Bujinkan Santa Monica

Yoyogi kōen Sword Fighting, Tokyo. photo by Colin McMillen We had been training with tachi all day. Then I shifted the focus of the class to katana. One of the newer students had not really done much Bujinkan sword prior to that day. So he continued to draw the katana with the same method as I had shown him earlier with tachi. When I noticed him doing this I gave him another quick sword drawing lesson. I didn't want to slow the whole class down to teach him all of the necessary basics. But as I looked over at him, he would have his sword upside down in his belt. It was amusing because he would try to emulate the kata I had shown the class, and every time he cut with his sword he was hitting with the back of the blade. He would then glare at his sword as if it was broken. I told him he was unlucky to have a "backwards" sword. But he isn't the first student to have his sword wrong way around. Many of us have done this at some point in our training careers. So i...

Ouch! photo by Harry Sherman There is a certain type of student in the martial arts and the Bujinkan who is like 餓鬼 gaki. A gaki in Japanese is the spirit of a jealous or greedy person who, as punishment for mortal vices, has been cursed with an insatiable hunger or thirst. No matter how much it consumes, it cannot be sated. Gaki is also a slang word for bratty kids. Could you be a gaki? Would you even know if you were this type of student? And if you are, how can you leave behind this cycle? Sometimes we focus on the wrong things in training. It's easy to get lost in the details. Where did Sensei put his feet? Which hand did he strike with? What are the steps of this kata? After asking these questions we are still no closer to understanding what was taught. Then we try to mimic the teacher and cannot. Or we do mimic but don't get the results. This becomes frustrating for many. Some give up and quit. Some even adopt a strange strategy of trying to mimic the teacher when he ...

Ghostly photo by didbygraham When I was studying the Bisento kata 魅剣 Miken, or bewitching blade, I wanted to understand what would make the blade bewitching. I know the movement is meant to confuse the opponent with kyojitsu, but what I found in my study takes this "bewitching" to another level. Often in our Bujinkan training we encounter supernatural ideas. They are woven in the fabric of our art and in Japanese legend. This is an aspect to training that makes the art so mysterious and fascinating. Mystery brings another level of power to the art and to stories of the Ninja. The challenging thing for pragmatic martial artists is to connect the myth to something that can be used in battle. I personally am not a pragmatist in these things. I am an artist by profession and it is natural for me to accept mysterious ideas and inspiration in my training. What really stops my mind cold is when I glimpse the supernatural at work in the pragmatic. With Miken, Hatsumi Soke says th...

Tokyo Love Hotel Menu Board, photo by fletchy182 One day I was in Japan being my normal  yabanna gaijin (dangerous, socially unaware, foreigner) self, when I stumbled into a funny but embarrassing situation. I had travelled to Japan with an old friend who was not into training and was here on his first trip. We were wandering all over exploring the city like bad tourists. While walking we encountered one of the themed "love hotels" that are common in some areas. He had never seen one, so I thought I would show him the menu board. Inside the lobby of this style of hotel there is often a menu board of themed rooms. It shows pictures of the rooms with options like the Cleopatra Love Suite, UFO with a bed shaped like a saucer and stars painted on the ceiling, or just straight up Hello Kitty S&M Room with lots of hearts and pinkness. Next to the picture is a price and button that you press to book the room. Suddenly we heard a yelp from the woman sitting behind a small...

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...