[ForumMasta]

Thank you for the explanation, if i'm not mistaken under the light of what you said, even some post Sengoku jidai koryu coud've been or are about theory and imitation more than battle-tested applications, or is it a mix of all the above? I would have to say that it was probably a mix. The vast majority of the koryu sword arts teachings are for unarmored combat, sword duels if you will. This is true even in those arts codified before the end of the Sengoku Jidai. This is due to the fact that the sword was, according to the research of Professor Karl Friday, rarely used on the battlefield. I have gotten the feeling from my own reading and research that sword duels were not extremely common, although I have no actual numbers to provide backup for that thought.
Shu Ha Ri, the concept was discussed on this board, based on what i understood, how can one access the Ri stage in an art where you can't test on a live and resisting target? It is not necessary to engage in combat in order to intimately understand the basic underpinnings and ideas of a combat system. I've only been at this for 12 years, but I can watch someone swing a sword and can tell whether their swing would actually cut, whether they are properly balanced for another movement, whether their sword is in a position to follow up, whether they've properly utilized their tanden or just their upper body (which would leave them vulnerable in short order). Give me another twenty or thirty years and I feel I would have enough knowledge to understand what would work and what wouldn't. If everyone had to go out and engage in a sword duel in order to learn, there would be far fewer schools listed in the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten.