Bujinkan Santa Monica

Santa Claus in 浦和 Urawa, photo Michael Glenn Dear Santa, I've been a good Ninja. I don’t bite my nails. I won't ask you for much, but I just want to see if these letters work. Some other Ninjas are getting smarter people to write their letters, but I write my own. This year I trained really hard, so I want a grappling hook and a ninja-to and an axe but my mother said that I have to stop throwing rocks and fighting. Please bring us a new Hombu Dojo, or keep the old one standing. I would like a throwing star and some nice things to eat. I am very fond of pie. Please bring a smoke bomb. Uncle Wade said that he would make one but he has not done it yet and I don't believe he will I want a bank that you can't open so mama won't spend my money. AND I was very good and went to train in Japan three times this year, so Please don't put my axe in my stocking for you might stretch it. Bring my little brother Andrew something or else he'll pun...

Hatsumi Sensei gets into Michael Glenn's head. photo by @ seanbonner Last week in class with Hatsumi Sensei, he remarked that this year's theme is really hard. What he meant was not that it was particularly hard for him, but that it seemed hard for all of us to understand it. During all my classes with him this year, he has provided glimpses, feelings, and filled me with images of what he is leading us to in training. I think this type of imagery is the point in itself and a strategy for fighting. For many years, Soke has been advising us to move beyond common sense and technique. To do things that can't be understood. Because this type of fighting cannot be countered. It is a very Ninja strategy. So I was watching him get his ukes to jump this way and that around the hombu tatami. They were filled with pain, but also great mental confusion. In most cases they appeared to be fighting themselves. How do you get opponents to fight themselves? To do the work for you so...

無 mu near Kitasenju, photo by Michael Glenn My classes with Hatsumi Sensei for the last week have had an intense energy. Not because he is more intense than usual. His training is of a high level and never fails to surprise. But the intensity comes in the form of my own resistance to what he is sharing. He has been really emphasizing the 無 mu in muto dori. As some of you may know, muto dori has been a strong theme throughout training this year. After my other visits to Japan this year, I studied this from the feelings he gave us. But the difficulty for me now is that when he embodies mu, I get nothing. He is not presenting any feeling that I can key in on. This is instructive yet difficult to parse. It cannot be broken down for study. Soke is removing himself from the equation. He doesn't exist so he cannot be hit. But he seems to be doing this on a personal level too. Sensei made a very intricate and intense painting of a lion. He was asked, how long did it take? He said, ...

Michael Glenn being a good tourist, Bujinkan Hombu Dojo I am preparing for my third trip to Japan this year. In my preparations I came across some old notes from another trip I made many years ago. Before one class I had with Oguri Sensei , I encountered a common attitude among visitors to the Bujinkan Hombu Dojo. The Ninja Tourists. On my way to Oguri Sensei's class, I bumped into one of these tourists from Los Angeles. Since I know him from back home, I stopped to chat a bit. This was his first trip. He was very happy. Beaming in fact. He showed me some photos he had gotten of himself with various teachers. But then he said something that sounded off to my ears, "We are part of history!" I asked, "How do you mean?" He said, "Being here." That seemed wrong to me at the time.  To me it was just class, just training.  You would be part of history sitting at home watching TV too.  But for him it was like visiting a holy place.  That's one extreme...

Kashiwa Annex Frosted Window, photo by Michael Glenn Bujinkan fighting is an illusion. You will never find two witnesses of a fight who see the same thing. Even if you haven't seen this in a fight, you have in the dojo. Most of the time, no two students in the dojo witness what Hatsumi Sensei has shown in the same way. One day Soke said this was like  詒転三転 iten santen. I had no idea what he meant until I realized it was a play on words as he is fond of doing. The standard phrase is 二転三転 niten santen. This means being in a state of flux, a sequence of never ending changes. The way Sensei said it was to imply that these never ending changes are full of deception. A result of 虚実 kyojitsu. This is why Bujinkan is an art. You might say that art is neither truth or fiction. Soke told us that the real essence of the technique or of kyojitsu exists in "The place where one cannot see. It's here where changes to the extraordinary happen." This is akin to the short story ...

Michael Glenn at 王子神社 ōjijinja, Mabashi, Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, Japan I wrote earlier this year about my experiences in Japan with the iconography of Aka-Fudō holding the 倶利伽羅不動剣 Kurikarafudō ken. Back then I was seeking to understand what felt like a bomb Hatsumi Sensei dropped in the middle of our taijutsu with one part of the Bujinkan theme for 2013, The 剣 Tsurugi/Ken. This Chinese style sword holds lessons and qualities of movement that challenge what you think you know about Japanese martial arts. So it was really a sweet surprise that just the other night, after 10 months of study with this weapon, I found a personal breakthrough in my movement with the tsurugi. If you want to attempt what I discovered, try two things, one difficult, the other absurd. Or even better blend these two for the full madness that is the tsurugi. 剣 Tsurugi Madness Number One: You see the pointy end of your ken? It is tiny and sharp. Let that one point become immovable. Just like the ...

Michael Glenn Holds Hatsumi Sensei's Chaplin Caricature. photo by Lisa Peters Hatsumi Sensei did a quick drawing of Charlie Chaplin for me. This was after he had just quoted Chaplin in one class at the Hombu Dojo. I even witnessed Sensei emulate the shuffling Chaplin "Little Tramp" walk with a pantomime cane when he was explaining how to walk in 義鑑流 Gikan Ryu. This drawing that Sensei made looks cartoonish. But it contains a very deep insight for our Bujinkan training. This comes from a Chaplin quote that Soke is fond of. The quote that Hatsumi Sensei frequently refers to goes like this, そんなチャップリンに新聞記者が質問をします。「あなたの最高傑作の作品は何か？」と。そのとき彼はこう答えます。すなわち、「次の作品だ」と言ったのです。 To paraphrase, a reporter asked Chaplin, which of your films do you consider the best? Chaplin replied, "the next one." This means the one that hasn't been created yet. Or as Sensei implies, the henka that hasn't happened yet. This concept in Japan is tied in with the idea of 改善 kaizen. or ...