[illiderob]

I'm not saying that they are "legit" but who cares? Hey John,
Had a discussion with their instructor on-line a couple years ago. At the time he said that they had no real experience with Japanese swords, and no one out there to teach them. But, with all of the Kill Bill and Last Samurai excitement, they had most of their students clamoring to start learning the sword. So, he made some stuff up and was having them do it. Now, at the time I wasn't bothered by it. The instructor I was talking with had quite a number of years of karate instruction, and he assured me they were only practicing with bokken. I urged him to import an instructor for periodic seminars so they could actually learn something, but that was apparently ignored.

Now, as I just looked at their web site, I see that April 15 was "tater cuttin class". And all yellow belts and up, their first cut has to be from the draw. Now I'm hoping like hell that they are cutting potatoes because they are using iaito. Otherwise, that is a horrible accident just waiting to happen. If they really are using sharp swords, and one of their kids manages to drop their left hand on the ground because they don't know how to draw and cut properly, or loses their sword and it impales one of the audience because they don't know where the danger zones are, then we all stand to lose. The media would have a field day about "unsafe Japanese sword schools" even though they have no interaction with any instructor. This is what makes me nervous about these places. If they are actually using iaito, there's still a chance of someone getting impaled. However, the odds of tragedy are lower.

So, I really don't approve of anyone teaching sword without having proper instruction. It has the potential to have a very negative backlash on me. Gotta say that I've never cared for a lot of the "piling on" that tends to go with these sort of posts though.