Iaido last night was awesome. Ando-sensei couldn't come, so in his place Niina-gosoke came! This is the first time I've been in practice with Gosoke actually instructing. There were only seven of us in class and everyone else was at least 3dan. Gosoke was strict but his teaching style was "old school" I was later told. He stood at the front, we all spread out around the room, and he called out the first form: "shin!" We all kept repeating the form and every now and then he'd shout something at someone: "Oi! That's how we teach the beginners, but if you move your feet that slow, you might as well not even draw your sword! Don't waste everyone's time if you're not going to think about what you're doing!"
At one point he was accosting the person behind me and then suddenly: "Oi, ren! What the hell you think you're doing? Bigger swing! Bigger! And...you're now 1kyu!"
Huh?, I mean "Yes sir! Thank you sir!"
So I got promoted to 1kyu, which means I can officially go for shodan (blackbelt) in October.
The practice went on like that for 2 hours. We went through all five basic seated kata, then the five basic standing kata. Each time we'd keep repeating the kata and every now and then he'd shout something at someone. A couple of times he came right up to me and corrected my footwork, not cutting me any slack and treating me like everyone else, even though I wasn't even dan yet and everyone else in the room was way above my level.
When doing "sa" and "yu" (seated forms in which you turn 90 degrees, draw, and cut in one move) Gosoke made a clear distinction between doing the form for competition -- show every move clearly -- and doing the form to cut down an opponent -- fast, smooth, no pauses. Again he didn't cut me any slack, telling us "we teach the beginners to do each little move; grab the handle, rise to your knees, draw a little, raise the leg, turn, draw some more...but you do that and you'll get your hand chopped off before you even turn to face your opponent. He's not sitting next to you drinking tea, he's charging you, sword drawn! React! draw-turn-cut!"
His final words to us were to practice with our bodies and our brains. It's not enough to show up to practice and do the moves, we have to THINK about what we're doing: where is the opponent, why do we turn like this, how does this flow? Given all the time it takes to get to and from practice and actually hold the sword and do iai, it's pointless if we're not going to think about what we're doing. And it's not just during practice, either. Standing on the train, eating lunch, sitting on the toilet; always thinking about iai. What if that guy charged me? What kind of attack would he use? How could I react? Where do I move? What if I try holding like this? The body without the mind is just meat moving in space, and there's no art in that, so we have to cultivate the mind (spirit) as well, and then the movements will come.
By the end of practice we were all drenched in sweat (yesterday was also the hottest day of the summer so far!) but glad we made it. I realize I have a LONG way to go...