Quiet / Gear
2015 07 16
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Yesterday, I took my first class in Iaido - a sword-handling art that's frequently paired with Kendo and Aikido.
I’d always wanted to learn how to handle a sword, but most of the options are combat and contact oriented, and I never got around to contacting the SCA to see if one of them could teach me how to handle a broadsword. But, I met up with an old high school friend recently who used to do Kendo, and he told me about Iaido. So there we are.
It's an eerily quiet thing. With most other martial arts there seems to be a lot of noise, either from the mouth or from the body, but Iaido is very quiet. Somehow, the quiet makes it a little more terrifying.
Iaido uses one of three types of swords: bokken (wooden practice sword), iaito (aluminum-zinc alloy sword with no cutting edge), or shinken (forged carbon steel sword with a sharp edge you could take your hand off with). They don't, apparently, let you have at the shinken until you’re 4th dan or higher.
I was fortunate, and grateful, that the sensei allowed me to come and try the class for free. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how I'm going to participate in this sport fully; because, while the classes themselves are affordable, the appropriate gear is not. I need:
- kimono/keikogi/uwagi
- obi/kakuobi
- hakama
- bokken and saya
- bag for the above
Going by what I've found online so far, that's four to five hundred dollars.
I will need to sell a kidney.
So, assuming I solve the issues above, the blind girl is going to learn how to handle a sword. Look out, world.