Iwata sensei's essays 2.​

Self – will in iai training

We all have self-will in our mind, and it is very influential. So we have to use it effectively.
It is very indispensable to do iai training, but sometimes it effects on us in bad ways.
We are loved by the people when we have self-will in good ways, but we are not loved by the people when we have self-will in bad ways.
Let’s think about self-will in iai training.
It takes many years to make progress in iai.
We must spend all our life in training. We need self-will to keep training. You won’t be able to keep training without self-will.
After we learned iai for ten years, fifteen years, or twenty years, we start to teach the people.
As we learned almost all the ways, we apt to feel we mastered all. It is good if we listen to our teacher from the heart and study iai more.
But if we feel we mastered iai completely, we can’t learn anything from our teacher. Moreover we become offended at our teacher’s guidance. This is the worst.
If we teach proper iai, it is good. But to teach proper iai is very difficult. Most of us become our own style. We regard our own style as proper one.
We are becoming older while we are doing iai long.
Self-will becomes stronger when we become old.
When self-will becomes strong, we teach our own style without hesitation.
There are some people who accept what other people say, but we should judge if it is right or wrong before accepting.
If we accept things without thinking deeply, and if we teach our own style as proper one, it is very deplorable.

These are bad examples:
Some people don’t practice properly.
Some people’s iai is becoming their own style.
ome people have an illusion that they mastered iai and never listen to others.
Some people don’t care their own style at all.
Some people boast their iai.

Everybody has different self-will.
There are age differences, and regional differences.
Self-will other causes problems in our life.