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The long and wide karate stances also make it harder to move forward to close the longer distance needed to move to hit the opponent with a sword. Karate stances are better for side to side moves and defending against side attacks. In Iaido, a stance like that causes one to lose power on frontal attacks, which are almost all of the attacks with a sword. I was used to a stance that was low to the ground and as wide as could be because that’s stable in karate. With karate, we used Okinawan words, but now I was doing a Japanese art. The square stance was familiar to me, so I’m sure that helped. I say unexpectedly because I never thought I’d be into swords. Unexpectedly in some ways, I decided Iaido was what I enjoyed the most. I’d go to Jodo and have to be in a stance that wasn’t square, and then I’d go to Iaido and need to be square and my brain and body were so upset by the changes I could not do both at once. Around the same time, I also started Iaido (Eee-Eye-Doe), which is a sword-based martial art that requires a square stance. I felt like I had to unlearn the things I knew. I had to keep a stance that wasn’t square, which was annoying for me because my karate sensei was always trying to get me to be square. I had to speak Japanese words as I hit imaginary foes. I initially thought Jo would be similar to Bo, which I had experience with from the weapons portion in my Shotokan days. That led me to searching for weapons-based arts and I discovered Jodo (Joe-Doe). I watched some other styles of martial arts at a few other places and I felt that weapons were an important thing for me. It was alright, but I barely broke a sweat, the other students were not accepting of other martial arts, and the cost was exorbitant. I also knew I was particularly interested in weapons and since Aikido practitioners don’t touch weapons until several years of training have happened, I decided Aikido was not what I was looking for. The other dojo I participated in a class and I did not enjoy the throws. There were two senseis there, one like mine and another that was dismissive of my interest. Armed with that guidance, I checked out two Aikido dojos. I spoke with my sensei and she advised that it’s not the particular art, but the teacher that was the most important thing to look for. I came from a small town where the furthest distance across town was about 30 minutes, so a 20-minute drive was far! I initially looked for karate dojos, but most were not near my home or work and at that time the idea of a 20-minute drive being considered close in proximity was ludicrous to me. I did extensive research and visited many dojos as I knew more about what made a good teacher and school.
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This time it was for a love of martial arts and not simply a need to be active that I was interested. I moved to a new city and knew I needed a martial art in my life. Later, I decided to try out Goju Ryu Karate, but my life was filled with multiple stresses and I could not focus on learning new things, so though I truly enjoyed my time at my second dojo, I doubt I can recall any of the exercises or katas (kah-tahs) I worked on during that period. During the journey to blue belt I eventually was able to do 1,000 kicks for the fundraiser the dojo had that year. I was not athletic prior to this, and I was overweight, which made the workouts difficult. I chose my school or dojo (doe-joe) based on having the teacher or sensei (sen-say) as a classmate in a couple of business classes. My reasons for joining karate were mainly because I was curious about martial arts and felt I needed to do something active after completing a degree in business. My martial arts journey began in 2010 with Shotokan Karate, where I worked my way up to a blue belt. An essay I wrote for a course I took on learning: