Iaido Training Session 51 Part B

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

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

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...