In an earlier guest essay on Kogen Budō, I wrote:
It is important to draw a distinction between “military inspired” arts, practiced by a military class focused on unarmored dueling, versus military arts practiced by a professional class that drilled and maneuvered in mass formation, on exercises or expeditions.
This is a distinction, ill-considered in a lot of commentary, even though it concerns changes most all kobudō underwent during the Edo period, much less where we find ourselves well into the 21st century. Considering this, I will examine several arts with which I have a passing familiarity, and hypothesize about how their current, very divergent, incarnations could have been more closely related much earlier in time. I then describe some of the psychological considerations arise when undertaking an ongoing practice and, in my case, how I hope to practice sword methods as a form of mindfulness and self-cultivation without losing sight of the origins of the arts flowing down to the current day.