question on iaido/kenjutsu

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Dec 1, 2000
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Anyone ever seen/trained with a method called happo hiken? traditional Japanese technique.
When I was studying iaido, my instructor demonstrated some techniques that I'd seen in iai kata using a hand forward on the back of the blade of the katana to guide it. He said that happo hiken was an old method of using a katana in close quarters (indoors) and that it was rarely taught.
I learned only the 10 seitai iai kata and some kenjutsu techniques; outside of this demo he hardly ever mentioned it again. I was far too busy trying not to cut myself to ask a bunch of questions at the time.
I came across the mention of it in an article recently, and am just wondering....
 
In the ZNKR Seitei-Gata, they teach a thrust technique called Soete-tsuki, where the left hand is up on the mune and shinogi-ji of the blade so the right hand may be kept further back for in-close thrust. It also will work for cutting in-close, though I don't see that very often.

Kissaki-gaeshi of Zen Nihon Iai Renmei I believe incorporates the same technique.
I'm sure it's taught in several other ryuha under different names and with variations of incorporation.

Shinryû.
 
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