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Blue Pill or Red Pill?

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Each time I return from Japan I keep thinking on the many things and ideas that sensei has given us during his classes. This is some kind of ritual that has developed into a necessary step for me to go further.

During one of his recent class Hatsumi sensei was saying: “I do not teach you death, I teach you Life”. But what is Life? Thinkers and philosophers have been dwelling on the subject for centuries and even though their conclusions are all interesting, what good is it for us poor budôka lost on this bujinkan path? To understand where we stand and discover how to handle this question we have to define “Life” according to our budô practice. Life is not death. Death is the easy way as once you are dead the physical life is no more the problem. Actually from a limited perspective death is the simplest solution but to develop our potential and become a bujin, a true human being we have to stay and build a life that is worth it.

The theme of this year, rokkon shôjô, gives us a hint. To be alive is to be happy but how to reach this happiness? Happiness is a positive state of mind that overwhelms us whatever hardship we endure. A climber on a new mountain path is often facing new challenges that push his abilities to their limits. Even if the climbing is tough and difficult, the happiness he encounters when reaching the summit is total. Actually the harder the path, the more happiness it generates. When things are easy we are pleased, when they are hard to get success makes us happy. When you learn a new movement in a class it takes time to reach this ETL (cf. previous articles on this blog). At first we are so wrong that it looks that we will never make it correctly. But after hard work and many mistakes we find the solution. We are finally happy like the climber on the summit (and if we can duplicate the movement we get even happier). Commitment to success is the key to happiness and as Saint Exupery wrote it, the most important part on the path is not the final destination but the many obstacles we had to overcome to get to the end.

Success is not given (and sometimes not achievable) but it triggers all our strength to reach it. Humans can do everything they want as long as they really try hard enough. Limiting our dreams to a dream state is wrong and the bujinkan leads us to understand that. You are what you want to be and not what the others want you to be. I see this like the blue pill and the red pill in the movie “the Matrix”. The bujinkan is the pill that breaks our illusions and gives us another choice for our lives.

So Life is about being yourself, leaving the omote and unfolding the ura. The tools we have to develop this ura are called: responsibility, courage, commitment, honesty.

Responsibility: You are responsible for your actions, always. You’d better accept it now because Life is about being “face value” and responsible. Responsibility is not taught at school or to put it better is not exactly what we are taught at school. Our educational system is mainly based on not doing things (don’t touch, don’t do this, don’t smoke, don’t drink). The power of the “don’ts” have shaped our behaviors year after year until we feel “happy” living within the norms of Society. This is not being responsible on the contrary it is blending with the common accepted life defined by others that keeps us in a “child state” during our whole life. This “sheep life” is a “cheap life”. The day you pushed the door of the dôjô is the day you have decided to be in charge of yourself and live your own life. Being responsible is the first step towards adulthood. But this requires a lot of courage.

Courage: We have to develop courage in all our actions. Courage is not something you can learn in a book it is something you build with time within yourself. It implies that you stop limiting yourself. One interesting thing about our self limitations (I cannot, I do not know, it is impossible, it’s too hard) is that you will always reach them. We are afraid of what we do not know so we create limitations to stay in the realm of the things we know. Courage is the opposite, it is going where we never went before and discovering new sensations (kankaku) and learning from new experiences. Fears are made by Society and the bujinkan helps us in many ways to push our limits and face our deepest fears and become better humans. Fear is a security attitude towards the unknown where courage is to adapt to the things that are unknown to us and for which we do not have ready-made answers. Courage is important but it requires a lot of commitment.

Commitment: Without commitment nothing can be achieved. Attending the classes in your dôjô twice a week is not commitment it is a routine! Commitment is the willingness to be the best amongst your peers. One of my favorite motto is primus inter pares or “first amongst your peers”. Being the first is ego if it is a personal decision but when the group recognizes you as the best and choses you as their leader, no one is unhappy. In the old days the chief of the tribe was the one chosen within the group to lead them to a better life. Leaders were chosen not imposed. The quality of your commitment to yourself and to your training is the foundation of your success. Whatever you want to achieve in your life requires true commitment, after all it is only between you and you and no one is going to walk the path for you. Your sensei is not going back from where he stands far away on the path to carry you on his back, you will have to walk on your own; he is a guide not a driver. Life is based on being committed and from the quality of your commitment depends your success. Being the first amongst your peers requires a strong commitment and strong values. From those many values, honesty is the one that matters the most.

Honesty: Cheating your way through life is a short vision, short term process. Be true to yourself and to others in life as in the dôjô you cannot cheat the others very long on your real value. Many high rank teachers in the bujinkan cheat their students on their technical abilities and often turns to some “spiritual esoteric path” to avoid facing the truth of their emptiness. If you have to be honest with others the main point is to be honest to yourself because you will be living with you for the rest of your life. Cheating others is not nice but cheating yourself  is wrong and stupid. Honesty is to be aware of who you are and where you stand; this is the starting point of your life as a true human being. Knowing what you are and who you are you can define the path to excellence in order to live a happy life.

Life is being able to read between the lines as sensei often says and about understanding that whatever you want you have the power within you to obtain it. Honesty gives you the starting point; commitment allows you to go further; courage pushes your limits; and the sense of responsibility makes you shine and recognized by your peers as the primus inter pares.

You can be who you want to be; do what you want to do; achieve all your dreams; and become a bujin, a true human being!

One day you have decided willingly to choose this difficult path, so now it is up to you to bloom or not. Hatsumi sensei doesn’t teach death, he teaches Life.

So, ura (red pill) or omote (blue pill)?

Be happy!


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ETL (2)

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

In order to make myself clear I did a chart representing the exponential curve for the Error Tolerance Level (ETL). It helps to understand better what I tried to explain with my words.

Zero percent is never reached

In the diagram:

the abscissa (X) represents the number of repetitions (from 1 to 1000) and

the ordinate Y) represents the EL in percent (from 0% to 100%).

The more we repeat the movement and the smaller the EL. We strive for the perfect movement but we know that we will never reach it as perfection is of divine essence. Our goal is to reach an acceptable level of error that does not change the outcome of the fight, this is the ETL oe error tolerance level.

It is like the time paradox of the arrow shot at the target and never reaching it in Zeno’s problem (cf. Plato, Aristotle, Zeno). To the mathematician mind we will never reach the perfect movement; but to the warrior mind it is good enough.

Often in the dôjô and in life we want things to be so perfect that we don’t do them. The bujinkan is teaching us to act instead of thinking. Remember Watzlawick in “Munchausen pigtail” writing that action must precede reflection (thinking).

This is a path of action we have taken by entering a bujinkan dôjô not an intellectual one.

Don’t forget it (but don’t think too much about it).


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Mistakes: The Path To Success

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Senô sensei during the break

What everyone love about Jackie Chan’s movies are those last minutes at the end during the end credits of the film where we can watch the mistakes happening during the stunts sequences as if we were witnessing the shooting action.

Good stunts require many takes and sometimes end up in accidents. Once edited in the final version, the many “wrong” sequences are put into the action and everything looks smooth and perfect.

But we know this is a lie. Perfection is hard to get and will never be available on a one try movement a lot of time time, effort, and repetitive tries are necessary. Quality is an acquired result not a given one.

During Senô sensei’s class on Saturday he spoke of making mistakes during training. In the West through what Society teaches us we have been trained since kinder garden to do our best to avoid mistakes.

In fact, making mistakes is so bad that we often prefer to do nothing than to take the risk of an error. It is often related to our self esteem and ego and to the fact that we always want to look good in front of others. This is not the best way to learn budô. Thanks to Hatsumi sensei I learnt this error acceptance as it is part of sensei’s teaching. Many times in the past I would come to sensei telling him that I didn’t understand the movement he just did and many times he would stop the class and send me in the middle of the dôjô asking me to demonstrate it!

pre class discussion

How can you explain something you do not understand? You cannot! So you adapt your misunderstanding to the situation and do your best. The results at first were not good at all but through the many years with him they eventually improved and I grew up in confidence and expertise. It is good to accept to make mistakes because it makes you stronger. The judgement of others does not matter. You live and act for your own life.

Senô sensei’s approach to this “error” understanding is nice and can be easily applied in our daily lives (as long as we are ready to accept the consequences of our actions).

Basically Senô sensei explained that when we are discovering a new set of movements we are often wrong and make many “big” mistakes.

But through repetition though, the “size” of the mistake melts down until the point where the error level can be tolerated not for winning but for us not to lose. (Side note: this is why the Japanese shihan often ask us to train more slowly).

To make myself clear let’s say we do a movement for the first time with a 60% error level (EL). After a hundred repetition the EL percentage drops down to 30%. Add another 100 repetitions later we reach an EL of 10%, and a hundred repetitions later we get an acceptable rate of 5% EL.

After a thousand tries the movement will still have to be improved but the error level will be so low that only you will be able to see it and that it will make no difference on the outcome of the confrontation.

with Senô sensei

Our movements will never be perfect but through a consistent” trial and error” procedure we reach an error tolerance level (ETL) allowing us to make the movement correctly enough to survive in a real encounter. The beauty of this ETL training in the dôjô is that there is no risk at all (for us) even if the process takes many hours of training.

The dôjô is the place to study the movements so that they become permanent engrams available when necessary. Now consider the dôjô to be a laboratory for experiences and real life the field where to apply these acquired engrams (if not physically at least psychologically).

In the office, at the university or school, with your family and friends, your behavior will be naturally modified by the knowledge you acquired through hard work in the dôjô.

The ETL concept developed by Senô sensei is applicable to any activity in life. The acceptance of mistakes in our behavior frees us from stagnation and drives us faster towards the path of success.

The more we accept to make mistakes, the less we make mistakes. This is the best way to “create” and find the chance that sensei often speak about.

Be happy to be wrong as you are going to be right!

Rokkon shôjô!


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Flexibility Of Body & Mind

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Sumotori are flexible why aren't you?

Flexibility of the mind is what gives us access to the power of our imagination and creativity.

As we all know the direct links existing between body & mind, some of us might find it easier to become first flexible in their body and then move up to the mind.

Flexibility is a natural state of mind and an ability acquired by the body. Training the body towards flexibility will help you get the same benefits with your brain.

Remember that nagare doesn’t think…


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Standing Upright

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Calligraphy for the Japanese consul in Bangalore

Friday night class with sensei was good as usual. Not so many people were there (less than 50) and we had enough space to apply the tachi kumiuchi feeling with the bô. Once again if you want to study bô jutsu or any of the long weapons, it is better to come to Japan when not so many people are there and summer seems to be the best option.

Sensei asked me to do a technique as he usually did. Opening the class is always a privilege but it is every time more difficult. In the past when he would ask me for a technique I was nearly in panic and the result was not very good even though he would always find something to do with it. Then over the years my confidence built in and I went through various stages: showing something worth it; doing it good; looking good; etc. At one point I was not scared any more of making mistakes. That was the first major evolution. Then as I am coming every four months my goal as to show him that I benefited from his lessons and evolved in my taijutsu.

Recently as I said  it became more difficult as my objective now is to be in adequacy with the theme of the year and to give him a movement where his kaitatsu imagination would unleash to help us go deeper in the theme of the year. As I attend around five classes each time I come to Japan the first class is easy but the following ones are so close from one another that I have to focus more on what he has been doing and what has been said in order to learn more from him.

A class with sensei is a mix of many things and often the things is saying bear more importance than the movements he is doing. Too many people come to Japan to do what they already know. This should be avoided at all costs! We do not come to do what we know but to discover new ways of doing the things we do badly. But for that we need to accept to make mistakes and to look bad. Too many egos won’t accept that.

By accepting to make mistakes during training we free ourselves from the result and discover a more natural way of behovioring in the dôjô and in life.

Sensei painting

From this Friday class I learnt two things. First sensei was playing with the word tachi told us us that we had to stand upright in the technique and in life, once again the double meaning of jissen was obvious. Sensei used the image of the bowman pulling the string of his bow. In the technique use your shoulders to modify lightly the space between you and the opponent. Also, if you apply this you will keep your balance better and be in control of the tamashii.

The second thing that I clicked on was something I had the chance to speak with him when we had lunch in Tsukuba. I asked him if the tachi kumiuchi could be considered as the juppô sesshô of weapons and he spent the class reminding us that by saying it and by using many weapons: tantô, jutte, tachi, bô, yari and shikomi zue. The tachi has opened the last gate to natural movement as it put into motion the nagare in all our movements.

This class was also quite particular as sensei used Shiva as his uke many times. From my experience I see that as a symbol of recognition. We became direct students of sensei when we got our sakki test but when sensei is inviting you to attack this is something different. Not only are you recognized by him but also you become recognized by the whole bujinkan community. Congratulation Shiva for this new achievement in the ways of budô!

To reinforce it sensei drew a very nice makimono with a daruma to thank the Japanese consul in Bangalore.

The bujinkan through Hatsumi sensei’s guidance has really become international and we should never forget it and behave accordingly.


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Bujinkan Kunoichi Taikai – August update

Dear fellow Buyu,

Here is the Kunoichi Taikai update for August.

There are over 225 attendees for the Kunoichi Taikai. The accommodations are now filled. The Training  package is the only registration possibility left. We now have a listing of some inexpensive hotels that might be of help in your planning process. Included is a link to finding others hotels should those not be to your liking. You can download this listing here.

There are a few women who have filled out a registration form, but we have not received payment from you. There are also a handful of women who have registered, paid a deposit and have not paid the balance. Everyone has been notified, and reminders sent out. The rooms that have been reserved are held until August 10th only. At that time, they will be released for those waiting. Only those who have paid in full have received a confirmation email. This contains details of their registration package and roommates (if you have one).  If you have not received this, (please check your emails) then you are not registered.

The Taikai schedule is complete. You can download it here. We will have 4 classes taking place simultaneously. We have a total of 10 breakout sessions (40 classes) and the opening and closing session as a group, with all instructors teaching briefly. We have for each session, training geared for basics, intermediate and advanced level. For those traveling by car, you may consider bringing weapons, and if you have extras, and would like to share, this would be great. Those traveling by air and train may have difficulty bringing weapons with them, and this will ensure the possibility of weapons training. There is something for everyone!!

The offerings for the Friday evening workshops are varied and sure to interest many of you! Feldenkreis, Reiki, Yoga, Meditation, Pilates and Training children, are just a few of the workshops being offered. Saturday evenings Marketplace will exhibit a variety of products and works of art and crafts. The Demonstration portion of the evening will show the skills of many talented women in a variety of areas. Those who have registered, will be receiving detailed information later this month. Overall, the Taikai, with its many classes, top notch female instructors and showcasing talents of all kinds is sure to be one you don’t want to miss. The only experience of its kind!!

The T-shirt/ sweatshirt design and order form can be downloaded here, or you can find it on the website here. If you are attending the Taikai, as a participant, you will receive your own, unique shirt as part of the package. The shirts on the order are for everyone, black with silver print. If you are interested in having one of these, and are attending, you can purchase it at the Taikai. If you are not attending and would like one, then fill out the order form and email it to the address listed.

We look forward to welcoming many Bujinkan Kunoichi in September. Check the News section of the website for continuing updates. Or better yet, subscribe for updates, that will continue after the event is over!

If you have questions regarding any aspect of the event, we encourage you to check the website for information and also to read the FAQ’s page, as most questions are answered there. We keep all information up to date.

This is an event you don’t want to miss!! Remember, this is only held this one time!!

Important Website Pages:

Home
Registration
Fees and Costs
Schedule
Instructors Bios
FAQs
Sightseeing in Hannover
Support the Event

Ways you can help……

We have posters you can print and share with others and banners for posting on your website. You can access the posters in 2 sizes, A4 and Letter. The banners can be accessed here and for an animated banner, here.  Please also pass it on to other dojos – we are trying to e-mail as many as we can but there must be many, many more of us.

If you know companies or businesses who might like to sponsor or donate please contact us. We have a letter that can be sent to them with specific information.

Have you considered a fund raiser in your dojo to support female students attending? We have heard of some dojos holding a special event or seminar to help with the travel costs. What a great idea!

You might consider a personal or dojo donation to help defray some of the costs, as we are trying to keep this very reasonable. Any small amount is helpful.

Spread the word!!

For more information please visit www.bujinkankunoichi.com or with any questions you can email: [email protected]

In the spirit of Budo, thank you!

Sheila Haddad
Katrin Jansen
Taikai Organizers…