Samurai Journey: Weapons Introduction

After Peri's time with Fujii Sensei, we changed out her kimono for the more traditional "gi" garment used for martial instruction and then introduced her to another friend, Sensei Ken Pitchford (i.e. Pitchford Sensei). Although he is an American, Pitchford Sensei has lived extensively in Japan and has studied Japanese sword arts for the better part of two decades or more. He was incredible with Peri and made sure that everything that he told her or showed her was easily accessible to her as a 7 year old. He was amazingly careful with her, injected tons of humor and fun, and yet was precise and reasonably demanding of her and her attentiveness.

He started their first session together by showing Peri two books on Japanese martial arts (both of which were more than 100 years old), including sections specific to Feudal Japanese women, the weapons they would have used and what their martial training would have included. He also showed her a couple of his treasured weapons, one of which was a katana (samurai long sword) whose blade was more than 500 years old -- Peri shown holding it below. We arranged with Pitchford Sensei to have his training with Peri include the following components for the day:

* Battlefield Kenjutsu - Kenjutsu (literally "Sword Art") is the art that samurai would have practiced for battlefield use, and would have included various forms of footwork, blocking, striking and movement with the katana and/or waikizashi (short sword). While most women would not have been trained extensively with the katana (preferring instead an 8" dirk called a kaiken), many of the techniques would have had universal utility with bladed weapons, and so still accomplished the objective nicely.

* Iaido "Lightning Draw" - During certain eras of Feudal Japan, the threat of assassination was a very real and ever-present threat. As a result, samurai developed an entire methodology of drawing their blades to block and/or strike with amazing rapidity. This art is called Iaido (most often also described as "the way of the lightning draw"), and i liken it to our own culture's Wild West concept of "quick draw"... but with a sword instead of a six-shooter.

* CQB Armed Jujutsu - I have studied traditional Japanese Jujutsu for nearly ten years, and have found it to be a close friend over that time. Initially, I thought it might have been cool to have Pitchford Sensei work with Peri in this art, but he had a great suggestion instead that we actually went with for the day. According to Pitchford Sensei, "Modern Jujutsu" (which is unarmed) is a relatively recent convention. The truth is, no samurai would ever have been "completely" unarmed, always making sure that they practically bristled at all times with hidden daggers, spikes, knives or other weapons. As a result, he suggested that he spend the time with Peri teaching her what he called "Armed Jujutsu", which focuses on CQB (Close-Quarters Battle), but assumes that at least one hand is holding a short weapon. This made total sense to me, and i'm glad that we took this route.