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I have said that my first time landing in Manhattan from Toronto by bus, and taking the stairs from the city’s Port Authority to the street to be only to greeted by the iconic yellow taxis and the nighttime glow of Time’s Square was an experience I still consider transcendent. My favourite experiences in iaido involve travelling for the first time to foreign countries to attend seminars.Īs someone who has experienced the bulk of his travelling later in life, my first substantial trip was for an iaido seminar in New Jersey via New York City approximately ten years ago. Presently my focus, through rigorous training, is to deepen my knowledge of my teacher’s iaido lineage and to continue to solidify my own personal style based on his teachings as I become eligible for my rokudan iaido rank in late 2019. My principal teacher is Goyo Ohmi, nanadan kyoshi. The sword is no longer a tool for cutting down your enemy, but a tool for cutting your ego as well.I began my iaido journey in November of 2001 at what is now known as the Mumonkai Iaido Club at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Center in Toronto, Canada. He stressed the importance of sword training, no longer as a just a practical art, but as a method of improving oneself. He formulated the Muso Shinden ryu kata using techniques from Omori-ryu and Eishin-ryu. Nakayama Hakudo Sensei, a man who had dedicated his life to the study of kendo and iai, came to the conclusion that the classical arts should be reinterpreted and opened to the general public in order for them to survive in the changing world. With this foundation of spiritual practice, Muso Shinden-ryu as we know it today was born in the early 1900's. There is a temple, Hayashizaki-Iai-Jinja, dedicated to him. It is believed that Hayashizaki himself stressed the spiritual side of training. Later, his students named the style Shin Muso Hayashizaki-ryu. This was the first systematized iai school, although similar fast-draw techniques were already used in some of the older schools of kenjutsu. According to a vision he received in a dream, he developed the batto-techniques, where one draws the sword and strikes with a single motion. At the age of 21 he went to a Shinto shrine and stayed there for 100 days.
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Like most modern Iaido schools, Muso Shinden-ryu traces its roots back to Hayashizaki Minamoto no Shigenobu (1546 - 1621). Muso Shinden-ryu means an iai school developed according to a divine vision given in a dream. San Shin Kai is the federation organized in North America by Mitsuzuka Takeshi Sensei (shown in photo below), and presently headed by Roger Wehrhahn Shihan (pictured below).
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The sword is no longer a tool for cutting down your enemy, but a tool for cutting your ego as well.Ĭreated by Jinsuke Shigenobu in 16th century Japan, this unique tradition of defensive swordsmanship (iai) was preserved in an unbroken line of headmasters through the centuries Ĭodified by Master Nakayama Hakudo (1869 - 1958), and taught worldwide by Takeshi Mitsuzuka Sensei.