Author: kumablog

Taijutsu is the “martial technique of the body”. The kanji for body (tai 体) is composed of two others Jin (human) is 人 and moku  本 (tree) i.e. nature but meaning also “true, real”. Therefore, Taijutsu can be seen as “the way to protect nature”; or “the way to become a true man”.

Last class Hatsumi sensei played with the meaning of two words “ikasu” and “kaitatsu“. Ikasu means “being stylish or smart” but written differently is “to keep alive, or to capitalize on experience”. But in sensei’s idea it was more like bringing something to life. As far as I understand, the technique does not matter and our kamae should appear by themselves without thinking. This is quite similar to the idea expressed in the Tao (chapter 38):

The Master does nothing,
yet he leaves nothing undone.
The ordinary man is always doing things,
yet many more are left to be done.

Our actions should be the ones of a master not of an ordinary man. By doing nothing we do not interfere with nature, and are able to seize the subtle information lying there for us in space. This is why sensei linked it to kaitatsu.

Sensei defined kaitatsu as some kind of “mysterious transmission of power”. But later he told me “imagination”. So kaitatsu is actually the ability to imagine new development in our action process based upon the information received by our senses. To receive this “power” (nothing mystical there), we have to develop the ikasu defined earlier.

We can understand this as follows: Life is meant to create not to destroy. As often with sôke the words he used are hiding many deeper meanings within them. Plato said that the “knowledge of words led to the knowledge of things”. This is exactly how sensei is teaching. Everything that he teaches has to be understood and assimilated at various levels. If we stay only at the omote level we train a nice martial art not so much different from the other gendai budô. Conversely, if we play with the sounds, the words and their roots (at the ura level) we enter a multiple entry system like a matrix that goes further, leaves the physical world, and give access to the philosophical world in which we will transform our vision of Life. Those changes and interpretations are infinite, they are like the cycle of life beginning with “A” and finishing with “UN”. The baby first sound and the dying man last. But this is also the Japanese pronunciation of the Indian “OM”. Everything is linked.

So if we are not meant to destroy but to preserve life why do we train budô? We train budô to understand death and by this understanding we come to the conclusion that killing has to be avoided. This is pure common sense. But in order to understand death we have to feel it and that is why the techniques we train at the dôjô can be so devastating. We do not injure our partners but we train in such a way that we are aware of the risks and therefore get to understand death. This whole thing about death is linked to kûkan. Kûkan is the “last frontier” where nothing more is manifested, this is the end of things. To get to kûkan we must go to our “last frontier” where nothing more exist, no waza no kankaku neither. Only then can we communicate death (kaitatsu). By knowing and understanding death we reach the level of kûkan. By being into the kûkan we can manifest it, by manifesting kûkan we manifest death, and we communicate it to the opponent who will stop his attack paralyzed by his own fears and tensions.

This is one way to understand the in-yo kyôjitsu that sensei introduced this year. To preserve life, you have to know death. By sending this death feeling to uke, he cannot attack anymore.

Ikasu unleashes kaitatsu and paradoxically our lethal power perceived by the attacker preserves his life. His life is in his hands, it’s his choice to live or die.

Kuki Taisho!

A short note about the word feeling (kankaku in japanese). If you split it in two and use kan (piercing through) and kaku (side). Kankaku can be understood as the way to make visible the invisible by going through the appearance of things.

(free interpretation of Sensei’s class on Friday).

Japan trip 41 update:

I am just coming back from a class with Senô sensei, it is always a fantastic moment of taijutsu. We did a lot of hanbô techniques as the hanbô is very similar in its use as the tachi. We finished with tachi techniques, mainly  mutô dori against tsuki.
A very rich class indeed, I wish we could have more classes with him.

When using a sword, we are often bothered by the sageo, this is the long flat rope made of silk, leather or cotton, hanging down from the kurigata (the little piece of wood on the scabbard through which the sageo is inserted).

Peace time samurai would use it as an adornment with a fancy way of knotting it onto the scabbard. Obviously they were not fighting anymore and had the time to spend making beautiful but useless knots. In traditional sword schools (from mid Tokugawa, Meiji and until today) there is a whole set of etiquette on how to fold, put it on or in wearing it; however this has nothing to do with its original use. On the contrary it looks to me that the modern Japanese had to find a way to put it into use because they had no clue about what to do with it.

The Bujinkan deals with the Muromachi period of warfare, and making knots was not a priority for these warriors. Sensei commented that the “real sword masters were the tachi masters and that those using a katana used it because they did not know how to use the tachi”. Even though it seems a little harsh, this is right, when you become aware of the power of the tachi you understand the devastating possibilities created and how it can benefit your fighting abilities. To get a clear image of tachi waza think about the military world of today. Military men carry the equipment they have to be more efficient, they don’t wear equipment to look good. In order to stay alive they “adapt” their gear to their body, and to the situation. This brings us to the conclusion that the sageo had to be useful in some way.

First the sageo is a rope and a rope is used to tie. Tachi kumiuchi implies the use of yoroi (Japanese armour) and the upper part of the yoroi is supported above the hip bone by a big large obi (belt). Remember that the yoroi is moving quite freely around the torso because when you ride a horse the cylinder of the dô has to be able to move up along the body. Actually there is a lot of free space between your flesh and the plates of the yoroi. This kûkan gives dynamics to the yoroi and permits to receive heavy blows while dissipating the power of the hit.

 This belt was thick and round to support the dô and had three major uses: 1) It positioned the dô above the joint of the hip to free the movements of the leg. Without it the dô would cover the hip bone and prevent the legs from moving. Try the yoroi without it and you will be stuck in your footwork. 2) The dô is made of a heavy metal plates that would crush down the sides of your hip bone and create a lot of pain. The belt cushions the weight of the dô onto the hips. 3) The belt would carry many weapons by sticking them to the body/yoroi for easy use.

Using the belt for carrying weapons however does not concern the tachi which was hanging down low on the thigh and not on the hip. A tachi is not a katana and the holster bears two strings separated by about the width of the hand to hold the scabbard of the tachi. In comparison the katana is held at the koiguchi (tip of the scabbard). The holster is continued by a long sageo tied around the body and/or the waist to keep the sword in place and allow easy drawing in any situation. The sageo is tied up in the same way you tie your hakama. You do not make knots but fold it half crossed until the final knot.

Actually the sageo is connecting the sword to the body making it a “natural” extension of it. In 1991, I remember that sensei taught me many ways of tying the sageo around the body and the waist in a nearby temple in Noda for the sake of taking pictures (all pictures came out blurred). I forgot all about it until recently when we began to study the tachi kumiuchi.

Tied up properly, the sageo is an important device when using the tachi as it keeps the blade from swaying away from your hands and body and keeps it always ready for drawing. In tachi waza, the tsuka goes to the hand by the momentum created by your footwork. You do not grab it because you don’t see it as your vision is impeded by the kabuto (helmet) and the mask. With the sageo your movements and your sheathed blade are connected at all times.

Last year, when we studied the nawa we learnt the concept of connection, that all our movements were connected like a rope and that our weapons should move like a rope.  During daikomyôsai, sensei insisted that we should not severe the connection with a) our environment, b) our opponent(s) and c) ourselves. That was “en no kirinai”.

Because the tachi is used katate (one hand) and because the movements are very similar to those of hanbô jutsu, we can manifest this connection with the tachi as we are able to change hand (right to left and left to right) many times during the fight to get uke’s balance. Uke is blinded by the multiple angles created and cannot interpret our moves and therefore cannot counter them. The quality of our connection to nature, is “dis-connecting” him from himself, uke is only able to react to our multiple moves until it is too late for him.

But the quality of this connection isn’t limited to the manifested level of things by is also deeply related to Life. Playing with Japanese language, as usual, we have to see the connection between “sageo” (sword knot) and “sagasu” (to seek, to look for). So we can “look for” a deeper understanding of it. At a more spiritual level we see that further to our connection to the weapon (physical world), all our actions are linked to nature, and to the kami (spiritual world).

We are able to use the kanjin kaname, the eyes and the heart of the gods in our actions and stay fully connected to the ten chi jin of nature. In a Bujinkan dôjô each class begins with the following uta (Japanese transmission of wisdom):

 Chi-Haya-Buru

Kami-no-Oshie-wa

Tokoshie-ni

Tadashiki-Kokoro

Mi-o-Mamoru-ran

In his book “Chi-haya-Buru, a Japanese cultural treasure”, Craig Olson explains the deep meaning of it. “The Japanese Uta”, he writes, are “originally a form of oral transmission, (…) [the] venerable ancestor to the Haiku, (…) a link back to the origins of Japan (…). (page 3). A few pages later, when explaining the second sentence meaning “the teachings of kami” he writes: “the implication is that there was a personal connection between the composer of this uta and the kami that was passing along valuable lessons”. (page 51).

What we see, what we perceive is not the full reality. The quality of our connection makes it possible to integrate unseen information in order to survive and to live fully. “Developing the ability to understand the nature of our interaction with things that we cannot see is vital to our survival” (page 61). Tachi kumiuchi is bringing us to this level of understanding sensei’s budô.

Tachi kumiuchi is the key to encompass nature in our movements and the proper use of the sageo is what is connecting us to this new dimension. Positioned at the hip level, the sageo links the upper part of the body to the lower part; the ten to the chi and allows us to be moving like a jin (kami?).

So why do we wear a sageo? to be connected, to become one, and finally to become zero.

In his book the « way of the ninja », sôke introduces the shintô concept of nakaima (the middle of now) that allows us to live a permanent present linked together with the immediate past and the coming future. Even if it looks similar to the “here and now” of Zen Buddhism, I consider it to be a concept much more powerful as it gives a clear image of the ever changing world in which we live.

Nevertheless it is also important, in my opinion, to learn the lessons of history; and Japanese warfare could not be understood without knowing the tipping point that is sengoku jidai (age of civil wars) in Japanese history. Sengoku jidai lasted from the mid 15^th century to the beginning of the 17^th century until the forced peace established by Ieyasu Nobunaga (1603).

This crucial period of Japanese history is when the tachi kumiuchi techniques were developed and used. What we are studying is the true essence of Japanese bugei. This is why it is so important. History is a cycle and the past can teach us lessons on what might happen next. By studying history, we learn how to avoid making the same mistakes again. When you look at how the Bujinkan is evolving these days I am surprised to see some similarities with the sengoku period. I am not known in the Bujinkan to be politically correct. Avoiding seeing what is happening is not changing the fact that it is happening, as using an umbrella under the rain is not changing the fact that it is raining!

Sengoku jidai is the general term used by historians for a period of history covering the mid Muromachi period (1333-1573)to the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573-1603); it was followed by the Edo period initiated by Tokugawa Ieyasu. The name sengoku jidai comes from the warring states period in China that led to the unification of the country. Before these troubled times Japan was struggling with a myriad of warlords more or less controlled by the Ashikaga Shogunate and the influence of the Hôjo clan. The Muromachi Bakufu of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1368 – 1408) lost gradually his influence over the outer regions to rising samurai families (ji-zamurai) who got enough power to control large provinces. At this point the Ashikaga Bakufu had no more control over the country. This is at this period that the head of these families began to be called daimyo. The daimyo were not loyal to the shogun anymore and the major ones were more interested in developing their own power than respecting the rules and values of the past.

I hope the Bujinkan will not have to go through such a period of chaos because unlike Japan it would not end in unification but to its destruction. The Bujinkan is rich of its “unified diversity”. As sensei put it out in February “everyone is giving back the movement or the technique shown, according to his/her personality. This is also rokkon shôjô”.

If you apply pressure to tomatoes you end up with ketchup but lose the taste of each individual fruit. This is what has happened in the 20^th century with gendai budô (modern martial arts), they lost their flavor to become a tasteless sport. I do not want the Bujinkan to become like that. Tensions create war and war is not wa (harmony), wa (peace after war) can be avoided if there is no war. We must do our best to avoid that.

They did not understand that in the 15^th century and there was war because of heavy tensions. Sengoku jidai began with the Ônin wars (1467-1477) from tensions fueled by deep economic problems and a dispute over shogunal succession. Nobunaga Oda, daimyo of the Owari province (Nagoya) decided to force the unification of the country spreading his control from his Azuchi castle base. A century and a half of upheaval ending with the creation of unified Japan began.

We can wonder if this would happen again and if some lessons can be learnt from the past. It is said that tigers are able to see the future. 2010 is the year of the tiger and when I look at the Bujinkan I have the feeling that big changes are coming.  Since I began training Bujinkan in the 1980s I have seen many changes and it is up to us to keep them positive in the future.

Nobunaga continued the conquest of the country and seized Kyoto in 1568 with his generals, Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Tokugawa Ieyasu to name a few. He changed the rules of war and adapted the traditional ways to modern warfare. At the battle of Nagashino (1575) he won by using the firearms imported by the Portuguese (who had landed in Kyushu in 1542).

The tachi kumiuchi that was used until the mid muromachi period disappeared gradually with the introduction of firearms by Nobunaga. As sensei said, it is important to know the evolution of warfare and to be aware of the transitions between those types of fighting. Samurai warfare began with the ken (the Chinese double edge sword); then tachi, then firearms; and then at the end katana (when peace was established). Speaking of today’s warfare, he added that by pushing a simple button we now have a bigger power of destruction. Warfare techniques evolve and take into account the technologies available. The permanent improvement of blades vs yoroi is an example of this permanent adaptative process.

Hatsumi sensei is not teaching us a set of techniques but a way to live a better life. By studying the fighting ways of the muromachi period we come to understand our life and learn how to live a happy future. This is rokkon shôjô.

 Nobunaga could not achieve unification. He was betrayed by Akechi Mitsuhide, one of his generals who killed him and seized the Azuchi castle. Akechi was immediately defeated by Hideyoshi Toyotomi who took control of the country and finalized the unification.

The “Azuchi Momoyama” period is named after the two castles of Nobunaga (Azuchi in Owari) and Hideyoshi (Momoyama in Fushimi).

The Bujinkan has become a big group over the last twenty years and I was lucky to witness its evolution. Sensei keeps telling us to work together and to be united but the more I travel the world, the more I see groups getting insular. I am aware that nothing can change that, but I cannot prevent myself from feeling bad to see such a beautiful jewel losing rapidly its glow. Adapting George Orwell’s sentence in “Animal farm” we can say that: “All shidôshi are equal, but some shidôshi are more equal than others”.

Sensei has established his Bujinkan on a “man-to-man” basis without creating any structured organization in order to give us a chance to be unified through friendship and not bureaucracy. The evolving Bujinkan outside of Japan sometimes forgets that. Unification can only happen within an open system based upon kokoro no budô and not by force or self interests.

The same happened to the dream of Nobunaga. Even though I do not think that Nobunaga’s idea was dictated by pure goodness!

Shortly after Hideyoshi achieved the unification by defeating the Hôjo clan in Odawara (1590), he died leaving the power to his young son. Before his death and in order to support his son while he was young, he created a council of 5 regents:  Maeda, Môri, Ukita, Uesugi and Tokugawa. This council ruling the country did not work well for long and more fights happened.

Accused of disloyalty, Tokugawa defeated the others at the battle of sekigahara, and took power. This battle is considered to be the last major battle of the sengoku period. He was then appointed seii taishogun three years later (1603). Two and a half century of Tokugawa shogunate followed, and it ended up with the Meiji restoration in 1868.

I sincerely hope that we will learn the lessons from the past and be more intelligent than our elders and keep the Bujinkan unified for a long period of time as sensei wishes us to do. The Bujinkan is the best thing that ever happened to me in this life and my encounter with sôke has transformed me into the man I am today. I wish that the future generations have the possibility to experience the same chance of personal growth through the study of the ways of the past.

History shows that power is mundane and that it lasts only for a short period of time. “All that glitters is not gold” says the adage, ranks and supposed power are only an illusion. The Bujinkan should stay “one in its multiplicity” and continue his growth as a “Life teaching system” the way it has been designed by Takamatsu sensei and Hatsumi sensei. What really matters is to live a happy life connected with our peers to become a true knight with high values, a Bujin.

Sengoku jidai has been a “tipping point” in Japanese history, we have to hope that the Bujinkan does not reach its “tripping point” in the future. Losing the Bujinkan would be a loss for mankind.

Rokkon shôjô!

Sunday – Honbu dôjô – April 4th

Each Japan trip, the first class with sensei is always some kind of event and this Sunday was not different. He began by a long speech about chivalry playing with the meanings of kan – kanroku (dignity, presence) and kanpeki (perfection) which I found interesting after what we said about perfection in the last post.

Even if the “path of perfection is as important as the path of failure” (HS – March) our attitude has to be the one of a knight (kishi) focusing on his goals even at the risk of his own life.

Yesterday, sensei reminded us that Japanese words always have several interpretations, so we might see here a link with the “ku-kishi(n)” and become a knight without intention. As he said, “tori has to become transcendent, clear because this is the way of rokkon shôjô. (…) We should be able to have the creativity of a music composer and do techniques sometimes with a touch of humor, with a smile” (HS – March). But the technical aspect of our actions is not important, what matters is the result in becoming a true knight, a true human being.

To develop this chivalry (kishidô) attitude is a long process and many practitioners are not close to achieve it, but it goes here as well as with everything, perfection takes time and a lot of work. You can move the needles of your watch forward (technique) but this will not change the time passing (feeling). Kanpeki (perfection) is a long process requiring patience and commitment.

In India it is said that an elephant knows the time of his death. Death is the inevitable end of life and we must be aware that it is coming at one point. As sensei said yesterday we have to understand that what we learn in the dôjô is the link between life and death. A real knight should not be afraid of death as it is the logical end of the path. In March he said that: “”If you can smile in the face of your enemy you are a real master – if your enemy dies with a smile in his face – thats rokkon shôjô“.

Even though it sounds a little serious, we have to keep this ability to laugh in any situation and face the consequences of our actions without having any second thought. I often tell my students to be “face value” and responsible of their actions. Whatever we do in life is interfering with others and we should act properly. What we are learning through budô is a way of Life not a set of techniques. The techniques are the excuse to help find the solution to the questions we have. By training death techniques we learn how to become more human and to be alive. Every action bears some kind of knowledge and even if our experiences are not nice to live we have to learn from them this is the true meaning of “shikin haramitsu daikomyô”. Through permanent training in the form we discover that whatever we experience is positive at some point.

This is always a win win situation.

By understanding the values of chivalry, by becoming a knight we accept death and laugh at it like a real master. This is what the Bujinkan is all about.

By the way, did you notice that kishidô includes shidô, “samurai code” or “chivalry”? One of the meanings of shi being death therefore a shidôshi can be seen as a human who died to himself to become a perfect knight, i.e. a bujin, a military spirit connected to his environment.

So are you a true shidôshi?