Ryuseiken Battodo

Japanese swordfighting

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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

Testing season

It's time for testing again. So far I've already tested the new rokkyu students in the Catalina Foothills class. The very first test tends to be graded fairly leniently. But, as I say to them, that the next tests get harder and harder in terms of the grading itself, and there's of course more and harder material too.



Also coming up are our new Shodan candidates: Andrew Dicenso, Dusty Alexander, and Steve Waldstein. They will have to demonstrate their cutting ability up first, and… Continue

Added by rawnshah on December 6, 2007 at 2:31pm — No Comments

New goza stand is here



I received the new goza stand this evening and had to take some photos and post. You can see the photos on the site. I have to hand it to Bill Woodall; this thing is beautiful. It's also pretty heavy being made of Brazillian Cherry. I'd say much heavier than our current stand.



The weight isn't a bad thing necessarily, meaning it would probably last us a much longer time. I'm not sure if people remember the stand I built before in 2003. It was meant to be portable, meaning we had… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 29, 2007 at 6:59pm — 2 Comments

Kanji of Ryuseiken Battodo





I figured out how to get the Kanji for Ryuseiken Battodo written out in Microsoft Word. It was a pain for one. If you want any foreign language installed for Microsoft Word and Office, you need to go to Start > Control Panels > Regional and Language Options > Languages > Details button. You can then click on Add and pick additional languages (on top of English) to install on the machine. This works for some other tools on Windows XP too, but not… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 14, 2007 at 9:00am — No Comments

More goza and more cutting

Tameshigiri in November has been a bit of a lull. We're short on goza now, and have just enough for demos during the November 18th picnic. I just put in another order for 6 boxes, which runs me around $500 that hopefully people will pay back over time. It's still a big hit for me; on top of the new cutting stand (around $450).



It's much easier to store and soak in two or three places than everyone soaking their own. The boxes take up a bit of room, and unless you have a storage shed… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 14, 2007 at 7:24am — No Comments

The "floating" target - tsubamegaeshi

Tsubamegaeshi brings to mind one of the classic ideas of "fictional swordmanship" that you see depicted in movies, anime, stories and other types of entertainment: the "floating target", as I call it.



This is where you cut a target so well that either the cut piece seems to be just floating in the air, for a brief moment, simply "hops" up and lands back exactly where it was cut from, or in the most amazing fashion (usually more fantasy than reality) simply sits there as if your sword… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 7, 2007 at 4:33pm — No Comments

Swords are getting so affordable now



I just looked over the recent CAS/Hanwei catalog, the US distributor for Paul Chen/Hanwei swords. CAS is the top distributor of these swords in the US and they typically sell only to retailers who then sell to people. Many of the same swords that you see listed by other martial arts stores typically resell the stuff from CAS. In any case, the product comes through CAS.



The interesting thing about these Paul Chen swords and many other sword manufacturers in general is how much more… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 7, 2007 at 2:31pm — No Comments

(Older) Videos from Sep 8th, 2007

I've started uploading some of the videos recorded on Sep 8th this year. The camera was handheld here so it's a little shaky but not too much. I had to brighten the video in software since the shade really made things look dark. So far tonight I've only uploaded 6 videos but there are more to come.



Shihan does a nice kihon-toho on three goza. In fact the goza even stay for a half-second on the kesa. There's one of mine with the complete tsubamegaesh which has the nikutsuke-kesagiri at… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 4, 2007 at 1:23am — No Comments

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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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