On Embu

This past Saturday I participated in an Embu for my Iaijutsu dojo.

Embu is always a daunting thing.  For most people, this will be the only time they see actual Japanese swordsmanship outside of (perhaps) a Japanese movie involving samurai or (more likely) an anime with some sort of sword fighting.  Secondly, everything is put into pictures and on the Interweb now so eventually it will make it back to the head of our order.

We train, of course.  It is a performance like any you would do for music or drama.  The kata are selected and that is all we practice a month up to the actual embu.    We practice entering and leaving the stage.  We time the performance.

And still, I am always nervous.  Still worried of silly things, like dropping the sword (this has never happened) or less silly but more realistic things, like slipping on the hard wooden stage or hitting something above me (both of these have happened).  Performing a kata bears with it always some element of risk - not really to others, but definitely to yourself, in pride if nothing else.

The embu itself went well - no injuries, no falls, no forgotten kata.  Of the three different subsets we did, one was very good and two were okay.  I can live with that.  The one really interesting thing was the comment The Ravishing Mrs. TB made after the performance.

"You should relax"  she said.  "You have done this for nine years.  You know this.  You just look really nervous".

I think I will need a great deal more practice before this ever occurs.