Sensei, what qualities do you think are the most important for an Iaido student to possess?
The most important quality that an Iaido student should have is patience. Learning Iaido is not something you can master overnight. It is a lifetime process. In the beginning, your thoughts are focused only on learning the movements. As you learn the movements, you then learn how the movements are applied. As your experience grows in Iaido, so does your learning. You will even hear from those that have achieved the highest ranks in Iaido that they are still learning. This is a perfect testament that your learning as a student never stops and you must have the patience to keep trying to improve. Dan Lowry, author of In the Dojo, has a perfect passage on what a student is. “Shoshinsha is another word – a ‘person with a beginning mind’ – that can describe the new student. The wise student remains a shoshinsa all during his training in the martial Ways, always with a mind that is ready to learn more and always ready to accept that he has not seen it all, no matter how much experience and t
