Ryuseiken Battodo

Japanese swordfighting

All Blog Posts (98)

Another cutting day at the park on 6/8

We're going to keep the momentum going with a weekly cutting session next Sunday at Himmel Park at 9am, east side of park (Treat Ave). I'd like to see the black belts to get good cutting time in.

-rawn

Added by rawnshah on June 4, 2008 at 1:58pm — 1 Comment

Photos from the battodo film shoot

We did some filming in my pool a week or so ago for the battodo video series. Shihan John is in the videos, not me, so I was able to take some photos while they were prepping (when I remembered). It was quite fun to do but a lot of work for the film crew and Shihan, but only a little for me. I should have taken more but you might see it in the videos



Some of the pictures are blurry; I apologize



[ Still setting up here… Continue

Added by rawnshah on May 28, 2008 at 6:33pm — No Comments

Practice in the park June 1st (6/1)

I'd like to get together next Sunday June 1st at Himmel Park (1 block south of Tucson & Speedway), northeast corner, for some cutting and kata practice. The is primarily for the black belts but others in our school are welcome to participate. The meet time is 9am and it'll probably go on until noon or so; earlier so that it's not as hot. As always bring some money for each goza you plan to cut.



We might meet again on the 8th, but if you need your practice in try to come both… Continue

Added by rawnshah on May 26, 2008 at 11:26am — No Comments

Summertime and the living's easy

Summer comes early to Tucson as always, but this year it is hard to tell if Spring weather will actually continue until the official 1st day of Summer (June 20th/21st). In any case, the Catalina Foothills High School class has only one more session of battodo left, and the UofArizona class is over.



I'm still trying to figure out if I should pay for the gym membership at the UofA Recreation center over the summer. There are a few folks still around so we might just be able to get… Continue

Added by rawnshah on May 7, 2008 at 10:21am — No Comments

The continual cutting continues

I tried the same experiment as before with my High school/middle school class. They actually did surprisingly well in terms of stamina but not necessarily in terms of cutting.



Andrew Dicenso sempai, our shodan in the class, beat my time for 99 cuts but a second. He says he practices with his shinken at home cutting 2-3 hundred times, so he's already well set for it. Many of the others however, ran… Continue

Added by rawnshah on May 2, 2008 at 1:05pm — 4 Comments

Lots of continual cuts

I had the students at UofA club on Monday "cut" quite a bit. Not actually cutting targets, but more swinging with intention to cut each time. I think we ended up with over 400 swings each over the span of an hour and half. There were several goals:



  • building stamina - lots of continual cutting will help you find where you run out of breath and energy, and how long it takes to recover
  • thinking under pressure - there were several exercises and some required a specific…
Continue

Added by rawnshah on April 23, 2008 at 11:38am — 1 Comment

Swordfighting in Indonesia

Thanks to our new member, Christopher Arendt, I found a japanese sword school in Indonesia. It's not that I'm going there but you might. The real point is that they have it available. In the US, we may sigh about the fact that we do not have a sword class near us, but think about how much harder it is in other countries where there may not be as much influence from Japanese culture as we do in the US.



I myself lived in Southeast Asia for many… Continue

Added by rawnshah on April 7, 2008 at 4:06pm — No Comments

Light sparring armor used in european mediavel fighting

I found some interesting possibilities for body armor on the Revival.us site. The helmet is very much a kendo helmet with neck-guards:





For $120 that's not bad but a little high. The good thing is that they have many different sizes.



More interesting is the protective gloves which they use when fighting with (unsharpened) steel weapons in rapier-style fencing. While it's not as hard an… Continue

Added by rawnshah on March 6, 2008 at 10:00am — 4 Comments

Comparing cut sequences to Toyama-ryu/USBF

Different styles have different names for cuts and for cut sequences, so it might help if you find things on the net and can't seem to understand what they describe to understand a translation or mapping of the names.



From the descriptions and what I've seen from different Taikai, here's a little translation on cut sequences from the Toyama-ryu style as defined by the US Battodo Federation (a Toyama-ryu… Continue

Added by rawnshah on March 5, 2008 at 9:30am — 1 Comment

New Videos uploaded

I created a few more videos last night of the ones from early February, when we cut behind the dojo, plus a few more of me in my backyard.



For the February sessions, it seems people are trying more difficult cuts this time around which is great! Both Monica and Bianca are attempting tsubamegaesh, and Brian tried gohon-giri. I have yet to edit and create videos of Travis, Ashley and others so those should be coming.



We also had Sylvia try to cut for the very first time and… Continue

Added by rawnshah on March 3, 2008 at 7:51am — No Comments

Interesting video of Kuk Sool Won

I saw this video of a martial arts style from someone I met in IBM that I'd never heard of called Kuk Sool Won . I think it's Korean but some similarities to Chinese weapons arts (particularly how they use the sword and the spear). I'll find out more soon enough. They have multiple weapon styles, hand-to-hand, hand-to-weapon, throws, kicks and more.… Continue

Added by rawnshah on February 28, 2008 at 8:26am — No Comments

Cutting three goza and mental prep

I've been practicing cutting kihon-toho on three goza (now that I have a stand of my own). A couple of weeks ago, at the tameshigiri outside the dojo, I didn't quite get the first part of the cut, the kesa-giri. The ironic thing is that I find doing the "harder" cuts of kiriage or suihei much easier than the kesa giri.



As it stands now I can get all three cuts, just not serially as they should be in kihon-toho. Actually, I should say, I'm getting closer to what I used to be able to… Continue

Added by rawnshah on February 20, 2008 at 3:19pm — No Comments

The Arizona Matsuri / Japanese Festival this weekend Feb 23/24, in Phoenix

The annual AZ Matsuri is set again for this coming weekend (Feb 23rd Sat & 24th Sun) in Phoenix at Heritage and Science Park downtown on 7th St & Monroe. This will be the 24th anniversary of the event and looks to be just a good a previous years. It starts at 10:30am and goes on until 4:30pm.



Aside from the three stages where they show performing and martial arts, there are about 60 booths and stands on everything from Amezaiku (candy sculpting) to zen calligraphy. On the… Continue

Added by rawnshah on February 18, 2008 at 8:50am — 2 Comments

Black belt promotions on 2/10

We had the Kodenkan 41st annual black belt promotion ceremony last Sunday with three battodo candidates newly accepted as shodans: Dusty Alexander, Andrew Dicenso, and Steven Waldstein. They have practiced for several years with us now--I think about 4 years each--and are well deserving of the rank. I'd like to congratulate all the new shodans, who are now also officially sempais in the Kodenkan.



They also received their Ryuseiken shodan certificates and badges on the same day (since… Continue

Added by rawnshah on February 15, 2008 at 3:29pm — No Comments

Tameshigiri got rained out, but we found a real sword

Our cutting on Sunday got rained out before we really got started unfortunately. We've moved it to this Saturday at 2:30 at the Kodenkan just before the regular class. I got sick with a cough and a fever so I didn't really cut the pieces myself and make new ones. So, they are just being dried out until I soak them again this Friday.



While we were hanging out, we took a look at the sword I got over the winter holidays from my wife. She found it at an antique shop here in town. The owner… Continue

Added by rawnshah on January 30, 2008 at 9:12am — 3 Comments

Ow my aching sides (Black belt workout)

The year's just begun and the first real workout I had to attend was the blackbelt workout that the Kodenkan holds every so often. It's an all day thing of seminars for different martial arts that is mandatory and exclusive to the yudansha.



I was glad to see most of our battodo yudansha who were in town attending and working out. We learned new things outside of swordfighting: jujitsu, karate, and knife fighting.



I took the jujitsu seminars and found one or two of the basic… Continue

Added by rawnshah on January 14, 2008 at 10:04pm — 1 Comment

Black belt tests over! Come congratulate the yudansha candidates

Our black belt tests concluded today with the kata and waza portions of the test.



Please share your congratulations with the new yudansha prospects who have just passed: Dusty Alexander, Andrew Dicenso, and Steven Waldstein!



They all passed with flying colors. Some of the Shihans and… Continue

Added by rawnshah on December 16, 2007 at 6:14pm — 1 Comment

Battodo during the holiday season



Now that the holidays are coming up, the classes are generally winding down for a few weeks until we start again.



UofA



The UofArizona battodo budokai just ended last Friday. We'll start again after the first week of school. I'll be teaching on Wednesdays from 5:30-7:30, and the sempais will be available on Fridays at the same time. The location is the same as before: the Student Recreation Center on 6th St & Highland Ave, usually upstairs either in Dance Room… Continue

Added by rawnshah on December 10, 2007 at 4:28pm — No Comments

Cutting tests over

After a second move to hurry and find an indoor location--of all things it's been raining in Tucson which is very unusual--we finally had our shodan candidates test cut yesterday. I had to do my sandan test cuts too. We finally got permission to use the Kodenkan dojo, as long as we moved all the mats out of the way, and cleaned up thoroughly afterwards.



We used my new stand, and shihan's old one, so the cutting actually went a little faster, but even then, with just five people, it… Continue

Added by rawnshah on December 10, 2007 at 8:52am — No Comments

Shodan testing for cutting location MOVED



We have to move the location for the cutting portion of the test on Sunday in case it rains. This other park has a covered canopy that we can cut under.



We are having it at McCormick Park instead. It is located on 2950 N Columbus Blvd, Tucson, AZ, which is in between Glenn and Fort Lowell roads.



Here's the google map location …

Continue

Added by rawnshah on December 6, 2007 at 3:56pm — 1 Comment

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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