Sword Class RI

I grabbed stills from my tameshigiri practice; a few hundred of them are on the Flickr album below. The pictures are from key moments throughout the cuts; where form meets function. Some are excellent form, some are poor form; good executions, bad ones and everything else in between. I want to use these as talking points about posture, force, focus and overall flow of the cuts - my cuts. Analyze them like I do :-) https://www.flickr.com/photos/soksa/albums/72157674516799310 #

This is a compilation of my "good cuts" from our latest Siljun Dobup retreat, I wanted to share it with you all. I subscribe to ichi go, ichi e philosophy, try to keep my zanshin intact, in mushin throughout. I do not like to draw, pause, get ready, adjust the sword, fine tune the stance and then perform the cut. At my level, I aspire to the correct Iai: draw and cut at once without hesitation and with purpose. I try to keep moving and not stopping, not adjusting - as

We had our annual Siljun Dobup retreat in our good friend and sensei Tony's world famous pig farm in Somerset, New Jersey. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday and we had a lot of tatamis to slice and dice. I will update this post with more details in due time, for now enjoy the compiled video :-) #katana #iaido #tameshigiri #fruit #hakama #zanshin #mushin #ichigoichie