As hobbies go, you might describe mine as, well, quite bloodthirsty.
While some prefer to play tennis, my bent is to annihilate at least 43 people on a weekly basis. My accomplice in this hideous crime is a mid-17th century, razor-sharp shinken (real sword). But before you call the police, please give me a few minutes to explain myself.
The fearsome opponents I chop down are merely figments of my imagination, which is what you do when you practice the martial art of iaido, as I have done for the last 13 years. Often described as the art of drawing out and cutting with a Japanese sword, iaido has many styles — but all are said to derive from one created by Hayashizaki Jinsuke Minamoto no Shigenobu, a samurai who lived around the beginning of the 17th century.