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Thread: Left-handed bushi?

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  1. #1
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    Default Left-handed bushi?

    Hi all.

    Is it true that there are no left-handed bushi?

    What I mean is, is it correct to say that there is no extant sword school that allows the left hand to be the one closest to the tsuba? Was it insisted upon that all students hold the sword with the right hand leading?

    Kind regards
    Ben Macarthur

  2. #2
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    In medieval Japan (and for the longest time into the modern age), Japanese children were taught to write, eat, and wield their swords with their right hands. In particular, etiquette demanded that samurai wear their swords on their left hip, as people walked on the left side of the road, and to wear on the right hip would have made it a bother for oncoming traffic.

    Likewise, the kata in sword schools were designed with the idea that both participants were right-handed. To do them left-handed would obscure the lesson to be taught in the kata.

    That said, some schools, as a tactical or training consideration, included left-handed techniques among their primarily right-handed curricula. To my knowledge, the only extant schools that still do are Yagyu Shinkage-ryu and Yagyu Shingan-ryu. Though there may be others.
    Josh Reyer

    Swa sceal man don, žonne he ęt guše gengan ženceš longsumne lof, na ymb his lif cearaš. - The Beowulf Poet

  3. #3
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    Default

    Suio Ryu Iai Kenpo.

    At about 4 minutes 30 seconds.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkgd1eIudmE
    Britt Nichols
    Suio Ryu Iai Kenpo® USA Shibu

    AiTe wa Baka Ja Nai

  4. #4
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    Default

    Thanks Britt and Josh - much appreciated.

  5. #5
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    We do it too..

    Takenouchi Ryu (Or more particularly Bicchu den Battojutsu)..

    Just a little though..
    Ben Sharples.
    智は知恵、仁は思いやり、勇は勇気と説いています。

  6. #6
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