Wellington Iaido Workshop

When and Where

Saturday 19th June 2010, 12:30 - 2:30pm

Brooklyn Community Centre Hall, 12-18 Harrison Street Brooklyn

If you are interested in attending please register your interest here, we will email you more details closer to the time.

What is Iaido?

"Iaidō (居合道) is a Japanese martial art associated with the smooth, controlled movements of drawing the sword from its scabbard, striking or cutting an opponent, removing blood from the blade, and then replacing the sword in the scabbard."
- Thanks Wikipedia!

Iaido is also a lot more than just drawing a sword.
There are many cultural, fitness and spiritual benefits to practicing iaido such as:

• Learning some Japanese language.
• Learning Japanese History and Culture.
• Learning more about yourself by building confidence and character through your training.
• Iaido can be practiced as a form of moving meditation.
• Learning about the Japanese sword.
• Low impact fitness (while it looks slow and easy, you will break a sweat).

Why are we doing this?

The intention for this workshop is to:

1. Introduce Iaido to new people who have not tried it before.
2. Bring together those people that have trained before to share their knowledge and grow Iaido in Wellington and New Zealand.
3. We are looking to run weekly Iaido classes at the Brooklyn Community Centre (possibly starting Mid-Late July) and would like to find those keen to train with us regularly.

We are hoping for an enjoyable introduction to Iaido for all who attend.

What can I learn?

We are looking to teach beginners some basic fundimentals of Iaido with those of more experience passing on what they have learnt.

We are aiming to cover:

1. Warm up
2. Sitting in Seiza
3. Drawing the sword
4. Noto (Sheathing the sword)
5. Chiburi (Removing the blood from the blade)
6. Reigi (Etiquette)
7. Seitei Kata 1 (Ipponme "Mae")
8. Seitei Kata 2 (Nihonme "Ushiro")

What to bring to the workshop

What to wear

Loose, comfortable clothing (Gym type clothing).
If you study Kendo you can wear your Kendo Hakama.
If you have kneepads (soft volleyball type not skateboards ones!) they will be worth bringing as the first 2 kata are performed from a kneeling stance.

What to bring

• Water, juice, cold tea (just something to drink)
• Muesli bars or a small snack for breaks.
• If you have one, please bring a bokken/bokuto (wooden practice sword) or shinai (bamboo kendo sword). There maybe a few spares but don't count on it.
  If you have more than one and don't mind sharing please bring your extras along.

If you have an Iaito and have trained before, feel free to bring this.

Please DO NOT bring:

• Your set of 3 display katanas you got for Xmas
• the steel sharp blade you bought off trade me to cut up fruit
• your broadsword, claymore or cutlass
• anything that looks like it should be on a video game!
  Seriously... you can hurt yourself or others!