Katana sword arts

Posted by: Anonymous

Katana sword arts - 12/21/04 08:53 PM

What are the sword arts that deal with katanas cause I'd like to start one of them but I'm not sure what any of them are called. Please help and sorry for being a complete noob. I also thank anyone who helps.
Posted by: Anonymous

Re: Katana sword arts - 12/21/04 10:35 PM

No prob, buddy.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Iaido- The art of drawing the sword from the sheath and cutting the opponent in one motion. Also includes grappling with sword and sheath. Some styles may actually include sword fighting techniques, although I'm not too sure about that.

Kenjutsu- The actual sword fighting art you imagine samurai to have used. There are many schools, and all of them have seperate techniques. Sadly, kenjutsu is being phased out in favor of kendo in most places. Kenjutsu is really quite lethal, includes stand up sowrd fighting, grappling with and without a sword. A really well balanced art.

Kendo- The sporting form of kenjutsu, when you see two people smacking the heck out of each other with bamboo swords whilst wearing armor. It's a good art, but I personally feel that it leaves out some of the more significant techniques of kenjutsu, namely the grappling and ground-fighting.

Nitto-Ryu- An offshoot of Kendo and Kenjutsu, a subsection, really; but I thought it deserved mention. Nitto-ryu is the art of fighting with two swords at once, pioneered by Miyamoto Musahi and Tsukehara Bokuden.
Posted by: Anonymous

Re: Katana sword arts - 01/01/05 09:53 AM

Yes well.. those arts are hard to find especially if you live in a small city like windsor ontario.. most popular one is aikido.. you also use 3 weapons which are the bokken(wooden sword) the jo staff and the tanto(wooden knife) it also focuses on hand to hand martial arts not just weapon martial arts so that way you will be hitting 2 birds with one stone [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif[/IMG]
Posted by: Charles Mahan

Re: Katana sword arts - 01/04/05 09:03 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Yunsung:

Iaido- The art of drawing the sword from the sheath and cutting the opponent in one motion. Also includes grappling with sword and sheath. Some styles may actually include sword fighting techniques, although I'm not too sure about that.
[/QUOTE]

Only the first cut of any waza qualifies as Iai. The follow up cuts are really kenjutsu. So yes you do learn more about sword fighting than just how to cut from the draw.