Solo iai practice

This is a well-worn subject with me, but it still surprises me how little my students practice on their own.  As my husband is fond of saying, "Not everyone is a crazy as you are," but one of the great things about Japanese sword practice is that it is 80% solo kata.  And it's not nearly as dull as walking a treadmill while watching TV.

Iai, as this type of budo is called, involves kata wherein the practitioner draws a sword, uses it in some predetermined way, and then sheathes it.  I am not sure how many styles of iai still exist; certainly at some point there may have been thousands of them.  I am familiar with three styles and have seen or attended workshops featuring many others.  For safety, iai includes solo kata and partner kata, where the participants enact kata together with wooden swords.  There is no free-sparring whatsoever.  Technically, iai has no sporting element, though kata competition has become popular.

When my mother was dying a number of years ago, I gave up many things that made me happy, or that required me to be in a good mood.  It was just too difficult.  But I never gave up going to the dojo in all that time.  I gave the studio phone number to my family members and explained that if they needed to reach me on certain evenings during the week, they could find me there.  I am not the only one; a colleague whose father was dying told me that he felt like he had to come and practice.  Somehow it was more than just endorphins - the meditative aspects of iai practice produced a calming effect in us both, even though our backgrounds, personality, religion and ethnicity were different. 

Solo iai practice seems to magnify the effect, even if, unlike some practices, I am not "trying" to meditate.  It just happens anyway.  And like a number of trance effects, not only does one get better with practice, one comes to crave the experience from time to time.  I may tell people that it's because I need to work privately on technique (which is always true anyway), but the calming effect and the sense of rationality tends to produce a sense of satisfaction that lasts until the next day.  

And lately I have not had much time for that, which in some ways is good, because not having a choice but to practice alone can produce quite the opposite of a calming effect.   But we all should take a moment to act alone, calm down and reflect on what we are doing and why.