history of competitions in iaido

[kabutoki]

hello !
i wonder if anybody could enlighten me a little about why there are competitions in iaido. when i think of budo and comps. i think of judo, sports karate or kendo. cometitions do not automatically mean deformation of the original discipline but it can.
why, when and where did the history of competitions in iaido start ?
i hope nobody out there gets me wrong. i don´t want to offend anybody doing the above mentioned arts.

yours
karsten

[Andy Watson]

A good question and one which is frequently asked by our dojo's own students.

My own personal feelings initially go with what you say, budo should be far removed from competition regarding inflating the ego and giving one a false sense of skill.

However, in my experience, competition in iaido has been beneficial in a number of ways...

1. The preparation for a competition does help to focus the mind and the body to really train in order to create the right "atmosphere".

2. Competition is one of the best environments for being put under pressure while practising kata. IMHO it is the only thing close to real fighting in iaido i.e. to feel that you have an opponent and must beat him.

3. It exposes you to other peoples styles and ways of doing iaido. I sometimes look at my opponenents-to-be to see what they do wrong or what I can do better on and ensure that I do it right or better. Is this the closest to building a strategy (?)

4. They are normally good social events and are very enjoyable.

5. There is often a pre-competition seminar.

The late Haruna sensei said that he treated gradings and competitions in exactly the same manner as his regular training. It was just another day.

Taking a leaf out of his book, my overall attitude is that is makes a great training aspect which is difficult to obtain elsewhere.

This is all purely my opinion and I fully respect the opinions of those that oppose competition.

:)

[Jack B]

As a note, my sensei advised that we be conservative in picking our waza for shodan-shiken, but "go for broke" for taikai. In a promotion you want to avoid anything too challenging because of the risk of embarrassment or failure. In a competition, you have nothing to lose so you have an opportunity to attempt waza at the upper limits of your skill.

[hyaku]

If I may add a little.........

We use the word taikai but it does not strictly mean competition.

In Japan we have Embu, Taikai, Embu taikai etc. Sometimes there is no actual prize winner. People just demonstrate and the fight is with themselves!

Hyakutake Colin

http://www.sword.shorturl.com

[Andy Watson]

In agreement with Hyakutake, we normally finish an iai session at our dojo with two or three groups doing an embu to the rest. The purpose is to improve one's experience of the atmosphere of both gradings and competition as well.

During normal training it is all too easy to stop during a form, check things, hang around looking about you etc. and never actually get a form or set of forms finished.

For this purpose we have the embu session. It ensures that everyone has a focused session at least once.

[kabutoki]

hello !
thanks to all of you so far.
i think that competitions in iaido are as "budo friendly" as possible and i don´t want to question them. my thoughts were more directed to the history. does anyone of you know when the competitive aspect came up ? what about other sword arts or even other budo disciplines ? i think in budo competitions do not necessarily have to develop.
what made it start ? the lack of actual "live or death" situations ? this would be an interesting thought.
again, i don´t want this to be an anti-competition thread. i would like to share and see opinions about the origin...

thank you
karsten