A couple of weekends ago I made a trip to Christchurch to attend a full day intensive Iaido training day a the Canterbury Kendo Club. We spent the first half of the day teaching all the Kendo students a little Iaido as many of them have never tried (and have usually seen us Iai people practicing our strange moves lol). It was a really good experience to teach, rather than learn or practice, it really tests how much you really know about the art you are practicing.  I taught the first kata of the Seitei set, Ipponme Mae, a very important one as it is always the first one you learn when starting out in Iaido. Sensei Eynon Philips has always told me that knowing this kata inside out is like knowing ALL kata as it contains all the elements that make up all kata. I think I must have done this kata 100's if not 100's of times now over the last couple of years of training! The rest for the day was spent training and perfecting our kata and of course doing the ever popular "make up your own kata" kata, a lot of fun! Since moving to Wellington, I have not managed to find an Iaido club to train at as of yet. Despite enquiring at a few martial arts stores (who all seem to say "yeah someone else asked about that a few months back").  So I am looking into starting the Wellington Iaido "study group" under guidance of the Canterbury Kendo/Iaido teacher and hopefully talk more with the other Sensei at the Auckland Kendo club (where I attended the very first NZ Iaido seminar last year). What I am really hoping to achieve is to bring together all those people that may have trained in the past or are looking to start in Wellington.  I still am yet to find a venue, though the Brooklyn Community Centre is looking promising. So this is a call out to any one in the Wellington area interested in training in Iaido.... get in touch! Email: [email protected] It will be great to get something going and build the art of Iaido in New Zealand even stronger! UPDATE: I have been speaking with the Brooklyn Community Centre in Wellington, they seem very open to the idea of setting up Iaido classes at their venue! Will continue to update once I have met with them and organised some dates and times for possible training sessions. read full post

Last Thursday and Friday (8-9 Oct) I was lucky enough to be part of the very first national New Zealand Iaido Seminar held at the Auckland Kendo Club in of course.... Auckland. It was a 2 day intensive training, grading and a good opportunity to network and meet the others throughout New Zealand swinging a sword in this age old martial art. The plans moving forward are to start building numbers and really promoting Iaido in NZ and I am hoping that I can add my knowledge of social networking and online communities to work towards this. Thursday saw a full day of training and learning some new kata in the Kendo Federation Seitei Iaido which consists of 12 kata (I know up to number 11 at the moment!) It is interesting learning from others as each teacher does seem to put their own knowledge and spin on each kata.  At the end of it all I think gathering as much knowledge as you can from as many teachers as you can and then combining that with what feels natural with your own movement and focus is the way to go. Thursday evening I dug deep despite extreme tiredness and a rather painful toe injury I performed the best I could at the grading and came away with a 2nd Kyu (ni-kyu) grading! A jump of 8 grades as I had been previously ungraded. Friday saw more training and a Shiai (competition) and something even more fun... getting to invent our own kata! The "build your own" kata concoctions were all very interesting with one of our (chch) dojos students ideas using an umbrella as a sword took it top marks. The 2 days were a great challenge that everyone who attended met and got something out of... Before I left for Auckland I flicked to a random page in my copy of Yamamoto Tsunetomo's "Hagakure" (a classic Japanese warrior code text) and thinking back on it now it shared some insight into the days ahead, it read:

The talented rise to the challenge- There is a saying, "As the water rises the boat rises". When a person of talent ... encounters a difficulty, his [or her] heart rises to meet the challenge, and the greater the challenge the more he [or she] is spurred to take it on. - Hagakure, Book 2, Line 42

Rather fitting I think! A big thanks to all those at Auckland Kendo as to all those who attended the Seminar. Look forward to next year! read full post

I think to "up" my level of self-responsibility I will need to take more time to explore my ideas more fully and following through on them.  Though in saying that I have recently had the idea of blogging my university paper journal questions which was an idea I spent some time going over in more details and acted upon and made it happen using some easily found tools on the web available to anyone. I'm also hoping I can use this platform to deliver my final Personal Development Plan assessment due later this year. Having this blog space acts as something to help increase my personal leadership as I now have a space to get ideas down and spent a little time each night thinking and writing about topics I'm either learning about or am passionate about. I have also taken up Iaido classes (which is great for the spirit and promoting a calm, reflective mind) and play a little indoor football once a week with a great team of friends.  Again these are all activities I envisioned doing and stood up and started doing them for no reason other than enjoyment & building spirit, body and mind. So rather than this being "what would you have to change?" it has become more "What have I changed recently and started in motion?". I'm not sure how you would quantitatively measure self-responsibility but hopefully the more I contribute, share and write on my blog, commit to training and get involved in a bit of team play, the more I can hit that magic 20%. read full post