I went to Guelph last week for the Spring Seminar. Namidome Sensei was back, along with the two Eto Sensei and Eto Sensei. Namidome Sensei is the senior Shinto Muso Ryu teacher in Fukaoka, and the Eto Sensei's are a mother and daughter who are both 7th dan in Jodo and Iaido. They've all been to the Guelph several times. I got train with Kim Taylor for much of Saturday. Sensei kept us hoping until I was thoroughly exhausted. At one point I left my hand hanging on Shamen and Kim whacked it quite definitively with the bokuto. The pain was bad, but the embarrassment from leaving my hand there to get hit was worse. By the end of practice on Saturday, Kim and I were both punchy with exhaustion.
On Sunday I trained with Ward, who was testing for his yondan on Monday. Kim very diplomatically arranged for me to be able to test on Sunday, since I couldn't stay for the testing on Victoria day. Best of all, the tape I put on the blister that burst on Saturday stayed in place until after the test was over.
It's interesting how arts get pushed in different directions based on things that are really tangental to the original goals and intents of the arts. Judo and Kendo are each bent by the competition that was started as way to for people to test their combative skills. Now the competition has nearly completely displaced the practice of combative skills, though there are still people striving to maintain the combative focus. Iaido was added to the Kendo Federation to push kendoka to learn how to use a real sword to try to balance the effect on skills of competing with bamboo shinai. Now though, the pursuit of rank in the Kendo Federation, iaido is being pushed towards very light, gentle, dance-like movements without a great deal of intensity. Jodo has only been part of the Kendo Federation for a little while, so it's tough to see a trend there yet. The changes aren't necessarily evil. Nothing can stay the same forever. The trick is to keep the valuable core and principles while evolving to fit a new social and historical background.
2 comments:
Hmmm, hope your testing went well!
From the perspective of one with very limited exposure to iaido and jodo, but whose exposure (as far as I know) was disconnected from the kendo world if the affects you note on iaido and perhaps to come to jodo are widespread?
I don't know if my testing went well, but it went enough to pass.
The trend toward elegant, graceful, soft iaido is fairly widespread, not just in the Kendo Federation. You don't see it as much in systems with a strong kenjutsu component. The stronger the kenjutsu and other weapons components of a system are compared to the iaido component, the less likely the iai is to become overly soft and graceful. It's more difficult for paired weapons to become overly concerned with being soft and graceful, but I have seen it happen.
The dominance of the Kendo Federation has had widespread influence on systems that are practiced alongside the Kendo Federation seitei iai. Because people are concerned with getting Federation rank and recognition, they start bending their koryu so it becomes more like the seitei. It is tough to keep them separate.
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