Year: 2013

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr

After the post on “Koto vs. Gyokko”, I received a few comments by Bujinkan members not agreeing totally with what I wrote.

The main questions being:
1) the relative distance of the school’s (short and long); and 
2) the “new” Kokû (inside / outside).

So as I had an appointment with Sôke before the class I decided to ask him directly. It is always better to ask the source.

When I arrived to his house, he was ready to go out to walk his barzoi dog, so I went with him. While we were walking to the “dog relieving spot”, I saw a short window of opportunity to ask about those two points. His answers are given below, between brackets.*

Distance: “everything that we train now is Juppô Sesshô so all distances are correct”. 
When it comes to physical fighting, the distance is the distance of contact (arms or legs). But the Koto (the tiger) jumps from further away, you are moving into the center. The Gyokko (ie. Gyoku+ko) waits for the attacker, you are the center of the sphere (gyoku = 玉, ball, sphere, pearl).

The Chinese and the Japanese have this image of “crouching tiger, flying dragon”. In 2003, the first year of the Juppô Sesshô cycle, the full name of the theme was “Koteki Ryûda Juppô Sesshô Hibun no Kami”.**
Symbolically the Chinese dragon/tiger image is a representation of yinyang***. They are therefore complementary (as stated in my post). The title “Koto vs. Gyokko” should have been written “Koto/Gyokko unity”. You find a hint in Hatsumi sensei ‘s book in the chapter concerning the Gyokko Ryû. Did you notice that at the beginning of the chapter, sensei writes about “Gyokko Ryû Kosshi Koppô Jutsu? Then the natural opposition is replaced by a strong unity.

Kokû: “each one expresses it differently, everything goes, this is Juppô Sesshô that we are expressing these days”.
Then still holding the leash around his wrist, he stopped i the middle of the street and asked me to attack. I did as ordered and he naturally extended the left forearm to receive/cushion the attack while nearly simultaneously digging a deep and painful boshi Ken*** at the joint of the elbow. “This Kankaku is important” he said.

I wish I could have taken a picture of this particularly moment.

And to end this, my post was not about the Gyokko Ryû or a specific way of doing a given waza, my point was to explain that the diversity of interpretations that you find in Japan when you train opens up new worlds of opportunities when your eyes and spirit are ready to see and understand: 神心神願, shinshin shingan*****

____________________
* caution: sensei varies his answers depending on the moment, or the person asking. My point is that he might have said the opposite and still be correct.
** Koteki Ryûda: crouching tiger, flying dragon
Juppô Sesshô: negotiating in all directions
Hibun no Kami: (is the) secret expression of the gods
*** the tiger and dragon in the I Ching http://www.biroco.com/yijing/dragon_tiger.htm
**** boshi Ken is typical from the Gyokko Ryû

*****神心神願, shinshin shingan: the eyes and the mind of  the gods

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr

Stephen Hawking said that “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” 

Well, Wednesday night during Noguchi sensei’s class I faced the illusion of my knowledge. Everything began nicely when he said Gyokko Ryû. Then hell broke loose as he recreated the techniques totally. His big smile when he said it should have prepared me for something special.

Over the last 25 years I went through these techniques many times with him. Every high rank knows Kokû, Renyô, Gyaku nagare, Dan shu, Dan Shi, Hanebi, at least that was my feeling until Noguchi sensei reversed everything. Once again I was lost.

I will use the Kokû we did that night as an example:

Uke attacks with right fist
Tori, inside, does a circular migi age shutô to the elbow
Uke kicks with right leg after receiving the shutô
Tori then does ura Keri gaeshi with the left leg and then steps in with right foot and hit migi boshi Ken at uke’s migi butsumetsu.

For years we trained Kokû from the outside, doing it from the inside was mind blowing! This new form was very interesting and full of discoveries for me. I might already have done it like that in the past alone in my dôjô or here in Japan. But after Hatsumi sensei ‘s class of Tuesday in Ayase, it was, at least for me, like entering 範列 hanretsu, a new paradigm. Because I saw infinite possibilities of interpreting our hundreds of waza from a totally renewed approach!

When you have studied, trained, and learnt this budô for thirty years you have, more or less, seen everything. Or at least this is what your ego thinks. The reality is that the learning path is endless and that other universes of possibilities are there if you are brave enough to look for them.

Master Yoda said: “Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.” This is why I call it a paradigm as it changes totally our point of view on the art. I used the 範列 concept a few times already here in this blog because when I train here, I often have to redefine what I thought I knew (the point of view). It is easy to play the “master”, and many of us jûgodan, do that quite well… And the older you get, the easier it is. But this is the dark side of the Bujinkan.
Again as Yoda said in Star Wars:
Luke: “Is the dark side stronger?”
Yoda: “No! No…no. Quicker. Easier. More seductive.”

Remember that there is no shortcut to excellence in the Bujinkan and that it does not come with the rank. If the Bujinkan was easy it would not be worth training. But it is not difficult, either, if you are ready to get rid of your certitudes.

It is not がん蛋 Gantan (difficult for barbarians) but 簡単 Kantan (simple) if you take the good decision, “shusha dori” (取捨取) which is to come here in Japan and to train. Back home we try too hard to stick to the text and by worshiping the 貌 Katachi (the form), we lose the 感覚 Kankaku (the feeling). The kankaku can only be found here at the source of the “force”.

Sensei, in his last classes, insisted a lot on not being too much focusing on the Katachi but working to express the Kaname though the Kankaku. If you see yourself as a student of Hatsumi sensei and if you follow what your master is asking, then each time you come here you might have to redefine yourself, and change your paradigm.

If you prefer to think that you know everything already maybe you are suffering from a deep Dunning-Kruger twisted effect.*

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* The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr

During the last class in Ayase at the Budôkan, sensei never repeated twice the same movement. Instead he was surfing from one opportunity to another.

Written differently Ayase can be 怪瀬, “mysterious opportunity”, and indeed his movements were definitely mysterious and he was adapting his actions to any opportunity offered by the opponent.

That was even more difficult for me as he asked me twice to demonstrate. Then he was expressing it in such a “mysterious ” way that I couldn’t repeat it!

Apparently to an observer what he was doing was simple and obvious but when you had to do it, it was nearly impossible to copy. Once again I got totally lost!

Facing a group of lost students he stopped and said: “I teach the same feeling with many forms, don’t memorize them. In a real fight you will have no time to think, only to react. “

If we try to analyze, I would say that sensei was using a Sanshin consisting of Karada (body movements), maai (distance), and by not grabbing uke at all.
Nagato sensei in a recent class reminded us of the Takagi Yôshin Ryû concept of 中一瞬 の 吉丁虫, “Amo isshun no tamamushi”, catching a bee in your hand and not being stung. The idea being to hold it softly, leaving a small kûkan inside the hand so that instead of attacking, the bee tries to find a way out. Remember that when a bee sings you, it dies right after. Each time it is a balance between life and death.

Like the Takagi bee, uke is trapped in the kûkan generated by sensei but he is apparently free to move. Sensei applies tensions by moving his body naturally. No information is sent to uke’s brain therefore, uke continues to dig his grave, because from his perspective there are still opportunities. But it is like the “shicho” situation when you play go.

At one point, Hatsumi sensei came to tell me how important it was to use kyojitsu: big/small, strong/weak, full/empty in order to force uke to react wrong. By  playing alternatively with the increase and decrease of pressure with his body and his mind, Sôke creates suki (openings) and takes advantage of them instantly. I commented that it looked like a Kurage movement (jellyfish), and he agreed with a smile.

Sensei is moving in a way that creates natural tensions and when they are created, he lets go. Uke is defeated by his own tensions. But because uke keeps trying to win, the form of sensei’s movement keeps changing. This is why sensei never did the same movement twice.

This formless expression of taijutsu was also applied successfully with the Tsurugi in Mutô Dori taijutsu. Using the Sanshin: Karada, maai, no grab explained above. Your Kamae (attitude) forces uke to take action. Uke is free to move apparently but in fact he is caught in a mental and physical spider web. Once there, there are no escape. Walking to the light at the end of the tunnel, uke is destroyed by it.

Funnily uke never sees the danger of his situation before it is too late. Until the last second he hopes to win. Then dies. In fact uke is あやせ, “ayase” (cuddled) by 怪瀬, “ayase”, (mysterious opportunities).

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr

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