Regensburg seminar with Esaka-sensei
I recently spent four days in the rather picturesque Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany. Not as a tourist or anything work related, thankfully. The only thing on my mind during those four days was iaido. Four days of training under the all-seeing eye of Esaka-sensei and some of his senior students.
My group (Ikkyu up to Nidan) was placed in the very capable hands of a man whose name I never quite got, although Niishima-sensei seems to come to mind. Not sure how old he is, and it would of course be rude to speculate, but let's just say that if I ever live to be his age I hope to be half as fit as him! He took a while to warm up (literally, quite likely, 't was chilly), but once he reached boiling point there was no stopping him. He corrected me several times, mostly on relatively minor points, but those corrections alone made the seminar worth the trip. When Esaka-sensei corrected my footwork, I could almost forget about the ridiculously overpriced hotel with crappy beds.
Doing nothing but iai for four days in a row is a great way to improve. I didn't learn anything I wasn't already supposed to know, but the sheer number of repetitions combined with viewing things in a different light made my iai progress rather nicely. Definitely worth the trip!
Some interesting things I learnt:
- The Japanese find it quite puzzling that we Westerners have such long femurs. For some people this means that the "Tsuka one fist from the Hara, Tsuba by the knee"-adage is simply impossible.
I had the Metsuke and footwork in Ukenagashi completely wrong. Now that I've got it right, the rest of the Kata feels much more natural. - Esaka-sensei may be old, but he can draw his sword in the blink of an eye without seemingly moving a muscle. Practice makes perfect, I suppose!
For some reason I've still not received any pictures from the seminar. A lot of people took a lot of pictures and I'd expected to find some of them online by now. No such luck, however. If and when they do appear on the interwebs, I'll be sure to upload some of the more flattering ones. Mental note: bring a camera next time.
