This post is part of the First Year of Budo series

So as the title suggests I managed to make it to week 2. I had a cold during the week but thankfully through lots of orange juice and a really physical game of basketball I consider myself over it. I’m feeling confident that I know my way to the location now so I won’t be leaving home for an extra 20 minutes. You know that means an extra 20 minutes sleep on Saturdays, yey! Anyway upon arriving I did some stretching and think this a habit that would be well worth continuing. An area I probably didn’t stretch enough today was the elbows. I really noticed it when I went for the first horizontal cut in Iaido and felt it pull and burn on the inside.

Jodo

There was another ‘beginner’ student (although I expect they have been there at least a month) this week so I wasn’t the only one off on the side going through basic techniques. This week I’ll have to do some research to see if I can find out the names of the techniques because at the moment I only know them as 1, 2 and 3 :). An interesting event occurred when I was in the process of practicing 3 up and down the hall was the other student saying, ‘You must be tired, you’ve been doing that same technique for ages’. I replied cheerfully ‘And I haven’t got it right yet either’. Was a funny exchange. Repeating a technique over and over again is not boring if you are trying to perfect it. It is probably only boring if you think you are just repeating it rather than learning.

There was a time near the end while I was practicing technique 3 that I decided that rather than concentrating on the stick I would do a few strikes focusing only on the imaginary enemy in front of me. This was really good and got me right into ‘the zone’. Plus because I was looking where my strike was supposed to go the strike went to that spot.

I almost forgot this time I had to ‘Kia’ when I strike. Interestingly unlike my brother’s karate where it sounds like ‘Key-eye’, ours sound more like ‘e’-'a’ with a lack of the usual pronounced ‘k’ at the start.

Iaido

At the start I always need someone to tie my obi (belt) which thankfully as of today I now own one. So this week I need to learn how to tie this all by myself. In my opinion this would be a very good thing as it’s not an easy task like most things in Iai. In the future I’ll have to work on the closing and opening ceremonies but for now being able to tie the belt will be a good start.

Today we worked more on cutting technique and finished with Kata 1 (Mae I think) which I’ll now need to work on. It’s funny that doing a cut is hard enough let alone a whole kata. Drawing and sheathing is hard to begin with too. Pointed out was that it is important to really use the left hand in sayabiki (moving the saya (sheath) back and around behind you as you draw and reverse for sheathing).

The good news is that even though it is very hard, once I have memorized the techniques more I think I will really enjoy this. I made my intentions clear to Sensei after class that I was interested in obtaining a bokuto(bokken - wooden sword) and Jo(Short staff - Stick). It could take a couple of weeks to get though due to needing to go through the right people. These imported from Japan while a little expensive I expect that I will be able to use them for a very long time.

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