Not quite sure I remember this, but speaking about not being able to accommodate is one of the most common reasons not to mix koryu lines. Regardless of that, we intend to do more koryu practice these days. Enough worrying about the latest twitches from Paris, more adaptation and adjustment to others. Less arguing over trivia and more getting along with folks. Yeah.
Next zoom class is Niten, Sunday 11am EST, then 1:30pm live class at the downtown studio… five minutes walk from the Go train.
Links to Zoom:
SEMINARS:
Sei Do Kai Seminars
https://www.thepamurai.com/other-seminars/summer-seminars
The website includes more information and links to registration for each event in chronological order, here’s a summary by type:
Tombo Dojo Cabin Weekends – none scheduled
To Shin Kai, 6:30pm Port Credit:
Nov 27 extra iaido grading class
Dec 11
Sei Do Kai dojo Guelph:
Contact pam.sdk@gmail.com or https://www.thepamurai.com/ for details on live and zoom classes, for zoom classes, click the link at:
Zoom classes: [Wednesday Jodo at 7pm, and Thursday iaido, at 7pm, Sunday Niten Ichiryu at 11am All EDT]
Live classes Guelph Youth Dance: [Wednesday 7pm, Friday 7:30pm Sunday 1:30pm] Friday/Sunday – cancelled for some seminars.
Events: https://www.jodo-canada.ca/events
Free Books:
https://sdksupplies.com/cat_manual-free-ebooks.html
https://180degreeimaging.com/TaylorBooks.html
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Play Nice
Often I hear that folks from two lines of the same sword school will have trouble practicing together, that it is dangerous because one of them is likely to move in a way not expected by the other.
Sort of like putting a Toyota crankshaft in an Audi engine I guess. But kata aren’t machines and we aren’t robots. The very fact that two lines of practice do the kata in two different ways means that the kata are not immutable things, they are capable of being done in more than one way. Unless of course you assume one way is wrong and the other correct. But if you assumed that, surely you would not be practicing with the wrong folks would you? Except maybe to prove them wrong? With the assumption that kata are then, not cars, perhaps we can find a way that one can fit two different students into one practice, at least for the short term while they practice together. “Oh, you cut in that angle, OK go ahead and I can block this way instead of my usual and we can go on from there.”
Pretty much all budo practice is involved with paying attention to what’s happening, at least as far as I can figure. If you’re paying attention to your partner during a defined partner practice, and he moves his weapon in a different angle than you expect, perhaps you can adapt to that? If you are both just doing your memorized dance steps as fast and hard as you can, I can see how one would get cracked over the head if the other moves in an unexpected way. But seriously, what about when your buddy in the same class forgets which kata and starts doing another one? Sure, same crack on the head.
Going back to the idea that one way to do a kata is correct and one wrong, I think we get to the real problem with practicing cross-line. Folks that are “doing it wrong” will need correction yes? And your way is so superior that you dare not modify the practice in any way.
Competitive stubbornness will certainly get someone’s fingers broke.
Kim Taylor
Nov 18, 2013
Seito Bugei Juku 