A Beginner's Point of View 401-402

Day 401:

Sensei brought his own sword to practice and suggested I try using it. I felt like it was made of hollow plastic. He said this was a zinc-aluminum blade. It’s metal but it feels like nothing, like air. Well, that settles it. I’m not buying a zinc-aluminum sword any time soon. My ‘slow swing’ seemed to fly at a hundred miles per hour for the horizontal cut in the first kata. I slowed down again and it sped too fast on the down cut.

Sensei was amused and showed me a kata from Muso-Shinden Ryu. It’s like the first Seitei Gata kata, but standing. You step forward with your left foot, hands on the sword, draw and cut horizontally while stepping forward with the right foot, swing to the left and upwards while stepping forward with the left foot, then cut downwards while stepping forward with the right foot. Chiburi just like the first Seitei Gata kata. After a couple of times, I slowed down and stopped using power in my swing. My kata got better. Sensei gave me my sword back and I tried again.

By using great circles centered around my navel instead of pushing and pulling the steel as if the center of mass of the blade was the center, I did much better.

Day 402:

Just a side note, the owners of the building filled the furniture with a new type of chairs. Folding outdoor chairs that seemed built backwards. It took several minutes to figure out how to fold them. I guess it was good for the problem-solving skills. Instead of just using two hands, you need to use a foot and one hand or else you won’t generate enough pressure to overcome the tightness of the chair. There’s a lesson in there that reminds me of last class’s no-strength lesson in Iaido. Different points of view and different approaches can solve problems.

I continued to work on my Iaido and it appeared to me to be smoother. Not wobbly on my feet tonight. Just trying to pay attention I felt distracted. My mind was going many strange places all throughout the class. I did two sets of kata.