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Japan Update: History & Training

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

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 kumablog

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…

From Budoshop by BUDOSHOP.SE

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!…

JUST7: Budô is Mudô

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

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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KAIGOUSURU 2004 TAIKAI – ROPPO KUJI NO BIKEN

From Budoshop by BUDOSHOP.SE

Buy the DVD click here!

Kaigousuru 8 -- the eighth International Bujinkan Training Party with…

- Arnaud Cousergue
- Steffen Fröhlich
- Mariette van der Vliet
- Lubos Pokorny
- Shawn Gray
- Hans Nilsson
- Roger Mattsson
- Mats Hjelm

Theme was Roppo kuji no biken, Sword, taijutsu basics, advanced taijutsu and much more

Recorded in Stockholm, Sweden May 2004



Part 1 -- 77 minutes, 936 Mb for $11.99

Friday training

Session 1; Shawn taught Taijutsu and Sword. Session 2; Roger taught sword. Session 3; Arnaud taught the nine Kenjutsu techniques from Kukishin-ryu, then he explained how to hold the sword and how to cut.



Part 2 -- 64 minutes, 785 Mb for $11.99

Saturday training

Session 1; Steffen taught Taijutsu and sword. Session 2; Hasse taught Taijutsu and sword. Session 3; Henka chain with all the instructors. Session 4; Mariette taught Taijutsu and knife fighting.



Part 3 -- 85 minutes, 1040 Mb for $11.99

Sunday training

Session 1; Carl Holmes taught backflips. Session 2; All the instructors taught Sanshin no kata. Session 3; Lubos taught Taijutsu and sword. Session 3; Henka chain with all the instructors. Session 4; Question and answers.


Buy the full DVD, click here!

The theme of this year was Roppo Kuji no Biken. All of the instructors had already been in Japan this year and got the feeling of this years theme.

There was also a Q&A session, where the instructors talked about this years theme and much more.

Sample clip from the video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ymZM3_Wnm0

About the download

Click here for more information about our download files and how it works!…

JUST2: Arnaud in Japan

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Sensei and his two monkeys

Tonight was the first class of this trip. Selfishly I was hoping for a very small group and we were already around 30, it seems that fear is going away.

It was nice to meet my buyu and the Japanese Shihan again, but most important it was nice to see sensei and to train with him. He was in a great mood and I often question if he is really 81 years old as he moves like a young man.

What did we do tonight?

After I demonstrated a kind of musha + omote, sensei used it to apply many different omote, ura, musha and musô to his poor uke ending always by pressuring one or more fingers at the nail level. “this is the way yo control in the Takagi Yôshin ryû”.
The general idea is not to do a technique but mainly to react freely to the flow of the opponent until he gives you one or more fingers that you use to pin him down with a lot of pain.

Then Pedro did a very interesting mix of half-cooked movements trapping uke in his mind in such a way that exploding to the floor seemed to be the only logical solution. Uke attacks with a right Tsuki, you deflect it softly with your right hand by walking to the right (inside – ura); uke reacts to that and you begin an omote gyaku that transforms itself into an ura gyaku when goes to the ground in pain (quite similar to the omote-ura gayku of the gyokko ryû).  Very nice piece of Taijutsu by Pedro that many in the dôjô had a hard time too understand and to do.

From there sensei used the start of this half-cooked technique to develop once again on the “chutô hanpa”. He did like a dozen variations on this on one tsuki double tsuki, with two uke, etc.

Finally he did it with the sword in Uke’s belt (daisho sabaki technique) explaining a few times that the Tsuka, or the saya is going itself into the hand. “Don’t try yo grab it, it comes naturally into your hand”. Sensei stressed the importance in all the techniques to use the “karada” body instead of using the hand and the head. We can summarize that with the sentence: “don’t think or grab, don’t use power, walk”.

Calligraphy session: you can see the number of attendees tonight

At the end of the class we did a biken technique similar to the kukishinden ryû Tsuki komi np sayu gyaku. Uke attacks daijodan and tori move lightly and slowly to position the kissaki on the left wrist of uke. If uke tries to cut dô kiri, then tori’s sword rotates around the point of contact and deflect the blade naturally, tori lift his sword and hit (not cut) the right wrist with the power of the legs bending. Sensei insisted a lot on not cutting uke: “it is simple to cut, it is much more difficult to control uke without cutting him”. The secret is to move slowly with the body; Sensei added that what is common sense to sport budô (gendai budô and MMA styles) is uncommon sense to us. Fighting is not about power and speed it is about softness and slowliness.

We did many variations around this theme absorbing backwards while moving forward, giving uke a wrong sense of distance as explained by Nakadai sensei.
The class went fast like in a dream and it was already time for the sakki test. The bujinkan is richer by 2 shidôshi: Pedro did the sakki test on an Australian guy and I did it on a Swedish one. Speaking of which, Christian Appelt who tested heavy pain tonight under sensei was promoted to Jugodan, congratulations!

After the class sensei spoke to a group of jugodan and insisted once again upon the importance of jugodan working together and keeping the connection between us all. It reminded me of the “en no kirinai” studied last year.

He also spoke about the new book he is working on, called “ninja daizen” (I’m not sure about the title) that will expose many new things about ninjutsu (sensei spoke of ninja in Kyushu during the Edo period). He added that ninjutsu was not limited to the sole Iga and Koga clans… I guess we will have to wait for the book to be published to know more about that.

Conclusion:

  • If you should have been here tonight and didn’t come: too bad for you!
  • The bujinkan is still alive and the many people coming from all over the world were there to prove it.
  • Sensei and all the shihan are in good health and life is back to normal (too bad you didn’t come).
  • Today: no earthquake, no tsunami, no radioactive cloud, but a very good class (too bad you were not there).
  • Tomorrow two classes: Senô sensei and Oguri sensei (yes he is back on Saturdays). I keep you updated.

PS: Many airlines have empty seats on their flights to Japan these days. The Kashiwa Plaza is quite empty too… it is still time to join us and train.. :)


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Bô jutsu: Weapon of Consciousness

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

When in 1993 Hatsumi sensei began to teach the now famous “themes of the year” he decided to begin with the study of bô jutsu. It opened a five year cycle dedicated to the weaons of the bujinkan.Amongst all the weapons of the bujinkan the bô jutsu is the most complete of all with an extensive set of techniques and levels that influences greatly our taijutsu both at the technical and spiritual level.Sensei speaks of “roku shaku bô jutsu” (六尺棒術) and this is the title of his first bô dvd. But many see only the size of the weapon. It is right to say that in the past the roku shaku was the size of the weapon. As you know even if the Japanese government began to follow the metric system at the beginning of the 19th century he kept alive the kanejaku (矩尺), the old measurement system. Even today people refer to the size of a room in number of tatami (疊).One tatami represents the surface of a measurement unit called the “ken” (間) and which has a length of 6 shaku. Until the 19th century all temples, castles, and houses were built with this unit. For more on this please look for “kanejaku” on the net.

But when it comes to the training we have to keep in mind that Japanese people before the 20th century were not tall (often around 150 cm). So, for us westerners, in order to keep the same ratio size/length in the buki waza (武器), our long staff should have a length of at least 2m. Note that buki (技) means also technique or art…

Now, when sensei speaks of the roku shaku (六尺) he is speaking of shiki (識), consciousness (vijnana in buddhism). Sensei implies that bô jutsu is the key to reach shiki (識) the 6th element of the gogyô, consciousness. By training the many waza of bô jutsu you are in fact developing your consciousness and become able to use it in every aspect of your life. By introducing this concept of shiki back in 2005, sensei forced us to do a major leap in our understanding of the bujinkan arts.

And remember that training the weapon -omote (表)- develop our consciousness of life – ura (裏). This is why bô jutsu is so important in the bujinkan.

Bô jutsu is the first step to free our taijutsu from the form. But to free yourself from something you must first be “trapped” by it. But how is it possible to achieve formlessness from something you don’t know?

We have to learn and study a lot to get the forms correctly until we can strip the forms off.

The bujinkan is a paradoxical system in which we are looking for something “natural” by studying things that are “not natural”. In fact the bô is the entry gate for the weapons and the necessary step to take in order to improve our whole taijutsu.

Until now no tools were available to review all those techniques this is why we have decided to record them all. We have also added for each technique, the kaeshi waza (返し技) to show you how to win against the bô. It took us four days of recording to do so and many bruises too.

With www.koimartialart.com (online streaming) or with www.budomart.com (dvds) you can now discover or rediscover the richness of the bô jutsu from the kukishin ryû. We recorded all the techniques (11 dvds) to help you unleash the power of your taijutsu with this fantastic weapon.

The bô (棒) is the link to the ten (天) and the chi (地) to become a real jin (人), a shiki no jin, a conscious human being (識の人間).

By the way did you notice that the kanji for “ken” (間) is identical to the second kanji of human being (間) …


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Tokyo VIP travel

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

JL408 to Tokyo

On Wednesday night at the airport it seems that the world has changed.

When I entered the boarding gate the room was empty or nearly. This is what one month of media howling have done! The news have been exaggerating so much the radioactive situation here in Tokyo that the whole world has the feeling that Japan is forbidden to go to. Once again I do not try to minimize the gravity of what happened but as Takamatsu sensei said:  ”By opening his eyes and his mind, the ninja can responsively follow the subtle seasons and reasons of heaven, changing just as change is necessary, adapting always, so that in the end there is no such thing as surprise for the ninja”. So following Takamatsu sensei’s words please adapt to the misinformation and learn to read where the real dangers are. Fukushima Daiichi is a real problem but the radioactivity in Tokyo is far under the limits. Actually it is well under many other areas in Europe.

But let’s be honest, as a standard Frenchman  I love it when I have the feeling that I belong to some privilege group of people. And yesterday it seemed to me that I was belonging to the privileged group of “those allowed to fly to Japan!”

The plane, a Boeing 377-300 – no doubt the best flying machine in the sky these days – also was empty. I could have guessed it, though! and it reminded me of my early business years where I flew back from the Middle East one night with only 13 others persons. I love empty planes.

A B-777/300 can host 272 passengers and needs 13 crew members and 3 pilots to operate. We were 108 passengers traveling which, apart from the Buddhist symbol of 108, represents more than 1 stewardess per person!

The flight with JAL was awesome because:

  1. I had three seats for myself,
  2. I slept like a baby the most part of the flight,
  3. The food was good and served rapidly,
  4. I had an aisle AND a window,
  5. I got a lot of attention from the charming JAL stewardesses,
  6. the flight was quiet: no baby crying, old men coughing, or young playing,
  7. and JAL doesn’t stop in Seoul for obeying some pilot union (add 2h to your flight) and arrived on time 11 hours and a few minutes later!

It was like being a VIP or living in some kind of a dream.

A very quiet flight to Tokyo

Why was that?

Only because of the “nuclear terror auction” spread by the media since the catastrophe. For weeks they were not speaking about the 260000 people that lost everything but about something that sells more: “the terrible nuclear accident”. They got so much our attention that in the plane there were only Japanese people and nearly no one from Europe going to Japan and I guess that it will not change soon.

So if you want to train with a small group of buyu; if you want to enjoy calmness; and if you want to save money on your flight then do not hesitate, come now to Noda as this is the opportunity of a lifetime.

Training bujinkan is about learning to make good choices in life. Did you make a good choice recently?


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