Re: Draw!
Originally posted by Cady Goldfield
Okay, but I'm still getting this crazy scene in my head of a bunch of iai guys on the battlefield. There they are with their swords in their saya, running up to each foe, stopping, drawing their sword, killing with a single indefensible cut, shakin' that blood off, and returning the blade to the saya before running off to encounter their next opponent.
Sorry... just can't shake the image.
Try this one then:
Samurai guy using a yari, drops it, has it broken by the opponent, suddenly finds himself in too close quarters to use it or something along those lines needs to draw his sword as a secondary weapon. (And indeed on the battlefield, ANY medieval or ancient battlefield, the spear was THE primary weapon of hand-to-hand combat)... so wow, in that situation iai has battlefield utility doesn't it? I won't tell Musashi if you won't.
Iai would have been a part of a warrior's training. We don't teach our soldiers today to only be able to use a single weapon, we teach them to be able to use every weapon that comes to hand. We still call these people riflemen, machine gunners, anti-tank gunners or whatever their specialty may be, but they are not limited by their specialty in their choice of weapons or tactics.
You seem to think that martial arts are somehow mutually exclusive. Even a kenjitsu guy has to get his sword out of the saya now and then doesn't he? Or maybe the REAL kenjitsu folks avoided that problem by just walking around with the thing in their hand. That way they wouldn't have to corrupt their pure art with anything that smells of Iai.
Iai is a combat art, born from the necessity to bring the sword into action quickly and with decisive effect. Like any other method of attacking any opponent, that attack may not work. All of a sudden you're in a swordfight and there's no law anywhere that says you have to put the sword back in the saya after each cut.
The facts of the matter are really very simple. Iai was born from a real world need and if it hadn't filled those needs, it would have died out. We are all trying to keep these various arts alive, each for our own reasons, but the original practitioners learned this art in order to stay alive. Personally, I could care less that you think Iai is useless, I think I'd much rather follow the advice of the men who lived and died with their swords.
Any tactic applied ignorantly can result in defeat. Training also teaches when and where particular tactics will be most effective. It doesn't take a genius to realize that you don't have to perform nukitsuke if you already have the damn sword out of the scabbard. Reading the period texts appears to show that the warriors of the time were more concerned with proper tactical thinking and decision making than they were about creating invincible techniques to be applied to any situation to bring instant victory.
Speaking of all this battlefield application and so on, I assume that you train in full armor against horsemen, archers, and musketeers in order to make sure your art stays ready for combat. I thought I'd spent a lot of money on an iaito...
Dan Beaird
The best time to be a hero is when all the other chaps are dead, God rest 'em, and you can take the credit.
H. Flashman V.C., K.C.B., K.C.I.E.