From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

I just came back from the hombu where I gave a class on tachi and nagare. Even with AC and fans the heat inside was 39° centigrade and humidity at 55%!

I am drained. I will post later today after Noguchi sensei’s class.

Tomorrow is Noguchi sensei’s birthday, he turns 68 and still moves like a young warrior.

Omedeto!

…

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Our last class with sensei was full of the 遊び «asobi » feeling / playfulness that Nagato sensei talked about on Monday. But sensei precised that playfulness should not lower our level of awareness, though. Being « seriously playful » is what is expected from us during training.

I opened the class with a kind of uke nagashi reaching out with the right arm to the left shoulder and back of uke in the moment of his attack. Sensei used this concept and added many weapons to it (tachi, bô). The best discovery was when sensei used a soft touch on the neck to take uke’s balance and then moved with the same hand to hook lightly the acromion hole of the left shoulder. The various information received by uke made him fall on his own each time. I was uke and it was brilliant! Powerful but soft.

In a real fight, 実戦 jissen, sensei said that you can never be prepared. Therefore you must float on top of uke’s actions to control the space and counter-attack when the opening is revealed. This idea of « you can never be prepared » is something we should always have in mind, inside and outside the dôjô (ura-omote).

Playfulness brings a state of relaxation that makes time go slower. When you are stressed you are tensed and when you are tensed you force things in a way unsuitable to the situation you are caught in. It also means that training is not the real thing and waza only a means to achieve body & mind coordination allowing you to see through things (kanroku 勘六). In this mindset your imagination (kaitatsu) is at its best and your movements, even if complex, flow naturally. Awareness is generated through self confidence that comes when you master your basics. Your body moves on its own adapting naturally to the changes in your environment.

Then, during the calligraphy session sensei wrote gekokujô 下克上 for me. Gekokujô is a period of Japanese history, during the warring state period and the Ônin war. It is the end of the Muromachi period. At that time small daimyô tried to take over the power of the main daimyô. Translated it means: « the lower rules the higher » or « the low overcomes the high ». To use a comparison, a small tiny hole can drown a huge boat and bring her to the bottom of the sea.

Many interpretations of this concept can be found in our training and our life. In training it means that rank does not protect you from defeat. To find success you have to develop luck. When you are lucky you can reach asobi. You can also experience gekokujô when the newly promoted high ranks try to impose their newly acquired power to those around them. From one week to another they become arrogant and disrespectful. And in life we see it when youngsters try to impose their lack of understanding and experience to their elders. In the « Republica » Plato speaks about a similar thing (book 7?). I don’t recall the exact words but it is something like: « when the children do not respect their parents, when the students do not respect their teachers, when the people do not respect the authority, this is the beginning of tyranny ». The best illustration is the so called cultural revolution in China under Mao Zedong.

At the end of the class I am happy to inform you that India got its first « homemade » shidôshi. Arjun passed brilliantly the test with Doug. Both, emitter and receiver did a very nice sakki. After class it was touching to see how Shiva was proud of Arjun being “his” first Indian shidôshi. I guess that Arjun will honor Hatsumi sensei and Shiva in his new dôjô of Mumbai (Bombay). This is also the proof that hard training and good transmission of sensei’s philosophy are the key to our own evolution as human beings.

The beauty of sensei’s teaching is to be found everyday more in the words and concepts he uses to develop our human abilities. His taijutsu speaks to our bodies when his words speak to our souls. Thank you sensei!

Be happy!

…

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

The heat and humidity are tiring us Continental Europeans not used to such a tough weather. Eugenio Penna from Sicilia and the Indian group lead by Shiva are fine with it. They are only missing hot spicy food! (not Eugenio though).

The August climate is not my favorite, everybody knows that polar bears (Shiro Kuma) prefer the cool weather, but I always enjoy travelling to Japan for my second trip in summer. The dôjô is nearly empty and the rhythm of things is moving to a slow pace unlike the frenzy of DKMS where the dôjô is packed with over a hundred practitioners or the spring trip in April where I try to understand better the new theme developed by sensei.

This trip also I appreciate the size of the “kuma group”: 6, roku. It goes well with the theme of the year rokkon shôjô as we are 6 souls (i.e. roku + kon = rokkon) living happily (shôjô). I must say that Shiva, Arjun, and Zam have become real buyu and have succeeded in blending within the bujinkan community. The other day sensei was telling us over lunch that he was not the “king” of the bujinkan and that NO ONE was in charge of a country. The bujinkan is a gathering of individuals and does not need any national organization to run it supposedly under his name. He added that we have to consider him more like some kind of spiritual guide giving the direction and the interpretation of things, a little like the pope. Through him we are all connected. That was last year concept of en no kirinai, or do not sever the connection. Yesterday I gave a class right before the one by Nagato sensei and this connection was obvious to all of us attending the two classes. The technical points Nagato sensei and I developed were so linked that some students asked me after his class if we had planned it beforehand as it looked like part 1 and part 2 of the same corpus!

During my class on nagare and tachi I insisted on “rounding up” our moves to free ourselves from any preconceived techniques and one hour later he taught us to flow in a hanpa way (half finished movements) and play with the distance by adapting our moves to what uke was coming up with. Shiva opened the class using Darren as uke and therefore was used by Nagato sensei as uke during the whole class. He was quite tired after the session.

At one point Nagato sensei said that we “should not copy” his movements but rather try to get the feeling in order to adapt our actions to the changes of uke. His footwork was the key to put that into practice. Uke was attacking 2, 3 or 4 times like in a kukishin technique, and we adapted the distance to get into uke’s centre and pin him down. To see the simplicity of his body flow is always amazing to me. He is connected to his uke and seems to be able to read his intentions even before uke begins to move in the attack. This ability to connect to the opponent and to the environment can only be achieved through efficient distancing and footwork and is the expression of our humanity. This is a one to one encounter and no organization can recreate this feeling. We are individuals in charge only one life, ours.

I have been in the bujinkan for more than 25 years and I have been witnessing the raise and fall of many organizations where the head teacher would behave like a king. I always tried to keep away of this natural human tendency in my country but unsuccessfully as other teachers are always critical about what is created to develop the bujinkan in the good direction. The bujinkan is not rich of the strength of those superficial organizations but of each shidôshi and of the strength of their commitment and implication. A country is strong because his bujinkan members are good humans with good technical skills.

During the Sunday class, Noguchi sensei called me in and promoted Shiva directly to 8^th dan for the man he is and the hard training he is going through, not because of some Indian National organization. In the bujinkan this is the human value of the individual that is graded and not his or her technical skills. And because of that we often see high ranks teachers not able to show very high technical skills, but they are good human beings in the eyes of sensei. During lunch the other day he said: “I am not giving ranks for the technical abilities of the people but for the human value of the individual”.

The bujinkan is not a sport martial art and observers (even insiders) should make an effort to accept that. The bujinkan is a way of life originating in the dawn of humanity and t hat has been revived by Takamatsu sensei in the 20^th century and is continuously developed by Hatsumi sensei in the 21^st century. The bujinkan is a school for the development of the self using old fighting systems to unlock our human abilities. The best illustration being the sakki test (殺気). During the sakki test, the receiver puts to light a natural human ability -sensing danger- that he had since he was born. The polishing of the training is revealing it gradually and the test is the proof that this change has occurred.

The develoment of the sakki (殺気), of the intention, of the attitude (構えkamae), of the feeling (感覚 kankaku); the ability to see through the illusions (勘 六 kanroku), to float freely on the flow of life (流れnagare), and finding happiness (清福 seifûku) are some of the main benefits one can get from his many years of years of training. By interacting with other beings, and other cultures you develop your self in a way unattainable by ordinary people. In my last class people attending where coming from India, Spain, Hungary, Germany, Belgium. This is the true sense of community the bujinkan is creating and this is why no organization should dictate our behavior.

Nagato sensei yesterday insisted that we developed asobi (遊び)  in our training. We have to be playful and happy like kids playing “seriously” the role of some kind of hero. This ability to “play” is at the core of bujinkan training and we should never forget it.

Playfulness and happiness are found in regular training and this is what sôke wants us to study.

Rokkon shôjô!

…

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Noguchi sensei gave a koto class this morning and insisted again on the importance of training the basics. We reviewed his magic gogyô and the kihon happô. Over the past twenty years in Japan I have seen these “basic movements” many times with various shihan but it is always a pleasure to study them from a different perspective.

There is so much to learn in these two series that they should suffice to fight efficiently. Everything we do is using parts of these fundamental technique.

The gogyô no kata and the kihon happô are never studied enough and Noguchi sensei insisted once again on the importance of the tenchijin ryaku no maki (天地人), the set of fundamental techniques of the bujinkan.

Personally I learn a lot each time I have the chance to study them. They are always the same but always different. I will start the study of these “new” series with those attending to the summer camp.

After this nice beginning we did many techniques of the koto ryû getting the knack, and adding jumps and a lot of jûji aruki (yoko aruki). I love Noguchi sensei’s classes for their richness and because each time I do these techniques (hida, kompi, kappi etc) I understand new things within them.

Hatsumi sensei being late this morning and Noguchi sensei having other obligations, he asked me to begin the class.

It is always strange to switch from the role of the student to the role of the teacher at the hombu dôjô.

It is also even stranger to see the shihan having the same difficulties repeating my techniques that I have when I attend their classes!

Sensei arrived and the class began after the rei with another technique both in taijutsu, tachi, and bô.

I was asked by sensei to demonstrate two other techniques putting the nagare (流れ) into action in multiple directions at the same time and we did many henka (変化) with and without weapons around these. As always sensei’s understanding was amazing.

From  today’s class I can point out  two important details from sôke’s teaching.

The first point is that when you control your opponent softly i.e. with no muscular force, he is not be able to react properly.  Strength generates natural body reactions or reflexes from uke that are often unpredictable or hard to block or absorb.

Therefore we must train in such a soft way that uke is not able to react or understand what we are doing; and he gets tense and chaotic in his reactions and loses his balance by his own uncontrolled reactions.

An image we can use so that you get it is when you were a kid holding an apparently very heavy box (empty in reality) and passing to a friend with a lot of apparent efforts. Your friend takes the box with unnecessary force and the box flies into the air. This is the kind of fake reaction you must get uke to do in the fight. Strength calls for stength in return but softness will off balance uke. Show always a kokoro gamae (心構え) different from your tai gamae (体構え).

The other interesting point was the manner how sensei is taking your balance (still softly) in three axis at the same time making ukemi nearly impossible for you. you litterally explode where you are and fall heavily. Like the ikebana (生花) structure based upon the ten chi jin (天地人) those three axis are one and no action precedes the other.

A flower arrangement always symbolizes the ten - the mountain, the chi - the paddy field, and the jin the stream running down the slope.

The up vertical – ten is linked to the down vertical - chi through the horizontal – jin.

In today’s technique sensei was accompanying uke’s fist attack on the same line, pulling it lightly steping backward (chi), pushing the elbow horizontally with the other hand in a sort of musô dori (jin), and stepping lightly forward with the other leg to control the front leg of uke (ten). In this posture uke is pulled forward, backward andto the side. No ukemi is possible.

No strength, no strong grab, only footwork.

We applied also the same kind of movements with tachi kumiuchi and bô jutsu.

The good thing about visiting sensei in August is that we are not so many people in the dôjô and this is always a good opportunity for sensei to teach and for us to train the long weapons.

The beauty of long weapons resides in the understanding of the angles and the management of longer distances. But today distance was not the point was not the work on distance as we mainly used the gyokko ryû no bô (held at the mid section and not at the tip).

It was a good relaxed class.

Be happy!

…

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Today a group of buyu from all over the world where lucky to visit once again Sensei’s second house.

Today around 11:30, we met with Akira, Noguchi, Darren, Collado, Miller, Eguia and a few others at the hombu where Senô sensei was teaching a group of students sweating in the terrible heat of the day.

The heat and humidity were at their peak today and I felt bad to be in the car with Noguchi sensei (and the AC). When the group was complete with Darren and his car we drove to the Tsukuba mountain where sensei has located his second house.

This is there that he spends a lot of time painting, writing, and taking care of his many animals.

When we arrived we were welcomed by sensei dressed like a real gentleman farmer in his country outfit.

Many practitioners see him as “non human” and not only because he always repeats that he is a UFO.

The bujinkan is a system to live a happy life and he was shining happiness and expressing it like he does with his budô.

I love to see him so happy in his daily life.

In the garden each one of us lit some incense sticks to the 9 statues of the nine schools and we all prayed to the memory of Takamatsu sensei in front of the memorial of 6 tons built in the garden.

Do you know that in his office in Noda sensei prays everyday for the memory of his parents, of Takamatsu sensei but also for the sake of the shidôshi of the bujinkan?

Sensei is very religious person and only a few of the bujinkan students know that. Over the years when I was helping him for some work, I saw him a few times praying while we were working.

In the garden there is a green house that we use in winter, a small arena where sensei “walks” the poneys, a small stable for the poneys and many staues and carved stones carved with the name of the nine schools.

The garden is filled with statues of divinities, symbolic rocks and carved texts.

After padding Kuki and Tobi, the two poneys of sensei and taking care of the dogs (asuka, mae and a third one), the water turtles in their basin, it was time to  ”pay our respect” to the statue of Marylin Monroe (sensei likes her very much).

I have been visiting this house many times since sensei has decided to split his time between Noda and Tsukuba.

And the “Marylin game” has become some sort of ritual over the years.

I think I have pictures of all the high ranks of the bujinkan (including me) having fun with the american star. as he puts it, life is too short to take it too seriously.

Put laughter in your life – rokkon shôjô

Then it was time to eat and the whole group climbed into the cars and we all went to have lunch with sensei in a restaurant nearby.

The house is surrounded by rice fields on the plains down the Tsukuba mountain.

It is strange to be there after the being in the citadin life of kashiwa city or Atago.

With the heat hammering everything, it felt like being in another country. No noise, no wind only the sound of the cicadas in the trees.

A special thank you to Darren for keeping cool bottles of water in the car after the heat of the garden.

It was a real enjoyment.

The poor restaurant keeper had a hard time coping with a sudden arrival of so many gaijin.

I have seen that many times over the years and I believe that sensei loves to do that.

As always this is a very special moment and I am sure that many bujinkan practitioners would have liked to be there with us. We felt privileged and honored to spend these special moments with him.

the group with the translator

During this two hour lunch, sensei spoke a lot about the importance of the flow in our lives, of past events and above all of the priority to be happy.

Happiness is more important than the techniques he said.

The goal of the bujinkan is to make people happy and to live a happy life. We were also lucky to have a charming Italian resident translating for us and through her could speak with sensei easily. Thank you Cinzia on behalf of the whole group!

Since my last visit many new stones and stones have been added. The one on the left is to remember all our bujinkan buyu who dies since the beginning.

Death is what makes Life worth it explained sensei to the group in the restaurant. Because we train techniques to bring death to our opponent we develop by contrast a strong feeling of life.

Many times during lunch sensei spoke of our future Hombu dôjô that will be built soon to become some kind of cultural centre for the world.

Sensei asked us also to share these moments of true kumite with the buyu from all over the world this is why this long article is written for.

It was time to go back to our lives in the city and after a last teas in one of the room of the house with the walls covered by the many presents, sensei has received during all these years, we departed.

We left sensei benefiting from the rest of this day and from the happiness it has given us all.

Funnily during lunch he thanked us twice to have been able to come!

Be happy and do not take your life too seriously – simply enjoy beautiful moments like this one.

Shikin Haramitsu Daikomyô

…

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Yesterday Hatsumi sensei referred to hensô jutsu indirectly when he spoke about the seven ways (of disguise) or shichi hô de.

Those seven disguises allowed the spies to blend in the daily lives of ordinary people and to gather information or pass undetected.

Here is one of the list of these 7 disguises:

1. 出家 shukke – buddhist monk
2. 虚無僧 komuso – itinerant priest
3. 浪士  ronin (or tsunegata) - wandering samurai
4. 商人 akindo – merchant, tradesman
5. 楽士 gakushi – musician
6. 山伏 yamabushi – mountain warrior
7. 旅芸人 sarugaku (or tabigeinin) – performer, entertainer

Those disguises might have been very helpful in feudal Japan, but I honestly doubt they would be of any use today in modern Japan. What is interesting is that sensei referred to that in a “gyaku way” during the class. We are used to see those lists of “ninja fields of expertise”. But to me this is the omote of our art.

The ura side is more interesting. What sensei wanted us to understand yesterday was not to disguise ourselves for some james bond kind of mission but to be aware of the type of clothes the attacker is wearing and to adapt our techniques accordingly.

Today this list would be more like: businessman, delivery guy, mailman, police officer, young gothic or rasta, electricity company employee, thug, etc. And this list is not limited to seven. Each one of these persons is wearing different clothes and accessories making the fighting more difficult (or easier) depending on those “uniforms”. One of my student who is now jûgodan once fought a rasta guy with dreadlocks, the rasta guy was nearly bald at he end of the fight.

The same would happen if you had to fight someone wearing a heavy leather jacket, a backpack, or a bathing suit. How do you find a kyûsho 急所 on a leather jacket? how would you deal with close distance against someone with a backpack or even a bike? how would you grab naked skin? Obviously the written technique of yore would not be sufficient.

Sensei’s budô is about adaptation and a tie, a pen, a phone, a backpack or a coffee mug can become tools to deflect or launch an attack. When we train in the dôjô the possibilities are limited as we are all dressed in the same way. This is why the introduction of the yoroi kumiuchi in 2003 was such an important evolution in the bujinkan system because once you understand the multiple possibilities of fighting the yoroi (with or against it) you develop new skills not relying on a specific technique but based upon your level of consciousness.

Techniques are useless if you are not able to adapt your movements to the opponent’s actions. And this is why sensei keeps reminding us to use  hanpa (半端) or unfinished techniques to be in tune with the flow of things.

You begin a movement and let uke’s reactions and intention dictate the emergence of your next move.

…

From Bujinkan Santa Monica by Bujinkan Santa Monica

How much do you sacrifice for training? Does it seem like a lot? We might consider this in light of what Hatsumi Soke and his teacher Takamatsu O-Sensei have offered us.


Hatsumi Sensei said,

... when I had an opportunity to meet with Takamatsu Sensei a year before he passed away, I was told by him, "You are now all right as a budoka. I have taught you everything. I have been able to repay the kindness of Toda Sensei, Ishitani Sensei, Mizuta Sensei."

Takamatsu had such gratitude to his own teachers, that he devoted himself to Hatsumi Sensei and to the tradition that they shared with him. Those who have been dedicated teachers understand the responsibility and sacrifice this was. Add to this the burden of the very survival of nine ryuha and all the history and wisdom they contain, and it cannot be considered lightly.

Our Soke obviously does not take it lightly. He states,

"... I have decided to bare and show budo to the world, as well as demonstrate my personal techniques. In becoming bare is hidden 決死の覚悟 kesshi no kakugo, the resolve to face death."

Shall we give less of ourselves or our training?



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

…

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

I am just coming back from the Ayase class (exceptionally on Friday). The first class with sensei after four months of  diet is always a good experience. Before the class I gave him his “official” Yûro Shi Tennô t-shirt made specially for him and he wore it right away. This is our little “post Paris Taikai ritual” that has been going on for a few years now.

As usual he asked me to open the class and we did a nice “flowing” movement receiving an attack in a very soft uke nagashi, moving uke off balance with the footwork, changing hand an ending in a sort of omote gyaku. No grab, no violence, only a nice nagare keeping uke in motion preventing him from attacking twice and taking his balance. On top of that sensei did it better with less movements and a better efficiency. I guess this is why he is the teacher and me the student. Every time I have the chance to demonstrate a technique I am always amazed at his ability to simplify my movements and to make it so good that I cannot reproduce it, even though it was my movement in the first place.  I did three other techniques during the class and  each time sensei was developing more flow by moving less. when you watch him moving you easily forget that he is over 80 years old. He looks like a young man!

His natural movement is really like “magic” as he is able to grab a form and to add life into it. When you are his uke you feel no danger at all and when he controls you on the ground he is hardly touching you, but you still cannot move. In fact this is not that you cannot move, you could but you do not want to move as if his presence manifested by a very slight physical contact was draining any intention of retaliation from your brain. All those who have had the chance to be his uke can tell you that. Power is expressed in such a subtle way that your decision process is blocked. In a way you feel so safe that you are not willing to move anymore.

Today during the class sensei covered many aspects of budô. He  insisted on the importance of understanding the juppô sesshô to be able to fight without fighting and to be in control of the utsuwa (器 - ki) with our tamashii (魂 - kon). He didn’t use these terms from last year but this is the easiest way to express it. In one technique that  I did that was ending with yoko nagare, he insisted that we move in a direction opposed to the other possible opponents. That is what I prefer in the bujinkan training. It is not only two fighters but always more than two fighting and our actions should unfold in a natural manner in order to stay protected in any directions potentially dangerous. The movement is limited and by using uke as a shield we are able to protect ourselves using our first opponent against his partner(s). This is to me the real difference between sport martial arts and true budô. In the bujinkan strength is not the point and violence is useless, the whole thing is to develop the correct attitude to help us flowing without thinking in  the action.

The true movement is not a technique it is a response to a situation where no preconceived answer can be applied. Sensei insisted once again in not grabbing the opponent. When you grab uke you are actually showing your intention, grabbing yourself, and freezing your flow. This is why he insisted again in the juppô sesshô concept in the sense of “negotiating” (折衝 - sesshô) in all directions (juppô = 10 directions). On controlling uke he said that we have to control uke not with our strength but with our legs activating the kûkan (空間). The known concept of yubi ippon jubun (one finger is enough) to control uke was used extensively to create the sanken (a series of three hits) followed rapidly in different part of the body and to prevent uke from thinking properly or understanding what is happening. We did also techniques against kicks and used the kake taoshi hitting uke to sai with sokki ken. Once again sensei insisted that we hit with the body not the knee. He used the same explanation when controlling uke on the ground “choke him with kûkan” by using your legs.

Finally he referred to henso jutsu explaining that historically there were 7 ways to disguise yourself (cf. sarugaku, kumuso, yamabushi, hokashi, sukke, tsunegata, akindo). But this was for us to understand that we must adapt the techniques to the type of clothes worn by the opponent. Part of our study of budô should be dedicated to learn how to adapt a given technique to the type of cloth the opponent is wearing.

In conclusion quite a nice class full of tips and tricks to work on in the future weeks.

Tomorrow at lunch I am invited with a few other jûgodan in his second house. I will take a few pictures of Takamatsu sensei’s memorial and of the lunch and share them with you on this blog (hopefully tomorrow). Stay tuned!

Be happy!

…