iaido mistake

This morning’s iaido class was quite good, in the intensive scrutiny kind of way. Some classes I am kind of left alone while the teachers focus on whoever is newest in the group. Those are the times to absorb or steal as much of the teacher’s instruction as you can. You are not being taught directly, but you are expected to actively take what you can get – and thus you are being taught, however indirectly.

There is a movement in the iaido world to make it more accessible to everyone, to teach very freely and directly, and to focus very strongly on passing tests for dan-ranks. The same movement tends to place very heavy emphasis on the seiteigata, newer iaido forms which were created after the war. The older, koryu styles are left very much on the back burner.

The pair of teachers I have chosen are not part of that world. Of course you cannot escape it completely, but they are trying to preserve something which they see as being more original and perhaps more pure.

We are pursuing an uneasy existence, floating along the edges while trying to preserve a different core. For us, the old style koryu techniques (from which the modern, seitei forms were adapted) are the core, and most practices focus strongly upon them, rather than on passing rank exams.

There is much more to the story, and much that could be written about machinations within the iaido world here in Japan, but this is neither the time nor the place.

What concerns us, or me anyhow, is one of my mistakes, and my teacher’s response to it.

I had warmed up with about ten zillion basic cutting techniques, most of them using yokoburi, or a sharp sideways motion with the blade to shake off the blood and goo which have accumulated upon the blade after dispatching my imaginary opponent. I switched to a standing technique to give my knees a rest and promptly botched it.

It is the only standing waza or technique in the shoden set, 虎乱刀 or korantou, and is one of my favorites. There is also a kae-waza, an alternate version which is the mirror image of the usual, and it was this that I plunged into – and messed up. My motions were good – the intention while walking, the pair of cuts timed and executed well. Then I went directly into yoko-buri to finish, just sharply taking the blade across to the side with a strong wrist motion. But it should finish with a much larger type of chiburi, with the tip being taken widely out to the side/ rear, then the forearm folding in like Mt. Fuji, and a strong cutting motion downward to fling off that troublesome blood and goo before re-sheathing the sword.

I tried to recover smoothly, finishing with a sense of zanshin for proper finish. My teacher had been watching all this from behind and I could sense him walking up behind me. He didn’t say a word about the mistake in the form. He was concerned with the mistake in my yoko-buri. Rather than taking the blade directly across, I had taken it across and then pulled it back slightly closer to my body, creating a bit of arc. He would have none of that! It was no longer in the optimum position to begin the next motion, taking the blade back across to the left once my left hand had slid down to the koiguchi or opening of the saya/ scabbard and rotated it 90 degrees.

So I repeated just that part of the motion several times, then repeated the entire korantou waza – with yokoburi at the end – until I got that tiniest of nods that means “it’s not great yet but it is a notch better. And I don’t want to spend all morning on this one damn technique…”

Then I repeated korantou a couple times with the “correct” / larger chiburi, and all seemed well, ready to move on to the next waza.

It may not seem like a big deal to most people, but I really appreciated his response. Too often in Japan, people are fixated way too heavily on the sequence of motions rather than the overall feeling or deeper issues. I know I mucked up the waza – but in this case, it really didn’t matter, because that muck-up revealed a big problem, and one that needed to be fixed on the spot. Just repeating the waza with the correct ending would really teach me very little, apart from reminding me of a sequence of motions – yet that would be what many teachers would focus on, just that single obvious mistake. But a flaw in yoko-buri…that would affect all of the chuuden techniques, all of the okuden techniques (seated and standing), even the kumidachi techniques, which are forms done with partners while using wooden bokuto swords.

I could babble on for hours about problems with the current iaido world here in Japan. But here was an instance of something very good and useful happening, the kind of thing I would like to see much more of. And it had nothing to do with rank examinations and promotions and the like. And everything to do with openness and flexibility which are all too hard to find in the modern budo world in Japan.