the Way of the Turtle

Iaido Class
Friday, March 23, 3007

Started almost half an hour late, as usual, and GMC spent a lot of time talking about various things, among them a book he read recently by Grand Master Masaaki Hatsumi, Japanese Sword Fighting: Secrets of the Samurai. (I've had it for a while now, but I guess I should move it up on my reading list!) After that we practiced nuki uchi for a bit (and it became apparent to me that I am very much out of practice with this kata that I've been doing for 5-6 years, now. Sigh.) Then the intermediate and advanced students were given an introduction to GMC's interpretations of Hatsumi's Muto dori techniques, used by an unarmed person against an attacker armed with a sword. The two we saw were somewhat interesting and reminded me of some of the aikido and jujutsu that I've been fortunate enough to dabble in... no great surprise, since jujutsu was the unarmed art of choice for the samurai, and aikido grew in part out of Ueshiba's training in swordsmanship.

JMH