This post is part of the First Year of Budo series

So it was time for the first class, as expected I spent my time working on some basic techniques for both Jodo and Iaido. It may look boring but it is so surprisingly hard. So across the 3 hours I probably spent the time on a total of about 4 maybe 5 techniques. Which I could have easily spent another x amount of hours on.

Jodo

It is interesting that the Jo is probably only a little less than a sword handles length longer than a sword. Consequently is seems important when doing strikes and in general to keep the jo held just in front of the body. After awhile practicing I noticed sometimes I would do a strike and it would feel a whole lot more fluid than the last and that was pretty cool.

Iaido

Well this seems extremely complicated, so much to keep in mind with every strike. It’s like ok stance, align hips, get sword correct angle, raise a little to where it is to be held, relax shoulders on the raise, relax, relax, relax, relax, relax, relax. Swing forward out, down and bring in towards the abdomen after, check relaxed, relax, relax. My shoulders really like to tense up with this. An interesting thing with the vertical strike of the sword is in order to stop it at horizontal rather than having it bounce around, at the end of the swing you ‘wring’ the handle like you would a wet towel. This does a real good job of stopping it.

The cool thing about having soo many things to look for is that if you do it in a patient manner your mind can sometimes really quieten down which is always nice.

On a side note it is surprising how difficult it is to draw and sheathe the sword (maybe just for beginners) but also I think the bokken I was using was a little bit too long for me.

So I look forward to next week, in the mean time I need to figure out how to practice while I have no equipment at home ^_^.

Read about Next Week.