Wednesday, June 14, 2006

They just don't kill people like they used to...

For those of you who don't know; I study sword-based martial arts. Specifically I study Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaido, Italian longsword and rapier. Well I've been nursing injured knees since January; managed to go through my test for 2nd Dan in Iaido at the beginning of March with much pain, but other than that I've been playing couch potato waiting for the knees to heel.

Quite a lot of MJER Iaido is done from a kneeling position; as for longsword and rapier, well the knees bend a lot there too. My knees feel a lot better now and I'm slowly getting back into my classes. Last Saturday I had my first class with Sensei back in the Dojo (he was off in Austin the week before). He asked about my knees and then started me right into some new standing techniques and then presented me with my 2nd Dan certificate after class (with the added bonus of Tirya being on-hand to watch). I know there's still more to learn than I can possibly fit in my lifetime, but I at least feel like I've made a start.


Tonight I went to my first longsword class since I injured my knees back in January. It was a short workout, but I was delighted that so many people came up and welcomed me back. I have a lot of work to do to catch up, but it's really kind of nice to realize that you were missed. There's some hope of starting up some Spanish rapier study in the near future which promises to be less stressful on the knees.

Tomorrow morning is going to tell me if I'm overdoing it or not. If I can walk faster than an eighty year-old with a wooden leg then I'm back in the sword swinging business until my next injury. I'm sure you'll hear a lot more about it in future posts, but for now I'm going to stick a link to Schola Saint George up on the page. If you're interested in learning authentic medieval combat techniques it's a great place to start.

Tell them Dan sent ya.

4 comments:

uitbarsting said...

good luck

Reverse_Vampyr said...

Congratulations on your nidan!

MissChrisB said...

Tell 'em Dan sent me? Do I have to use the secret knock, too?

(And you forgot to mention that Inca was there for the presentation, too...)

Congrats, darling, and please take care of your knees!

Anonymous said...

another great blog from you guys. i'd point you to mine but it isn't yet the way I'd like it. i do have a website that I think is cool, kind of almost about brazilian martial art