the Way of the Turtle

Iaido Class
Friday, May 12, 2006

A fairly productive class - opened with our usual warmup and ceremonial cleansing of the training area, then split into groups (advanced women, advanced men, and beginners) to work. We spent most of the time working on a single kata - Nukiuchi, which means "Unexpected Attack." The kata begins with a draw into a horizontal cut, chest-high (a warning technique), and follows with a downward cut to incapacitate or kill the attacker as he turns to run away. After that is a series of movements preparing for the possibility of further attacks, either from the front or behind, and then, when it becomes clear this won't be happening, chiburi (shaking the blood off the blade) and re-sheathing the sword. We worked on this kata for about an hour, with only a couple of short breaks to practice another kata once or twice. I first learned Nukiuchi sometime before our trip to Japan in 2002 to train with Master Matsuno, and I remember being very excited to learn it, as it was the first one where we got to perform an additional cut after the initial draw-and-cut. Despite working on it for over 4 years, there are still many small details that I need to perfect, but at times Friday night it felt pretty good and I had a couple of times where I felt I managed to move from thinking my way through the kata to letting my body and mind just do it. Maybe someday I'll manage that with my empty-hand katas too...

JMH