Aikibatto

Aikibatto is a system of sword (ken) and staff (jo) exercises for aikido students, as well as for anyone interested in the Japanese martial arts. In this book I present the basics and principles of the sophisticated sword arts developed by the Japanese warrior aristocracy, the samurai.

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     Most aikido dojos practice with bokken, the wooden sword, and jo, the staff. It's usually called aikiken and aikijo, but there are other names for it - such as bukiwaza, kumitachi, et cetera. Unarmed defense against those weapons is called tachidori and jodori. Learning to handle the sword and the staff is very beneficial in aikido, which is to a large extent developed from the samurai arts.

Complicated Systems

The most common system of bokken and jo exercises is the one developed by Morihiro Saito. It's a very complex system with many different movements and techniques. Other aikido teachers have made their own systems, but they are very often variations on the Saito techniques, following their structure quite closely.

     Another way of treating the sword and staff was developed by Shoji Nishio. He had studied the traditional arts of iaido and jodo at depth, and made his own system of combining these budo techniques with aikido movements. This also became quite an elaborate system, very difficult to master without profound experience of iaido and jodo training.

     Aikido is in itself a vast and rather complicated system of techniques, taking lots of training. So, students often find themselves lacking proper bokken and jo skills, simply because they don't have enough time to train them.

     If the exercises are many and strenuous to memorize, it often results in the students not getting enough of suburi, the drills in the basic movements of the sword and staff. They might remember numerous long kata, but their handling of the weapons is flawed.

     That's what I wanted to approach with creating aikibatto. A limited set of exercises where the basic moves and principles of the Japanese sword and staff arts are trained sufficiently - and true to the traditions of those arts. The 101 of it, so to speak.

     Originally I did it for my dojo members only, but then I reveived increasing interest from other aikido practitioners. So, I made a section on my website about aikibatto, and a few years later I wrote the book.

The Book

Although the aikibatto exercises are primarily developed for aikido students, they contain much of the normal curriculum of traditional iaido and kenjutsu. I hope that anyone interested in the arts of the katana, the formidable Japanese sword, will find much of value in this book.

     The book also contains extensive chapters on the spiritual aspects and the fundamentals of the sword arts, information about proper equipment, words on the teaching and learning aspects of aikibatto, and more. See the list of contents below.

Contents

Here is the book's table of contents:

Foreword 7
Background 9
Aikiken and iaido 10
The website: aikibatto.com 12
Aikibatto basics 13
Shoden and okuden 14
Distance and contact 16
Equipment 17
Reasons for aikibatto 35
Developing firm basics 35
A sword for the aikidoka 39
The teacher is the needle 45
Spiritual aspects 73
Do - the way 73
Tanden - the center 80
Ki - life energy 82
Sword art fundamentals 88
Posture 88
Grip 90
Cut 92
Aikibatto exercises 96
1 Shiho MAE 97
2 Shiho USHIRO 104
3 Shiho HIDARI 108
4 Shiho MIGI 115
5 Ukenagashi OMOTE 120
6 Ukenagashi URA 127
7 Kote CHUDAN 131
8 Kote JODAN 138
9 Harai ATE 143
10 Harai TSUKI 153
Aikibatto Jo 159
Introduction 159
Jo exercises 164
1 Shiho MAE 165
2 Shiho USHIRO 167
3 Shiho HIDARI 169
4 Shiho MIGI 171
5 Ukenagashi OMOTE 173
6 Ukenagashi URA 175
7 Kote CHUDAN 177
8 Kote JODAN 179
9 Harai ATE 181
10 Harai TSUKI 183
Glossary 185
Changes and additions 192

Samples

Here are two short chapters from the book, as Acrobat PDF files in computer screen resolution (72 DPI):

     Spiritual aspects: Do - the way

     1 Shiho MAE

About me

I'm a 6 dan Aikikai Shihan Swedish aikido instructor, member of the Swedish Aikido Grad­ing Committee, Vice Chairman of the International Aikido Federation, and President of the Swedish Budo & Martial Arts Federation. I've practiced aikido and iaido for 40 years, since 1972. My iaido grade is 4 dan in Aikido Toho Iai Kenkyukai, which I received from its founder Shoji Nishio in 1996. I'm also a writer of both fiction and non-fiction.

How to get the book

If you want to buy the book, you can do so at most web based bookstores, such as Amazon and the like. Here are links to the book on Amazon US and Amazon UK. Use the latter if you are European - then you get the book cheaper and quicker. Otherwise, you may want to buy it at Amazon US.

At Amazon US:

At Amazon UK:

Now also a Kindle ebook:
Aikibatto
Sword Exercises for Aikido Students
by Stefan Stenudd
Paperback, 192 pages
ISBN 978-91-7894-023-3