Iaido Summer camp

     Annual AUSKF iai camp, at Renton, Wa 9/20-22/02

                                                                    

Kanno sensei is explaining exactly how to enter and exit the shiaijo properly. As you can see, there is a small rectangle taped out on the floor. The tournament is a single elimination, with all matches conducted side by side, and decided by hantei, by 3 judges. Obviously with 3 judges, there is no ties. The contestants are divided into 3 divisions by rank.

 

 

 

 

 

Tom (left) and Shigemi (below) had more nerve then I could muster. They joined in the iaido taikai (tournament). This is technically the United States iaido Championships. Here you can see Tom is beginning #1 (mae) and his opponent is to his right.

Shigemi, my new friend from Milwaukee.
All these photos I took with Tom's camera, I forgot mine. I only wish I had a good picture of my friend Jerry also.

The final match pitted Dick Anderson, left (godan) versus Pam Parker, right (godan). Ms Parker won, making her the first ( I think ) women's AUSKF Iaido Champion.

This is what it would look like if you were aka (red), and you had just won your match.

 We had a chance to visit with Gary Imanishi, from the Cascade Kendo Kai. He is an old friend of Tom's. He took us out to a Seattle landmark Ivan's, a cedar replica of a Northwest Indian Longhouse, complete with an open-pit Indian-style barbecue for preparing succulent alder-smoked entrees. We just had to have fresh Alaskan salmon prepared this way...boy, were we impressed. Then Gary drove us around sightseeing Seattle at night. Jerry, again thanks for the wonderful dinner you treated us to.

During the lunch breaks, we would grab our bento and walk about 75 yards from the "dojo" out to a over-view of the Cedar River. On Sunday Jeff Marsten sensei, came in and mentioned "if you'd like to see salmon running in the river, they're out there now." So we made it a point to check it out over our lunch break. Sure enough, the cut-throat salmon were holding in a pool, waiting for whatever it is in nature's grand plan to make them zoom up the small river to get to their breeding grounds, spawn and die. A magnificent sight, they were bright red, and had that ugly hook nose. 

  Anyway the good news is we all learned more about the ZNKR Seitei iai, and quite a bit more about koryu kata, and the differences between them. Tom, Shigemi and I all passed our ikkyu exam, so now we will be eligible to test for shodan next time.

 

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