Iaido Training Session 44

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

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

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:

1. In the flurry of turning round, one's metsuke gets lost.
2. The stability of each cutting posture begins to fail through weak foot positioning.
3. The stability of the posture during the turns degrades.
4. 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.