Not two weeks after first landing in Japan, late September of '98, I stepped into an Iaido dojo for the first time. Training in Japan had been a unspoken dream for years by then--it started a year or so before getting my shodan in Shotokan Karate at the Rising Sun in Fresno, CA then one day I fell bass ackwards into a chance to make it happen.
The chance involved teaching English at the public middle schools of Kannami, which is located near the top of the Izu Peninsula. During the previous seven years or so of doing karate I'd read and talked with friends about other styles and forms of Japanese budo; I'd done a little Okinawan kobudo but that was as far as I got with any kind of weapon besides the empty hand--I'd never even heard of Iai and my primary goal was to train karate here (which I've done in a couple of really good dojos, Shotokan and Kyokushin, and will tell about another time) but I was up for anything so when the science teacher at the junior high school I was teaching at invited me to go to Iaido practice with him I was more than willing to check it out. I thought it'd just be going to observe but he told to wear a hakama (I'd been gifted an old kendo one from somebody) and so I did and the man on the right of the top picture here, 10th dan jyu-hanshi Kojima Sensei, loaned me an iaito (practice sword) and I loved it from the get go. Out of all the martial arts I've trained in this land this is the one that most closely catches the true spirit of 武道 budo IMHO. I'll post more about this in time I'm sure, but since still starting out with this blogging stuff thought I'd start with a quick one to introduce my this awesome art.
Ishizu Sensei (left) a circa 2001 me (center) and Kojima Sensei (right)
As the absence of insulation on top of my melon shows this a more recent photo--this was taken earlier this year at an all day katana and other weapons (yari, tanto, etc.) display and demonstration that my dojo put on at Egawa-te in Nirayama.
This is my iaido dojo in Nirayama
And here's a clip of testing for my 5th dan many, many moons ago
I've received 6th dan since then and hope to test for 6th dan Renshi in the not so distant future
No comments:
Post a Comment