I have been incredibly busy performing lately. As someone who takes a performance-oriented approach to budo, this has been very satisfying. Since mid-April, I have taken part in four budo or Nihon buyo performances, or some combination of both. This week I have two more, then one next week, then two more about ten days after that. I think I have a break from somewhere around mid-May until mid-June, but it's too early to tell yet whether something might show up in the intervening time.
Why perform? For a dancer of any type, of course, the answer is obvious; though it is usually difficult to articulate to viewers (and I think not really necessary. One of the irritating things about Americans is their constant asking why: Why do you perform? Why do you dance? Why do you study budo? Why are you wearing that?). The dancer's art, especially Japanese traditional art, is not complete until it is seen by an audience. And after the performance, it vanishes, except in the memory of that audience, at that time, in that place, never to happen again (as in the proverb, "one meeting, one chance").
As I see it, performing is performing, whether dance, budo, or at a poetry slam. Some of the best performers I have ever met are total amateurs, and some professionals could take lessons from them. That does not mean that a performer is good at everything she tries her hand at. But some people are very good at performing certain things.
But, to get back to the second paragraph, why do I perform budo, and why do we do demos? It's not for the reasons people think (even my own students). I/we do not perform in order to attract students, and, to be honest, anyone who would join a budo group on the basis of seeing a demonstration is being hasty, to say the least. A demo presents but one face (hopefully the best possible face) of what a group does. It does not by any means convey the whole picture, however. Iaido is pretty thankless - there are no tournaments or trophies (except for kata competition, which, depending on whom you ask, can be as much fun as watching paint dry). There is not even much in the way of rank; that is, while modern groups do offer dan rankings on a fairly (in my experience) rapid basis, more traditional groups take much more time to confer any type of recognition. In other words, people looking for continual, regular reinforcement of their achievement in budo should probably not join a really traditional group where it takes more than 10 years to get a certificate of any kind. The best way to decide on a budo group is to take part in a regular practice and see if it strikes a chord. Then continue. Or not.
So, why perform? Because it's a challenge. Because it can be difficult; and even if things go smoothly, they never go perfectly. There are always "wild" factors that figure in. The weather for an outdoor performance is rarely perfectly clear and calm, neither too hot nor too cold. There's always something - wind, an uneven floor, or things one could never anticipate. For example, a few weeks ago, we were performing outdoors on some springy, black mats more suited to cushioning breakfalls than steadying some barefoot iaidoka. Most of us were wearing tabi as a precaution against the uncertain ground, and when I took mine off, the better to maintain my balance, I was met with a most unpleasant surprise. The sun, wan as it was, had heated up the black rubber to the point where it felt like Miami Beach in August. I could feel my feet burning as I did my kata (which is probably why the photos of me at this demo look like they do). We were so grateful to finish and bow off the mat. It was so bad, the karate group after us had the mats rolled up in order to spare their feet. They did not change their demo, however, and the uke earned some sympathetic murmurs from the audience when he was bounced to the ground in a slightly-less-than-controlled fall. As I said, the demo went smoothly in the sense that there were no obvious deviations in our plans, but the experience was unique, as always, and could not have been predicted. Needless to say, we all learned to be wary of black mats in the pale sun, even after a rainy morning in mid-April! And the only certainty for the next demo is that yet more variables will insert themselves into the equation.
Demos are a way to test oneself - how good is my concentration? Can I do this even with burning feet? (An extreme example, but it happened.) In a space smaller than promised? With a ceiling that's too low? After getting lost on the way to the venue and arriving flustered at the last minute? How steady am I? On mats? On uneven ground? Even better - if someone in the group cancels at the last minute, can I carry on without him/her?
Iai is the practice of swordsmanship in a very controlled environment. It has to be done that way. Moreover, the possibility of having to use a sword to defend against someone else with one is (happily) nonexistent. Live demonstrations are an opportunity to find out what we are really made of, in the best possible way - we can test ourselves without harming others, and the audience gets to enjoy the result.
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