Each week sports reporter ROBERT CARRY tries out martial arts from around the world. This week it’s the Japanese art of Iaido
The Iaido Association of Ireland argues that “to describe iaido as just ‘sword drawing’ would be a bit like saying that the tea ceremony is merely ‘having a cuppa’”. Sadly, tea ceremonies are indeed essentially about having a cuppa, and I discovered on Monday night – in the Martial Arts Academy, off Pearse Street in Dublin – that iaido is indeed just about drawing a sword.
The class was the least physically taxing I’ve ever been too. There was no warm-up, and we ran through our own stretching routines. This, however, did prove something of a plus as the routines used by some classes can miss out on important muscle groups which then start to niggle at you while the class is in full swing.
Next, and to my disgust, we took down a load of punch bags that were dangling from the ceiling of the reasonably well kitted-out hall. It was at this point that I began to suspect that anything resembling actual fighting would be entirely absent from the class.
What happens in iaido classes is that a group of lads get together and pretend to be Japanese samurai from back in the day by drilling a stunningly small number of moves. The little routines they practice ad nauseam involve first drawing their sword, then maybe doing one cut against an imaginary opponent, shaking the imaginary blood from the blade (I kid you not) and finally replacing it back into the scabbard.
The emphasis for those who practice iaido – roughly translated as ‘the way of mental presence and immediate reaction’ – is on efficient movements through the three phases of each drill.
After running through the most basic drill, which involves drawing your sword from a kneeling position (and which took all of about 20 seconds to execute), Nick John-son, one of the founding members of the Iaido Association of Ireland, was on hand to inform me that beginners keep practicing that one move for about three years before moving onto something different. I looked around at the rest of the class to see how they reacted to this seemingly outrageous claim, but there wasn’t a glimmer from anyone – he was actually serious.
He then told me that he had been practicing it for a good five years before adding that he “still had a long way to go” before nailing it. This remark was met with sage-like nods from Bjoern Fehr, the most senior swordsman in the class. It also triggered an almost overwhelming desire to run barefoot and screaming from the hall to well up inside me.
After a lengthy chat with myself and a new guy who had spent years reading about this rubbish before deciding to pop in to a class, we kicked off by bowing on our way into the hall. Next we bowed at one end of the hall before bowing at our swords. Bowing to a sword is a ridiculous exercise at the best of times, but when you’ve been handed a wooden one, called a boken, it seems just that bit more farcical.
We then moved on to how to properly hold your sword. This was problematic in that the thing is supposed to be attached to your waist by a belt, so it’s only really beginners – who haven’t got around to shelling out a couple of hundred quid for the long, black, dress-like garb these lads mince around the place in – who learn this part. As soon as you get yourself the dress, or borrow something similar from your Ma, it’s made redundant.
Next we moved on to some more etiquette. Apparently, to knock past someone’s sword with your own is the gravest of grave insults, and has even resulted in deadly sword fights. Nick was actually a nice guy, but I was still tempted to shove him into the path of a passing Bjoern to see what sort of bloody death match might ensue.
We were also told that when not using your sword, you should place it with the point facing away from the top of the room and with the blade facing out (or was that in?). Another vitally important rule was that the most senior guys should stand at the top of the room while the juniors should stand near the entrance. The idea behind this was that should a band of would-be assassins burst through the door in an attempt to kill the senior class, they would be tired out from chopping their way through the youngsters by the time they got to them. And the list just went on and on and on.
This class really didn’t have a lot going for it. I don’t like the useless ceremonial stuff that attaches itself to martial arts without adding any value to fighting ability, but this seemed to be all ceremony and no martial art. However, one semi-good thing about it was the swords. I mean, I don’t care if you’re Mahatma Gandhi – when someone hands you a samurai sword, the first thing you want to do is start swinging it around the place, and that’s basically what was going on in these classes.
There was supposedly some profound mental and spiritual aspect transcending the original activity but it didn’t seem to be in evidence. If you give a lad a sword, he’ll entertain himself with it for a couple of hours. But the sad thing about these iaido classes is that these guys manage to keep themselves entertained for years on end.
