Bujinkan Santa Monica

柴又八幡神社 Shibamata Hachiman Jinja, photo Michael Glenn In the past few years, Hatsumi Sensei has been exploring more than one theme every year. And some of the Bujinkan yearly themes have actually stretched across more than one year. For example, one Bujinkan theme this year of “skipping stones” I first heard from Hatsumi Sensei during one class back in September of 2014: The 間 Aida of Skipping a Stone Across Water Another Bujinkan theme that Hatsumi Sensei has been expressing the last few years is the use of 呼吸 kokyuu (the breath), 指 yubi (the fingers), and 目 me (the eyes). These three are not to be taken individually. They must be connected in the same way that the ripples on a pond are connected by the stone that skipped across it. In one cold December class Hatsumi Sensei described this for us, "(the eyes and the breath are) connected like skipping a stone. It’s connected together but really you disappear. Take the eyes and the fingers for jissen. In a real situation y...

a rare empty hall in Ameya-Yokochō, photo by Michael Glenn I've been writing lots of articles for my personal Bujinkan mailing list which you can sign up for here: Bujinkan Training Notes The other day I wrote about something very important in our Bujinkan training. It starts with a question that everyone forgets to ask: Who is it that fights? When you are in a fight or an argument, who does the fighting? Is it you? Your opponent? Does it just happen by itself? Obviously any fight requires at least two participants. Unless you are fighting with yourself. But in that case there are still two because you are divided against yourself. What if you didn't participate? Remove yourself from the fight. What happens? The fight dissolves. Almost as if it was never real. Leave the opponent to fight with himself. In a recent class with Hatsumi Sensei, he told us how NOT to avoid a sword, "If you evade, you will die. Move without any intention to fight. Make the o...