Junto
2016 12 01 | journal
In the first set of MSR koryu waza, there's one called Junto. It approximates the movements one samurai would make when seconding another who's committing seppuku - one form of ritual suicide. Essentially, your task as the kaishakunin, is to cut the samurai's head off after he guts himself. You perform the killing stroke such that a flap of skin remains holding the head to the neck long enough for you to cut that so the head falls into a basket, and doesn't roll away - which would be, to say the least, very poor form and would be dishonourable (or, if nothing else, would offend the witnesses to the suicide). You also do this to spare the samurai more pain than is necessary.
I know MJER has a similar waza, named Kaishaku. I can't speak for MJER dojo traditions in how their version of this waza is handled, but in many MSR dojos (mine included) this is a waza we do not perform at demonstrations nor in front of outsiders - nor would one use this as a grading waza - out of respect for the samurai who performed it and who were the recipients of it. There are videos of Junto and Kaishaku on YouTube, however.
This is the only waza that, so far, has given me personal pause. Every waza is a form of defense or attack, but this one is a far more serious business. This one is neither. I did read somewhere that some do not consider it to be a waza at all, but more a form of etiquette. Every time I do it, I think about the people involved - the samurai who died, and the ones who delivered the killing strokes. It's… sobering.
You can find videos of Junto and Kaishaku on YouTube.