Iaido Training Session 48

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:

1. The ebb and flow of timing and speed to create the merihari
2. A certain flourish to show competence and confidence with the technique
3. 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

"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...

1. 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.
2. 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

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.