In the beginning of Iaido training, the focus for most is on the sword. A beginner often wants to “cut” and hear the “whoosh” of the sword or bokken. At the very least, the beginner wants to hold a sword and swing it. It’s probably what brought the person into the dojo in the first place. The beginner receives instruction from the teacher about grip, stance, arc, timing, visualization, and relaxation, but the beginner wants to see and hear the results of training hard by swinging the sword and creating movement and playing samurai. After a while, the fantasy fades and real training begins, or the person quits because real training is not what he thought it would be.

Posture is paramount. The head and hip should be vertical and form a stable axis around which everything can move. Stability of that axis, once established, remains the focus as movement is added. Extending one’s arms shouldn’t pull the body one direction or another. The added weight of the sword shouldn’t alter the axis as the cutting motion begins, ends, or meets an obstacle/target. The stance in its varied width and breadth should support the stability of the axis so that all movement is connected to the cutting motion and the cutting portion of the sword. A stationary axis is easier to control because it’s easier to identify the different forces acting on the center.

Then, movement of the axis is added. First, up and down, then forward, then …let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The center must remain stable. If the center is not stable, any movement will pull the center off its course. As dynamic beings, we are in constant change and motion. As we travel through our lives, there will always be forces that try to pull or push us in one direction or another. If we are to continue, we must be able to resist those forces and maintain our paths.

To move our center up from a seated, seiza position, there is a force that builds in the center and finds vertical movement as the place of least resistance. This force pushes our center up and we find ourselves on our knees with our toes curled. The center expands as one foot steps out creating a triangle with the ground as its base and our center as its apex. Tension continues to build from the connection that our feet have created and our center is propelled further until we are standing. The expansion is complete. One foot is forward, the other is behind on parallel lines shoulder-width apart. The back leg is straight. We are stable. We then bend the back leg and begin contraction, lowering our center to the ground until our knee from our back knee comes to rest on the ground creating a straight line from the tip of our heads to our knee. Then the front foot slides back so that both knees are on the ground, toes lie flat, and we lower the center back to seiza. The whole time the head and the hip are in a straight, vertical line.

A stable center is necessary for the transfer the maximum power to the tip of a sword, or any tool. Only from a stable position can we act in any way that can have impact.

Looking up the definition of “dojo” in a translation dictionary, one may find “place for practice or tournament (martial arts).”  The literal translation has been “do”=”way or path” and “jo”=”place”.  “Place of the Way/Path”  In all the arts that have “do” at the end: Aikido, Kyudo, Jodo, Kendo, Iaido, Judo,…. there is a differentiation between the “technical” or “justu” and the elevated, transcendent, lifelong, “do”.  One could be proficient in Iaijutsu, but miss the higher, unexplainable Iaido.  This differentiation is the essential component of a dojo.

The path is a solo journey.  There may be others near by, but the path is an individual’s to take.  There will be times when there are many people around and going in the same direction, but there will also be those times when there is no one to be found, except ourselves.  It is ourselves that we must confront. It is ourselves that we must accept. It is ourselves that we must inspire and love.  And it is ourselves that we must transcend.  This is the “way”, “path”, or “do”.

A dojo is a place for the practice of that journey so that when we confront the world we can accept the problems, inspire solutions, love the work, and transcend.

The teacher’s role in a dojo is not to just teach the jutsu, it is also to create an experience that invites the student to walk the path.  It is not idle, friendly chit-chat.  Creating the experience can be direct instruction, observation, and/or modeling.  It is never empty. The student’s role in a dojo is to steal as much as possible.  Squeeze as much knowledge out of every moment.  Analyze every movement, word, and intent; then do it again to interpret it from another perspective, then another, and another.  To be a student is to never stop thinking about the lessons so that learning is infinite.  Then, the world is the dojo.  O’ negai shimasu?

Injury frequently gets in the way of training. There are many types of injury, too. Some injuries are physical, some are mental, some are emotional, but they all require rehabilitation. Some injuries present little difficulty in recovery, these are minor, but others require a large amount of time and detailed, consistent, professional work in order to get back to an operational state.

From September 2006 to March of 2007, the greatest amount of tragedy, to that point, occurred in my life. September brought the death of a grandmother and two uncles. November brought the death of my step-father, and March brought the death of Sensei. Five deaths in six months created a hole in my heart that for many years became the defining factor of my existence. I would often find myself weeping after the impulse to pick up the phone and call the missing loved one, but slowly, I began to smile at the memories. It’s eleven years already, and I frequently find myself laughing at the things they would say or do.

My heart was injured, but that’s because I used it. My body gets injured, but that’s because I use it. If I am to bring honor to anything, I must use it to the best of my ability, with the greatest care, and though I never have the intent to do harm, it is inevitable that there will be injuries, after all, that’s living.

It’s always a good idea to review some of the common language we might use in the dojo.  The Terminology in the About section is not exhaustive, but it is a good place to start.  Please ask your teacher if you have any questions about the language of your art.  It is important to speak a common language.

One of my students has a sword that was forged from what we suspect was a bell like this one at a Buddhist temple in Kyoto.  It is pictured below.  It is a beautiful sword and Furuya Sensei indicated that its smith, Masataka was one of the well known modern smiths who had studied under the two top smiths of the Showa period, Kasama Shigetsu and Takahashi Sadatsugu.  The sword was made using metal from the main hall of the Narita Shrine in Narita.

It’s amazing how a material like metal can be reforged to make something completely different.  Intense heat, and the pounding out of impurities, tempering, and polishing are all labor, time intensive skills.  It makes me think how each one of us can reforge ourselves through training.  O’negai shimasu.

Recently, many of my more advanced students have been out for one reason or another.  Health, career, family, pets, vacation are all valid reasons to miss training.  We need to go out into the world to come back refreshed and attack our training with new vigor.  I think this is the reason for so many of Furuya Sensei’s words connected to beginner’s mind.  We can all remember the infatuation we had at the beginning of something almost to the point of obsession.  This fades quickly as the day-to-day reality begins to sink in and we begin to see things we don’t like.  The key is to try to maintain an openness for discovery.  I have only been training in Iaido for eighteen years, so I discover something new nearly every time I train or teach.

Because the students who are further down the path are away, I am able to focus on our beginners more closely and work on the fundamentals.  Already I see them developing their bases for cutting and developing extension, and discovering their centers and working on maintaining their stability.  It is a gift to be able to watch them discover and it made me wish all my students were there so they could revisit their beginner’s mind.  I will just have to be patient and wait for them to be back in the dojo.  O’negai shimasu.

Reflecting on the past is what allows us to move forward in an informed way.  Much of culture operates from traditions.  In our training, we must be mindful and make sure that we are carrying the traditions of the past and bringing them forward into the world with honor and respect.  Tradition happens for a reason.  It worked.  We must study why it worked and then bring that function forward into our art, not try to press our art into the tradition.  Can you understand?