Bujinkan Santa Monica

Tokyo Tachikawa, Cinema City / CINEMA TWO. photo by Dick Thomas Johnson If you have taken the Godan test this may sound familiar, if not you have something to look forward to. If you think you know this stuff already, I suggest you consider it again at a deeper level. These two lessons are: the meaning of training itself and embracing fear. I will explain what the Godan test teaches about these things, but first why do we need to be taught these lessons at all? The Godan test is an instant in time, but it echoes forward and backward. All the days leading up to that instant and all the training after. Which is longer? These two challenges will continue to confront us before and after. So what has changed? For the first lesson, let's look at a common problem for both pre and post Godan students: People lose their passion for training. If you have trained for a long time, you probably have achieved some of the goals you originally set out to achieve. Maybe one of those goals wa...

Ghost in the Rain, Hyodo Rinsei, The Sanyutei Encho Collection at Zensho-an I have been studying something in my training for 3 years. Ever since I witnessed Hatsumi Sensei show some henka during training that seemed to come from another place. But his explanation of the source was what was astonishing. It was a source of power that I had never considered in my training before. Despite what you read here on my blog, I am largely a practical, show me, kind of guy. I like to read and write about the mysterious, but in the end, If you don't get out of the way, you get hit. But Sensei made the mysterious real for me that day. To understand the source of what he was connecting to, I have been trying to connect to it myself for the last three years. And, as I have pointed out here, and in my 稽古記録 Keiko Kiroku training notes , I have had some success. Results which have astonished me. It is difficult to explain this source of power. Hatsumi Sensei has been explaining it for many...

Uto, Scenes from the Noh Theater, Tsuskioka Kogyo (1869-1927) A sudden change in the atmosphere. The kukan shifts. The air itself feels alive. Only to be shattered by the tip of the bo. This was the feeling I tried to communicate in one class. It was something I had experienced with Hatsumi Sensei and I wanted to share. But how to teach that? How does this occur in a technique? How does the body and weapon come alive in that instant? And to make it absolutely crass, what are the mechanics? In fact, the mechanics are super basic. Yet as with all basics, they quickly grow profound. We've been doing a lot of walking practice, or 足馴らし ashinarashi, in my classes recently. It's difficult to understand taijutsu without understanding this. Not just in our art.  Many disciplines start here, including Noh theater, The walk is so important in Noh dancing that the highest compliment that can be paid to a player is that his walking is good. - Carl Wolz, 1976 The experience I ha...

Blue Biker, Kyoto. photo by nWevurski Lately I've been studying Kukan no Kyūshō 空間の九勝 in my classes. When Hatsumi Sensei introduced this idea at the 2011 Daikomyosai, not many seemed to have heard of it before, but it made sense in the way elegant mathematics make sense. In other words it just felt right. But that doesn't mean I knew what to do with this feeling. I decided to look into what I felt and observed from Sensei's classes. What is a good way to study kukan no kyūshō? If you've been receiving my keiko kiroku training notes you have seen me describe various strategies for doing this. To get my mind around this concept and be able to use it in my taijutsu requires studying it from many angles. One idea we were working with the other night was a movement Soke described as 撚り型 yorigata. This involved spinning the sword through the kukan after twisting the body. The twisting action begins with with exposing your own 隙 suki to discover or open up suki on your...

Eastern Slope of Mount Fuji, photo by by ninja gecko I'm going to take a risk here. I'm going to risk trying to inspire you. The reason I want to take this risk is because I am inspired every day in my training and I want anyone who trains to find that for themselves. How do I get inspired? Remember what it felt like the FIRST time you trained? You were new and hopeful and open to try anything. As a new student your mind was just ready to open up. Almost every class with Hatsumi Sensei feels like that. At least for me it does. Is Bujinkan just a martial art? As a student I can tell you that it has given me a lot more than the study of combat. And as a teacher I work for moments of clarity in training that open the training up so that it is more than just a martial art and expands to reflect the lives of me and my students. If you don't believe this is possible in Bujinkan training, then why are you studying? You should answer that question. And the mystery to th...

Oguri Sensei's daughter writes:  Sayaka Oguri (via Facebook) "My father Koichi Oguri had a long long sleep..."  Thank you Oguri Sensei for your wonderful spirit and training. I will miss your infectious laugh, and the way you held your hand on your hip right after you put me in a body crunch. I also appreciate all the easy conversations we had. Even though the language barrier was awkward, you were never impatient with me. We will train hard for you tonight! If anyone has pictures or would like to share memories of Oguri Sensei, please comment below or email me: bujinkansantamonica@gmail.com You can read about one class I had with Oguri Sensei here: The Power of Juuji in Taijutsu, Discovered via Oguri Sensei

Monomania-Light and Its Grand Narrator, photo by DerrickT How do you train to be a ninja nightmare? I was attending a class with Hatsumi Sensei when he did something terrible to his uke. I mean it was so hideous and gross I don't want to repeat it here. Maybe later in this article I'll work up the nerve. Then he looked at the expressions of everyone watching and told us,  as if we just didn't get it... When you are dealing with bad people, you have to do worse than they'd expect. This idea gets to the heart of a big problem with training. We get too comfortable in our dojos and our knowledge. Training becomes habit. We lean on technique. We become reliable and complacent in our ability. Bad people, or desperate and crazy people willing to do bad things, are the opposite. They will go to any lengths. They will have no technique. They will do things that just don't make sense. That is hard to defend against. So we can take a lesson from them and drop the ...