I might have read the posts in a bit of a hurry, but where does it say that his teacher wanted to be hit, as in sword connecting with body? As I read it, the teacher either wanted him to cut at him but stop before contact, or try to hit him in order to make him be able to carry out a specific technique. As you already might be aware of, kendo no kata requires that you actually try to hit your opponent in order for the kata to work.