Basically, you position yourself to deal with them one at a time and, what I think, is that you aim to go right through them, just like Ellis was explaining with the sword = irimi. Think about it. If you are surrounded by ten mad samurai like in the movies the only thing you can do is cut them all - one at a time. You won't have much time to avoid anything at all. In fact, even the tiniest avoidance will be the death of you - you have no time at all for defence.