We are delighted to announce a Iaido Seminar on the 29th November 2008 with Okimitsu Fujii, 7th DAN Kyoshi, and Dave Ansell, 7th DAN Koyshi. Not only will we welcome these two senior instructors but also three more senior iaidoka: Bruce Scrivens, 5th DAN Renshi, France Empeigne, 4th DAN, and Kevin Whittington 3rd DAN.

We would like to invite all interested Iaido students for this event. The seminar will be held at the Martial Arts Academy.

The following sessions have been planned:

10.00 - 10.30: Opening
10.30 - 12.30 : Session 1
12.30 - 13.30 : Lunch
13.30 - 16.00 : Session 2
16.00 - 17.00 : Demonstrations

We anticipate the seminar to finish at 5pm. The Seminar fee will be EUR 40,00 for non-members of the Iaido Association of Ireland and EUR 30,00 for members.

Okimitsu Fujii is the founder of several Kenseikai Dojos in the UK and has officially granted Nick the permission to found Kenseikai Ireland. Thus we are very delighted to welcome Fujii Sensei in the Kenseikai Dojo Ireland for the first time. Dave Ansell is the currently the highest graded, non Japanese, in the D.N.B.K. teaching Iaido and thus we consider ourselves lucky having him over on this occasion. All our other visitors are dedicated Iaidoka having trained many years in their disciplin. We are very happy to welcome all our guests on this special occasion.

We are looking forward to seeing all off you on Saturday. If you are having any questions, please contact either Nick (nick@iaido.ie) or Björn (bjoern@iaido.ie).

Some time has passed since the AGM this year. Having been elected President of the Iaido Association of Ireland earlier this year I would like to update you all every few month know on what has and is happening at the moment at the Iaido Association of Ireland.

On the administration side of things we are currently working on updating the members register, collecting the annual membership fees and are in the process of renewing our insurance, so that there will be uninterrupted insurance cover for all our members. We are also working on the design of our new membership cards and hoping to be able to distribute them in May 2008 to all our current members.

For Masamune Dojo Ireland Neil has found a new home and this new venue will get included on our new insurance and thus training should be able to start soon in this new location in Bray. As soon as everything has been confirmed, we will announce the new location and time.

Kensekai Ireland Dojo is currently searching for a venue to start teaching Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu, but currently Nick and Björn are spending most of their time preparing for the trip to Japan, leaving Ireland on the 23rd April, to participate in the DNBK’s 3rd World Botoku Sai. We are hoping to be able to send you regular updates and pictures of this historical event taking place in Kyoto.

Just recently we had the opportunity to welcome David Ansell, 5th Dan Muso Shinden Ryu and a member of the DNBK, in our Dojo for a Sunday morning seminar in our Hobu Dojo in the Martial Arts Academy. Dave spent some time to cast an eye over Nick’s and Björn’s Iaido to ensure the high standards of the DNBK are satisfied and then was able to demonstrated the variations of katas and differences between Muso Shinden, Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu and Seitei. I would like to thank Dave for coming over from the UK and we are looking forward to seeing him again soon – as he will as well be going to Japan.

I also would like to congratulate Gee Walter of Masamune Dojo Ireland on his achievement, having been awarded Shodan recently. Thanks to our connections to teachers in the UK we are able to provide our students with regular opportunities for grading and I would like to thank all our supports in the UK from Kensekei Dojos and Masamune for their help.

Have a good time and continue the good work!

Björn

The year 2007 has proven to be an interesting one, seeing a lot of up’s and down’s for Iaido in Ireland. The biggest problem that Iaido in Ireland is facing is the amount of students actually attending classes. After a very good start in spring we faced the typical summer holiday breakdowns but unfortunately have not really recovered since. This leaves us in the unique situation that we have sometimes more teachers then students attending the class. Having still in mind the screams of Iaidoka missing instructors in 2006 and their willingness to go wherever a teacher would be, this seems to have been more lip service then reality. Is it really all about the location, the winter and the time as people say? I would like to encourage people to let us know why they can not make it to training as we for sure will continue to grow and support Iaido in Ireland.

As you might be aware, one of the big events coming next year is the travel from two of the IAI teachers to Japan in April to attend the World Botoku Sai of the DNBK (Dai Nippon Butoku Kai) in Kyoto. We will keep you posted on this event and what is happening to this first ever Irish delegation to an international DNBK event. Our two teachers are looking forward to it and are getting more and more excited.

Several other events, especially seminars with senior instructors, will be planned in January, as well as the Annual General Meeting will be held on the last Monday in January, the 28th January 2008. Invitations to the AGM will be issued by email soon to all members. If you have not received an invitation by the 31st Decembers 2007, please contact Björn (bjoern @ iaido.ie) by mail.

The website itself has proven to be our best information pool and we try hard to make it useful and provide insights on Iaido. Therefore we have changed the Articles section to the official iaido.ie Blog. We would like to encourage Iaidoka all over the world to send us their thoughts on Iaido and martial arts to discuss and share ideas. So if you have an article or just some thoughts you want to share, let us know and we will be happy to allow you to post on our iaido.ie Blog.

Stay tuned for more to come in 2008, but now is the time to thank all the friends, teachers and students for their help and support in 2007. The Iaido Association of Ireland and iaido.ie would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year 2008.

On behalf of the IAI and iaido.ie

Björn
-- iaido.ie Editor --

Several seminars have been conducted by the IAI in the last few months and I would like to take the oppertunity to thank everybody who attended, but especially the two instructors.

Dave Hart made a start with his weekend seminar on MJER and Niten-Ryu. The seminar took place at the Martial Arts Acedemy and we had a very good time with Dave.
The morning was spent with Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu and especially some Omori Ryu and the famous "Tatehiza" forms. In the afternoon we continued but ended with two hours of Niten-Ryu, the famous style invented by Miyamoto Musashi. His two swords technic is something very special and we were fortunate to have one of the few Niten Instructors with us. The seminar ended with a grading ceremony and three Iaidoka have been awarded Kyu grades.

Next was a seminar led by Fay Goodman, concentrating on Seitei and also MJER. The seminar was held at the Masters Temple in Bray and we got to know some of the differences between Seitei and MJER. Fay took the time to explain similar forms in Seitei and MJER as well as giving beginners special attention but made sure that the more senior Iaidoka were kept busy as well. Again our seminar ended with a Kyu grading ceremony, awarding grades to several Iaidoka in Ireland.

I would like to thank our guest instructors for their support and we are looking forward to seeing you all again back in Ireland. We all had a very good time and hope everybody enjoyed the open and friendly atmosphere.

At the beginning the student is without knowledge, but full of illusion.

Then, the student starts to learn. One illusion after the other is erased. But his knowledge grows.

When the student recognize, that his teacher himself is torn between knowledge and illusion he bows. But then he walks his way alone.

The student becomes the teacher and he sees that all his knowledge is just an illusion. The root of lore is nothingness and will be achieved through stomach and heart.

The teacher forgets more and more, but the lore grows within him. At the end the teacher is without knowledge, but also without illusions.

So the way teaches us to recognize life itself.

Finally the move is complete and we are very happy to present all of our vistors with the new iaido.ie website, the internet home of the Iaido Association of Ireland (IAI). This website will allow us to update it quicker and more important even, to get information out to you faster, making sure that you will always kept up to date. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to contact us by email or leave a message in our Forum.

There have been several changes in the last month. The most important is, that our Monday night class is now a Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu only class. This is due to the fact that Neil Motherway, our Setai teacher, has been very busy in the last few months and therefore can not continue to teach Monday nights. However he will continue his Saturday class in Bray in the Masters Temple. Everybody is very welcome to attend this training, please refer to the Classes section of the website for further information.

An Annual General Members Meeting has officially taken place a couple of month ago and a new President of the Iaido Association of Ireland has been elected. Nick Johnston has followed Eoin Meehan as President. We would like to thank Eoin for his work as first President, keeping Iaido in Ireland alive and being one of the founders of the IAI. Eoin said that he will happily continue to assist the IAI but felt it would be the time to hand over to someone more advanced in Iaido itself.
Nick Johnston has therefore been elected as second President of the Iaido Association of Ireland. Nick is a Ni-Dan Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaido and has been training for many years primarily in the UK with Fujii Sensei and other well known teachers. Nick relocated to Ireland in 2006 and he is one of the founding members of the Iaido Association of Ireland. We would like to wish him all the best for his term as President.

As well Dave Graham has been elected again as Scretary and Colman Reilly was elected as Treasure, a new post that has been created by the General Membership Assambly. I hope you will all join me to wish our new officers all the best for their term of office.

We will keep ypu posted with new information on the IAI soon.

On behalf of the IAI,

Bjoern O. Fehr
(Member of the Technical Board of Instructors)

This article was printed in "The Iaido Newsletter" Vol 3 Number 4 on 13th June 1991. The Iaido Newsletter is published by Kim Taylor of the Sei Do Kai Iaido Club of the University of Guelph, Canada.

Founding members of the Iaido Association of Ireland sign a memorandum formally establishing the Association.
L to R: Dave Graham, Nick Johnston, Bjoern Fehr, Neil Motherway, Eoin Meehan