From Shiro Kuma's Blog by kumablog

My first eBook is now available at amazon.
Written in French in 2009, it is now available in English.
Completely rewritten, this revised edition details my life in the martial arts from 1969 to 2014. Obviously the biggest part of the book is dedicated to the Bujinkan and the 25 years of exchanges with Hatsumi sensei in Japan and during the Taikai all over the world.
Full of anecdotes and stories, this small book introduces the reader to the 6 elements, the strategy, and other concepts.

Amazon.com

Amazon.fr

http://www.amazon.fr/Spirit-Movement-Become-Student-English-ebook/dp/B00PUKZY9C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1416564516&sr=1-1&keywords=spirit+of+movement

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.es

http://www.amazon.es/Spirit-Movement-Become-Student-English-ebook/dp/B00PUKZY9C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1416564672&sr=1-1&keywords=spirit+of+movement

Amazon.de

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From Shiro Kuma's Blog by kumablog

In my dôjô we me have a new member watching every class, it is a human size skeleton*.

I decided to add this as part of our understanding of body movement. Each class is the occasion to show the students how a technique should be done. When they see the bone alignment, the joint logic, the technique begins to make sense.

骨 (Kotsu) regroups the secret principles introducing any of the ryûha but it also reads as bone. Maybe because these principles are the “skeleton”,  the foundation of the system.

Because we all have, at first, a sport educated vision of the martial arts, we miss the key point: which is to break the balance of the opponent. Thanks to the skeleton in the dôjô, the students are now able to visualize, in real size, the possible angles and the amount of leverage that can be applied to the joints at the skeleton level, therefore it is easier for them to get the technique correctly.

The typical fight in feudal Japan between two samurai implied the use of the Yoroi. The Yoroi protecting the body from the ferocious blows of the enemy **, it is obvious that hitting the flesh of breaking the bones was not feasable. But if hitting the body was hardly possible, taking the balance by using the bone structure was easy. By locking the body inside the Yoroi and by manipulating the joints, it is easy to get the opponent off balance. A fight in feudal Japan was mainly about bringing the opponent to the ground in order to finish him before he could stand up.

Trying to hit the muscles or to break the bones is sport.
Understanding the laws of balance by integrating the knowledge of bone positioning and angles is budô.

So don’t fight the flesh, but fight the bone structure. We are learning Budô not sport.

_________________
*you can get one on amazon for about a 100€
** the Yoroi was primarily designed to fight the yari
Basics:  http://budomart.eu/index.php?id_category=24&controller=category&id_lang=1&p=2

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From Shiro Kuma's Blog by kumablog

In my dôjô we me have a new member watching every class, it is a human size skeleton*.

I decided to add this as part of our understanding of body movement. Each class is the occasion to show the students how a technique should be done. When they see the bone alignment, the joint logic, the technique begins to make sense.

骨 (Kotsu) regroups the secret principles introducing any of the ryûha but it also reads as bone. Maybe because these principles are the “skeleton”,  the foundation of the system.

Because we all have, at first, a sport educated vision of the martial arts, we miss the key point: which is to break the balance of the opponent. Thanks to the skeleton in the dôjô, the students are now able to visualize, in real size, the possible angles and the amount of leverage that can be applied to the joints at the skeleton level, therefore it is easier for them to get the technique correctly.

The typical fight in feudal Japan between two samurai implied the use of the Yoroi. The Yoroi protecting the body from the ferocious blows of the enemy **, it is obvious that hitting the flesh of breaking the bones was not feasable. But if hitting the body was hardly possible, taking the balance by using the bone structure was easy. By locking the body inside the Yoroi and by manipulating the joints, it is easy to get the opponent off balance. A fight in feudal Japan was mainly about bringing the opponent to the ground in order to finish him before he could stand up.

Trying to hit the muscles or to break the bones is sport.
Understanding the laws of balance by integrating the knowledge of bone positioning and angles is budô.

So don’t fight the flesh, but fight the bone structure. We are learning Budô not sport.

_________________
*you can get one on amazon for about a 100€
** the Yoroi was primarily designed to fight the yari
Basics:  http://budomart.eu/index.php?id_category=24&controller=category&id_lang=1&p=2

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From Shiro Kuma's Blog by kumablog

In French we have a saying that goes “pourquoi faire simple quand on peut faire compliquer”, which translates as “why making it simple when it can be done much more complex”.

It is often used when we are facing situations where things are done in a useless complex way. I often think about this when I’m watching the students trying to copy a movement I just did.

The Japanese have also a term for “simplicity and complexity”, and this is 繁簡, hankan. Funnily it reads the same as 反感, hankan: animosity, antipathy, or revolt. In order to survive a fight you have to be relaxed and move with simplicity.

The bujinkan movements are based on simple principles and not on fixed and complex forms. This is done in order to give us some freedom in finding the right solution to an unplanned situation. When we enter into the survival mode of action, only simple things are available. Because of the stress generated by a sudden attack the brain is frozen and thinking or analysing are not possible anymore.

Only simplicity 質朴 (shitsuboku), will work because it is natural, simple, and does not require a conscious mind behind it to put it into action.
Complexity, 複雑性 (fukuzatsusei), on the contrary, is the result of a thought process and will lead nowhere, except maybe to your own death.

In order to achieve simplicity*, one must train it on the mats. And this training is done through long repetitions of the Bujinkan basics. Once the basics are ingrained, the body and the mind are united and our moves are done without thinking in a simple manner.

Now  when students try to reproduce a movement, they often make something very complex because their abilities are hindered by their lack of strong basics. When basics are mastered, the body will move with simplicity and adapt freely to the situation at hand.

In your next trainings, try to find the simplest way of doing things. And remember this kaname:

A simple movement doesn’t require strength nor power.
A simple movement is relaxed and cannot be preconceived.

Shitsuboku leads to mastery, fukuzatsusei to nowhere.

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* simplicity is an important aspect of Shizen. A new dvds series covering the Shizen theme of 2006, will be released for Christmas at http://www.budomart.eu

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From Shiro Kuma's Blog by kumablog

During my last class I discovered that one of the most difficult thing to teach is to be so relaxed when fighting that you can move any one of your arms or legs independently.

We were doing some “battlefield” situation applying Okyô.   Both opponents where attacking in Yoroi with a Tachi in Katate. Blocking and absorbing the attack, with the left arm protected by the Yoroi, each opponent was trying to hit the other with his sword. Rapidly the situation got stuck as the two bodies were forced against one another.

In this type of realistic situation there are no uke but two Tori.

Because of the close distance, applying a nage waza is the only logical possibility. We decided to train Okyô a nage Kaeshi.

What surprised me the most is that the one trying to do Okyô was so stiff in his reactions that he couldn’t do it and was often sent down to the ground by the supposed uke.

In this type of encounter there is a solution and it is to relax the right arm and to let go. This sudden relaxation creates a counter tension that sends the “thrower” to the ground.

What I understood is that because many practitioners do not have the ability to relax one part of the body (here the right arm), they cannot do the technique. They are like a 2 wheel drive vehicle.

On the contrary when you relax and become able to do it, you can do different things with any one of your limbs. You become a 4 wheel drive vehicle having each one of its wheels dealing with the ground in a various manner.

If the Yoroi is the car then your limbs are the wheels. The Yoroi is strong and united. And this unity of action is reinforced by the multiplicity of the moves of the limbs. You have to teach this ability to yourself and develop this partial relaxed attitude while caught in the middle of a heavy encounter.

You have to turn your body into a 4 wheel drive vehicle. Try it and see if your level of skills makes you a 2 wheel drive it a 4 wheel drive vehicle.

Once again Ninpô Taijutsu is 一体数多い (ittai kazûoi), “unity in multiplicity”.

__________________
Okyô can be found here: http://budomart.eu/index.php?id_product=30&controller=product&id_lang=1

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From Shiro Kuma's Blog by kumablog

Basics are the foundation of your taijutsu and without them you will never develop what sensei calls the  “natural movement”.
One of my friend and student, recently attended a few seminars in another country. He was amazed by two things. First the majority of the teachers were developing beautiful movements with no power and no strength. Then the students were copying these nice movements.
But then he discovered that even though he was not a student of these teachers, his strong basics allowed him to adjust and to understand what was being demonstrated. The other participants on the contrary, and even if they could mimic what was shown, we’re totally unable to get these movements through their own taijutsu.

This cosmic trend in the Bujinkan has been on for some years now,  and we begin to see how bad it impacts the student’s abilities to survive in a fight. The majority of Bujinkan practitioners will be really surprised the day they have to defend themselves with these nice but weak cosmic movements they have been taught at the dôjô and during seminars.

As sensei put it last August, you have to train your strength when you’re young to be able to use the “no strength” at a later and higher stage of your budô development.

Please put some real training back in your budô studies, improve your basics, and create strong foundations before you begin to move at the cosmic level.

Real fight is fierce, it’s not nice. Panic and fear will slow down your brain and your reactions, and when panic comes, only your ingrained basics will give you a chance to survive.

Strong basics are the only thing remaining when the rest is gone. A nice waza studied in the dôjô with a complacent partner will get you killed in a real encounter. “don’t try to apply a waza in a fight, you would lose” said sensei a few times in the last twenty years.

Teachers this is your responsibility. Please teach mainly basics (together with advanced movements) and stop focusing exclusively on the cosmic moves as it will kill your students. Remember that basic moves will eventually turn into cosmic moves, it’s a natural process. Don’t force nature.

If you don’t teach correctly, your students are like lambs entering the butcher shop, and a nice “baa baa” will not stop the butcher from killing them.

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From Shiro Kuma's Blog by kumablog

Once again I’m bangalore. On arrival I met with shiva and eugenio at the airport.  The weather is nicer and it’s not too hot. In the next days we will begin our Indian seminars. As always the rhythm is crazy. Today we will review some basics,  and next weekend we will study the Kuki taishô of 2009. New dvd series will be fearless!

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From Shiro Kuma's Blog by kumablog

“The Last Is Always The Best” this is what I always think when I decide to study a weapon. The same is also true with the various ryûha of the Bujinkan.

Over the past 30 years I studied thoroughly Bô jutsu,  Yari jutsu,  Naginata jutsu,  Hanbô jutsu, biken jutsu (kukishin and Togakure), Jô Jutsu, Nawa jutsu, Manriki gusari jutsu,  Kunai jutsu, Jutte jutsu, Tsurugi jutsu, Tachi jutsu,  Shotô jutsu. And I did that more than once.*

Funnily I always found the weapon studied to be the best of all! Even though it was the tenth time I was studying it.

This is why I love training. Training weapons is similar to polishing a jewel, it can always get better and shine more. You cannot say you know one weapon if you studied it only one time. Knowledge is the consequence of repetitive training.

The next level in weapon training is to reach the “Buki no Juppô Sesshô” where everything we do is directed by nature. The theme for 2014 is Shingin Budô which is achieved when our actions are done without consciousness. Our body moves by itself with the weapon we have, without trying to use it. Strong basics and regular repetitions develop this ability.

Hatsumi sensei taught the major weapons in a specific order and my understanding is that this is the way that they should be studied in the same order. I don’t think that sensei had a definite plan of teaching but as he taught these weapons in an order, this is the easiest way to do it as each new weapon was based upon the previous ones we already studied.

I was lucky to be training Bujinkan in the eighties and therefore was exposed to many weapon training that the new generation doesn’t know. I decided this year to dedicate my seminars in France exclusively to the learning of weapons. Taijutsu is important but cannot and shouldn’t be separated from the Yoroi and the Buki.

Remember that all these taijutsu techniques were designed for the battlefield. So in order to teach them to the young Samurai apprentices (aged from 7 to 14 years of age), they were stripped of the Yoroi and of the weapons for safety and practicality issues**.

When you try to reproduce a technique with no success, put the Yoroi and the weapons back into it, and you will uncover what is invisible. There is a reason for everything we do and the Yoroi / Buki is the origin of it. Maybe this is why after each technique in a densho it is written that  “there is a kuden”.

For example we have been taught to clench the fist when blocking an attack. But when we see Sensei or the Shihan performing a block, they hardly hit their opponent, they simply take their balance softly. The origin of this blocking comes from the Yoroi. The kote (forearm) is only protected on the outside. Imagine a Samurai who has been wearing the Yoroi for a few hours or a few days. He is covered with sweat and dust. His skin is sticky and slippery.

When he blocks with the hand extended, the kote protection is probably going to slip down under the forearm, leaving the  part used for the blocking, unprotected. By clenching the fist, the muscles of the forearm will expand and lock the protection in place long enough to receive the blow. This is why we teach the beginners to do the uke Nagashi worth a clenched fist in taijutsu.

At a higher level we still clench the fist even though we are not hitting the attacking arm but threatening directly the face of the opponent. Distance will do it.

I hope that you will review your weapon techniques with this in mind and become a member of the “the last is always the best” fraternity.

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* You can get all these techniques for weapons at budomart they were recorded between 2010 and 2014 and are regrouped in more than 30 dvds of 90 minutes (yes this is 45 hours of videos).  The dvds cover: Bô jutsu,  Yari jutsu,  Naginata jutsu,  Hanbô jutsu, biken jutsu (kukishin and Togakure), Jô Jutsu, Nawa jutsu, Manriki gusari jutsu,  Kunai jutsu, Jutte jutsu, Tsurugi jutsu, Tachi jutsu,  Shotô jutsu,  and Yoroi.

** Kids are small in size and Yoroi were expensive. Also, wrestling developed the body. This is why the apprentices had no Yoroi in their training. But weapons can be dangerous when there are no protection, therefore real weapons were forbidden (too risky) and replaced with wooden ones or not included in the technique. The instructors would then modify the original form to meet the new training requirements.

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