Northern California Iaido Association

The Northern California Iaido Association, NCIA is the Iaido branch of the Northern California Kendo Federation,or NCKF. The NCIA is charged with promoting, supporting and teaching Iaido within the NCKF community.

Unlike Kendo, Iaido is primarily a solo martial art. Iaido is not practiced as a "sport style" or combative competition against an opponent, it is practiced as a discipline and method to self improvement and perfection of form and technique. Iaido specifically is a discipline of form which utilizes the Japanese sword in a series of forms, or Kata. Each kata encompases the envisioning of an agressor, drawing the sword, avoidance of an attack by blocking or the use of a stop attack, a counter attack, clearing the sword and re sheathing the sword.

As an Iaido Association that draws the majority of its membership from kendo practitioners, our primary style is Zen Nihon Kendo Renmei Iaido kata, also known as Seitie Iaido, which can be understood to mean 'standardized' Iaido. Seitei Iaido currently has 12 forms, or kata. The first four forms begin from a sitting position. The remaining eight from standing positions.

 

History of Sieitei Iaido Kata:

After the re-establishment of Kendo in post war Japan, the All Japan Kendo Federation (Zen Nippon Kendo Renmei) was established in 1953 as an umbrella organization to unify kendo and Iaido under one governing body. (Please see the article 'An Overview of Kendo 1945-2000' by Dr. Hazard on the AUSKF page, ). Shortly thereafter, the ZNKR realized, that with so many classical Iaido systems, there was no way to test or assign standardized ranks to Iaido practitioners of such varying ryuha. To solve this issue, twelve Iaido Instructors, who were considered to be the top masters of the time, met at the Tokyo Budokan to begin discussions for a solution. This solution was presented in 1969 as a standardized set of seven kata, or forms.Wayne Muramoto has written a good history of the origins of Seitie Iaido, which can be read here. If you practice Kendo and are interested in Iaido, it's a good read.

The Ko-Ryu practiced by most NCIA members is Omori-ryu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northern California Kendo Federation.