Aloha, Yoj. I'd like to thank you for posting that MSR video link. My wife & I had Maeda-Sensei & his wife over for dinner last week, & after viewing those old clips, he decided that we could provide some much clearer iaido video.
This afternoon before practice, I taped two views each of Sensei performing MJER shoden & batto -- one view from the front & the other from 45 degrees to his left -- using my pro-level 3-CCD miniDV camera. The only glitch came when I started to transfer the video to my big computer system...& the two-month-old motherboard died! I spent an hour talking with Dell tech support, & they're mailing me a replacement board to install, but it'll now probably be a week before I can edit that video .
Anyway, once Sensei approves it, I'll post the video to our dojo's Web-site, http://www.kaifukan.org. Hopefully, he'll let me load it onto our public area where I can point anyone who's interested. Sensei is Kendo Renshi hachidan & Iaido yondan, by the way. I'll probably shoot the chuden & okuden segments in a month or so. And eventually, I'll add tameshigiri katas.
My long-range plan is to create a detailed training DVD that can take our beginning students from wearing the gi, hakama, & obi; to very basic sword-handling; to rei; & then to the MJER katas all the way through okuden. Not that I think that there's any way for a student to learn solely from a DVD, but I remember how many times Linda & I went back & looked at the Seitei Iai videotape when we were first starting iaido -- not that many years ago. A clear visualization & understanding of each kata would have been a great help! I'm debating on whether to include a voice-over explaining each waza, or just show a brief written explanation.
My only problem is that Sensei has decided to omit Seitei Iai from the dojo's training regimen, & I can't convince him otherwise. Including the Seitei Iai katas would make the DVD much more complete. Any idea on how to change Sensei's mind (while leaving me intact)?
Ken Goldstein
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Judo Kodansha/MJER Iaido Kodansha/Jodo Oku-iri
Fencing Master/NRA Instructor
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it'll annoy enough people to be worth the effort."