Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Battojutsu!

The head of our dojo, in the last couple of months, has really been emphasising sword work. Normally I attend a once-a-week iaido (aiki-ken more precisely) class, while the rest of my family are in their karate class. Then one or two other nights a week I go down to the dojo and practice what I learned. Up to this point, we've memorised:

seven basic cutting drills (suburi),
an eight-direction cutting drill (happo-giri),
a footwork drill (happo-undo),
two partner exercises (kumitachi),
ten 'official' kata (the seitei series)
two jodo kata (18step, and one from kenshin-ryu)
various other waza or parts thereof.

Now my regular instructor for all of this is not the head of the school, but when that head (shihan) wants to get all into sword work, not only do you let him, but if he is doing something different than your regular class you can bet he's going to expect your class to get on board. So he has been acclimating the karate regulars to eight basic Toyama-ryu batto drills, and we've got to incorporate them. I don't mind, but I don't really remember the last time I actually had to really stretch to memorise in a martial arts class. But I sure do now. Not least because none of us in MY class have that much direct exposure. I will persevere.

Remember, its supposed to be fun, but its still work.

No comments:

Post a Comment