Month: February 2013

Today one if my close student has been promoted to Jûdan by Hatsumi sensei. Cédric (left on the picture) has been training for many years with me and has a very nice Dôjô near Paris.

It is always a very special moment for a teacher when one of his or her student is reaching this high rank.

The Jûdan rank is the first one of the high ranks, as you know the ranks above are all “jûdan plus an element”.

We call them 11th, 12th ,13th,etc because it is easier to call them with numbers. But do you know that the real names for these ranks are linked to the five elements?

The so-called “jûichi dan” is in fact a “jûdan chigyô Happô biken” where “chigyô” is the border at the limit of Chi and sui. And this goes like that until the last rank: suigyô, kagyô, fûgyô, kûgyô.

To make it simple the ranking system can be divided as follow:

Beginner to ikkyû is like kindergarten.
Shodan to Yondan is like elementary school
Rokudan to Kyûdan is like secondary school
Jûdan to “Jûgodan” is like University.

Do you remember the first day you entered university and the way you felt? The world was yours wasn’t it?

Then when you began to study for real, you increased your knowledge dramatically. The Bujinkan system is exactly the same.

Your growing understanding of the art transforms you and prepares you gradually to be living on your own.

In fact the last Bujinkan rank is like a diploma of Engineer or Doctor.

But like in real life, when you “graduate” from the Bujinkan University, you have only acquired the theoretical knowledge and you have no real life experience. The real work can then begin.

The Jûdan is the first step to become a true practitioner.
Good luck Cédric on this new path. And remember that I’m here if you need help or advice.

The Bujinkan is growing in quantity but it seems to me that some of its original qualities tend to disappear. And 尊敬心 sonkeishin (respect) seems to be the first one on the list of endangered qualities.

I train Bujinkan because I deeply respect our Sôke Hatsumi Masaaki. The respect I feel for him has nothing to do with the arts he is teaching or showing us but with the man he his. I have been in contact with a few “great men” in my life but none, so far, has been able to mould me and influence me the way he did. I am who I am because  I had the privilege to meet Sensei in July 1987 at the first European Taikai organized by Peter.

That was nearly 25 years ago (more than half my age) and through Hatsumi sensei’s permanent teachings (martial and non martial) I was trained to become a true human being.

The Bujinkan Arts  mainly develop one feeling and this is intuition. The Sakki test is the pragmatic proof that one has reached this level of intuition.

In Latin, “intuition” is “intuitus” and means the “act of looking at things”. Our Bujinkan training develops our “vision” and we gradually become able to see or “sense” any situation better than many others. The sixth sense is common to all living creature but is rarely accessible to humans. Luckily, the long hours of strenuous training unearth it from within our brain and makes it available to us. Through Hatsumi sensei’s teachings we learn to become more intuitive, i.e. aware of things without apparently thinking. “Don’t think!” as he often say it in class.

Intuition is also 感覚 kankaku in Japanese and means “feeling”. The more we “feel” (through our 5 senses) and the more we develop our sixth sense.

Now funnily, the word 尊敬心 sonkeishin (respect) is somehow linked to the way at which we look at things. But as “kankaku” exists only in the present, “sonkeishin” is linked to the past.

To respect someone is to look at someone’s actions in the past. The Online Etymology Dictionary says it comes “from Latin respectus “regard,” literally “act of looking back at one,” pp. of respicere “look back at, regard, consider”.

What someone has achieved in his life is what creates respect. But the Bujinkan growing in quantity I have the intuition that less respect is shown to the elders. Remember that you are who you are because these elders made it possible for you. Look at how Sensei speaks about Takamatsu sensei. This is how you should feel about those who shared with you what you are so proud to have today. Getting a Jûgodan doesn’t free yourself from sonkeishin, on the contrary.

With time some arguments, disagreements, and fights might appear with your elders, but you should never show a lack of sonkeishin to them.

If you do so then 尊敬心 sonkeishin (respect) will turn into 損敬神 sonkeishi (loss of reverence) and the Bujinkan magic will be lost.

Thank you Sensei for your guidance all through these years, and for your help to become an adult.

Respectfully, your student Arnaud

CONGRATULATIONS! You did it!

After 5 years (plus one week) you have visited this blog over 250,000 times!

It is a quarter of a million! and represents 50,000 visits per year. This is something we can proud of. Thank you!

During all these years I tried to deliver, through my articles, my feelings about the Bujinkan and all the “secrets” I could get from Hatsumi sensei’s teachings.

I have the chance to go to Japan three times a year I created this blog primarily to help those of you who cannot travel to Noda as often as you would like, so that through these articles you could get a glimpse of what sensei is teaching in his classes.

Even if this is my interpretation, I will continue as I have the feeling that it is helping many Bujinkan members.

This blog is now available in 4 languages and I want to thank here the translators. First of all is my friend Elias who has been doing that for a long time and who is the first one to translate the articles. And also Christophe and Raphael who began to translate them too. Thank you guys I deeply appreciate your help.

Now I have a message for you the reader. Many of your buyû are not able to read English so why don’t you volunteer and translate them into your own language? Send them to me and put them also on your own website. There is nothing to gain here except maybe the pleasure to do something useful for our warrior community.

Contact me if you want to be part of it and help us build a stronger Bujinkan. Remember that information is power.

Thank you again “merci beaucoup” for your endless support.

Arnaud Cousergue

Bujinkan Shihan

Since sensei had been giving a training theme per year, I did my best since that time to do my “homework” before going to Japan for my first trip of the year. This year of the snake is not different. This is why I write a lot about the Chinese Ken. I write mainly to force myself to understand. I write to jeep track of what I find. It what find can help anyone then it is even better. Today, I was supposed to teach bô jutsu in Dortmund but Nona and her students “forced” me to give a Ken seminar instead. So I tried to share my discoveries with them and it was nice.

I might be wrong with my findings but the movements we a were doing with the Ken made sense and they worked quite well.

Some asked me how I researched and found these movement of the Ken?

So here after is my modus operandi: First: the Ken being Chinese I read and watched a lot about China’s warring states and the consecutive dynasties. Why? Because History is the origin of the development of specific weapons.

Second: I trained and studied the basic movements possible with a Ken. Why? To understand the balance of the weapon, the limits, and the possibilities.

Third: I established a set of possible kamae (there are no kamae) to start from. Why? Because a movement is the result of an encounter. It is created for a reason and to keep us alive.

Fourth: I satisfied the various possible grips and their possible use. Why? Because each weapon respects its own rules. No wonder that sensei is teaching the Ken only now because I don’t think we would have been able to understand its power if we hadn’t study the major Japanese of the Bujinkan.

Fifth: I studied how to apply the Kukishin and Togakure sets of biken jutsu with the Ken. Why? Because those techniques evolved from the Ken. The Ken created the Tachi, that created the katana. There is a timeline and we have to respect it.

Sixth: I applied basic Taijutsu movements with the Ken mainly Sanshin no Kata and Kihon Happô. Why? Because it is always easier to learn a new logic when everything else is already known.*

Seven: I “invented” sets of movements, looking very Chinese, to free the body from the weapon. Why? Repeating sets of movements is the best way for the body to discover its new balance and correct its mistakes. This type of study is always done slowly to give a chance to the body to adjust itself with the brain.

Do your homework; follow these steps if you wish, and you will be ready and get the best out of your next trip to Japan.

* sensei said recently that the Sanshin no Kata was designed at the origin for the Chinese Ken.