Sitting, Cutting, Analyzing....

Although our style is not a style from seiza, there are many things from seiza you can learn about cutting. When you watch people cut from seiza, or for many Japanese, just do anything in seiza, you notice how down in their core and lower body they are settled. Getting a cup of tea, reaching for the remote, listening to lectures...etc. But especially for iai, they really focus on using lower body especially to swing their sword. 

Me personally, seiza is very uncomfortable because of my bad knee, so when I was younger, I would instead sit in a chair in my garage. Living in NYC however, I found another reason to use sit in a chair and practicing swinging....low ceilings. This is even more important because of the style. Toyama Ryu is all standing. Not from seiza. In a way that's great because man it's comfortable but I notice people being too top heavy. When they swing their sword, they rock their upper body too much, or you'll see people bring their core or center off the floor by coming off their feet. 

The exercise itself is quite simple. Get a chair. Sit in the chair. Practice makko, or straight down, and both sides kesa giri. The hard part, is to try to not rock the chair, nor let your upper body move around too much. Don't lean back in the chair either. This is a great test of posture as well. 

If you do a style where you stand a lot, you'll notice how much your upper body moves to do a cut. Even though you're sitting in a chair, try to grab the floor with your feet. Still try to shift your weight down. This way you're settling in your core and your center. Also if you cut too low you'll hit the floor haha. Have fun!