Japanese Sword Etiquette

At a certain point in my training my teacher arranged for me to train at another dojo for a period of time. 

As the point of total commitment to the path and dojo was coming closer, I had to be sure if that is was something I wanted to do, if I was ready to step through the martial gate.

Up to this point my training had been about self-discovery through the Japanese sword. Its philosophy of movement, and if left the dojo at this point and did not continue my practice I still held something special.

The lessons learned would serve me on wherever my life-path took me, and would help me at whatever future decisions I made, but if I was going to continue the commitment had to be absolute. Not just the art, but the dojo- is there where I needed to be.

Personally I knew that the moment I walked in the dojo and felt the presence of my teacher, but tradition is tradition and everybody passes through the same gates on the way up the mountain.

One month of training at the other dojo, same art, different teacher and for that month I was their student, not my teachers, and what that meant for me. At the end of that month a parting instruction on what they thought was the most important aspect of kenjutsu.

The one axis that everything else revolves and arranges around.

The one unlock.

The one thing that for some reason if that was all I could practice on my own, it would carry me the rest of the way.

Now some years later I would agree without reservation about that lesson.

Etiquette.

The way of transmission is that those that can will, and those that can not will not. Given the subject matter, swinging around razor sharp steel, the strictness of the dojo, the exacting of the transmission is one of compassion.

Your teacher want’s you to live, and it has to be taught this way so you can find a way to live, and if not better to know you have no future in this path and to leave with a life still intact.

Kenjutsu etiquette like all instruction in the sword is something you are shown and pick up, there is no need or explanation, academic discussion, debate, or video presentations. The proof is in that it has survived.

The answer is to come to the dojo and just practice, but this is not the dojo, it a blog capturing moments in time, Ichi-go ichi-e, in the clumsy and inaccurate medium of words.

Of which I will do my best to transmit and in that medium some explanations behind it.

Just don’t get trapped in the explanation thinking that is the transmission, the transmission is in doing it without thinking.

Before fighting postures, sword cuts, forms, and patters, there is how to hold the sword and how to pass it to another person.

What that means, and what that cultivates over time.

You and I in the dojo, across from each other, passing the sword to you. How the handle and blade face, the correct distance and timing to do this. How you receive the sword in return, and pass it back to me.

How when the teacher is demonstrating something in class, how the sword is held in the right hand at the right side, and when it is time to pair up with a partner, it is passed from the right hand to the left hand.

What this means and why it is done.

How the sword sits on the sword stand, either alone or with a short sword, the meaning of the direction the handles face, the awareness and presence behind it.

These cultivate a presence and understanding of distance and timing in a micro and controlled setting, which is the engine of distance, timing, and rhythm in kenjutsu.

A starting place to see and practice these elements.

Similarly, a passport to the transmission, by knowing how to behave and building an awareness of the situation and who you are standing before.

Etiquette that trains the body and mind in a simple and direct way.

It does not look like *kenjutsu*, but it is the foundation and for those with the eyes to see, it is apparent who skipped this step, or worse had a teacher who did not teach this step.