We have the headmaster of our school, Toby Threadgill
visiting again. The Friday morning session was an informal training with the
sword. Adam from Australia joined us as we went over the four sword draws in
our shoden curriculum. Some points Toby covered were:
a)
When drawing the sword, the left hand pushes the
saya out then as the right hands draws the sword, at the same time the left
hand is withdrawing the saya. In this way you generate a fast draw.
b)
Keep the shoulders relaxed and make sure when
you cut, the power is transferred to your base otherwise tight shoulders cause
the person to lurch forward slightly and lose correct posture.
c)
Drop your weight through your step on the point
of contact and not before. This generates power for the cut.
d)
Keep the speed of the cut constant throughout.
Like a switch; power on, power off. This includes being tense only for the
moment of the cut and staying relaxed before and after.
e)
Keep the sword between you and your imaginary
opponent. Seems simple enough, right? Then why weren’t we doing that all the
time?
f)
Always have a feeling of pressing your opponent.
Keep an aggressive mind-set, never passive.
I have yet to purchase my own sword and so will look into
this with Toby this time around. I shared the dojo sword today with two others
and it is apparent how quickly I lose my technique when just using a bokken.
No comments:
Post a Comment