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Yûro Shi Tennô Taikai July (reminder)

From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

Yûro Shi Tennô Arnaud

Reminder:

Organizing a Taikai such as this one is always a lot of work for the Taikai Team. Last year many of you didn’t register early enough and we had to cope with some problems concerning the food and the t-shirt.

If you know you are attending then please register as fast as possible and do not forget to tick the boxes for:

  • food type
  • t-shirt size
  • rank family
  • length of stay
  • day of arrival

    • This will help us a lot and save you a lot of money. The sooner you register the cheaper you pay!

    So please register online so that we can order the food and t-shirt accordingly.

    Thank you for your help.

    YSST team 2010


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    Basics & Fundamentals (part 3)

    From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

    Why is the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki so important?
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    Until 1990, we had very little knowledge about the schools and the weapons. Remember that we really began the weapons in 1993 with the bô and the study of the schools only in 1998! From the beginning of the Bujinkan (and more precisely when the Togakure Ryû Ninpô Taijutsu was published in 1983) the basics were transmittedthrough the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki. Each student at that time was studying the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki to improve his fundamentals. The Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki was the basic program to reach the black belt. The spreading of the Bujinkan over the last twenty years has abandoned the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki and it has been often discarded by the new generation of teachers.
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    What is a Bujinkan black belt?
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    A Bujinkan black belt is someone who knows the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki so well that every technique demonstrated looks like a patchwork of elemental bricks taken from the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki. Too often students receive a black belt without the knowledge of the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki and this lack in their practice leads to big flaws in their movements. In 2009 I gave a 5-day seminar on the full Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki in India. When the Indian group went to Daikomyô Sai last December they told their teachers that they could see every component of the techniques taught by sensei and the shihan and recognize the strength of the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki.
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    Are you a Bujinkan black belt?
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    Then you must know “by heart” the ten and the chi and be familiar enough with the jin. Without this basic knowledge you will not be able to go far within the Bujinkan system. The heart of “kokoro no budô” is the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki. Learn it, study it and you will see your technical level excel and reach a new understanding. Without studying the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki attending seminars is a loss of time. It is like watching a movie of which you are not part of. Learn the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki and become the actor your own life instead of being a passive observer!
    Ryaku in Japanese means “principle” but also “truth”. Learn the truth of things and you will become a true human being able to link the sky and the earth; able to be one with nature. :)

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    Basics & Fundamentals (part 2)

    From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

    What does the Ten Chi Jin imply?

    The Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki is based on the three levels of life: heaven, earth and man. Man is the link between earth and heaven or between outer space and the planet. The old Chinese pictogram is a drawing representing two opposite half circles linked by a cross. The pictogram displays symbolically a human body with his legs on the earth supporting the sky with his arms, and mixing these two influences within his body.
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    What are the different parts of the Ten Chi Jin?

    The Ten Ryaku deals with footwork, distances and angles; this is the vertical line in the pictogram. The Chi Ryaku deals with the bio-mechanical aspects of the different waza that can be applied once uke has reached tori (gyaku, nage, torite). This is the horizontal line. The Jin Ryaku is a series of about 50 waza taken from the nine schools to show the interaction of the waza and the footwork. This is the point where the vertical and horizontal line cross each other.
    The Jin Ryaku has nothing to do with the schools. The waza taken from the schools are often quite different from the waza included in a certain level of a school. They are used as examples to manifest the interaction of body movement and creativity.
    This is why they can be trained on both the left and right side and why they do not imply the use of weapons.
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    To be continued…

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    Why “Yûro Shi Tennô Taikai”?

    From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

    Last August when I brought Hatsumi sensei some pictures of the Taikai in Paris decided to change its name and to call it the “Yûro Shi Tennô Taikai“. When I asked him the reason for that he said this was a pun between “Europa”  [yuropa] and the  Japanese word “Yûro”. Yûro means something like the “path to bravery”.

    So we invite you to join us in this eighth “path of bravery spreading everywhere all over Europe!”  More than 15 countries are expected to come! Come to Paris and build up your memory.

    Shi Tennô is the nickname that sensei gave us back in the nineties as the four of us were spreading the Bujinkan system all over Europe. If the original meaning is the “four emperors”, it is in fact the name given to the four Chinese spirits of the four directions: North, South, East and West. Nothing glorious there.

    But because Kano sensei, the founder of jûdô, nicknamed his four students spreading the kodôkan jûdô over the world by the name of “shi tennô“, Hatsumi sensei decided to do the same. Unfortunately this name has nothing to do with our martial skills. :)

    Taikai means big seminar and this one is definitely a big one. This is one of the last 3 day seminar that we have after the end of the Taikai directed by sensei. If my friends and I have decided to organize it in the past it was because we were missing those taikai with sensei in Europe and in the USA. Those Taikai with sensei that we have organized between 1987 and 2002 were always a fantastic moment of friendship and budô. This Yûro Shi Tennô Taikai is following the same tracks and this is why, each year, we have more and more success.

    Over the last five years, the success of this event has been increasing so much that we had to limit the number of participants. For those of you training in the Bujinkan and who didn’t get the chance to train in Japan this year, this Taikai is your chance as each one of the instructor in this seminar has been staying in Japan one, twice or three times since last November.

    As sensei was saying at the honbu recently: “only those who  train regularly in Japan with me have a chance to get what I am showing”. This is your chance to get your update.

    See you there with a smile on your face.

    Online prebooking


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    Basics & Fundamentals (part 1)

    From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

    The Ten Chi Jin from 1987

    During my last seminar in Chemnitz, I was asked to explain to the group the Bujinkan system. It was a discovery for many students so I decided to share here in this blog the importance of the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki.

    The first thing you have to get clearly is that the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki is the best system ever created to give a martial artist a chance to develop his creativity. This is the kaitatsu explained by sensei recently.
    Too often the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki is underestimated by the teacher more inclined to dwell on the rich legacy of the nine schools. This is a major mistake as without the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki no student can really grasp the essence of sensei’s teachings.
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    What is the Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki?

    It is a program put out by sensei in the eighties as a common basic program for the beginners. The first “official” edition was published in Japanese back in 1983 under the title “Togakure Ryû Ninpô Taijutsu”. Divided into three parts which are Ten, Chi, and Jin, it presented in a certain order the elemental bricks necessary to study the nine schools and their specificities. After a few years of practice, it had been reviewed and modified to be even more practical. In 1987, we received from Japan, the first English version of this new system. The majority of the techniques were the same, but the repartition had been changed to facilitate the learning. The first published versions of this new Ten Chi Jin Ryaku no Maki (TCJ2) were done in 1991 by Pedro Fleitas in Spanish and by Mariette Van der Vliet in English. The French Protek was published by me in 1998. An adapted version in German by Steffen Frohlich was also released during the same period.  Many other incomplete and transformed versions were published subsequently.
    To be continued…

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    Basics

    From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumablog

    Since Solkan Europe has released  many new products in the last six months I feel that I should elaborate on our products and answer the many queries that I have received  at  www.budomart.com.

    Our partner www.koimartialart.com has edited and released all our new DVD products.

    Solkan Europe released the DVD ”jin ryaku no maki volume 1″ long time ago and many wanted to know when part 2 would be available. Last July with our partner www.koimartialart.com we did it. This is a DVD dedicated to the intermediate and advanced student.

    Then in October 2010  we had a 5 days seminar covering all the Ten Chi Jin ryaku no maki. As you know the ten chi jin is the basic program of the bujinkan that each student must know in order to get to the black belt. From this we did for christmas a set of 3 DVDs entitled: Ten ryaku no maki 2010, Chi ryaku no maki 2010, and Jin ryaku no maki 2010. These DVDs are intented to the young black belt (or soon to be) as a means to review the basics and fundamentals of the Bujinkan. They show all the techniques of the three levels but do not dwell too much into the explanations. The jin part of the ten chi jin set  is a totally new version (more basic) different from the other 2 DVDs jin ryaku volume 1 & 2.

    In March we released, from the same footage, the Ten ryaku Extended version (4 DVDs) and the Chi ryaku  Extended version (3 DVDs) as we figured out that we had more than 30 hours of explanations! These two sets are intented to the non black belt and complete the teachings received in the dôjô.

    A few weeks later, we released the Bujinkan Kyû Program (BKP) which is using still the same footage. Each DVD box contains a mix of the ten chi jin techniques required for each kyû and presented each in a 2 DVD box. So far, the 9th kyû, 8th kyû, 7th kyû, and the 6th kyû are available on www.budomart.com.

     Next month we will release the remaining kyû grades (5th kyû to 1st kyû) that will complete the whole series with the rest of the taijutsu techniques and the weapon basics. Last February we recorded a 4 day seminar covering the basics of all the major weapons: tantô, kunai, shotô, hanbô, jo, biken, bô, yari, and naginata.

    The complete syllabus detailed in the three books of the memento (beginner – vol. 1, intermediate – vol. 2, advanced – vol. 3) includes all the taijutsu techniques from the ten chi jin plus the basics of the small, medium size ang long weapons.

    The buki waza sets (small, medium and long) will also be available  soon (May or June) and sold separately for the teachers. Unlike the techniques demonstrated in the BKP (5th kyû to 1st kyû) many weapons include also the kaeshi waza (counter techniques) that give a deeper understanding to the study of weapons. This is the first time these techniques are demonstrated on a DVD! The buki waza sets are dedicated to the confirmed black belts (to this date, the editing being in process we do not know yet if each set will include 2, 3 or 4 DVDs).

    In order to make this whole explanation easy to understand:

    Kyû: BKP from 9th kyû to 1st kyû in 2 DVDs, covering the whole ten chi jin and the buki waza.

    Young black belt and shidôshi: the Ten Ryaku no Maki  Extended (4 DVDs), the Chi Ryaku no Maki Extended (3 DVDs), the Jin Ryaku no Maki (vol. 1 & 2 – 2 dvds).

    Confirmed shidôshi: the ten chi jin 2010 set (3 DVDs), and the 3 buki waza sets (small, medium, long).


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