For several years, I didn’t have any formal connections to any iaido organization. Since the death of my main iai teacher in Japan several years ago, things got weird real fast in the home dojo, and the local kendo/iaido group that my club once happily worked with also got weird on us. Nobody wanted us all of a sudden.
For several years, I felt cast adrift. There was so much more left to learn in my iai system. Friends offered ideas to help me out of my dilemma and even opportunities to join their systems, but I was never quite satisfied with their solutions until this past December. I got back together with a fellow student of my iai teacher. He had an advanced degree, faced the same problems, and found his own solutions.
"One has to have the flexibility of mind and spirit..."
ReplyDeleteGood point, to tie off his interesting account. Life does have a way of nudging (or booting) one into new lines of work, and study.
When I was younger, it was all about "body"; now it's broader/deeper, and equally about breath, mind, energy, spirit.
Good article, Rick!
It was a great post by the Classical Budoka.
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