Performing An Embu

This weekend we performed an Embu  (demonstration).

An embu, I find, is somewhat nerve wracking.  It has all of the potential stress of any public demonstration - people are watching what you are doing, very closely.  It does not help, of course, that one is dressed a formal attire and in our case, actually carrying swords.  You are quite the focus of attention.

Which is in and of itself enough.  But combine that with  combined with the additional reality of the fact that one is representing one's school - and for 99% of the people involved, the very art itself.  No-one has heard of Iaijutsu, let alone really knows what it is.  All they know is you have swords and you look like you are going to use them. 

The good news is, of course, everything went well - and by well, I mean that it passed the two major considerations of any major event:  No-one was injured and everyone completed their demonstration.  Looking at the initial videos I can see, we looked okay (I say that - of course, there is always something that you can do better). 

Two particular items of note from the embu, at least from my position:

1)  My heart was racing preparing to perform and then performing.  I have no understanding of why this occurred, only that it did.  It strikes me as odd, considering that I have performed some of these kata hundreds of times.

2)  Once one enters the kata, I found myself in the zone.  That I know of I did not make any serious errors in conduct of the kata.  One comment that did come back to me is that for at least one of the paired drills, my fellow student's sword came close - very close -to my head.  To be honest I have no memory of this happening, so maybe it just appeared more so from the side. 

It was good practice.  We will be performing an embu in February when I travel to Japan next year.  Hopefully this will serve as a good foretaste to prepare myself (mostly, to get my heart rate down).