Hakone taikai – 8th dan favorites
A few post ago I wrote that during our last trip we made some shopping just before departure. In our shopping bag there was a series of DVD edited by Hertz-International. It has been some years now that I was looking for the Hakone taikai DVDs and I was very happy to find them at a stand next to the Butokuden.
One of these DVD set is dedicated to Eishin Ryu and is composed of 3 DVD. Slowly but surely I started 2 weeks ago to watch them all and I can tell you I was not disappointed. Those DVD are showing the top of the top in terms of Iaido with so many famous sensei giving their best performance during this mythic event.
Having watched them carefully I found it interesting to make some statistics about the performed kata.
So what are the 8th dan’s favourite katas ?
On a total number of 33 embu of 5 koryu katas. Here is the top 10:
1. Mae (33x)
2. Oroshi (24x)
3. Tsukekomi (14x)
4. Tsukikage (13x)
5. Namikaeshi (12x)
6. Yaegaki (9x)
7. Ukenagashi (8x)
8. Takiotoshi (8x)
9. Toranoissoku (6x)
10. Inazuma (5x)
| Mae | 32/32 |
| Oroshi | 24/32 |
| Tsukekomi | 14/32 |
| Tsukikage | 13/32 |
| Namikaeshi | 12/32 |
| Yaegaki | 8/32 |
| Ukenagashi | 8/32 |
| Takiotoshi | 8/12 |
| Toranoissoku | 6/12 |
| Inazuma | 5/12 |
Of course this kata “Ranking” is only representative of this DVD and only covers Koryu but it gives a small idea of what are the “favorite” 8th dan katas.
Until now I only had the time to watch the Eishin ryu DVD pack but a Muso Shinden Ryu post will follow …
Posted: June 4th, 2010 under Iaido.
Tags: dvd, Hakone, taikai