Getting Started In Kenjutsu

The first three years of kenjutsu did not look like anything the sword experts posted on social media.

I did get to hold a wooden sword so there was that.

Those three years focused on the sword postures, the kamae, ways of navigating with the body while holding the sword.

The cuts where there also, but always secondary to the postures.

At first they were quite exciting and exotic as they captured my imagination as I imagined how strong I must have looked holding the sword.

Every few weeks a new posture with an ancient name and esoteric meaning was introduced but after nine months I had seen them all.

We would pair up with a partner and assume the first posture, easing into it and both holding it at the same time. Keep it perfect for a bit, and return to standing back up.

A variant of this drill was to practice across from a mirror and check how the posture looked.

I understood that one needed to become familiar with these postures, but did that mean months and months of the same practice?

It did, and the dojo was not a democracy.

I was the one who asked to learn, who asked to become a student, who asked to be taught the way of the sword.

It was explained to me that kenjutsu was about eliminating faults and weaknesses in your structure and that started with the postures. If there was even the slightest opening in transition, or the slightest hesitation in movement that was that.

There was also a hidden side to it, eliminating faults and weaknesses in the structure of one’s character. Tempering the mind so it would be able to accept future lessons, and also working out the personality of the mind so an opponent could not capture it.

Both processes were interlinked and if one skipped the specifics of training the mind it would be better to just give up the path altogether.

There is no other way, it is just how it is despite what is currently shown otherwise.