From blogurl:henka.wordpress.com inpostauthor:ariesbudo - Google Blog Search by ariesbudo
Without surprise, the last month has been a very real and true experience in Budo. Japan to many, has always been a perceived safe place, with the recent events changing that somewhat. The perceived danger still lingers, but as in all things ...… Read MoreMonth: April 2011
Japan Update: History & Training
From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
Sensei at home Apr19th
Tuesday has been another fantastic day in Tokyo as sensei asked me on Sunday to meet him with Pedro and Kogure san (Quest videos) at his place at 5pm before training. The light rain and the cold weather that accompanied me from Kashiwa to Noda didn’t lower my pleasure of meeting sensei and my buyu brother Pedro.
When Pedro and I met in a Spanish Taikai more than 20 years ago we never suspected the particular tie that would bind us together during all these years. Even though I met Sôke at the London Taikai in 1987 (the first European Taikai in Europe organized by my other brother Peter King) and again in 1988 (Sweden Taikai organized by my other brother Sven), I want to thank Pedro again here to have introduced me to Sôke on my first trip to Japan. I think that without this special connection he has with our Sôke I wouldn’t have gone so far in the Bujinkan. Muchissimas gracias hermano!
And thank you also to the true friendship of my older Yûro Shi Tennô brothers Sven and Peter.
Sensei, Pedro and Arnaud
Anyway, at 5 pm Pedro, Miguel, Kogure san and myself met in Sôke’s house where he showed us some very rare documents including the original letter of surrender written and signed by Hiro Hito tennô and the 12 members of his government, the day before they officially surrendered. This document is so important that no financial value can be given to it. We also were honored to flip the pages of an history of the rulers of Japan realized for the tennô only with original ukiyoe print on a very special type of paper that resists all natural disasters so common to Japan: tsunami and earthquakes. A paper so special that a single blank page is worth 800 Euros… and they were more than 50 pages all printed with original ukiyoe… As a joke sensei said that this paper might be able to resist an atomic disaster… but was it a joke? He then showed us a 600 year old tachi (with a tsuka of 3 fists and a half).
Our budô is definitely not a sport and these few items he displayed especially for us is the proof that without this kind of knowledge your martial arts abilities are only a “puff of smoke” as they say in the Shinden fudô ryû. Sensei added that no Japanese were able to grasp that anymore, that this knowledge has disappeared today here in Japan and this is the reason why he is always referring to him as a “ufo” (since his first visit to the USA in the 80s). Japan has lost his history the forgotten the lessons it carried. To illustrate his point he told us that the technique to make the special paper that I spoke earlier of has been lost and that no one today in Japan knows how to do it anymore.
This introduction of our meeting was an excuse for him to tell us that if someone with the proper knowledge, connections, and structured organization was existing, he would give away everything he had to save this knowledge from disappearing. As you know sensei’s house is like a real museum and those documents he showed are far from being the most important things he has. Sensei said he also had in writings the fours parts of the Amatsu Tatara being like the four parts of the hearts or the stomach and that even that was not the best piece of his collection of historical data. But the most amazing to me was that he insisted that he would never sell it but was ready to give it for free if someone worth it was presented to him. Even Kogure san was surprised by all this. This was indeed a very special moment and thanks to Kogure san translations into English and Miguel’s ability to speak and understand Japanese, the connection between all of us was very good.
Happy!
Then it was time for the class and we went to the Hombu where nearly 70 people were waiting for the class to begin. Senseis introduced the class by showing a special yari that he bought earlier on Tuesday on which a tube with hooks facing the tip is sliding on the pole allowing it to move faster when stabbing the opponent. It was another piece of historical teaching as sensei explained that when facing a weapon you have to understand the various (and sometimes illogical) ways of using it. In this particular case, he said that fisherman hooks known as hari (針) in Japanese could be attached to the sliding device in order to trap the skin or the yoroi of the attacker.
The main point in his class was the following: “be aware of what you cannot see, what you can see is easy to deal with, what you don’t see is what is really dangerous”. He uses the term “mienai” (見えない)which something that one cannot possibly see (in opposition to the “kakushi” term – 隠し). His point was to make us aware of the risk of invisible radiations these days.
We did many taijutsu and weapon techniques started by Pedro and Thomas and sensei insisted a lot on the importance for this year’s theme of the use of the fingers (Takagi Yôshin Ryû) to inflict pain in many different places. At one point we did a kind of ryô happa ken to the head changing rapidly the pain location by switching the intention from one finger to the other (below the jaw, above the ear, under the nose, inside the eyes etc). Another point is not to use strength so that uke is not able to use this strength of the hold to free himself from it.
On a choke attempt he showed how to move our shoulders in different ways (up/up, up/down) in order to change the size of the neck a technique we did 20 years ago during a daikomyô sai in Japan and where we all looked like little neck less dwarfs rocking sideways. This neck hiding technique is very useful when applying a kikaku ken (headbutt strike) as the shoulders protect the vertebra.
We also did a technique against a fist and kick (same side) attack in a kokû manner. The interesting point here was to apply the shutô to the attacking arm from inside at a 45° angle, then to receive the kick softly in the inside of the right elbow and sliding the body to the right to operate a kind of natural reversal of uke’s body by his trapped leg. Uke’s leg is captured inside your arm with your back to you and your hand can naturally grab uke’s belt. Sôke insisted on the importance of locking uke by the belt grab. Then sensei explained that we had to grab uke in the manner of an ice pick. The ice pick is hooking the ice but doesn’t go through it. From there uke is put down straight to the ground and locked there in pain by crushing his fingers with your fingers. This was the feeling we had to understand yesterday night.
On the sword henka of the techniques initiated by Pedro and Thomas, he showed us again how to draw the blade (nuku, 剣を抜く) from the scabbard without pulling it the hand but by using the tsuba to hook the attacking hand (grabbing or not) of uke. Sensei said that this was a very old way of drawing that has been lost like many other things in Japan warfare knowledge. At one point speaking of the yoroi, he said that a samurai would have at least 3 sets of yoroi depending on the seasons and that the winter yoroi would be covered with bear fur in the inside of it. And that also is not known by many gendai budô experts. Actually he was so critical on the sword abilities of modern practitioners in Japan that the camera had to be turned off!
We also did a very nice footwork technique where under a jodan kiri attack you do some kind of jûji aruki (not yoko aruki) turning your body nearly back to uke right side and rotating the blade (wrists are crossed) hitting uke directly in his attack. A very nice flow body flow quite hard to get in a crowded environment but saving a lot of space.
After going back to Kashiwa I had a meeting with Kogure san and while we were having dinner a very long (more than a minute) and soft earthquake shook the whole building. It was like having the metro passing under the floor… but we were on the 6th floor. Strange feeling.
As I said, another fantastic day in Japan indeed!
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Budô is Mudô (2)
From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
Oguri sensei with Tomiyama san
On Monday I had the chance to train with Nagato sensei and Oguri sensei and once again the complex simplicity (or the simple complexity) of their movements was amazing. I come to Japan three times a year and I still see the distance in levels between the Japanese Shi Tennô understanding and mine. The margin for progression seems huge (and I do not speak about Hatsumi sensei’s level)…
Last Friday Hatsumi sensei made one of his usual puns speaking of “budô” and “mudô” and even if it was the title for my last post on this blog I forgot to explain its meaning.
The kanji for “bu” (武) used for “budô” can also be pronounced “mu”. But “mu” (無) means “without, nothing, empty, emptiness”; like in Zen “mushin”, the no spirit no thinking attitude.
So when sensei said “budô is mudô” he said that “the path of budô was the path of no path”. This new pun playing with the sound emphasized once again the importance of listening to what he is actually saying in his teaching and understanding our budô from a much deeper perspective.
Budô being the path of no-path the bujinkan budô is the path itself and it cannot be expressed in words. The bujinkan arts beyond the mechanical aspect of the waza is simply a kankaku (感覚), a feeling. Training here at the hombu with Sôke is the only way to become able to “read between the lines” as he is pushing us to do regularly. The shidôshi not travelling to Japan to get their knowledge directly at the source, miss an extraordinary opportunity to develop themselves completely. Budô is more than a series of techniques, it is really a way of realization, a true art.
At lunch time on Sunday, sensei repeated his intention to build a jinja (神社), a shrine for the bujinkan and he was not speaking of religion here but of creating a place where the practitioners would find a training place building their taijutsu as well as their “shinjutsu” written 心術 (and not 針術 – acupuncture). If we see budô as the science of growing flowers, we can see the difference existing between learning to plant a seed, caring it, feeding the germ and making the flower blooming; and the art of Ikebana (生花) where the art is to express life through a special flower arrangement based on the tenchijin.
Moving from the physical world to the spiritual world is not the only possible through religions but also through budô.
“Budô is mudô” then makes sense. Our budô is nature and nature is without intention. Being is the solution and attending the classes with sensei transforms us into true human beings.
Nature is simplicity but a complex simplicity. This is exactly the same when you train here with sensei and the Japanese shihan. You watch their movements, you find them easy to reproduce and then you find yourself unable to reproduce them. This is the state of mind in which I was yesterday when training with Nagato sensei and Oguri sensei. One word to summarize that: “WYSINWG” (What You See Is Never What You Get.
Their movements yesterday were based on very simple basic techniques such as: omote gyaku, ura gyaku, katamune dori, ô gyaku but the way the expressed them were beyond the mechanical realm. They were “holistic”!
As I previously wrote it in my other entries on this blog, my words cannot express them correctly so this time I will not try to do so. Only if you were attending the classes can you have a slight chance of getting it. The classes in Japan are like the wind, you don’t see it but you see the movements of the leaves on the trees. Maybe this is why we say: “bufû ikkan”.
Nagato sensei during the tea break
This trip I am becoming aware, more than usual, of the unicity of their movement. A way to express that could be: “bujinkan budô is unity in multiplicity”. Natural movement deals with everything at the same time: uke, tori, the terrain, the feelings, the angles, the bones, the intentions. In fact you must get the general image in order to move simply and efficiently.
Let me state a few rules to make you understand what natural movement is (or should be):
- the technique is always adapted to the body type of uke,
- the body moves in one as the tenchijin is united,
- the angles of the bones of both uke and tori are in harmony,
- tori is never “doing it” uke is creating the conditions of his fall,
- strength is useless as softness triggers uke to react more,
- there is no technique only opportunities,
- a book will never fight.
So let’s study ikebana and plant the seeds of our taijutsu to get into the world of shinjutsu. An remember that the meaning of this year’s kihon happô speaks about a new germination, sprouting (happô – 八方).
Be happy!
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Store problem…
I was just notified that the web shop system isn’t working properly (not the download store which works fine). I don’t know for how long it’s been like that, but it’s been awfully quiet for a very long time know. I don’t know why it’s broken, but I made a back up of the whole site now, and will update with the latest patches ASAP. And hope this will resolve the problems.
Even the contact form was broken :-/. But I switched to the wordpress contact form instead of the shop system… http://budoshop.se/contact/
You can e-mail or use the contact form and notify what you want to order, and we will reply with a Paypal money request ASAP. And then ship the order when cleared, even if we haven’t got the web site up and working properly.
Thanks to you guys who notified us by e-mail and Facebook!
Edit: Minor problems with the update. The contact form worked, but the installation changed all the files where telephone number and e-mail address is. I need to manually change all the 20 files :-/ (this happens everytime I upgrade, it is stupid!).
Please let me know if it still doesn’t work!…
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From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
Bufû Ikkan Menkyô
Those last 2 days have been very busy budo wise. On the “nature and nuclear” side nothing to report, life here is as safe and normal as usual except maybe that the air conditioning is not “on” in the trains in order to save energy. And yesterday with over 23° some aircon would have been very nice on the back from Kashiwa.
Saturday we has two classes with Senô sensei and Oguri sensei, and Sunday two classes with Nagato and Sensei.
Saturday Senô sensei taught in his inimitable manner some apaprently simple moves that I had a hard time to reproduce (as usual). Event though words cannot express it properly I will try my best to set up the technical aspect of it. As you know only personal experience can describe it. uke is grabbing your right wrist and punches. Dodging the attacking fist with your left shoulder you step in to the right and apply shutô while doing a te hodoki on the grabbed wrist. Controlling the right arm of the opponent you continue to walk in and to the rear left of uke transforming the te hodoki in a grab, and lifting and extending the left arm of ule in order to control his balance. Uke is arched backwards and pressure is applied on his lower back by the pressure on his extended left arm. Very technical and soft at the same time. Footwork is capital here (I know this is knew) and the correct angling on uke’s arm to the shoulder allows the control with no strength at all. The whole class was based on this feeling. Lesson: move in a natural manner and get into uke’s space using a kind of koku feeling.
Oguri sensei’s class was good for two reasons. first it was the first class I had with him since his heavy surgery and I was pleased to see him again in such a good shape. As usual his fantastic knowledge about the human body; his power on the controls given with a “one body movement” were amazing. I played the uke a few times and even though he is much lighter than me, I was crushed by his body at all time. Once again it is hard to express with words. Technically we did katamune dori and ryômune dori but having said that there is no way to explain his “zero point” control of the body. The hands are controlling your body at all time but you feel it only when you try to move out of the control. Soft power is what comes to mind when experiencing it. It looked simple when watching it but was impossible to do when you tried. Classes like that give you the feeling that the path to perfection is far from reach. Lesson: go down on your hips by stepping backwards and moving your fingers around the grab(s) and rotate your whole body around uke to reach the zero point of balance. Oguri sensei explained to Tanaka san, Akira san and me that at jûgodan level, you do not have to step too much to the rear. It reminded me of the chûtô hanpa. You half apply the technique and uke’s reactions is finishing it for you.
Sunday at Nagato sensei’s class we did again some kind of katamune dori with a fist attack. And Nagato sensei used his elbows in an amazing way, going inside or outside depending on uke’s reactions. We did many henka ending with Omote gyaku, hon gyaku, musô dori, O gyaku; pushing on the elbows or in the upper thigh to take uke’s balance. The way Nagato sensei is able to grab the attacking punch from behind his head at the neck level is impressive. This class passed like in a dream. Lesson: develop the flexibility of your wrists and do not finish the movements Uke’s reactions are the solution. The elbows are used freely and they should rotate in all directions together with the footwork to trap uke.
Sensei’s class was interesting as we did a lot of playing around a technique by Pedro using the hands, the sword in uke’s obi, tori’s obi, or two swords techniques. Pedro’s technique was some kind of musô dori from a fist attack and applying a kind of take ori/O soto gake. Sensei used that in line going backwards and ending each one of his variations with excruciating pain at the fingers; He said again that his was the way of theTakagi Yôshin ryû.
At one point his uke screaming in pain he reminded us of a saying by Takamatsu sensei when he was his uke: “if you still feel the pain it means that you are still alive”.
When we began to do sword techniques, sensei also commented on the difference between the sport budo and the shinken budô where surviving is at stake in each encounter. What we do is not what they do and shouldn’t be compared in any way.
But for me the main event on Sunday was that I was rewarded a new diploma by sensei that gave me a strange feeling and let me dizzy for the rest of the class.
After the bowing, sensei called me in and I kneeled in front of him, and Nagato read the diploma to everyone. So far, I do not know the exact content of the text but it is a reward for my many years in the Bujinkan named “bufû Ikkan shin gi tai”. Basically it says that this honorary menkyo is given to me in the name of Hatsumi Sensei and the whole Bujinkan community to thank me for the consistency (bufû ikkan) of my training all over these years in learning the form and the spirit (shin gi tai) of the Bujinkan budô. the diploma is topped with a real golden bujin patch. And this is what is surprising me the most as this is the patch that only sôke is wearing on his gi. I know that we keep repeating “banpen fûgyô” (10000 changes no surprises) but I must admit that yesterday I was really surprised by the really formal way this diploma has been given to me by Sôke but also by the patch attached to it.
The Japanese Shi Tenno: Oguri sensei, Senô sensei, Nagato sensei and Noguchi sensei received it at the beginning of the year and last February, other old bujinkan members got the same certificate: Pedro, Paco, Natascha, Sheila (and maybe others too). For me this a major honor to receive this new diploma as it represents more than a nice text but also a new responsability. As you know each time we get a new rank we get a heavier weigh on our shoulders, this one is very very heavy.
Sunday lunch
After training, as it is often the case on Sundays, Sensei invited a group of high ranks for lunch and it was a very delightful moment, even more special for me yesterday after this reward. Lots of laughter and happiness were filling the atmosphere and the shoshu was not the only reason for it.
Be happy!
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