The Iaido Journal Oct 2007

Push and Pull:
The Importance of Language in Iaido

copyright © 2007 Kim Taylor, all rights reserved

Language is important. The words we use in our heads when practicing iaido are important. Instructors and students may not realize just how important they are, but here's a small example of how carefully we should pick our words.

Beginners are likely to say that we pull the sword out of the scabbard, and we push it back in.

Sounds right? Ok here's the experiment, go and say to yourself, or tell some beginners to pull the sword out of the saya (nuki tsuke), and watch carefully what happens. Now tell them to push the sword out. See any difference?

Take a look below and see if this is what you discovered.

Nuki Tsuke, pulling the blade out of the scabbard

Nuki Tsuke, pushing the blade out

There may not be too much difference in these two draws, but the results of each are drastically different.

In the first case, the pull, the final position of nuki tsuke shows how the grip comes naturally onto the side of the tsuka (hilt) and this results in a broken wrist, and an elbow that humps upward in a chicken-wing effect. The shoulder is lifted, which you can also see in the secont shot above as Nate Bain pulls the blade out. In fact, if you look closely, that shoulder is starting to rise as he grips the hilt in the first shot.

Here, when Nate has pushed the blade out of the saya we see that the hand naturally falls onto the tsuka in a position which allows the wrist, arm and shoulder to remain down, providing a powerful anchor for the horizontal cut.

To try and get this final position, sensei may be saying to you, drop your shoulder, roll the hilt further over, adjust your right hand, tighten your right little finger, straighten your arm... and on and on. You might try thinking "push the sword out" rather than "pull it out".

The next two shots are closeups of the second position above, these shots explain a little more clearly why the final hand position results from pulling or pushing.

Nuki Tsuke, pulling the blade out, closeup

Here Nate has gripped the hilt to pull the blade from the scabbard. When we pull something we grip it, wrap all our fingers around it, and pull with the little finger edge of our hand.

However, when we push something we don't close our hands, but open them up and use the palm or the fingertips. Since the palm can't work we use the fingertips to push the blade out and from here, when the blade rolls over, it will fall naturally into our proper grip.

Notice that the tsuba is touching Nate's hand. This will also happen on the noto, when we "pull" the blade back into the scabbard and we'll talk about that below.

To pull, we bend the elbow, to push, we keep the elbow straight and put our body into it. Pushing the blade out therefore keeps our elbows close to the hips and down. You can see this very clearly if you compare the side views.

Nuki Tsuke, pulling, side view

This same push and pull language will affect the cut. It's hard to see what effect it has, but take a look at the next set of shots.

Cutting with a push from the right hand

Cutting with a pull from the left hand

Again, a close look will reveal that the two motions are not the same. With the pull, the elbows stay forward at the beginning, and the hips stay under the cut. When Dennis thinks about pushing he rocks the index finger of the right hand onto the hilt, this causes his elbows to fly outward, and his shoulders to come up and forward as his weight rocks upward onto the top of the sword. Of course this simply results in less weight being transferred into the tip, and a weak cut. It also results in stiff shoulders which can be seen if you compare the third photo of each sequence.

Finally, we come to noto, or putting the blade back into the scabbard. Again, we need to reverse our usual word association. Instead of pushing the blade back into the saya, we should pull it back in.

Noto while thinking of pushing the blade into the scabbard

Noto, pulling the blade back into the scabbard.

And just because I took the shots, from the front.

Noto while thinking of pushing the blade into the scabbard

Noto, pulling the blade back into the scabbard.

As we can see, the pushing idea means that the shoulder stays up, and the hand grips the side of the tsuka. Not an ideal situation, especially if one has to draw quickly once more. Just as one has to push the blade out of the scabbard, one has to pull it back in. The pull is accomplished by a light fingertip grip on the tsuka, and by contact with the tsuba by the back of the right hand as is seen in the closeup shot way up above.

Finally, just in case anyone is confused, here are four shots labelled Right and Wrong. The "Right" positions happen when you push the tsuka out of the saya and the "Wrong" positions happen when you pull the sword out of the scabbard and push it back in.

Wrong

Right

Thanks to Nate Bain and Dennis Nikitenko for modeling.

Kim Taylor has been teaching iaido since 1987 at seidokai.ca, and making wooden weapons for 25 years at sdksupplies.com.

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TIN Oct 2007

Push and Pull: The Importance of Language in Iaido

Push and Pull:
The Importance of Language in Iaido