Teaching (a series)

Last week, I had a meeting with some of my senior students.  I am very fond of my students (and also very proud of them) - they are dedicated and work hard.  The problem is that there are not many of them.  And since the majority of them are actually college students, I see them mostly during the summer and on breaks (like winter break right now).  The meeting was held to discuss how we could come up with more students.

You could say that iai is a niche martial art.  It is not very well-known, and, (though there are a *lot* of poseurs) there are not many qualified teachers.  Iai has been miscast as a part of the US martial arts scene - we don't compete, except for kata, and then only occasionally.  There is no free-sparing.  The closest we ever get to free movement is cutting targets - usually rolled straw mats of different thicknesses.  One teacher I know compared watching iai to watching paint dry, and that is not far off. 

In Japan, iai is more associated with professional-type people, some of whom are descendants of samurai-class families.  Rather than a hobby or a sport, iai and other types of traditional budo come closer to being considered a part of someone's identity.  It's not just that they are more serious, they don't know how to not be serious.  This image contrasts sharply with with the popular US-oriented vision of a martial artist being either (1) a kid; (2) a thugly tough guy; (3) would-be samurai types, whether influenced by movies, video games or some combination thereof; or (4) an actor who does computer-enhanced, impossible stunts for the camera.      

The foregoing makes iai a difficult art to promote properly, especially when the class is led by (I'm gonna say it) a woman.  In Japan, I have encountered little, if any remark about being female in the dojo.  In fact, one of the seminars where I recently trained included numerous women who had menkyo (a license to teach).  True, most of the teachers and students were men, but there was a better representation of women there than you will normally see in a US dojo.  This is really too bad, for as Dianne Skoss noted a number of years ago, weapon arts are well-suited to female practitioners, since a weapon counterbalances our general lack of brute strength.  Acquisition of skill in traditional budo really is - skill, and it can be acquired by any reasonably able-bodied person. 

In any case, iai is somewhat self-selecting.  It takes years to learn; in fact, one can truthfully say the learning curve never stops.  You never "get" iai - there is always some other level, or layer or aspect of practice that reveals itself.  It's great for keeping you going, but can also be really frustrating.  Realizing that, I know the number of students I continue to entertain will be small.  However, it would be nice if there were just a few more of them.