I step into the dojo quietly and respectfully trying not to disturb any of the other classes, and I am greeted by immediate chiding from one of the senseis.
"Shoes off! Shoes off!," he yells - I'm still wearing my sandals like some ignorant Westerner.
Sensei Tom Huffman, a wiry, middle-aged man clad in a weathered gi tied with a worn-out black belt to match, stands at the other end of the room. He's holding a broom and has just finished sweeping a large, padded mat.
In addition to Aikido and other weapons classes Huffman teaches at the Unified Training Center, he also teaches Iaido, "the art of drawing the sword such that as soon as the sword leaves the scabbard it is on the path of a lethal cut." Huffman, a fourth degree Akiaki black belt in Aikido, has more than 23 years of Aikido experience, six of them in Japan.
He opens a duffel bag and hands me a bokken, a wooden practice katana. Huffman wields a real one. Although its edge is purposefully dulled, there is no doubt in my mind that he could finish me before I even knew he was moving.
Huffman gingerly slides three picture frames containing photos of his former senseis, now deceased, from his duffel bag and hangs them on the wall. He says they are more inspirational than anything.We stand in the center of the mat, bow toward the front of the dojo and hold our swords laterally in our palms, presenting them to the spirits of the deceased sensei.
Then it's down to business. We walk to the edge of the mat, and the lesson begins. Huffman spends all of five minutes meticulously instructing me on how to remove the sword from its PVC scabbard, or saya, which he molded in his oven to shape it to the sword.
We begin on our knees, katana in saya, and Huffman leads me through a series of steps involving explicit manipulation of the katana in slices, jabs and swings.
I earned my black belt in karate at age 13, but it's been a long time since I set foot in a dojo. He patiently picks apart all of my clumsy moves with the bokken as he demonstrates his own ability. As he glides through all the moves of the kata, a combined series of sword moves, his sword swishes through the air audibly.
"You hear [the sword] singing?" he asks. "That's the old sensei talking to you."
For a fee of $10 per lesson, this is what any first-timer can expect at the dojo. Iaido lessons are held at 6:15 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays at the Unified Training Center on University Avenue.
Huffman, a Navy and Marine Corps veteran, was stationed in Japan from 1990 to 1997 and studied under various Aikido and Iaido masters. Framed scrolls of their writings line the walls of the dojo along with the samurai code of conduct.
The "live by the sword, die by the sword" idea that most people get from old samurai movies is not what Huffman aims to teach. Instead, he describes Iaido as a non-aggressive form of defending oneself with dignity and grace.
"The more relaxed you can stay," Huffman said. "The stronger your techniques get."
