This post is part of the First Year of Budo series

Had quite a few people there today, a group that occasionally comes down from shepperton(I think) was there to get some guidance from Sensei.

Jodo

Not a lot to say on the jodo front. Biggest point was to keep your center moving in a flat plane, no bobbing during the technique. I was actually doing fairly well with this. Most other points were small issues of angles of the jo, elbows and wrists (oh and feet offcourse). Every week in Iai and Jo people are reminded to keep their techniques light. The point being firstly that it’s a lot harder to pick the problems in a technique if it is always being flown through at full speed. Secondly it is a lot harder for yourself to notice issues and near impossible to make changes to your technique unless you work slow. Personally I prefer to do most of my practice in a rather slow fashion, firstly because there are some many things to check at each stage and secondly because it helps me become smooth and fluent with the techniques. So then when I just let go I have a much greater chance of gliding through it all which I really enjoy. Which reminds me, one thing I can’t seem to get is how people manage to get so much forward travel on their slides (during a technique). My feet almost always catch on the floor so if I was to go for the travel I would surely trip onto my face :D.

Iaido

Iai was rather quiet for some time. I was using a different Iaito this time around. Whenever I go from using a bokken to an Iaito the difference in weight kills me. My horizontal cuts are using destroyed for awhile and I have to be quite careful with my elbows so as not to strain them on any swings.

The most interesting part of the class was when sensei after correcting some issues I had with kata 3 showed me kata 4. Which is the first kata that involves sitting in tatehiza. I have to say that it is mighty uncomfortable and verging on painful. It is going to take quite a bit of practice to first get it right and then to try and do it in a balanced and composed fashion. I’m not going to try to explain it now, I’ll wait till I’m more confident that I have it right.

This kata is rather neat in that it has two new moves in it. First move is to move the sword (while still in the saya) and strike the seated opponent in the sternum. Then drawing the sword by taking the saya off with the left hand you do a horizontal stab past your body at a person behind you. I was reminded a few times to make sure I turn myself really side on and pull the left hand back on the saya. Otherwise it is relatively easy to stab the sword through your upper arm. The stab is done very close to your body because it keeps you centered where you can get power into the stab and secondly because the opponent is directly behind you nothing else will do.

To finish the kata it is just a matter of turning back to the front person and finishing them, chiburi and then noto. The extra note on noto is that as you bring the tsuba(handle) back and it reaches your knee you bring your right leg back into the position similar to the start in tatehiza. Then you finish by standing up.

Unrelated to the kata is to make sure you cut your toenails (fingernails to, but toenails in particular). In Iai a lot of katas start with the iaidoka (person doing Iaido) in a kneeling position where the feet are top-side down (like you would sit on your heels with the toes flat). Then as you rise to strike, the feet have to come up with the toes under so that you have some power to push off. If you mistime this or overstretch it is very likely that you will bend the nails on your toes (big toe in particular if you have the proper footwork with parallel feet).

Finally I asked sensei about getting an Iaito and Gi(uniform) and we will look into it next week. The Iaito is likely to cost ~$500 if I get it semi-locally or if I go through sensei’s preferred supplier from Japan ~$900-$1000. We will see which way we go but I have some money around from years of work so it wouldn’t surprise me if I went for the slightly more expensive ones. But that is a story for another time.