Like Alex, I'd like to know when/where this "bokken is not an imitation shinken" business started, and what O-sensei would have to say about it.
To add to his great questions:
- Why in Iwama practice is the bokken held at the left hip just past the tsuka while you find you partner and walk to your practice spot, then raised in a symbolic sword draw motion to begin practice?
- Why do all bokken techniques/exercises involve hands being strictly on the tsuka at all times? (unlike the Iwama jo, a blunt weapon where you use many different hand positions and motions)
- Why do takeaway techniques never involve grasping the attacker's weapon except at the tsuka?
- Why is it shaped so specifically like a sword anyway, if it is supposed to be a blunt weapon rather than a sword replica?
- Why is it improper to hand bokken to others except by giving them the tsuka?
- Why do you start and end weapons sessions using specific locations (bokken on your left vs on right) for bowing in vs out?
I know none of these questions are damning on their own but in total it feels to me like bokken practice in general was designed/intended at its core to be imitation sword practice. Maybe the "but the bokken is a blunt weapon on its own, too" idea was added (or over-emphasized) later, in contradiction to the original intent of the practice?
Quote:
Alex Megann wrote:
These questions are very interesting to me, as my own feeling is that the experience of aikido as uke is very different if tori has the intent to cut, rather than to strike.
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Although I have limited experience, I started in a club with heavy Iwama influence, and I've trained at several places also with Iwama flavor... the vernacular of "cut" in taijutsu has been almost universal. And of course the point was that doing "cut" action would have a uniquely desireable effect. So I guess even within Iwama tradition "cut" rather than strike is also similarly important?