Iaido using Kinect camera

[mattbell]

A friend of mine saw my Kinect videos and contacted me about filming him doing Iaido.  

Iaido is a highly stylized Japanese martial art in which practitioners fight imaginary opponents in a scripted battle, playing each of the positions in the battle one at a time.  A lot of importance is paid to the position and timing of the movements, ensuring that they align with one another.  Basically, the Kinect software I wrote was perfect for assessing how well he did.  The filming conditions were not so good and I didn't have much time, so this is more like a proof of concept. Hopefully I'll get something better when he's next in town.

Comments

[hansandersen.livejournal.com]

In typical practice, you don't act out the attacking (left/losing) side - only the response to the attack, neutralizing the attacker, and resolving the situation. But you need to have a clear mental picture of what the attacker is doing and where he is, or else the kata becomes rote choreography instead of a simulation of a hypothetical life or death situation. I thought that the Kinect would be a fun way to evaluate whether my own mental model exhibited 'riai' - reasonableness. If so, the two sides should fit together like halves of a puzzle.

Keep in mind that I've been practicing for only about two years, so what's on video doesn't represent a high level of skill. Also, practice is usually done with a katana and sheath - in my case an unsharpened practice blade - rather than a wooden sword. But as with the non-ideal shooting conditions, we made do with what we had handy.

Once the filming process and conditions are worked out, I'd love to try doing some of the more complex kata, especially those featuring multiple opponents.