In some previous lines I told that once I threw my tennis racquet away, and never touch it again. Not that it was easy. I remember her lines still today. Few years later carbon changed the way racquets were build, and how people played. But back in 1979 I got a wooden one. I loved it from the first time I saw it. It was elegant and flexible, it had nothing of the harshness of aluminium, the other possibility back then. I really loved the thing, it was alive, responsive to the ball and to me.
Few days ago I lend my iaito to a friend, so that she could see what to cut with steel feels like. Well, not steel, since my iaito, as close as his balance is to a real sword, is still a practicing tool, a sword replica, made of an alloy and chromed on top of it. Anyhow, to cut with a iaito is a different thing that to cut with a wooden sword, which is what my friend and me use together. Afterwards we did our kendo kata’s and after I asked her, how was it with the iaito, how did it compare?
“I don’t know”, she said.
“I do remember when I started skating, and after a while I decided to upgrade my skates. It happened years ago, but I still remember the thrill, the energy that electrified my whole body, when I touched the new blades” and then she looked at me and said:
“I though I was going to feel something... I don’t know what... something...like back then? but nope. Nothing really. It was a different balance for sure... but that was it”
Of course, I thought, and probably said. I mean, my iaito was not about to talk to my friend, wasn’t he? Swords in this land are nothing like Anglachel, not even like the sword of Balin in old Arthurian England. And yet my iaito has a name, and is definitively a he. But then again, I also remember when I got it. After diverse considerations, translations of a catalogue and more considerations from the advanced people in my dojo, I choose it and ordered it. Few months later it came from Japan, and I brought it to the dojo. Somebody asked for it, made some cuts and told somebody else “wow, it knows how to cut”. Then the other person took it, after asking me, did some cuts too, and said “It does want to cut!” I got it back, you can imagine how excited, and did some cuts myself. And I had no idea what were they talking about, not for the sake of my life.
This happened about 5 years ago. I remember what they said, but I have not given it much thought. And yet, talking to my friend about her skates and my racquet and other stuff, I realize that somewhere along the line, I became aware of... something about my practice sword? I guess is his balance, or the position of the center of gravity related to the length of his handle, or the interplay of these things and my body. I guess. But whatever it is, it does not feel like it is describable in equations. Which is silly, because I know it has to be describable. And I studied physics. So a little thought will give me some equations that would describe dynamics and speeds, right? right!
But those equations will not describe my iaito. Not fully.
So... where do we go from here? Do we share part of our life with the things we use? Do we slowly discover them , and whatever they are, in ways that even ourselves can not fully describe? Or is all this the pseudo romantic nonsense from somebody that has read too much Tolkien, Malory... and Shinto?