Welcome to Slings And Arrows. This is my first attempt to expose my thoughts, ideas, and desires to public ridicule and derision. In it I will share my thoughts and reasonings about why and how the world should revolve around me and how all would be happier if this was the case. Along the way I will try to present questions that will provoke deeper meaning and introspection, like why do they need three holes on the bottom of Twinkies to get the cream in? (Stace feel free to chime in). Really though it will just be the random rantings of a syphilitic madman, (not really since the latter would conotate that I'm having sex and thus exposed to said risk, none of which is the case), masqueraded as logic and reason. Don't worry it will be deluged with HUGE doses of perception and emotion run amok. Some of it may be kind and thoughtful. Nearly all of it pretentious.

So here goes:

It is Saturday and I was at my Iaido class. It is properly called Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaido, (there is my first official act of pretentiousness).This is a 450 year old martial art teaching classical Japanese swordsmanship (there are scores if not hundreds of different styles of swordmanship). I started practicing about six years ago and then stopped, (this by the way will be a running theme with many things from my past). I decided to pick it back up last November. Having turned 40 in July I started prioritizing things in my life. One of those things was the serious pursuit of this martial art for a minimum of five years. The art stresses slow movement as you practice waza (forms) that are all defensive in nature, and prior to the Meiji restoration of 1868, (my second act of pretentiousness), were used in combat between samurai and their enemy, usually each other. Stace referred to it as "yoga with a sword." That's close. Now-a-days the art is taught as a means of character refinement, thus it may take me two or three life times to master it. Thank G-d for karma.

I do like it a lot on many levels. The age of the art is one of them. I feel connected to something historic and at the same time preserving its lineage. Secondly I like the small classes we have. It affords a lot of individual attention by my sensei (teacher). This is very important because at it's heart Iai is about paying attention to detail. I struggle greatly with this. Each movement in a single waza (form) has to be done in a precise manner perfectly. The emphasis in Iai is the draw, cut, and resheathing. Later I will give you the Japanese names for these terms to add yet another layer of pretentiousness, while trying to pretend to be worldly and interesting. Like anything Japanese, each waza, (form) is highly ritualized, meaning there are dozens of opportunities in each form to screw up royally. Oh and by the way there are over 60 waza in this style of Iaido. I am presently accountable for about 22 of them.

Fortunately I have a great sensei (teacher) named John Ray. He has practiced martial arts for 40 years, 20 in Iaido, 10 of them in Japan. He is 7th dan with a renshii (sword instructor certificate). For those not in the know dan in laymans terms means blackbelt, with 1st dan being the beginning level, (I'm not even one of these yet), and tenth usually the highest level. In the U.S. and North America there are four 7th dans or above, my sensei, another on the west coast an 8th dan, in North Carolina, and another 7th dan in New England. Most caucasians will never reach 6th dan, while in Japan there are more 8th dans than there are Starbucks in this country. Of the four instructors, my sensei has been training the longest, with the most time in Japan and with his (renshii) so even the 8th dan in North Carolina defers to him. In a nutshell I am geographically fortunate to live near this level of instruction. To emphasize this more we have people come from Houston, Baton Rouge, Oklahoma, and as far away as Kansas City that will come to train with us. Personally I am very fortunate to have Ray Sensei as my instructor. He demonstrates the patience and humility of a person who has trained for decades with the wisdom to boot, combined with humor and grace. He isn't Yoda or Mr. Miyagi. He is just quietly confident in the ways of a man who knows some dangerous stuff. He doesn't flaunt it and he certainly wouldn't say anything about himself as I have written. He's just a good guy. Everything I have written so far is a lead up to this. I was at class today and it was the first class that he instructed in over a year due to an illness that beset him. I was so happy inwardly when he started the instruction today. There was no fanfare, just a simple return to teaching, as if there hadn't been a pause at all. It was great to have him observe me and correct my techniques, (there's a lot to correct). Even better was watching his demonstration of technique and knowledge, all movements clean, done with a very high degree of knowledge and technical accuracy. I was told that when Sensei does this he actually sees opponents in front of him and is "cutting" them down. He does it with a calm face and a dispassionate intensity. Still put simply it was just good to have him teaching again and sharing moment in his inauspicious return as instructor.