There's a never-ending fascination here for me. There are so many different ways of approaching combat, it is a little mind blowing. Here we have a method that advocates never letting the swords touch. In Kendo, you either attack an opening first, or possibly deflect an attack and then strike. Whatever you do, swords will connect, even if briefly. There is even at least one style (Chinese) that has what can be best described as "sticky" swords. It's where two swords connect and you do not let them disengage until an opening has been made to attack and defeat your opponent.
So we have three possibilities for combat: 1. Attacking and never letting the swords connect, 2. Allowing swords to connect, although briefly as a deflection to create an opening for attack or defense, or 3. Allowing the swords to never separate to creating an opening.
The following video does a lot to show how use of the sword is related to Aikido. Seeing how the movements are related is really eye-opening to me, and I will certainly be paying more attention to these in the future!
Kendo World recently put this out on their Facebook Page. It's been floating around for a while now - almost a year. I don't know if there will be an "Episode 2" for it, but what MOAC did here was really cool.
