Month: August 2010

The quality of our taijutsu depends on strong foundations. But what does taijutsu and foundation really mean?

Taijutsu is often understood as the sole body movement but when you are used to Hatsumi sensei’s vision of life it is always interesting to dig a little deeper and see what the word(s) really encompass it is necessary to review the various writings and meanings of the words.

First 術 jutsu is either art, means, or technique as we know but this is with the various meanings of tai that we have subtle changes in the understanding of the word taijutsu. But when you look at the three meaning of “tai” you discover that they can be applied to your training.

体, tai has 3 main meanings: 1: body; physique; posture. 2: shape; form; style. 3: substance; identity; reality. Taijutsu is a jutsu done with the body that goes from the pure omote (body) to enter the world of ura (reality). This is integrating the taigamae (体構え) and the kokorogamae (心構え). This is a self centered taijutsu.

対, this other tai expands our understanding of taijutsu by precising that it is also: 1: opposite; opposition. 2: versus; vs. 3: equal footing; equal terms. 4: against …; anti-. This new taijutsu is expanding and adds the idea of fighting the enemy and to balance the forces of the opponent. Now we are into the man to man fight.

隊, this last one means: party; company; body (of troops); or corps. Now taijutsu expands again and includes the idea of army fighting and to interact with our friends and our enemies.

The interesting thing here is that by digging through the various understanding of “tai” we moved from the apprentice training where we are alone; to the encounter with a single opponent; to the battlefield feeling. So taijutsu a general system to prepare our bodies and mind to go from the beginner to the advanced level.

Our foundations are based on the quality of the basics that we learn alone and then with a partner through years of training. Taijutsu help us to grow from the omote to finally reach the essence of the ura. In Japanese 大本 is the kanji for foundation. It reads either “taihon” (taihen?) or “ômote” (omote?). Maybe this is how we must understand sensei when he speaks of 実践 jissen (practice; practise; put into practice) and 実戦 jissen (combat; actual fighting).

On a practical aspect we have to keep in mind what sensei has repeated many times concerning the densho. “densho are for kids (beginners)” as techniques have to be taught step by step. Historically the young samurai would begin his warrior training at  around 10 years of age and at 15 years of age would become an adult and be allowed to go to the battlefield. In fact, the 15 ranks in the bujinkan were created by sensei also to symbolize this. When you begin you are a beginner and then after many years you reach adulthood and become responsible of your own actions, you are jûgodan. But without good basics your taijutsu will lack credibility. Therefore our training in the three tai defined earlier will guide us in our mastering of taijutsu. We will move gradually from taijutsu (体術) to taijutsu (隊術) which included the use of yoroi and weapons. The first tai (body) is the modern translation for the word but in the past tai encompassed also the mind, the weapons and the yoroi. If you think about it, it is quite logical. As we said earlier, young samurai (mostly kids) were not able to understand the subtleties of high level techniques including weapons. So in order to keep it K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple & Stupid) the trainers striped the techniques off the weapons and began to teach unarmed combat only. This is why we begin our training with unarmed combat. On the battlefield warriors would always carry weapons and unarmed combat would be rarely used.

The foundation of our taijutsu is a set of basics acquired in unarmed combat and regrouped by sensei in the tenchijin ryaku no maki in 1983. Once mastered, unarmed taijutsu is completed with all the usual weapons of the samurai and the yoroi to create a natural flow of movement.

This is why taijutsu (体術) is the true foundation of taijutsu (隊術).

The moment of the choice in the Matrix movie

HERE

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!

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.

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).

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…