Tonight we learned Standing Iai 6. It begins with the crouch and vertical draw same as #3, but then stands on the left leg while the right knee lefts high. The hilt of your sword is then placed under your raised thigh in the crook of your knee, blade tip pointed out, and you step down into right kendo stance, using your thigh to left the blade down, sending an opponent’s spear into the ground. Then you circle the blade to jodan again while taking two step to end with a head cut in right kendo stance. At this point, there is a return to #3. The left knee raises and the katana is cached vertically on the left as you make a 180 degree hopping turn, the blade lashing out in a right temple cut. The blade is then flipped back into the crook of your arm as you turn 180 back about and flip the blood off, double shake, and put the blade away.
Regarding application, I must ask for clarification on the opening move. As it stands, it was explained that the blade/leg combo forces a spear down into the ground, but I’m not clear on how the spear get’s to the side of you and under the blade. In experimenting with the motions, there is no obvious deflection or evasion.
After the Standing Iai practice, we moved to shanai and did more machine gun drills with head and temple cuts and blocks. I am having difficulty remembering the differentiation between WCoS and Kendo head and temple blocks. This is one other thing I need to ask for clarification on to refresh my memory on the Kendo blocks.