Clear Lake Iaido

Last night (Monday, August 20) Joe and I attended a widely publicized seminar on Toyama Ryu, taught by Hataya sensei, that was open to all styles. My main reason for attending were to meet others from the Houston area who are interested in Japanese swordsmanship, and to make our group's presence known. I had suspected that there were other sword groups in Houston that I didn't know about, and was betting this event would draw them out. I wasn't disappointed.

First, some background. Hataya sensei was listed on the event flyer as an 8dan Toyama Ryu Batto Do, 8dan Uchi Mono, 7dan Naginata-do, President of the All Japan Shizan Kai, and member of the board of directors of the Zen Nihon Batto Do Renmei. The event was presented by the Buke Ryu Dojo and the Mizu Hi Kobukai, in a church gym north of Houston.

Joe and I left directly after work and arrived ahead of schedule to find the gym still locked. Soon people began arriving though and eventually we got inside and changed. We knew almost no one. We seemed to be the only ones with iaitos,-- everyone else had bokens (no sayas), and one of very few wearing hakamas,-- everyone else had on dark karate gis. We retreated to a far corner to warm up with a few repetitions of Mae.

They lined up the participants according to rank. We initially thought this was rank in Toyama ryu or some other iai art, but after watching the rows in front of us during the seminar we're pretty sure that they must have meant ones top martial art rank, whether sword related or not, because the alternative was simply too scary to contemplate. We were the only ones on the floor, other than the teacher, with metal swords, and the only ones clad all in black gi and hakama (the teacher and the other hakama wearers seemed to prefer blue). Since Joe and I were complete novices to this style we placed ourselves on the low end of the back row (the kyu grade row). I kept expecting someone to come along and tell us to exchange our iaitos for bokens (which we had brought with us), but no one did. Hataya sensei did come up to us as he toured around the room correcting students during a free practice period, and the the first thing he asked me was what ryu we did. Apparently it was pretty obvious to him we had been doing some non Toyama style for a while. I told him we did Eishin ryu, where upon he asked Joe if he was a 3dan in Eishin ryu (I am not joking!). After it was established that we were non ranked, he instructed us on the Toyama ryu way of holding the sword (hands much further apart), and doing noto (they move the hand around the tsuka, after stepping forward, to check for cuts to the wrapping).

The first two katas we learned were solo iaido katas from Toyama Ryu called ippon me Mae no teki, and nihon me Migi no teki. These were done walking. Some differences: the feet are further apart (shoulder width) side to side, but much narrower front to back. The foot work was much more like Jodo or Kendo. Hands on the sword were much further apart, again like Kendo. Reishiki was done standing, with the sword in the right hand. Almost every kata had a kesagiri as one of the cuts.

During a five minute break I introduced my self to various folk to find out where they were from, and in the course of which I found some representatives of a group that practiced Japanese sword arts in a dojo near my house. The head of this group apparently trains with Carl McClafferty sensei (one of the demonstrators at this year's SA Sword Show). I am looking forward to forming friendly relations with this group.

In the second half of the seminar we learned two paired katas from Nakamura Ryu Kumitachi. The first kata involves stepping back from a horizontal draw cut while drawing vertically up then cutting down with a kesa giri. At this time we figured it would probably be best to use our bokens, but while practicing the first of the paired kata with bokens Hataya sensei comes by, and in the course of correcting us, he asks us to use our iaitos instead, so we switch back. So there we were, the only ones on the floor swinging at each other (carefully) with metal swords. The second paired kata involved a thrusting attack on the part of uchidachi which the defender sidesteps and parries into a kesagiri. We thought again about switching back to bokens, but decided we could keep doing it slowly and carefully with iaitos until someone came along to stop us, but no one did. By the way our iaitos did not suffer a scratch which was surprising after all the the blade to blade contact.

The only other feedback on our practice was made by Kenneth Mack sensei (founder of the Mizu Hi Kobukan), whom I knew from the last Houston Sword Show, but who had never seen me practice until now. In the middle of the first half of the seminar he came up to us and gave us, and our sensei, a nice compliment.

After bowing out, and the group photo, Joe changed clothes while I mingled and handed out our school's business card to any who seemed interested. There were a lot (~50) of people there, the vast majority of which looked to be beginners in sword arts. All in all it was an interesting experience in a different style. Joe and I particularly enjoyed the paired work which we had never done before.

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