Shinken

I have started practicing with my shinken - true blade, to those (like me) who existed beyond the world of iaido a scant few months ago. This is an actual blade, 29" in length with an 11" handle.

It's different from the what we usually train with, a bokudo: a laminate wooden sword (mine is 26 inches in length with an 8" handle). Obviously, for availability of use as well as safety, bokudo are what we use on a day to day basis - but the end goal is to be able to use the techniques with a shinken.

The first time I pulled mine from the sheath (saya), I almost dropped the darn thing: it was heavy! The first week, I simply had to practice drawing it and then holding it in the first cut position, not letting the tip fall to the ground (a trick, if your not used to holding a 8-10 lb sword with one hand). As I've been working with it, I've moved up to holding it steady as well as being able to begin to wield it smoothly as I practice overhand cuts instead of the "chop-fall-recover" mode I was using when I first started.

In practicing with the shinken, I realize how light the bokudo now feels and how relatively easy it is to wield. It leapt to my mind, as I was practicing last night, that this is how life is as well.

We complain the first time something occurs. We can hardly do it, or lift it, or move on through it. Then, as we practice it and actually do it, we find that it become easier and easier and the old way of doing things suddenly (almost magically) becomes effortless.

Heartening in a way, as I practice keeping my tip up, that the same is true in life.