1st Tenshin Ryu Iaido Seminar

By Mike Selvey 6th Dan Kyoshi

On the 21 st April 2007 the Tsunami Yodokan hosted the first Tenshin Ryu Iaido seminar, the day started for me at 9.00am, the weather was fine and warm, I started getting together all the paperwork and equipment I needed for the day and drove to the all saints church hall in Shirley Croydon, the venue for the event.

At around 9.45am I met the sempei of Tsunami Yodokan Sensei Glenn Coxon, together we set up the Kamiza lit the incense and went over the days programme,

Students started arriving at around 10.15am firstly the other Tenshin Ryu instructors Sensei Geoff Murray and Sensei Charles Goulding, then students and instructors from other sword schools started to arrived, we could not have managed to get another student in, all the hall was taken up and we had to use an adjacent room.

We started the day with a traditional Tenshin Ryu opening ceremony after which I began the seminar by teaching “tsuki no kyu dankai” (the nine phases of the moon) a kata that I have introduced to boost an individuals confidence and knowledge.

We split the class into three sections; area one with myself for IaiJutsu, area 2 with Sensei Glenn Coxon for Iaido, and area three with Sensei Geoff Murray for philosophy and history of Tenshin Ryu.

The area’s changed three times with the instructors rotating round so everyone was able to attend all classes. After a first class lunch laid on by the dojo and catered for by Mrs. Audrey Dungey we returned to the dojo for the afternoon session, this time the area was split into two, area one for Tenshin Kata using daito (katana) and area two using shoto (wakazashi) we then changed area’s so everyone had a session of both Kata’s.

Finally I gave instruction on unarmed defence against Katana which rounded the day off nicely.

The seminar finished at around 16.00pm with the traditional Tenshin Ryu closing ceremony.

The day was a great success, everyone who attended thanked the instructors for a first class day, I have received several e-mails of thanks and many enquiries regarding the next Tenshin Ryu Iaido seminar (which will be held in September, details to follow,) my thanks go out to all who attended and the instructors and students of the Tsunami Yodokan whom I am very proud of.

Mike Selvey Kyoshi 2007.