Finally got to another Open Training this past Saturday. It always feels good when I go.
Spent nearly the whole hour and a half that I was there working on my sword form, which resulted in learning the rest of the moves of the form. Thank you very much to the black belts who were kind enough to help me with this!
During the training we (there were three of us working together at this point) noticed that we each did the same part of the form differently. One person did it with both hands together and the blade horizontal and parallel to them, another person did it with both hands together and the sword blade ending up ninety degrees to their position, and I did it with the blade horizontal and parallel to me but with my left hand against the back of the blade (not sharp on that side) about half way down the blade. It made for an interesting discussion about why and which way was correct. The whys included the type of sword we were each using as well as our past experiences. Since I have experience in the past with European swordsmanship, which seemed to include a lot of what’s called “half swording” that probably explains the placement of my hand halfway down the back of the blade even though I’m trying to use the blade in a slicing action. On top of that, I’m using a Katana to do a Chinese Broadsword form (I was able to get an aluminum practice Katana that’s much easier on my shoulders than the plastic or metal broadswords), so I have to work with the weapon I’m using not the one the form was intended for.
After all this it will be interesting to see where the instructor feedback, tweaking, and improvement, in my doing the form goes.
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