dôjô - NinZine 3.0

Originally, this was going to be a short essay that was going to discuss different aspects of a long discussion I had with some Bujinkan practitioners some time ago. However, after spending several hours just talking about Budo and my experiences in Japan and China with these students, it became evident that a simple essay would not be enough. To this end, a magazine series detailing different aspects of the discussion, along with additional material concerning the Bujinkan Kokusai Renkoumyo (BKR), of which I created, seemed more appropriate. Hence, this series was born.

My experience in the Bujinkan

I am often asked, “How long have you been studying Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu?”. My answer is complex because in the early days of the art in the USA there were not many schools or teachers. I first met our 34th Grandmaster Hatsumi Sensei in 1986 at the World Ninja Summit in Ohio. But for about two years before that, I was training with a man I will call JK. He was a Kyu a ranked student under Stephen K. Hayes when I first met him in 1984. By the time I had met Hatsumi Sensei, JK had earned his Shodan or “black belt” but he soon stopped his training shortly afterward for personal reasons.

So another friend of mine, Chris Nardi, and I continued the local group in the Albany NY area until I left for Japan to go to University and continue my training with Hatsumi

Soke. As JK had stopped training and teaching, from 1986 onward I also trained with Jack Hoban, BudMalmstrom and Stephen K. Hayes. It was always seminar training events only; I was not a member of their dojos.

The only person I trained with regularly from 1986 to 1989 was Jack Hoban, and

that was on a monthly basis in neighboring New Jersey. I pretty much got my driver’s license as soon as I turned 16 just so I could drive the trip myself from NY to NJ and back, and not rely on others. Then, at the 1989 Tai Kai, I met Hatsumi Sensei for the second time, and I really began to take my training much more seriously.

This is also when I met the well-known American instructor, RalphSevere. I started flying down to Dallas Texas to train with Ralph, and my group and I brought him up to NY a couple of times for seminars as well. So that’s how it started for me, and how I moved to Japan in 1991 after my first trip in 1990.

What is the Bujinkan Kokusai Renkoumyo?

It is not really different at all. The BKR is simply an association of teachers who all train under the same syllabus up to the 4th Dan, after that the student becomes a student of the headmaster inJapan under the guidance of their BKR instructor. The only real difference between us and your average Bujinkan Dojo is that we strongly encourage cross training with other systems and allow students to compete in various types of tournaments should they decide to do so. This is about the only thing different about my organization. We are a subset to the mainstream Bujinkan.

The training is not really different than training in with a Shihan in Japan, it’s basically the same, other than that I heavily incorporate the attitude, training techniques and fighting spirit that I received from my competition coach, Enson Inoue. I do make the training more “hard”– I like to make the training a physical workout. In my opinion, the BKR is like training the old way, before the way it is now. Hatsumi Sensei has often said that to get to his level, you have to train the way he did when he was younger. I also include a lot of Kosen Judo and MMA training as I feel they are great companions to our “Bujinkan skill set.”

If you look at the old purple Togakure Ryu Ninpo Taijutsu Book by Hatsumi Sensei, (handing it to one of the students to look at) at the beginning of the book he writes about proper diet, which Sensei takes very seriously. He discusses stretching, which you rarely see anybody does properly anymore. There are many dojos that don’t even stretch at the beginning of class. Sadly, they feel it is a “waste of dojo time”. So with the BKR, I try to cover all of this old material. I try to instill the basics.

This old book of sensei is said to be the required material up through the rank of Godan or the 5th-degree black belt (flipping through the pages of the book). I incorporate all of this, such as the Junan Taiso, which in some ways is very much like yoga. None of the stretchings is quick or fast, it is all slow and relaxed. As I mentioned above, another difference between my dojo and some Bujinkan dojo is the inclusion of contact sparring and competition in the 1960’s & 1970’s.

Hatsumi, Sensei incorporated sparring in the Bujinkan dojo training, it was called

yakusoku randori-geiko.

Anthony Netzler, my first roommate in Japan, and I had the chance to do this kind of training with Hatsumi Sensei in the park on many occasions. We were allowed to freely attack at Sensei it bonded us to him in a way. I strongly feel that this should be part of the training that I pass on to my students.”

Now that he is older, he does not do this so much anymore. Us few Tokyo and

Noda-City residents at that time were very lucky, for by the time I arrived in Japan,

Sensei was already slowing down with this type of training. It usually happened spontaneously when we would help with walks with the dogs he had at the time. We would pass a park or an empty field and he would tie the dogs up and just start throwing us around. If it wasn’t for Anthony, I never would have had these opportunities. He always had a special relationship with Sensei and he got my foot in the door with him very early. I am ever grateful.

As for competition in the BKR, we consider it tradition…, Takamatsu Sensei

(our 33rd Grandmaster or Soke) was well known in the Japanese Martial Arts community in pre-WW2 Shanghai China as the “Moko no Tora” or the Mongolian Tiger. It is said he had over 100 competitive matches and never lost. Hatsumi Sensei was a competitive Judo player as well and has stated that his training in competitive Judo is what made him so strong and get him to the level of even being introduced to Takamatsu Soke.

Therefore, in the BKR the opportunity for competition is there for those who wish to pursue it with a Bujinkan heart. There is resistance training and controlled sparring in all BKR session to develop each student’s ability to apply the techniques in actual situations. But there is no requirement to compete.

In my own opinion and experience, a lot of people who train in the Bujinkan may train for a year or two and earn their black belt. The problem is that they do not even know the Kihon Happo1 properly. They don’t know what a proper omote gyaku is. They don’t really know what they should know. This is mainly because of Hatsumi Sensei judges a person’s rank based on “heart” and“feeling”, which is fine, that’s great. But… if you get your Sandan in Bujinkan, then you should know that, “

Sensei sees in me that I am worth aSandan……someday.” They have to admit to themselves that they don’t know the techniques properly yet.

In this case, Hatsumi Sensei says to go back and find a Shihan that will teach you because he is no longer teaching the basics and that’s what the BKR is really for. There are many 15th Danin the Bujinkan, but some have only been training for five or so years. It because Sensei sees in their heart that they are good people and he gives them these ranks prematurely because of their good heart. But their skill in Taijutsu

is still lacking.

I am not Hatsumi Sensei and do not grade based on heart or feeling. If I give a student a BKR Shodan, that person will know everything that is required in the

Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki2, which Sensei wrote for Shodan.

They will know the material, they can do the material, and they can apply the material. That’s all it really is. It’s no different than what Sensei has taught me in my

over 15 years in Japan.” When I first went to Japan after high school in 1990, there were only a few hundred Godan in the world. Within 20 years, there were several thousand. Who knows how many there are now. Let’s just say Sensei has definitely sped up the process.

Sensei always says that he is not really teaching, that he doesn’t like to teach, and doesn’t want to teach. He says these things about himself and then he says that Takamatsu Sensei was the same way. He says that for a person to learn this art, they have to steal it from him. You have to watch him, pick it up, go home, and practice it. He

won’t teach it to you, you have to figure it out yourself. That’s why I wrote the article jibun denarai (to learn on your own). I interviewed [Hatsumi] Sensei for that article.”

I do believe that it was different back in the early days. The original students are like family to Hatsumi Sensei, he loves them as his own.

So, I believe he taught them all with lots of love and care. Then it was time for him to continue with his job and grow the organization into the international group it has become. From that point on everyone needed to see the Shihan to learn the basics…

but we had to go to Soke to learn the art. This may be a difficult thing to understand for some beginners. In the BKR we also train with weapons quite frequently and I am often asked what I think is the correct phase to incorporate weapons into training. Once a student has learned how to do ukemi, shoshin or gogyo, and the Kihon Happo –

or once they get to a basic level, they should start right away with

bokken, and hanbo, and things like that.

There is no real “rank” point where it starts. With the BKR, there are no formal requirements for weapons until after Shodan. Sword kata, bo-kata,

etc. are in the ranks above Shodan. We train with weapons at every level, but it is not a required item on the syllabus until after Shodan.

In 2001 Hatsumi Sensei knew I had made the decision to move back home to the USA for a few years before returning to Japan, and we had discussed my training because of this. He said that I should go and teach the Ju-Godan the basics! That’s how the BKR got started. He endorsed my syllabus because he wanted me to teach.

Sensei wants the world to know that he gives rank out based on heart, and nobility. The BKR is more about the ability. I don’t have the eyes to see everyone’s heart that’s what Hatsumi Sensei does. Once I got the feeling that I was going to be leaving Japan, I started to put together all of my notes – I have tons and tons of notes from the day I started training in Japan until the day I left – so I started to organize things together, making sure that I knew the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki, and to make sure everything else that all of the teachers had taught me was together. My goal was not to create an organization where you pay money or anything like that, I don’t charge a fee to become

a member, there is no such thing.

When this magazine comes out, there will be a fee for that, but there is no fee to be a member. If you are a Sandan in the Bujinkan, and you want to have the BKR certification, there is no charge for the certification.

You just have to pass the tests.

1. The kihon happo, or “infinite basics”, along with the movements of the San Shin no Kata, are considered the basic techniques and movements of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu.

2. The Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki, or “The Outline Scrolls of Heaven, Earth, & Man”, is considered the first training curriculum Hatsumi Sensei prepared for his students.

Let’s know in the comments. Please, if like what we are doing, click “Like,” “Fellow”, give us “Feedback” “comments,“ and get a notification about a new post.

Togakure Ryu and Kukishin Ryu deeper

bkronlineSeptember 6, 2018

From Blog – Bujinkan Kokusai Renkoumyo 武神館國際連光明道場 by bkronline

Is the link between the Togakure Ryu and Kukishin Ryu deeper than we thought???

In the middle ages, there was a very serious samurai practice to take written vows when undertaking the study of a military science, especially when the pupil is from outside of the family.

In the case of the Kukishin Ryu, the Kuki family to this day still preserves a document from 1532 CE that has been continuously added to until modern times. The document is the 2nd scroll in a set of two titled “Seiyakusho” (誓約書). It is a written oath that pupils sign upon formally entering the school or “Ryu”. It is a promise to uphold the true meaning and spirit of the martial arts (military arts) and that one promises to cultivate a great sense of justice. The signature is traditionally accompanied by a thumbprint in blood, vowing they will never reveal what they have been taught to others without the master’s permission.

In the book Kukishinden Zensho by Ago Kiyotaka in 1983 he writes that he could hold in his own hands and examine this original 1532 CE document carefully. He notes that the more recent portion of the document leading up to the modern times was re-written by Kuki Takaharu in 1904.

This list is a veritable all-star list of Japanese military commanders and master swordsmen. Including Yamamoto Kansuke (Red Star on pic), known to have studied Togakure Ryu ninjutsu from Fujibayashi Nagato no Kami. The list also includes Sanada Masayuki (Green Star), the father of Sanada Yukimura. Both men are recorded as hiring local shugenja from the Togakure and Iizuna regions as shinobi and “Kamari” commandos in their forces.

Takamatsu Toshitsugu (Yellow star), our current Soke’s master also signed this list in 1899, vowing his allegiance to the emperor and the nation and to protect the teachings of the Kukishin Ryu. His “Kohai” or junior training partner Iwami Nangaku signed the list in 1922.

As Kuki Takahiro (隆博) died in WWII he was the last signature on the list as the Kuki family has taken vows of peace and no longer are involved in the martial arts. They now run several successful businesses and corporations all over the country and still administrate the Kumano Grand Shrine.

The original document list begins in 1532 with the vows and signatures/stamps of;

Kuki Yagoro, 1532 CE

Yamamoto Kansuke, 1534 CE

Kuki Moritaka, 1573 CE

Kuki Yoshitaka, 1574 CE (Formed the Kuki Navy from various bands of pirates from the Shima region)

1 name omitted

Sanada Masayuki, 1577 CE (Father of the famous Sanada Yukimura who used Shinobi from Togakure)

Bessho Nagaharu, 1576 CE

2 names omitted

Itō Ittōsai, 1573 CE (Famous master swordsman, 2nd to only Miyamoto Musashi, 33 matches, no losses)

Kuki Shigetaka, 1576 CE (Son of Kuki Yoshitaka)

Kuki Takasue, 1597 CE (Son of Kuki Moritaka)

Miyamoto Musashi (Black star), 1494 CE (Here we have an enigma, the date is exactly 100 years too early but it is for the famous swordsman, the Kuki family claims that it is the same Miyamoto Musashi who wrote the book of 5 Rings and fought over 60 duels with only one loss, I think the date may be a typo and should read 1594 putting Musashi at around 10 years old, the normal age of taking these vows)

Chōsokabe Motochika, 1595 (Daimyo of the Chōsokabe Clan)

Takagi Oriemon (Blue star), 1616 CE (Founder of the Takagi Yoshin Ryu)

Kuki Takayuki, 1648 CE (Daimyo of the Tanba Ayabe Domain)

1 name omitted

Kuki Takanao, 1662 CE (3rd Daimyo of the Tanba Ayabe Domain, brought Kito Ryu into the Kuki family)

Kuki Takahide, 1683 CE (Son of Kuki Takanao)

Shibukawa Bangoro, 1625 CE (Founder of Shibukawa Ryu Jujutsu)

Kimura Ittosai, 1649 CE (no information on him at this time)

Kuki Takashin, 1712 CE (Founder of the Shima branch of the Kuki family)

Kuki Taka??, 1743 CE (no information at this time)

Kuki Takanori, 1773 CE (8th Daimyo Lord of the Tanba Ayabe Domain)

3 names omitted

Ishitani Matsutaro, 1868 CE (Takamatsu Sensei’s 2nd master)

Takamatsu Toshitsugu, 1899 CE (Hatsumi Sensei’s master)

Iwami Nangaku, 1921 CE (Takamatsu Sensei’s Kohai under Ishitani Sensei)

9 names omitted

Shiozaki Katsuo, 1923 CE (Student of Iwami Nangaku)

Essay by Sean Askew
Bujinkan Kokusai Renkoumyo
9/6/2018

Let’s know in the comments. Please, if like what we are doing, click “Like,” “Fellow”, give us “Feedback” “comments,“ and get a notification about a new post.…

Path to the Heart of the Flower (IV)

Shawn GrayDecember 7, 2012

From The Magick & The Mundane » Bujinkan by Shawn Gray

Finally, some free time to blog again!

In the last blog article I wrote on my early adventures in Japan, I related how I went to Iga in search of Hatsumi Sensei in October 1990, but didn’t manage to find him.

After not having found him, there was nothing else to do but return to Hiroshima and continue with my English teaching schedule. I also went back to my Karate studies, and continued pounding my fists into bloody hamburger against trees.

Back to Eikaiwa!

Back to Blood!

In December 1990, I had the opportunity to travel to the Chito Ryu Karate Hombu Dojo, located in Kumamoto, on the southern island of Kyushu. The Dojo was equipped with two bunkbeds, accompanying four people. When I arrived, there were two guys visiting from British Columbia, Canada, also staying there for training. (I wish I could remember their names after all this time, so that I could track them down. It would be fun to share stories again.) The Soke (Grandmaster) was 40 years old at the time. His father, the founder, had died in 1984. (From what I’d heard, an elder brother had been destined to continue the leadership of the style, but from what I heard, had been disabled in a car accident and therefore unable to continue with training. The younger son, next in line, had been in Tokyo pursuing medical studies, but was recalled to Kumamoto by his father to take over leadership of the lineage.) I stayed at the Dojo for two weeks, and greatly enjoyed the training. I was awed by the skill level of Chitose Sensei and his senior instructors. In the backyard behind the Dojo were two Makiwara punching posts. Wooden covers protected them from the rain, and on the covers were painted a Japanese character which is very familiar to my fellow Bujinkan practitioners. The character is pronounced “Nin“, and is the first character of the word “Ninja.” What was this character doing displayed so prominently at a Karate Dojo? Although sometimes understood in ninjaphile circles to mean “stealth,” the character is more widely used in more mainstream Japanese to mean “restraint,” “patience,” or “perseverance.” It was with these noble ideals in mind that we forged our minds and bodies in the daily training at Hombu Dojo. Kata, Kumite, and Makiwara training were all part of this. By perseverance and austerity in training the body and mind in the way of the Bushido ideal of the Samurai of old, we pushed our mental and physical limits beyond what we thought possible.

Makiwara with “Nin”

Aside from the training itself, there are a couple of memorable experiences from that time in Kumamoto. One was when Chitose Soke took the other visiting Canadians and myself out for a visit to Kumamoto Castle, one of the three premier castles in Japan. Scars from the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 (when Samurai warriors of Satsuma province rebelled against the imperial forces of the Meiji government) pock-marked the stone walls. It was an impressive edifice. Soke took us out for sushi afterwards.

Another memory was from one night when my two new Canadian friends took me out for a night on the town, Kumamoto style. I had never been out drinking in Canada before, let alone in Japan. I had no idea what kind of town I was in or where we were going. Before I knew it, we were sitting at a table ordering drinks, surrounded by very nicely-dressed ladies from the Philippines. I was from a farming town of 3,600 people on the Atlantic Coast of Canada. It took me a while to catch on that these ladies worked here. Anyway, we kept ordering and my two Canadian friends were on my left, engaging the ladies in deep conversation. Almost as if they’d met before. I felt a nudge on my right and turned to see what appeared to be two of the local Japanese bikers. They seemed friendly enough. The one next to me, I discovered through our broken conversation (my Japanese vocabulary was probably about 30 words at this point), did well in the local boxing scene. At least that’s what he told me, as he kept grinning and pointing to the biceps bulging out from under his cut-off denim vest.

I was starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable, but couldn’t really understand why. I started to think I should ask my friends when we were planning to leave. I turned to my left to ask my friend when we were going to get the check, and then felt a fist slam lightly into the right side of my face. My friend turned. “What?” “I think maybe we should go. This guy just hit me.” “Wait a second.” He turned to confer with the other friend. I turned to my right and smiled nervously at the two grinning Japanese guys wearing black leather. They looked like they were having fun. A moment later I turned to the friend on my left again. “What.” Again a punch from the right hit the side of my face. Harder this time. “Look man, our friend on my right here has now hit me in the face twice. We need to go, now.” “Ok.” My two friends stand up. Both of them were about fix-foot two. Sturdy Canadian farming boys. I turned to my right. The two Japanese dudes were gone.

We paid the bill and headed down the elevator. It came to a stop at ground level, and as we stepped out into the parking lot and the doors closed behind us, we found ourselves on the back side of a slowly-shrinking circle, on the perimeter of which were four or five tough-looking locals. The friend on my right made a quick beeline to the right, down an alley. I was close behind him. Closer than I normally am to other guys. We zig-zagged quickly through some alleys and eventually found ourselves with our hands on our knees, panting and out of breath, outside the Hombu Dojo “bunk room.” There were just two of us. The other Canadian friend was nowhere in sight. It was around 2am. We waited. We didn’t want to wake anyone and cause a scene. We waited some more.

After what seemed like at least 20 minutes, our friend loped quietly out of a side street and over to join us in the shadow of the Dojo roof. “Where were you?” “What took you so long?” “What happened!?” He told us that he didn’t see us bolt away right away, and before he knew it, he’d been surrounded. As the four or five tough guys closed in, one of them had pulled a knife. Our friend had a quick eye and saw the guy start to draw. He jumped on him and punched him to the ground, and then made a run for it. It took him a while to give them the slip and sneak back to join us at the Dojo without being found. We quietly slid into the Dojo dorm and into our bunks, glad to be alive. The next morning Soke asked us how our night had been. We played it cool and made like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He smiled.

The next day was the day he took us to Kumamoto Castle. On the way in the car he told us that he’d heard about what happened, saying he was glad we got through it ok, and apologized “for those with bad manners.”

Chitose Soke and 2 Canucks

Before I left Kumamoto to go back to Hiroshima for the New Year, 1991, Chitose Soke gave me some training advice for when I got back. Study also Kendo, for speed and timing, and also Judo, for throws and locks. I was a bit surprised to hear this. Martial arts masters aren’t always known for recommending that their students study other arts. Soke’s openness in this way really impressed me.

When I got back to Hiroshima, I asked around about Kendo training. There was a small Okonomiyaki bar in Hiroshima run by a young Japanese woman and her American (Seattle, I think it was) husband. He was very into Kendo, and was proud of doing it in Japan as a foreigner. He had photos of his shop and would brag about being a 3rd Dan, which I think he said was one of the highest ranks of any foreigner in Western Japan at the time. I have no real way of knowing whether that was true or not, but that’s what he’d say. He agreed to bring me along to his Kendo class and introduce me to his teacher, Fujiwara Sensei.

With Fujiwara Sensei

Lesson with Fujiwara Sensei

Fujiwara Sensei was a wonderful old (to a twenty-year old!) Japanese man who always had a huge smile floating across his face. He had a very soft, gentle manner and a kind way of speaking. For some reason he took a real liking to me and, in addition to selling me $1,300 of training gear for $300 and giving me a set of Hakama with both of our names embroidered in it, also refused to let me pay for lessons. This irritated the American guy who introduced me. Fujiwara Sensei had been his teacher for years, but he always had to pay for his lessons. I was unable to explain why Sensei seemed to like me so much. Maybe it was just because I was always so polite. I’d always greet him with the extra-polite, “O-kawari arimasen ka?” (“Has there been no change [in your health, etc.]?”) He’d always smile widely and say, “Hai, arimasen!” (“Yes, there hasn’t!”) My American friend was less than impressed. He’d pound the hell out of me when we were paired up in the Dojo and I would go home with headaches from getting hit on the head so hard repeatedly. I didn’t know what to do. I could not force Sensei to take the money. Out of desperation I would bring bags of fruit to the Dojo and force them on him. The Japanese students would laugh at this, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was never ranked in Kendo, although in addition to the regular Suburi and Randori training, Fujiwara Sensei also taught me 5 Bokuto Kata forms and 2 Shoto Kata forms. I seem to remember that these were for Shodan level, but my memory could be wrong on that.

Kenjutsu Lesson

As far as Karate ranking went, I went to Japan as a brown-belt. Kanao Sensei in Fukuyama wanted to promote me, but said that Chito Ryu had prohibited ranking of foreigners to Yudan grades (black belt grades) in Japan. Apparently some Japan-promoted foreigners had in the past gone back to their home countries and caused political problems by claiming their rank from Japan was worth more than a locally-given rank of the same degree. So I wasn’t promoted during my stay in Japan, but Kanao Sensei did teach me some very interesting Kata that made things interesting when I got back to Canada.

To be continued…

Basics & Fundamentals (4)

kumafrMay 8, 2010

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr

Seigan no Kamae by Chris Bernsdorf (Ger)

“Kamae is attitude” was written a few years ago, this is an updated version of it.

Budo Taijutsu begins with the study of “kamae” or body posture. This first introduction to budô gives us a strong physical foundation, which allow us to grasp the true essence of natural body movement. Unfortunately with time passing, we seem to forget the value of training the basics in general and particularly the body postures. In each Bujinkan Ryûha there is a set of given kamae that is called kurai-dori. If we translate “kurai” and then “dori” the meaning is “about grabbing” and it looks that it is dealing only with the physical aspect of fight. But a good dictionary tells you that “kuraidori” in one word means “positional notation”, like the digits after the comma. This induces precision and it translates by “precise notes for postures”. It is a lot different from kurai + dori !

Even though the Ten Chi Jin ryaku no maki has a basic set of 9 kamae, each particular ryû has differences which depend upon the time where the kamae were created, and the evolution of warfare they had to adapt to. How do you “Ukemi” (receive, dodge, absorb) a bullet? So kamae is not only physical, the mind gives also value to the posture. ”kamae” means posture or attitude, so apart from the “physical attitude” we now have to consider the “mental attitude”. This is why when teaching the basics we speak of “tai gamae” and “kokoro gamae“. The tai gamae is the body posture where the kokoro gamae is the mental attitude.

If we broaden this understanding it can be also understood as our “attitude in life”. Having good kamae in the dôjô is nice nut it is even better to have a good kamae in life. This is our human attitude that makes us different. Having a good technical ability is not enough and from my perspective too many do not have a good attitude in life as human beings. If you thoroughly study your kamae on the mats they will change your attitude in life. When sensei says that our goal “in the Bujinkan is to create better human beings” he means that the study of the tai gamae will change your kokoro gamae, not only in the dôjô but also in life. Even though there is no spiritual teaching in the Bujinkan, no link to any religion or mystical system, Hatsumi sensei has created and transmitted a powerful tool to help us become true human beings (bujin).

As always there is always more in the ura of things than the omote let you think there were.

Photon & Stardust: the Spirit of Movement

kumafrApril 27, 2010

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr

the essence of movement

Once again I would like to review a metaphore used by sensei not long ago. He spoke about “photon & stardust” to me, it is the best way to explain how things should happen in the dôjô.

From our perspective, a photon is invisible. Stardust in space is also invisiable to us. A photon is moving at the speed of light in space and stardust is moving also at a permanent speed. Now until they meet there is o way for you to see them. When they collide a spark of light is created. This spark is the movement/technique. Both the photon and the stardust become visible when the spark of light appears. Before the collision they “are non existent” (to our senses), after they are not existent any more. When you fight your opponent what happens is identical.

In ”l‘esprit du geste“* this is what I tried to explain. There is no thinking process, no intention, only a spark of light. In a fight, there is no technique there is only an opportunity of possibility. It is only a probability of occurrence. Adapt!

Chi does not think

Sui does not think

Ka does not think

Fû does not think

Kû does not think

So why do you think? the sixth element shiki (consciousness) appears, it is not the product of the analytical brain. It is given as everything in Nature, natural movement is only that.