From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Ooty Golf course India

When you train you often forget the goal you are trying to reach and you lose your focus. Whether you are on the tatami or outside the dôjô, this is the quality of your focus and what you live that gives you the solution.

Do not believe the waza, they are only there to channel an idea in order to decipher the feeling that is not written. Focusing on each moment of your life guarantees success.  Do not try to achieve a result as you would project your intention into a non defined future. On the contrary focus on the instant like in nakaima (middle of now) and you will be adaptable to any change happening in the instant. If you are doing a technique, you are actually seeing your victory that has not happened yet. Your tamashii (spirit, soul) is the tool allowing you to use your saino (ability) level to its best, in the utsuwa in which you are caught.

This permanent focusing of the total being (body and mind) by the use of saino konki renders possible the reaching of your goals whatever they are. The goal is not important per se but it will, like a waza, bring to your understanding, things that are not obvious at first sight.

Remember our art is to “render the invisible visible”. This is how we must see Life. And when you are able to do that, in and outside the dôjô, you are living into the rokkon shôjô.

Happiness is the only things that matter.

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

We finished the three levels of kukishin bô today. And we will do the keiko sabaki gata next week-end. Each time I go through the bô jutsu levels I am amazed by the insight we can get from them. I understand why bô jutsu was a ryû in itself. We also did all the kaeshi waza for each one of the 27 techniques! I can’t wait to see the rushes for these new dvds.

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Distance is power

Bô jutsu is one of the key to enter the kûkan as it gives access to distance. Too often in training we  are trapped by the form (waza) and do not dwell enough into the feeling (kankaku). When sensei introduced us to the “cycle of weapons” in 1993, many bujinkan members were surprised as bô jutsu did not seem to be “ninja” enough to them.

But bô jutsu was only an excuse to excel. Bujinkan is footwork. When we train the bô, the technique traps our brain and our movements follow a “1, 2, 3″ sequence. After repeating those forms long enough, something fresh comes out of them. Through mechanical repetition the brain frees itself and a natural movement is created only because footwork adds itself to a new understanding of distance.

In one of the bujinkan schools, it says: “ahead lies paradise” meaning that in a fight you get protected by entering the distance to the opponent. By accepting the encounter, you actually enable yourself to be safe and free in your actions. This knowledge of how to distance yourself correctly is the first thing you learn with the use of  long weapons. This freedom has created a kûkan of which you were not aware of before. Through the study of bô jutsu you are now able to enter this kûkan and bring your taijutsu up to a new dimension.

Weapons are our best teachers. We move our bodies and we now learn to do it with an artifical extension offering new possibilities.

Bô jutsu is not “ninja“? maybe not, but our skills improve a lot through this type of study. We understand now distance and angles in a wider sense and can play freely with a new created space.

Maybe this is why divinities are often represented with a long staff.