On thursday night we had an Iaido Seminar down at the Kenshikan. It was interesting to go to an actual training hall that is made to service the arts of Kendo, Iaido, Jodo and Naginata. The place is nicely ornamented with various japanese framed scrolls that I can’t read.

The center piece of the training session was Oda Sensei who has graced us with his presence from Japan. He did not speak any english to us but had other Japanese sensei(I assume) to translate his main speeches/instructions.

After warmups with one of our sensei, Oda took over. We began by doing various variations on kata 1, namely a standing variation and a seated variation. What was most interesting for me though was the first time I saw Oda perform the kata. Notably, I felt my jaw drop about an inch before I recovered it. He performed with such speed that I could not believe my eyes. Noto (putting away sword) was done with such an incredible pace yet it seemed like it was just a regular natural part of the kata without any extra effort on sensei’s behalf. In awe I looked on as I saw each of his vertical cuts come straight down the middle and each of his horizontal cuts finish with what could only appear to someone such as myself as perfect alignment of sword and body. With my current level I cannot see myself performing noto at his level within the next 50 years. It was very incredible watching him.

After the initial instruction we were split up into dan grades and Ikkyu (beginners if you would like).  The rest of our training was working on kata 1. One interesting thing that one of our Sensei said was in regards to the action of Jo-Ha-Kyu (speeding up) in that by performing jo-ha-kyu even while beginning to learn, once you start to become faster then the end of your actions will always be even faster as your muscles have been trained to work in such a fashion.

One of the areas we spent a lot of time on was O-chiburi. During this Oda sensei was walking around and a one stage came over to correct me. Essentially what he explained in physical movements and repositioning of me was that my elbow should be out parallel with my shoulders which are perpendicular to the front. The second point which surprised was how close to the head the tsuba should be before performing chiburi. The tsuba is right next to the head such that the end of the handle is in front of the right eye. This was a lot closer than expected but upon performing chiburi from this position I noticed that the angle that it puts the sword at enables a much more free-flowing motion of the sword. Looking back at it now it makes sense as the angle of the sword stays the same.

I’m looking forward to training again on saturday, after which I have a grading. Hopefully my body is not too worn out before the grading

Tags: Seminar