Gah! D'oh!

I sometimes wish yoga was yodo instead, so it could fit better when written alongside kendo, iaido, and jodo.  However, the three -dos fit better together, as they're also the three sports administered by the Canadian Kendo Federation in Canada.  I like to describe them as:

• kendo: learn how to actually hit people with a few well-defined principles at your discretion (sounds like ken-doh)
• iaido: learn how to move a real sword with a broad range of well-defined traditional motions (sounds like yi-doh)
• jodo: learn how to defend against a sword with a staff with beautiful, sensible sweeping motions (sounds like joe-doh)

I used to just do kendo, but by luck I happened upon a friend starting jodo so I joined her in that class and have stuck to it and the accompanying iaido since.   Each feels very complementary to the others.  It doesn't feel like I'm simply learning multiple arts that are similar, instead it feels like the combination helps account of the deficiencies of each so you better understand each.

However, my body's shape is also a deficient tool for these, in the quality of flexibility.  In jodo, many wide movements of mine are constricted by my tight posture.  In kendo, my reach is limited and so is the latency of my actions.

That is where yoga enters.  I started practising it again the other week to help my -dos.  Even though last year I saw kendo and yoga more as "either or", where if I had time to practise something, I should invest it in the one that was most important to me, they each offer something quite different, and I've been looking forward to resuming it for a while for improved flexibility and enjoying slow morning.  I like slow.

However, I've forgotten a lot of the details from when I last practised it occasionally, so I'm going to join a friend at her yoga class [edit: next semester].  The Internet is nice, but it's nicer still to have someone next to you who will actually give you feedback, and there are not that many AI yoga instructors with computer vision yet. :)