This weekend, Capital Katori hosted Sugawara Tetsutaka (Aikidō 7th dan shihan, Katori Shintō-ryū kiyoshi) for a three day seminar on Aikidō and Katori Shintō-ryū. While I do not practice Aikidō, I was able to attend two of the Katori Shintō-ryū sessions, where I benefited from working with many different people on the basic curriculum of the school and received some good pointers from Sugawara-sensei on tachi vs. naginata. I enjoyed practicing the omote no tachi, naginata, and the gogyo no tachi with several advanced practitioners. I found working with different people than I normally do on these kata very rewarding.
I am a bit rusty on some of the advanced kata sets such as ryoto (double sword practice), so working those forms with people who were excited to push the boundaries of the art was not productive. I quickly found myself struggling to do the kata correctly at a speed that was above my skill level. When the time to do kodachi with similar intensity came around, I was more than happy to watch others do so. I would have liked more time to work those sets at a normal pace.
While last year I was working on keeping posture, coming off some recent injuries, this year I will work on precision in tai-sabaki. The challenge for me is doing so at the quick pace often found when people get into their practice. It is very easy to get caught up in the energy of the kata – they are excellent vehicles for intense practice. However, if you practice too fast, you run a danger of losing focus or not expressing the difference between uchi and shi in the kata. I am planning to work slower to make sure the details of my practice are correct. In doing so, I want to make a point of keeping a strong sense of centerline and initiative (e.g., the separate roles of uchi and shi) as best I can.
