kendo to Iaido

[tsuba_man]

I've been doin kendo for a pretty short time now and im gonna do it for a long time yet but i was just wonderin how much doin kendo would help out your iaido and vice versa, see if it's worth doin both or to just concentrate on my (bad) kendo

[R A Sosnowski]

I've been doin kendo for a pretty short time now and im gonna do it for a long time yet but i was just wonderin how much doin kendo would help out your iaido and vice versa, see if it's worth doin both or to just concentrate on my (bad) kendo

What do you want from your training?

Doing both, one will enhance the other. Seitei Iai was created by the ZNKR so that Kendo students would get the experience of handling real swords or their equivalent. The feeling of Kendo should be in Iaido and the feeling of Iaido should be in Kendo; however, it does take a very long time to be able to do this. Kendo was originally created by swordsmen to be able to experience the next level of training after Kata and Kumitachi, Jigeiko, in a "realtively" safe environment.

There was a time when Kendo and Iaido were considered "two sides of the same coin."

However, there are other modern exponents who insist that a student do only one: either Kendo or Iaido, and not both. Their argument is that given a limited amount of practice time, concentrate your energy on just one study, and get good at it.

There is a third school of thought that insists that a student initally do either Kendo or Iaido, and not both; however, after achieving some level of training (shodan, nidan or sandan) in one art, then begin to study the other art. The argument here is to have a solid foundation in one art before adding another.

All of these points-of-view have merit.

And that brings me back to my original question: what do you want from your training?

HTH.

[chidokan]

I tend to go along with the third one for beginners, get a grounding in one and then pick up the other one. Think the shortest time should be about a year, by that time you have enough of an idea of whats going on and whats expected to be able to manage both. the two methods look and feel very different at first but after a time you will get a benefit in each from doing the other.

[Chusan]

I`ve been practicing both Kendo and Iaido for about two decades, and my personal view is: Kendo does work without Iaido, but Iaido without any Kendo is somewhat poor. You just need the feeling of real combat, which you do have in Kendo, to understand Iaido, I suppose.

[chidokan]

I would agree, although any close combat type art would do instead of kendo. It's the appreciation of distance and timing that is initially lacking for most iaidoka who only do iaido. Later in most of the ryu there are one on one techniques that help develop these features, however I dont think these are done early enough in the West due to the low levels of time available to people for practise. If you could train twice a day for three hours and all weekend no doubt you could hit this stuff a lot earlier, but there again you should be competent anyway if you had all that time!! :D

[kgh]

I would have to agree with getting a footing in one or the other first, but that might be simply because I am in the same situation ;) Approaching sandan, I am looking to finally start Kendo. I had hoped to do it sooner, but as most are faced with, time is not always on our side.

Regards,
Kris