I have about 10 classes under my belt and I am enjoying it very much so far.
I agree with the previous poster the stick work gets monotonous but it translates to the knife work well so far.
The knife work we have done is very practical and really drives home that I NEVER want to get stabbed/be in a knife fight.
We have done some very minimal introduction to sparring with soft sticks and treating the sticks as blades. The light sparring dramatically puts things in perspective for me as you do not want to be touched at all! I am a bigger guy and in the past would be fine with getting in close to fight, but getting in close to someone who knows how to use an edged weapon is bad news. I’m not in super good cardio shape and the sparring wears me out.
I’ve barely scratched surface but I’m enjoying it very much.