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Although I have not practiced aikido, I have some experience in kendo and can tentatively offer an answer. In the school I was in, we used to practice a multitude of suburi (sword swings). In most of them, the jodan-no-kamae stance is assumed prior to striking. This sounds a lot like the stance your teacher is using. In this stance, your sword is placed in ...

I don't think there are any major umbrella iaijutsu organizations. The All United States Kendo Federation also supports iaido and you'll sometimes find (for instance) Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu or Muso Shinden Ryu instructors among the local kendo sensei. I used to study kendo and iaido in the Pacific Northwest and I thought the quality of the instruction ...

I'm very pleased with Autrelle Holland's Aiki-jo manual, which contains the Suburi and Kihon (I believe those are what you refer to as "small kata". I've also been impressed with Stanford Aikido's discussion of the Jo Suburi, which contains some very precise, practical advice and a wonderful sense of humor. Of course for video the Saito Aiki-Ken and ...

This is largely going to be a matter of training – Since aikido stems from daito-ryu aikijujutsu, which in turn took its aiki from the leverage of sword work, you will see the technique of bringing the sword to parallel with the spine taught often. There's a nice technique from the the hiden mokuroku that counters a rear lapel grab by raising the arms into ...

Dave Lowry wrote a book each on bokken and jo work: Bokken, Art of the Sword and Jo: Art of the Japanese Short Staff These go through basics as well as single and partner kata. Lowry has also written many books on Japanese martial arts that explore philosophy, culture, and experience, all of which you can easily find on Amazon. He has a polished written ...

I use the bokken touching the spine as an exercise to make sure that the bokken is straight and my hand and arm position is correct. But that is it. Otherwise, I do all the techniques with the bokken never going beyond horizontal. For weight training, I tend to use a suburi bokken or a tire. Although, do make sure there is no bounce as your bokken hits ...

Morihiro Saito's Traditional Aikido Volume One (ISBN: 0870402668) includes jo and bokken kata and suburi. It seems to be out of print, but you can find used copies for (as of this writing) around $80-$150. As far as I can tell, his newer Takemusu Aikido series doesn't include the basic jo and bokken techniques at all, but there are some weapon-related ...