“For myself, the most important tips I got from this trip were to:

• practice slowly (as per the maxim: slow is smooth and smooth is fast),
• relax!!,
• don’t grab (spider-walk your fingers like antennae),
• get used to pain (understand its use in a technique) – this is different to injuring your uke through lack of control,
• Understand balance breaking (mental and physical),
• develop good ukemi,
• be a good uke

• • understand what’s being asked of you
  • attack honestly and with intent to give your partner something to work with.
  • Allow tori to work on what’s being shown i.e. don’t be awkward and try to thwart what he’s doing,
• get much lower (improve leg strength!!!) and stay there as necessary. Don’t bob up and down as you move,
• get flexible (both physically and mentally),
• move foot/hips/spine in concert with each other,
• try to understand what’s being taught (different people will see different things on different days),
• practise what you’ve been shown not what you thought you saw,
• drill the kihon happo and the sanshin no kata and work on the Ten Chi Jin. Think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
• Understand the various kamae,
• Then take everything apart and put it back together.
• Rinse and repeat.

Everything else depends on these… and will make further training easier. This is what the Japanese Shihan teach their own students. As far as I can see, the kata in all of the schools will only work for you if you have gotten a firm foundation in all of the above.

During Soke’s class I watched Nagase sensei and Nagadai Sensei “playing” together and it was really interesting to see them take their time, continuously monitoring their own position and angling in relation to each other rather than assaulting each other at 128,000 mph (which I have no doubt they could do).”

“In addition to what Jason and Ali have posted here’s some notes I cobbled together.

Some bits I picked up:

Oguri Sensei:
Use of elbows, knees, feet, subtle joint manipulation and gobbling up to kukan to control Uke.

Noguchi Sensei:
Dropping the hips and staying consistently low, moving from the centre and applying locks with the feet. Additionally, and like like all of the Japanese Shihan he’s incrediblely polished basics. And they’re there for a reason…

Seno Sensei:
Structure, Structure, Structure. Maintain your kamae and balance while crumpling uke’s, using their own muscular-skeletal system against them.

Nagato Sensei:
Use of footwork in distance control, application of locks, throws and strikes to get effortless effects, judicious use of kicks and pinning of feet, use of chosui dori to manipulate Uke, maintaining Fudoshin throughout waza.

Additionally Nagato Shihan was kind enough to answer my question about the role of the Ten Chi Jin in today’s training. He said something like this – it’s important to master but then you should to forget. He also mentioned that kihon changes over time, that your kihon should evolve. However the TCJ is very important, especially before Judan.

Someya Sensei:
Work on your kihon, and make sure it’s right. I got some interesting technical points on things like the first three of the kihon happo, and some of the sanshin no kata. We also covered some meaty Koto-Ryu kata and formal henka, and some basic Iaijutsu.

Soke:
Probably the hardest to articulate. Use various Kyusho in conjunction to positioning, taking of fingers, use of the feet, being able to move and respond for any position, being aware of uke’s potential counters and the “connectedness” of occurrences are some that spring to mind.

Other bits:

• Control Uke at every stage and on every level possible.
• Where possible plunge Uke rather then just drop or throw him.
• Use your feet, when doing pretty much anything you care to mention. The effortlessness of all the senior Japanese teachers comes down in a large part to this, as far as I can perceive.
• Work on your conditioning and flexibility they’re incredibly important for a long term and successful budo career.
• Work on your kihon, it’s the most fundamental step in budo. I was able to do more this trip thanks to work on my kihon, but moreover I was able to see and recreate more thanks to it. Good kihon gives you the cognitive and perceptual basis to understand budo, without it you’ll never amount to anything. However don’t forget to outgrow them either.

“Don’t do what Johnny Don’t does”:

• Don’t do what you think you saw. Do exactly, and I mean exactly, what the teacher did. If you’re not sure then either ask the teacher or copy one of their better students until you can.
• Don’t fail to ask the teacher questions or get a feel of the technique. It’s idiotic to fly as far as Japan to shy away on the other side of the room for fear of being judged. The principle is the same back home.
• Don’t forget to train your intent in training. You’re reinforcing behaviour and attitude with the movement, so it’d better be the right one.
• Don’t be a bad uke. This is a big one. Don’t talk too much, don’t fail to give suitable feedback, don’t hamper someone else’s learning experience and so on ad infinitium. If you don’t know how to be a good Uke then ask.
• Don’t get flustered when a waza isn’t working. If you do you’ll muscle, you won’t learn anything and you may well injure someone.
• Don’t suffer idiots. Injuries are just too high a price to pay. If someone is awful to train with then ask them to change what they’re doing or avoid them.
• Don’t be a wuss. When you have to, take pain and give pain, and then get on with it, only injuries are to be avoided, but not discomfort.
• Don’t keep you feet pinned to the mat, everything begins, occurs and ends with the feet.
• Don’t muscle in training. When you do you’re no longer doing budo taijutsu, and you’re not learning anything of merit.
• Don’t forget to learn actively. There’s no failure in training, only feedback, you can learn what not to do from the worst which may be equally as useful as what to do from the best. You’re wasting your time if you’re not learning something. This also applies for when you get pulled up to show something…

I’m sure there’s some other bits I’m forgetting, but I suppose overall the message was just to do it right – if you don’t know what that is, find out.”

Shihan Steve Byrne (15th Dan) has agreed to come and teach a class in the dojo on Monday the 15th of December at 8.30 p.m. I expect all my students to make an extra special effort to get there. Students and teachers from other dojos are very welcome to attend. The class fee is €10 and in the great Bujinkan tradition there may even be the chance of a pint afterwards.

“It’s o.k. if you don’t understand – if you don’t understand what you are doing then neither will your opponent” – Nagato Shihan

tc

Kamae – Ichimonji, doko, hicho, jumonji, kosei, hira, hoko, seiza, keisa, fudoza, shizen,

Ichimonji no kata

Hicho no kata

Jumonji no kata

Omote gyaku

Ura Gyaku

Hanbojutsu – koshi ori “breaking the hip”

Shidoshi Rex Dunlop has kindly agreed to take over the class while I am away in Tokyo.

The hands are held palm together as if praying. The instructor says the words “Shikin Haramitsu Daikomyo” which are repeated by the class. The class then claps their hands twice, bows and claps once.

The words can be roughly translated as: “In every encounter there is an opportunity for enlightenment” It must be stressed that the ceremony is not intended to have any specific religious significance. I have included a number of links to sites with more detailed explanations of the meaning of the ceremony.

http://www.ninjutsu.co.uk/downloads/shikinharamitsudaikomyo.pdf

http://onikagedojo.wordpress.com/2007/02/19/shikin-haramitsu-daikomyo/

http://www.tengudojosouth.com/012007

http://www.nydojo.com/?p=78