in my right arm. During zengo giri practice (or cutty forwards to chin, cutty back to tummy as it is more popularly known) I spent a bit more focus in feeling the cut becoming a reaction of tension in my lower frontal abdomen. It becomes very interesting to leave your arms out of your conscious control and become aware of the action of the feet and the tension in your tummy. I found my whole lower body feeling like it was taking a tightness-relieving morning stretch. There was muscular tension but in a nice way, my legs felt poised to spring and the cutting rhythm started to run away with itself. I found myself at the end a little out of breath but it was in such a good way, no pain in my arms or joints, just the feeling of a good workout and stretch. I have expressed a rather negative view on Kendo World concerning the supposed benefits of ken-suburi practice and I still stand by it. Only now after quite a few years of training can I actually feel the benefits of suburi practice (I mean from doing suburi right now) and I believe more and more that it isn't a simple exercise for all the class to do in an uncontructed manner. It is something that should be trained in very precisely and consciously even if the minimal result of RSI-avoidance is to be achieved. In fact I believe that it is such a critical maker-or-breaker of ones technique that it should be discouraged from practice unless under the supervision of somebody of either a mid-high grade or experienced enough to know the difference between good and bad practice. I won't even begin to harp on about the dangers of doing repetitive o-chiburi practice without care and supervision...

We divided into training areas and I jumped down with the other grading candidates, Alex and Andy. In the last couple of days or so I have been giving more thought to my koryu kata for the grading and I have recently been corrected about the shitei waza - it is two koryu and three seitei - thank you Peter!

Now that shohatto has become a decided form for me (perhaps unless Mae is a shitei waza) this leaves me only one more kata and I have decided to leave my options open until the shitei waza are determined. By this I mean I am going to focus on a selection of koryu and will follow the following rationale:

If a shitei waza is decided that resembles one of my koryu selection then I won't do that koryu kata - the training for improving that koryu should improve the similar seitei kata and I see no reason why I should restrict the challenge of the grading by demonstrating the same toho twice. A good example of this is Yukizure and Soetezuki - they both have very similar initial draws (which I think is probably the most technically challenging part of the kata) and so I will train in Yukizure for the benefit of both Yukizure and Soetezuki, but if Soetezuki is decided as a shitei waza then I won't do Yukizure.
If the above doesn't occur then I will aim for the higher plane of my koryu - I think I will go for seated or standing okuden depending on the floor and my percieved stability at that stage.

Anyway I am pretty sure that the shitei waza will influence my choice of koryu on the day but I have now narrowed it down to:

Shohatto (unless Mae is a shitei waza)
Oroshi (I have discarded Ukigumo - I did it for my 5th dan and nearly every opportunity to do koryu at a taikai - time to move on a bit I think).
Towaki (unless Tsukaate is a shitei waza)
Tozume (unless I'm hungover)
Yukizure (unless Soetezuki is a shitei waza)
Rentatsu (unless Ganmenate is a shitei waza)
Midaredome (unless they confirm that I'm not allowed to do Jodo for my Iaido grading)

Knowing my luck I will probably get 1, 4, 8 and 9 as shitei waza...

This may sound very obsessive to have such a strict preparation of form selection in place but it is currently important to me that I am not focussing on only one or two koryu and discarding my practice of the rest of them. I don't believe in being the thing which I think is called something like "sanbon nanadan" or in my case "nihon rokudan" i.e. a person that passes a kodansha grading knowing only 2 or 3 koryu. My own set of beliefs include that if you are taking a 6th dan grading (or 5th or 4th for that matter) that you should have a 6th dan ability of the entire koryu level that is appropriate at that time. That is, 4th dans should be demonstrating a 4th dan level of skill of shoden, 5th dans showing an even better ability of shoden/chuden and 6th dans showing a further higher level of chuden/okuden. From that, the candidate selects their favourite kata from that set but not disregarding the fact that all the kata at that level should be passable for the grade they are going for - that is, reach the grade level you are going for and then demonstrate one step even higher.

Therefore I have quite a workload ahead of me. In all honesty I don't think I will be able to demonstrate 6th dan'ness in all the MSR koryu by the time of my grading but that will be my training objective even if I don't achieve it.

Anyway, back to the lesson today, I went through the aforementioned koryu and most of seitei. I am still sensitive to this misalignment when sitting forward in seiza and today I checked my toes and sure enough they weren't aligned with the centreline properly. In Mae and from nukitsuke I tried to drive my front knee forwards (as advised by a 7th dan reader of this blog) to stop myself crabbing. This seemed to work quite well but I then found my hips were dropping as I wasn't propelling my rear thigh and hip forwards strongly enough. My sempai of yonder, Alan Nash, always told people to drive their hips strongly forwards when performing furikaburi and I am now acutely aware that I am lacking in action in this particular area. I really need to take on board some of the advice I was dishing out to one of Hilary's students today about the lower body and forgetting what the arms are doing - but for that I need some training time for myself, I need to forget about the sword, I need to make some mistakes and learn from them, I need.....an enclosed squash court (and some money to pay for it)!

My quick and dirty evaluation of my Seitei in general today was thus:

Mae - not too bad, want to get more stability in nukitsuke and sort out my crabbing in furikaburi. Ochiburi changes are coming on nicely, noto is going through some positive changes by itself as well.
Ushiro - better than Mae in my honest opinion.
Ukenagashi - still working on slowing down each component movement without losing the forms sharpness if/when they are all linked together.
Tsukaate - middle age spread is making it difficult to get my big ass up and moving, the draw and hikinuki of course need a bit more work. Yoko chiburi rubbish as usual.
Kesagiri - currently my worst seitei form I think. Having big problems with the draw and making the two cuts as well connected as I would like. This is probably from absence of practice with this form.
Morotezuki - not too bad but got to keep on top of this one as it has the propensity to become stunted, robotic and ineffective.
Sanpogiri - feeling good about this one. The changes in the rhythm and the sense of urgency is sharpening it up. Jodan yoru no chiburi needs a bit of work to finish in the right place.
Ganmenate - pretty good, need to stop stopping after turning to the rear, proud of accomplishing the turn without falling over or cutting my sageo off, stabbing my hand etc.
Soetezuki - overall form up to the stab needs some work.
Shihogiri - still working on the kote uchi so that I don't end up headbutting the opponent. Overall I have to keep the sense of timing change and urgency in the form but try to slow the whole thing down a bit. A bit of poise here and there won't do any harm.
Sogiri - not too worried about this at the moment.
Nukiuchi - got to work on the feet a bit as being a bit lazy on the evasion.

(BTW, future potential taikai opponents, if you are planning to use the above points to plan your training to beat me at my weak forms...DON'T BOTHER...just because I think certain forms are bad it doesn't mean that other people don't say to me "that's your best form!") ;-P

After a bit of a hack I was becoming more aware of the carnage going on around me and decided to do that most popular of iaido self-development methods - imposing your opinions on others. Today was quite useful actually as a lot of people were doing seitei and that is definately one of the best arenas for examining your own basic technique and understanding how bits of the body activate movements. One particular point of interest was the crabbing issue in Mae/Shohatto. One of the readers of this blog (I won't mention your name, Dan) found his right foot going out too far to the right as he stepped out and forwards. I showed him that not only did his knees have to come together during nukitsuke but his ankles had to separate slightly more when elevating his feet into a toes-under position. This would get the shins more parallel than they were and thus improve the positioning of the front foot. I smugly showed him the answer and then made a mental note to check if I was making this same mistake next time....

Anyway, I guess that's the end of this slightly extended post. Jodo tomorrow....

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 3

2010-02-18T16:42:00.004Z

So, not too much progress last night as I was leading the session. I thought I would make the most of the "freedom to play" and got everyone above a certain level to hack through the koryu one form at a time.

In the two hours we completed shoden, chuden and some of okuden tachi waza after asking the seniors to peer review each other for Gyakuto. It was interesting hearing their feedback to each other and understanding what they understood helped me to understand, if you catch my drift.

What was useful was, in training Yukizure and Tsuredachi I have been steered to make the last cut extremely sharp and expedient which has led me to research how to cut off all the unnecessary movement from that point and therefore move quickly without becoming busy. I have had to geometrically plot where the sword needs to be moved to in a straight line so that it is above the head when the head has been moved into the "cut now!" position. This is of course quite true for any form however in these forms it is far more challenging as one is changing directions, moving and cutting pretty much simultaneously. It was interesting to see how the others interpreted the more relaxed grip during kaburi in the okuden forms last night. I have discovered what I think is the right answer in that the inertia of the blade creates a decline in the sword angle as the handle is quickly lifted. This creates a very smooth and continuous cut hopefully and is not the same as simply letting the tip drop while you start to lift the hands. I think this is an important precursor to incorporating inashi into the kaburi.

I now have to work in this sequence of movements into the natural flow of the kata without thinking about it, not easy - I need to get some training time alone to work on this...

Anyway, should get some training time to myself on Saturday when I go to Hilary's class.

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 2

2010-02-14T09:33:00.010Z

So I went to Hilary's Saturday class on Saturday and Chris Sensei turned up as well. After some more spontaneous cutting practice (that is to get the cut timing developed from good preparation rather than a conscious decision) he sent Hilary and me down the end of the dojo to monitor each other's practice.

I wanted to make use of the floor markings here and see if I was crabbing over to one side or t'other. Sure enough as I practiced Mae I was creeping over to the right, not by much but enough to make me wonder why it was the right side consistently. I sat down again on the line and even then felt that I somehow wasn't aligned. I looked down and there the line was, equally spaced between my knees but still I felt I was askew. I sat up more straight, still feeling askew. I finally looked behind me and noticed that my big toes were just slightly off the centre of the line. Correcting this brought me back onto the straight.

I was amazed at how such a pedentic and minor adjustment would change how much alignment I would feel.

So anyway, onto the kata...

I realise, as most people do I'm sure, that the pulling up of the knee during furikaburi is the major cause of lateral shift (as well as worth making an inclusion in the grading criteria for Ushiro!). Furthermore, the first action of the right footing moving out during nukitsuke can significantly add to that.

I tried working on nukitsuke as well to try to stabilize it, working on the tame that Chris Sensei and Peter West Sensei had mentioned to me.

I should here now explain the origins of a phrase that myself and Steve Boyes came up with some years ago to describe my next quandry. The phrase we created was "pulling a Eugene" and came from Eugene Herrigel's book Zen and the Art of Archery. In the book he describes how, in order to create a feeling of spontanaity and the moment of an action from within, he would release the string of his bow very gradually with the thumb until the tension overcame the friction and let fly. Eugene felt this was exactly what his master was talking about. The string would release effortlessly at a timing that always surprised Eugene. It felt right, it looked right, it must have been right.

One day his master was watching him practice and he asked to see him release an arrow again. Eugene proudly demonstrated his new-found skill and let one fly. His master thanked him, took the bow off him and sat down with his back to Eugene meaning the lesson had ended. Eugene later found out that the master wished him to leave the class if Eugene was going to cheat him. Suffice to say Eugene learned that artificial means to achieving a misinterpreted end were not part of the way.

Anyway, Steve Boyes and I coined this phrase to mean trying to achieve something that actually required dedicated training by doing something a bit iffy as a short cut (we discovered a lot of these - not to say these were the right things to do, they were cheats that didn't work in the long run).

So back to the main story, I am thus very wary of Pulling A Eugene in budo training, anything that sounds like a sneaky fix usually doesn't work. The particular situation in question is when to move the foot forwards when performing nukitsuke - every teacher has a different opinion I should add! Some will say the foot should be in place before sayabanare so that the sword travels with stability. Some say that the kissaki and foot should move at the same time so that you're not in a position to be cut waiting for your kissaki to catch up. My own sensei's opinion, and the one that I stick to is now that we should be able to do ALL of the timings including getting the kissaki flying to make contact and to finish moving as the front foot finishes. Anyway, I experimented with getting the foot into position earlier and hey presto, my kissaki travelled in a beautiful flat arc and finished at the exact right place. Hurrah, I thought. Uh oh, thought the devil within.

I am aware now that I may be committing half a pulling of a Eugene on this as I believe that for Chuden the sword must be quickly on its way and the body has to catch up. For Seitei this isn't specified so anything other than which gets broadcast from the ZNKR central seminar is purely opinion and, I think, depends on level.

Anyway, I'm spending too much type on too specific a point for now. Hilary and I were asked to work on other kata and it became clear that in order for me to sharpen up my iaido I would have to smooth off some of my cutting (especially going through furikaburi) in order to reduce the lengthiness of my form. This is something I am now working on through my okuden practice and will probably write about a bit later.

Digging up files

2010-02-12T10:25:00.007Z

I was so taken aback by the number of people that were interested in my blog that I thought I would share some files I used to help me with my 5th dan training.

I had written a Seishinkan Dojo Members Pack article on progressive training after witnessing the fairly slow lack of progress from one of our members who was trying very hard to pass their grades and I tried to study and understand what was happening. I did some research on learning patterns and wrote the chapter linked below:

http://www.4shared.com/file/220418246/55f878fd/Chapter_9_Progressive_Training.html

I can't remember if we ever got this into the members pack but it now forms part of the BKA Level 2 Coaching Course.

I have to be honest now about my geekiness and admit that quite a lot of the above chapter was to justify me using mathematical analysis (in it's simplest form) to judge my own progress in preparing for 5th dan. As the article indicates I watched my previous weeks embu on video on Wednesday nights after training and tried to score my performance to see what elements were progressing, which were getting worse and which needed attention. I have attached this on the link below, if you can be bothered to have a look don't expect anything revelationary...

http://www.4shared.com/file/220421340/87f182a5/Iaido_progress_log.html

In fact I only managed to log three lots of embu before I got bored of scoring it so pedantically. However I think practicing to evaluate to such fine detail gave me a bit of a skill in doing it much more generally and pinpointing things about my performance that I should work on. I do however still think that the spreadsheet is a good way of of improving performance if one is either short of feedback opportunities or doesn't have much time to prepare for their grading. It's great for prioritising your training focus and ensuring that you don't end up doing a fantastic Mae followed by a pathetic Ukenagashi.

Anyway, the weekend is nearly here and I hope to be going training to Hilary's tomorrow and get a bit of time just working on my own stuff. I must also remember to look into booking a squash court out for myself somewhere locally to do some solo practice. Everyone else seems to do this except me...

I should also just add that very few of the photos I am posting on this blog are recent, they are mainly just to break up the text a bit.

Iaido 6th Dan Training Session 1

2010-02-11T22:36:00.004Z

I should add here the purpose of this blog. At the moment it is to be something of a training diary for my 6th dan Iaido grading which I am due to take in the UK in summer 2011. It's still a year and a half away but I really want to make sure that my "transition" to 6th dan has a meaning and a tangible change (hopefully for the better).

My own rules for this blog are:

To be honest; to avoid arrogant stances as well as insincere humility.
To not write disrectful things about other people...unless they really deserve it and I would say it to their face.
For it to be readable for any geeks who happen to come across this blog.

Anyway down to business...

I set in my own mind to actively start my 6th dan iaido training last night at our regular Wednesday practice. Now the weather is a little bit better I am trying to strengthen up my arms as well as improve my fitness by going out in the garden and doing 75 cuts left and right with a suburito. I think up to now my home training has focussed on embedding the Jodo koryu curriculum in my mind but I think I now have to pay more that the slightly casual level of attention to Iaido.

Thinking back to my 5th dan Iaido grading preparation I had the luxury of being able to be left alone and asking Tony Brocklebank, one of the dojo seniors, to video my embu nearly on a weekly basis for me to take home and study in huge amounts of detail even to the extent of plotting my perceived progress in the various elements of the kata on a spreadsheet. I don't think I will have as much free time to do that now so I must ensure that every moment of training time is used properly.

My first question to my sensei, Chris Mansfield, last night was to ask what was the first kata he recommended for my first koryu form. As I expected he said for me to do Shohatto, the best and most appropriate kata for a Shinden iaidoka doing an Iaido embu.

I worked on trying to improve my stability during this session. Sensei talked to me for quite a while about the difference between 6th dan and 5th dan and I remember the thing he emphasised most was having a clear understanding and contrast of the "when" factor i.e. timing of the kata. He made me do some cutting exercises to work out how making conscious decision on cutting didn't always work and in fact having a "feeling" of preparation would lead into a well timed cut.

We also looked at my performance of Yukizure. Again he noted that my preparation was late and that the whole kata could be sharpened up by quietly preparing earlier and then making the entire first cut happen in one cohesive, well-timed movement. I then had to focus on metsuke for the second cut as well as sharpening and shortening this movement. Having just practiced this outside I feel at the moment that I should avoid the "inashi" action and focus on two distinct cuts instead but linking them with good awareness and metsuke.

So anyway, that's probably enough for this first posting although I would like to write down here my current choice candidates for my three koryu:

Shohatto - a must have for the first kata
Ukigumo - a nice long flowing kata with opportunities for rhythmic changes
Yukizure - a nice flash sharp kata showing a slight penetration into oku
Towaki/Tozume - as Yukizure
Ukenagashi (seme version) - I feel I can do this particular version quite well
Oroshi - again a nice flowing kata with a potential for really hamming it up!
Toraissoku - this would be to challenge me to do this kata as well as Harry Jones or my sensei can do it

In terms of those seiteigata that I need to work on:

Ushiro - to sort out my ochiburi
Ukenagashi - just coz. I need to work on keeping the thing sharp but removing busy'ness
Tsukaate - gotta get my hikinuki working better.
Kesagiri - because it's just difficult
Soetezuki - have to work on making this a kodansha level kata regarding timing of the thrust.
Sogiri - it's likely to be a shiteiwaza

More later...