IAIDO (居 合 道):
an applied Philosophy

Ray Ballisti

At the beginning of the 17-th century all Daimo (the feudal lords) have been subordinated to a Shogun (a military dictator), while the Emperor had no power.
In this way many centuries of wars ended and a period of peace started.
But still there were ambushes, traitors, self-justice and criminal gangs. No more the skill in a duel like during a battle was requested, but the capability to properly react to a suddenly attack. One has to draw the own sword to parry the attack and then to counter-attack.
The goal was to survive. And the name of this art was originally iai jutsu. And of course there were many schools of it.
But in the 20th century there was no more any necessity to defend yourself with a sword, and so those schools drawn their attention to the pursuit of ethical goals, in order to become a better person. And this also contribute to peace in the world (if properly applied ...) The "DO" in the name (instead of jutsu) emphasis this change: DO means literary "the way" but it must be understand as the way of improuvements of the own personality to become more sympathetic, have compassion, be trustful, be helpful and so on.
The proper use and practice of a sword is not that simple as one can think. It has to happen with the correct body posture and appropriate mental attitude. This is done in practicing so called "KATA" which are fictive fighting situations. And of course the adversary is just imaginary, because it would be too dangerous to fight against a real person. Similar considerations can be applied to KYUDO (The Art of Archery).
A major difference of Iaido compared to other martial arts, as Judo, Karate, Aikido,etc is that iaidō is of no practical use at all, while the other disciplines are supposed to improve your self-defense in a real life situation.
And this is the advantage of Iaido: the study of the art (of using a KATANA, the Samuray sword) is just a tool in order to get into the underlying philosophy. The goal is now to deal with the own character, especially with our own weaknesses, and also with the interactions with people and society.
Anyone who want to follow the "way" of IAIDO must show perseverance, because the deep meaning of the underlying philosopy cannot be quickly discovered.
The philosophical and psychological foundations of IAIDO are in the ZEN Buddhism, and this is an applied philosophy, which can be discovered only "by doing" and cannot be learned just from a book.
IAIDO is just a way to learn to see life as it is and not "as we wish that it should be".
To learn to accept reality as it is has a lot of consequences for the own life and will change the own life attitude.
One learn to improve some of his/her personality properties which will then be very useful in the daily life.
In the "DOJO" (the place where we learn IAIDO) we experience the daily problems under another disguise and thus we can work on them.
The teaching is based on the three column of the ZEN Buddhism:
Patience - (mental) concentration - trust
Sometime "trust" is translated as obedience or compliance. But the meaning is that you have to trust your teacher and follows his/her instructions (obey) till you reach the point of understanding.
At the beginn you will use a wooden sword (BOKU TO), then a "IAI TO " which is a stub metal sword build with a (usually) soft alloy.
Only as an advanced learner will you be allowed to use a real sword (KATANA, SHIN KEN)