What is “居合道 Iaido?”

Hello everyone. Thank you for reading this article. I’m Shogo from Let’s ask Shogo, the interpreter of the online lessons and owner of this website.

We provide online lessons on Iaido, and we’ve made many videos about it in the past. But what is “居合道 Iaido” really?

“道 Dō,” meaning path/way, is a word that is attached to the name of many Japanese traditional cultures. Such as Karatedō, Judō, Kendō, Sadō, Shodō, etc. So the “Dō” at the end of this name represents that it’s a traditional culture in Japan. 

“Iai” on the other hand, is an abbreviation of a Japanese phrase: “常に居て、急に合わす Tsuneniite, kyūniawasu.” This means “always being present at the moment and suddenly reacting to any situation. The samurai in the past always had katana with them wherever they go, and even the commoners were allowed to carry short weapons with them for self-defence. This means a samurai could get into a fight with someone anytime, anywhere. Whenever they actually come across such a situation, they need the skills to draw their katana and fight back suddenly. This is the whole concept of Iai, the art of katana drawing.

There are more than 100 different Iai Ryuha styles/schools in Japan, and the Asayama Ichiden Ryu and Musō Shinden Ryu, which we teach in our online lessons, are two of them. But when we say “Iaidō,” we generally refer to the All Japan Kendo Federation’s 12 standard Iai Kata. This organization, known as ZNKR, is Japan’s biggest Budo martial art association, and it teaches Kendo, Iaido, and Jōdo, the staff. Other individual Ryuha styles would usually call their skills just “Iai” without a “Dō,” because it sounds as if they’re talking about ZNKR Iai.

By the way, if you take our Musō Shinden Ryu online lessons, you will learn the traditional Koryu style Iai Kata and the Iaido Kata of ZNKR. If you take part in the annual training camp you can even receive the official Dan ranks too, so if you’re interested please check it out.