From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
Here is the picture of the 4 calligraphies by sôke when he decided to change the name into Yûro Shi Tennô Taikai.
Each one bears the new name and the name of the beholder. Here from left to right: Arnaud, Pedro, Sven, Peter. Painted by Hatsumi sensei in August 2009.
I was surprised when he called me and did the four calligraphies in front of me. Good memory!
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From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
Black belts should wear the yoroi to understand the value of balance. When you are dressed with the yoroi, the weight is spread all around the body and not only on the back as we experienced it with a backpack.
Naturally the extra weight transforms the body repartition and we move with about 50% of our weight on each leg. This is why the kukishin ryû and the takagi yôshin ryû kamae do not have the same appearance compared to the togakure or other low kamae systems.
Peter on the picture is showing here the kosei no kamae as if he was receiving some kind of attack from his opponent. As though “kosei” means “attack” he is absorbing the blow with his protected forearm (aite to kumu kokoro gamae) and uses his legs to cushion it. Next he will spring forward and take uke‘s balance to counter-attack. Once the blow has been received, there is no power left in the weapon, the momentum is gone.
As sensei said back in 2003, concerning the yoroi kumiuchi: “when there are two attacks (body or weapon) they are not of the same quality”. The first attack is fuelled by the footwork and his strong and fast, the second starts where the first one was stopped and uses a different distance.
Note that the back hand stays at the hip level as if Peter was holding a tachi.
Every waza in Japan originated from yoroi kumiuchi.
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From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
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From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
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From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
Last August when I brought Hatsumi sensei some pictures of the Taikai in Paris decided to change its name and to call it the “Yûro Shi Tennô Taikai“. When I asked him the reason for that he said this was a pun between “Europa” [yuropa] and the Japanese word “Yûro”. Yûro means something like the “path to bravery”.
So we invite you to join us in this eighth “path of bravery spreading everywhere all over Europe!” More than 15 countries are expected to come! Come to Paris and build up your memory.
Shi Tennô is the nickname that sensei gave us back in the nineties as the four of us were spreading the Bujinkan system all over Europe. If the original meaning is the “four emperors”, it is in fact the name given to the four Chinese spirits of the four directions: North, South, East and West. Nothing glorious there.
But because Kano sensei, the founder of jûdô, nicknamed his four students spreading the kodôkan jûdô over the world by the name of “shi tennô“, Hatsumi sensei decided to do the same. Unfortunately this name has nothing to do with our martial skills.
Taikai means big seminar and this one is definitely a big one. This is one of the last 3 day seminar that we have after the end of the Taikai directed by sensei. If my friends and I have decided to organize it in the past it was because we were missing those taikai with sensei in Europe and in the USA. Those Taikai with sensei that we have organized between 1987 and 2002 were always a fantastic moment of friendship and budô. This Yûro Shi Tennô Taikai is following the same tracks and this is why, each year, we have more and more success.
Over the last five years, the success of this event has been increasing so much that we had to limit the number of participants. For those of you training in the Bujinkan and who didn’t get the chance to train in Japan this year, this Taikai is your chance as each one of the instructor in this seminar has been staying in Japan one, twice or three times since last November.
As sensei was saying at the honbu recently: “only those who train regularly in Japan with me have a chance to get what I am showing”. This is your chance to get your update.
See you there with a smile on your face.
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