Bujinkan Santa Monica

金龍の舞 kinryu no mai, 浅草寺 Sensō-ji, Tokyo. photo by Michael Glenn This is one of those Bujinkan training trips where I will be sore for the entire trip. Besides the normal beatings at the hands of my training partners, Hatsumi Sensei, Senou Sensei, Noguchi Sensei, and Nagato Sensei have all seen to it that they personally roughed me up. For members of Rojodojo, I made a video: Bujinkan Japan Training Report: Kinryu Edition   Because... Yesterday, I went to see 金龍の舞 kinryu no mai. Dance of the golden dragon. This is a rare sight… the sensoji temple also has the name 金龍山 kinryuzan. According to legend. the fisherman who founded the place saw a golden dragon swoop down out of the sky and create a forest in one night. Eight guys carry the dragon and the 9th guy carries a lotus flower. This is symbolic of the dragon's dual nature. Although the dragon is fierce while attacking, it also protects. Hatsumi Sensei has been saying the same thing for many years. In fact, on Tuesday n...

Shide at 稲荷神社, 南柏 Minami Kashiwa. photo by Michael Glenn In the following account, I describe a night when I killed somebody. The intention rose up my body, filled it, and took over. Then I struck him down. He never saw it coming. Before you report me to the authorities, make sure you read all I have to say about that night. Life and death can flip in an instant. They both exist in the same moment. What separates the two? One moment you are full of life. You were born, grew up, and live with the choices you make every day. You have dreams and goals for your future. But all of your history and all of your future can be taken from you right now. Life. Death. One and the same. In our Bujinkan training, we have strategies to deal with this. I previously wrote about one of these that Hatsumi Sensei calls 過去現在未来之術 Kako Genzai Mirai no Jutsu . This is an art of existing in the moment between life and death. Life or death only happens in the present moment which is ephemeral an...

Wall and Trees 鎮護堂 Chingo dou, Asakusa, Japan. Photo by Michael Glenn There is a secret hidden in 銛盤手裏剣 senban shuriken. I have seen the word senban written in many ways, such as 銛盤、 施盤、or 旋盤。All of these project different meanings. As you know, Hatsumi Sensei often uses wordplay to expose different truths. And he wrote senban for us with different kanji that reveal a secret. But first let me tell you why you should care. There are invisible barriers in our training. Here is one you may not know about: As a Bujinkan student, you may come to stand on the edge of your own humanity, look down to the light side, and the dark side. And there you will find yourself. You might love or hate what you see. That’s a terrible beauty of training. When I was young, I was not smart. I secretly ordered some senban shuriken through the mail because my parents would never have allowed me to possess ninja weapons. I had to wait everyday by the mailbox to get the mail before my parents did. ...

Vending Machines, Matsudo photo by Michael Glenn I used to have a friend who was so beautiful. She had a classical face like you would see in a Renaissance painting. Her brown skin was rich in color and smooth. She always had a bright smile for me. Then one day, I met her at the grocery store and she had deep wolverine style wounds across her face. She had gotten into a fight with another woman who clawed her face. The scars were deep, and never went away. She never smiled the same after that. This sad story demonstrates the raw savage power of 蝦蛄拳 shako ken Hatsumi Sensei taught us some secrets hidden within shako ken in a recent Friday night class at the Bujinkan Hombu dojo. He showed us how to use it not just to attack directly, but to shape kukan. He held the claw up like 刀匿礮姿 tōtoku hyōshi in the space. Most of us can understand the obvious shape that brings to the kukan. The hand and arm project out from one side toward the attacker and you pivot around it as a shie...

Rainy Day Gassho at 霊巌寺 Reigan-ji, Koto, Tokyo. photo by Michael Glenn In one of my classes we were studying a Gyokko ryu kata that begins from 天略 宇宙合掌 Ten Ryaku Uchū Gassho. Maybe you’ve studied this in your Bujinkan class. But even outside of Bujinkan training, if you are human, you have used gassho at some point in your life. It transcends cultures. That night, as I recorded a training video about this for Rojodojo.com , I wanted to share even more about gassho with everybody. So what I show in the video is that there is much more to this humble kamae then you might think. But if you want to know what mysteries are bound up with this stance, keep reading. Gassho is a general term that describes any form that brings the hands together, often in a form of prayer or reverence. In the Bujinkan the symbolism of this kamae runs deep. And the position is even sometimes called 金剛拳 kongo ken and it is used to strike or even conceal weapons. In Buddhism the right hand represents the...

Masaaki Hatsumi Sensei Explains 師逢和瀬 Shiawase. photo by Michael Glenn I had a simple plan to teach 片腕遁走型 Kata Ude Tonsō Gata. But during my preparations for class that night, I was overcome with gratitude toward my teachers. It seems there was a secret power bound up in this kata. It can be described as 師逢和瀬 Shiawase. Let me tell you how I discovered it. The Bujinkan has made my life rich. I have made so many friends all over the world. Thank you to my students who come to class and allow me to study with them. Thank you for reading this and for watching my videos or subscribing to my training website. Thank you to everyone who invites me to teach seminars. I prepare for every class I teach. I feel I owe it to my students to do my home work. But I don’t just owe it to them, I owe something more to my own teachers. I have studied the kata I was planning for this class with many teachers over the decades. But one of my favorite moments was studying this with Hatsumi Sensei under th...

The 道祖神 Dōsojin at Hatsumi Sensei's House, photos by Michael Glenn Last month in Japan, I gained a deeper understanding of genitalia. It started with the male form. But luckily Hatsumi Sensei paired it with the female for me. Before I describe what Soke shared, let me explain my first phallic encounter.  A local guy from a certain neighborhood told me about 鬚神社 hige jinja (beard shrine). I was intrigued because I thought I had seen all the shrines in this neighborhood. He took me to 聖天島 shōtenjima where (土俗の神様 dozoku no kamisama) a local folk kami is enshrined on the island. The island was surrounded by brown, dried out lotus plants in their ugly fall phase. I followed him to the edge of a moat. There, across the water, was what appeared to be old ruins. We walked across a small footbridge. He pointed at one statue that looked like a giant penis. But why was it called hige? He told me I had to look at the back of it. I shimmied on the tips of my toes along the edge of the moat ...