This past weekend we had our first, hopefully of many, Annual Tanshinjuku Iaido retreats. It was Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the mountains of North Park Colorado. It was open to all iaido students with a year of experience and at least 50% attendance. The retreat was held on a private ranch, adjacent to a National Forest with a snow-melt creek running through it. In addition to meals cooked on a wood stove, pleasant conversation, hiking, wading, archery, board games, fossil hunting and fly-casting lessons we managed to practiced iaido.
Practicing iaido outdoors provides even the most experienced practitioners an opportunity to revisit even the most fundamental lessons, Suri Ashi. Online translators mistakenly translate this into ‘pick-pocket feet’, although humorous and foreshadowing it is never the less incorrect. Suri comes from the verb Suru, 摩る, which mean to rub, slide, or scrub. In iaido and kendo this term describes a sliding movement of the feet as opposed to western walking.
Europeans and most people of the world tend to advance the feet alternately (walk) so that there is always one foot on the ground. The center of mass of the body, if plotted, is a sine wave with the maximum amplitude at mid-stance. The heel makes contact first and the foot rolls to the toes. For iaido, and other martial arts, the feet always maintain contact with the ground and the center of mass of the body would look like a straight line. The foot slides forward and both feet will trace parallel lines on the ground.
In the dojo we practice this and it is second nature when performing various kata. But the level and relatively smooth surface of the dojo floor encourages one to put too much pressure on the ground. Practicing this way is incorrect and is illuminated when practicing outdoors. Iaido was never limited to indoor use only, e.g., Toyama Ryu. Whether it be a city street, a mountain path or the plains of Sekigahara in Gifu Prefecture the objective is the same. Gently sliding the foot forward allows one to detect and adjust for dips and rises in the terrain and in our case the occasional cow pie. The contact with the ground is almost ethereal but must be present.
Onegaishimasu (おねがいします)
Iaido Tanshinjuku 