Ryuseiken Battodo

Japanese swordfighting

Ryuseiken Battodo is a swordfighting martial arts style that teaches kata, sparring and culminates in test-cutting (tameshigiri) of targets with real swords.

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Congrats to you and your student Rawn! This is excellent news! I know it is not a forgone conclusion that he will make it. So, I wish him the best of the day, on the day!
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About Ryuseiken Battodo

Battodo is the Japanese art of the drawn sword, and focuses on principles of swordfighting in the battlefield. We practice a combination of katas (fighting forms), sparring with padded swords, and test-cutting real targets with swords.

Perhaps unlike other styles that focus on more complex katas or one-on-one fight situations, we focus on developing proficiency on simpler but rapidly effective techniques. Since this is for the field, the sword is usually already drawn out of the scabbard (unlike iai). The tameshigiri or target-cutting skills also emphasize full swings and attacks to get the feel of cutting completely through the target rather than slicing, hacking or bashing the target.

Blog Posts

rawnshah

Black belt (Shodan) testing coming up

I haven't posted in a while, being busy with my day job, but just a few notes.

We have one candidate testing for his Battodo shodan under the Kodenkan and Ryuseikan this month: Reed Wittman. We usually split the test across two days because of venue. The first part is the cutting and individual kata tests with a shinken which we normally conduct outdoors. We videotape this portion to send to our Soke in Japan. The second part is testing of all katas individual and with a partner, wazas and all… Continue

Posted by rawnshah on June 9, 2009 at 4:19pm — 1 Comment

rawnshah

Brown belt tests at the highschool

We tested three students for the sankyu ranks yesterday and they all passed. This is the first of the brown "belt" ranks--three ranks even though we don't use actual belts. There was a little added pressure being out in the 98 degree weather in the field, with the sun in their eyes. It adds to the difficulty of the test by distracting them with discomforts and stress.

Their kesa-giri on half goza was generally good, although some had to take their 1 do-over to get it right from both directions.… Continue

Posted by rawnshah on April 22, 2009 at 9:26am

rawnshah

Cutting at the high-school

It was an interesting cutting day for the junior high school students. Many missed class so we had extra goza left and I let some of the lower ranked students attempt it -- only those who have demonstrated some degree of control.

It's not a surprise to me but the first time cutting is either a positive or negative surprise to people. The three new first timers have been in the class for different periods of time. Two have been there for almost two years now and one is in their second semester.… Continue

Posted by rawnshah on April 8, 2009 at 3:02pm

rawnshah

Athletic training

I ran into Seth Pepper yesterday at a cafe. Seth's the videographer working with Shihan John, but also happens to be a former swimming champ. He was ranked fourth in the world in the early/mid-1990s, and missed making the Olympics by 4/100 of a second in the trials.

As a sport, swimming is far further evolved than what we have in most martial arts, not simply in being an Olympic event and having collegiate & national teams everywhere. It's in the level of teaching and coaching that occurs i… Continue

Posted by rawnshah on April 1, 2009 at 9:51am — 2 Comments

Al Kilgore

Criticism

Very strongly, folks who feel they know something about the art defend their point of view. They are entitled to this, of course, within the scope of artistic criticisms. For the study of Kenjutsu we see this quite strongly, even though the reality of the number of folks training within Koryu systems is in fact miniscule. My point being that there are more people are reading about the sword arts on line than there are folks actively training in one of these arts. It is also true as a result of t… Continue

Posted by Al Kilgore on March 27, 2009 at 10:30am

Forum

Daniel

Hi I am new here :) 2 Replies

Started by Daniel. Last reply by Daniel Mar 2.

Andrew Cameron

Friday's 10/26 Practice 3 Replies

Started by Andrew Cameron. Last reply by shakeel Feb 27.

Christopher Arendt

Practice Bokuto with Saya! 3 Replies

Started by Christopher Arendt. Last reply by shakeel Feb 15.

 
 

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Web sites & Resources

Matsuri: A Festival of Japan (2008) - Phoenix, AZ, Feb 23-28, Heritage Square

Battodo Ryuseiken in Japan. Also a partial site in english.



The Kodenkan of Tucson



The UofA Ryuseiken Battodo on the ASUA site



Tameshigiri.com - where we get goza. The ordering and shipping process are given.



Hanwei/Paul Chen swords



The Knighthawk Armoury builds some interesting realistic looking goshinken. They're expensive but they claim to be pretty durable (not yet tested by us).



Folding a Hakama the proper way



Woodall's Custom Workshop makes nice cutting stands for tameshigiri.


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