Kishimoto sensei notes: 2014
by Stanislav Vardomskiy
Northeastern US seminar with Kishimoto sensei.
This year it was Kishimoto sensei, accompanied by Okuda Kazuma sensei (Iaido 8th dan Kyoshi, Jodo 7th dan Renshi) they are doing an AUSKF educational tour.
Okuda Kazuma sensei is from Osaka, and (I believe) a former student of late Nakanishi Yasushi. He is sempai of Kato Shizuo (The fellow who passed Kendo 8th dan a few years back, and who is 7th dan Iaido himself).
Okuda
sensei demonstrated, while Kishimoto Sensei explained.
Okuda s. has a different timing on Sogiri. We do it kind of with regular interval between the first three cuts. He has a pause after the first cut, and a very short interval between between second and third. Ooooonnnne. Two. THREE!
Kishimoto sensei's points were, in no particular order:
Folks sandan and up, the ones that teach, need not just to know the kata, but need to know the reason, why the kata is done the way it is done. The riai is important. Up to 3rd dan, nukitsuke, kiritsuke, noto, reiho, all have to be getting better. After 3rd dan, and starting to work up to fourth they need to be correct, and up to 6th dan, folks need to work on the why of the kata.
Another point was 軸足, "jiku ashi" Jiki is axis or pivot, and ashi is foot. All the turns are done by shifting weight onto the pivot foot, and turning, and then shifting the weight back. That includes things like ushiro, and things like gan men atte. In other words, do not invent new ways to turn.
Ukenagashi is done with go no sen timing.
One should never look down (drop the metsuke) before the cut.
He talked alot about 腹式呼吸 、 "fukushiki kokyu". Basically, I think that that's abdominal breathing. He talked to a Japanese doctor, who, in turn, told him, that women are unable to do abdominal breathing, because, abdominal breathing will hurt the baby during pregnancy. He tells people to inhale/exhale using stomach muscles.
So exhale when sitting down, as soon as the knee touches the ground, then fill the lungs to 50-60% capacity, and start the kata.
He didn't try to explain Jo Ha Kyu or tenouchi, because this year's new approach is to explain and correct the breathing, and, according to him, it will correct the kata. Jo Ha Kyu is simple, if breathing is correct.
A long time was spent explaining the point that in some versions of Japanese books, including ZNKR books, the term せいたい "seitai" is transcribed using incorrect character, and means not what it is supposed to mean. Now, we are not talking about this seitai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seitai but about 正体 vs 正対. First term means "correct body (posture)", second one means "directly across". So apparently some sensei still teach that in some kata you are directly across from someone, while in reality you should have correct body posture. Apparently (and this is a conjecture), this mistake must have made it into ZNRK manual, otherwise I can't explain why we spent such a long time on this point.
So correct body posture (seitai), results in correct abdominal breathing, and combined the two result in 気攻め kizeme, seme using one's ki.
I guess that kizeme in turn, leads to 気位, kigurai, haughtiness, dapperness, swagger. And that, in turn, can lead to 品格, hinkaku, dignity, grace. But he didn't say that. But that above resulted in a point, that just like in Kendo, don't bother translating iaido terms to English, because you will lose the meaning.
In
Shihogiri it is OK, in fact it is natural, to not only not return to
the same starting spot (impossible), but it's OK to not end up on the
same line as before.
There is a problem with the last cut in sogiri. The problem is the target's hips. You are, apparently, supposed to cleave the attacker in two, cutting through the spine, so put in your hips, don't just cut with the hands/shoulders. But don't cut so low, as to get stuck in kasso tekki's hip bones.
Last cut in #7 (sanpogiri) and #12 (nukiuchi), are good ones to use to check for correct hassugi. He didn't demonstrate this, but just said this in passing.
When sitting in seiza, tighten muscles of the thighs, such as to lift one's butt about a fistwidth off the heels. That will give you ability to move spontaneously.
For seitei standing bow, one should have a sageo still folded in thirds, in the right hand, while bowing. Left hand underneath.
Nukiuchi comes from Kendo no kata #1
At
the end of the seminar, he did a question and answer session. And
someone asked "Why does seitei
change all the time, and when will they finally make up their mind".
To summarize his reply… Seitei hasn't changed since the introduction of the kata 11 and 12 (and if you practiced it prior, then you've done it long enough not to ask such questions). The books didn't change. What changes is the individual understanding of what the book says and what the book doesn't say. A few years ago, the last year Kishimoto sensei was in charge, it took the board a year to figure out and clarify some ambiguities to seitei. (That's the translation by Robert Stroud). But the books didn't change. But if you go to different sensei, their understanding of seitei differs, your understanding hopefully progresses, and different sensei might use different approximations of correct forms as teaching tools. But seitei doesn't change, your understanding and your teacher's understanding of it does.
"What was perceived to be wrong with the first 7 kata, that resulted in addition of another three? And then, why did another two get added?"
He said there is no secret at all. Zen Ken Ren iai has one purpose - to teach kendo folks how to handle a real sword. When the first 7 kata were developed, after a while it was discovered that not all possible range of techniques of sword handling were incorporated, and there were enough various ryuha that did something completely different, that additions needed to be incorporated into ZNKR seitei iai. So the first 10 kata, basically, hold the technical curriculum for seitei. However, when they did the first ten, they felt that some proper iai character, the benevolence, if you will, was missing. So they took Nukiuchi, the shortest kata, and Sogiri, the longest, the most brutal one, and added them on. And that gave ZNKR Seitei Iai that Iaido, and not iaijitsu feel. And that's why he keeps on talking about the fact that iai is love, and is not about killing people.