I was speaking the other day with a young teacher, student of mine and I was happy to hear that “kamae and ukemi” were the key to understand the whole Bujinkan taijutsu“.
For this teacher, this was like a revelation! Sometimes in our lives we find a book that opens up a total new perspective of life. This comment to me is of the same quality. After training for many years and thinking that you know your basics, you become suddenlyaware of a different quality in your basics. As Durckheim wrote one day: “the quality of the depth depends upon the depth of the quality”.
By repeating and teaching those basics (here kamae and ukemi), one day you cross an invisible border deepening your understanding of the whole picture.
The foundations of taijutsu lie in the permanent polishing of your basics this is why they are so important. Whatever your rank, training and teaching those basics is the key to generate new freedom in your own movements and reach this natural movement that sensei refers to.
Each class, whether you are a beginner or not (this includes also the high ranks) should “generate” this new depth in your understanding.
I always push my students to open their own dôjô to give them a chance to get to this “enlightenment” more rapidly.
One day I remember sensei telling me: “arnaud you have to teach what you have to teach, and you have to train what you have to train”. It took me along time to understand this Bujinkan koan. Today my feeling is that through the teaching of your students, you are actually teaching yourself more intensely that if you were attending a class. The teaching process forces you to find solutions to problems you never suspected before because each one follows different mental patterns.
To use a metaphore, I would say that you understand the plate in which you are serving the food. The student is mainly interested in learning as many techniques as possible, and as a teacher you supply them endlessly. At one point though, you begin to consider the plate itself (the support) without which the food could not be served. This plate, this support in the Bujinkan are your basics;
Remember that a teacher is only an old student, even if too often high ranks tend to forget it. When in Japan, my mindset is the one of a true student and I make the same mistakes as everyone during sensei‘s and the shihan classes. But this is how we get a chance to evolve, and we have to create this chance as often as possible. Now what gives us access to this are the strong basics we keep training and teaching in the dôjô.
Natural movement cannot be attained without a permanent study of the basics. And these basics well understood will, one day, unveil a new reality. In a way this is exactly the process detailed in the shu ha ri (see previous posts).
So, next time you come to teach or to train in your dôjô and once the class is over, please ask yourself:
“what did I generate today?”
Shiro Kuma 