kosshi

Shameless plug: Bujinkan Weapons.com

2012-01-28T10:56:00.000-06:00

Many years ago I purchased a bokuto from Japan and to this day I have yet to see any comparable design. It was hand made from kashi, Japanese white oak, cut at a select time of year; it was nearly 45" in length, a full inch thick, and 1 1/2" wide.

This was no ordinary bokken, or even a suburi-to, this was a "Shiai" bokuto, or "match" sword - a weapon in itself. Carried by samurai units it could be employed against blades with the intent of breaking them, leaving enemies open to attack by sword-wielding allies in the wings.

Being the artist he is, Carmelo Grajales faithfully reproduced this Shiai bokuto in Ipe (Ironwood) for me and the result is an incredible working piece of art. His attention to detail is amazing - side by side to the original, they are duplicates, but the Ipe is far heavier. The feel is tremendous - he got everything right.

I don't normally speak up about gear or training tools, but Caremlo is a terrifically talented artist, who has created an incredible piece, so I'll go so far as to say this: this isn't just a professional tool for serious practitioners - there's plenty of those out there. To me, this is more than that - it's the sword one wants to be remembered by. Yes, it's that good.

Carmelo is now hand making this dramatic design in various woods for those interested. If you check out his website http://www.bujinkanweapons.com/ you'll find a link for the Shiai bokuto as well as a variety of other tools, from octagonal staff weapons, to kunai, even wooden training shuriken. He'll even engrave something if you like.

Carmelo is a good man and has quickly become the official armorer of the dojo. Contact him, he's happy to work with you.

Under the Blade 2012

2012-01-23T12:00:00.000-06:00

On the passing of Oguri sensei - my sincerest condolences to his family, Hatsumi sensei, the Shitenno, his own students, and the Bujinkan community. His legacy now contributes to the ageless wisdom and mystery of Budo. A kind man and wonderful teacher. He will be missed.

~ James

She’s the Youth Director for her church, on a mission of hope and compassion, to provide relief for these stricken people. She is there to build a school - that’s what residents of the tent camp want; a school to learn English and other skills needed to save their lives, because for them, life isn’t about living as surviving: unemployment is 65% - everyone is desperate for money; no running water or regular food sources - everyone scrambles for it daily; no sewage system - infections and disease are rampant; no electricity - you don’t go out after sunset, good folk aren’t out after sunset.

Silvi, a suburban mother of four, and my student, has just landed in Haiti …

Shinnen Omedeto Gozaimasu!

2011 was the most profound year of my life - I turned 40, got married, and began school for a master’s in Applied Ethics.

It was a busy training year nonetheless: I was at the assistance of the Chicago Police Academy – always an honor; received certification in Verbal Judo from its founder, the late George Thompson; published in “Black Belt” magazine for my article “Ethical Warrior”; taught again at the Midwest Taikai; hosted another successful Gasshuku; continued the great work of team Resolution Group International (RGI) led by Jack Hoban to provide clarity in values, morals, and ethics; and wrapped up the year at our annual Bonenkai. And all amidst teaching three times a week, saying “I do,” and reading Aristotle to Scanlon. Whew!

School’s been fun. Mid-semester I was walking campus, quietly thinking; how for years I’d searched for my place in this world, and that maybe, this university, with its history, opportunities, wisdom, staff, and students was a great fit. And I smiled … and ran into students role-playing Harry Potter’s “Quidditch” (much like the photo below).

Yes, people do this.

Ya know, I never really appreciated not running around with a broomstick between my legs imagining I could fly until I saw others imagining they could fly with a broomstick between their legs. My favorite part of the match was when a rowdy pack of Mathletes stormed the field and stole everyone’s cape. Oh, the crying ...

In 2011, Soke introduced training with the feeling of Kihon Happo (季翻初崩) - a broad concept I understood as challenging us to redefine the “basics” (Soke’s theme for 2012 is “Shinryuyogo,” (divine dragon, essence protect) which I’m sure we’ll hear more about throughout the year). Our own theme, “Ichi go, ichi e,” (一期一会) asked us to lead and shape the moment of “chance,” our moment of opportunity and enlightenment.

My conclusion was the basics are not techniques, but instead fundamental, immutable principles. I know no technique necessary for the operation of Taijutsu. Techniques are more plentiful than principles precisely because they are applied as needed, never relied upon.

However, principles are absolute and necessary for Taijutsu to occur, in fact, Taijutsu could not operate without them. When it does, when we instead rely on power and speed and strength, our movement ceases to connect with those immutable principles of position, leverage, and initiative, and therefore ceases to connect with the Kukan – the moment - precisely because we have numbed ourselves to its touch.

To be able to break someone’s kamae – their physical, mental and spiritual fortitude - to lead them to contribute to their own demise, to provide them enough room to fail – at will - is exceptionally powerful. But the power Budo offers is far more than just the ability to exist and survive, it also provides the power to live “a better life.”

What makes one powerful? Is it the gathering of power? Or the giving away of it? Neither is altruistic in itself. A wise man can amass knowledge and experience choosing to keep it, perhaps because he finds no one worthy to receive it. A dictator can freely give power to others so they might fulfill selfish gains to solidify his rule. It seems a balance must be struck - we have to know why we are keeping power and why we might give it away.

The physical example I’ve been using to make my point is the most powerful technique in the world. It’s literally thousands of years old, spans cultures throughout the globe, and has done more good and probably saved more lives than any other technique … the handshake.

"A most moving and pulse-stirring honor--
the heartfelt grope of the hand,
and the welcome that does not descend from the pale,
gray matter of the brain
but rushes up with the red blood of the heart."

- Mark Twain, the Begum of Bengal speech, 1907

The handshake is historically known as a display of peace, demonstrating no weapon. A handshake legend from West Africa specifically uses the left hand, as their culture dropped the weapon from the right and the shield from the left, expressing they had no attack and no means of defending one.

I can’t think of a better way to express Taijutsu than the handshake (I would also say bowing in Japan is Taijutsu; it is the same expression by physical means). What are we trying to do when we shake hands? Just touch hands? Perhaps if they’re someone important. But normally, it's never that simple. We are conveying and discerning something from the person we are meeting; perhaps trust or a sense of equality. If you don’t so, think about offering your hand to someone and having them refuse it. How would that make us feel?

Shaking hands is capable of shaping a single moment: approaching someone with an extended hand and warm smile creates an opportunity to lead and channel the other to do the same by means of our “intention” – an expression of vulnerability, an opening (just like every kamae). But this opportunity to shake also creates a shield of protection for us, for any movement outside of reciprocation indicates non-compliance or worse, danger.

In this sense, the handshake is not simply a technique for shaking someone’s hand, it’s part of a strategy to discern who they are and convey what we wish them to know about us. It is both true and false at the same time. A handshake is Kyojitsu.

The thing about Kyojitsu is it’s not simply deception - that would do its notion a disservice. However, it’s not truth either. In fact, Kyojitsu is a paradox – it’s both true and false at the same time and its definition lies at the heart of its contradiction. But just like power this is a constant balance and rebalance between these points, not simply one or the other. Which is why to embrace it, rather than training something specific, we must broaden our own perspective, our own perception in order to realize it more fully.

Taijutsu must also be true and false at the same time; it must lead others, shaping the physical-ness of a single moment. Inviting someone to shake hands is the very same thing as inviting our opponent to attack us in a particular way. Just like the handshake is a method to display our intent toward another, Taijutsu crafts and shapes our “intention,” an opening, for others and provides it at the moment of greatest impact.

As noted earlier, this “opening” is not just a means to survive, but also a means to live. For we have the capacity to inspire as much as we demoralize, we can protect, just as much as we can destroy …

The Republic of Haiti was a French slave colony until a rebellion in 1804, but has seen little peace since. Unrest, coups, government largesse, and corruption has kept the beleaguered nation on the brink of chaos for years. In January, 2010, Haiti finally tipped. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince, its capital city. Deaths were 220,000 or higher. Haitians were left largely to fend for themselves, and despite the millions in aid that poured in, it was difficult to account for and much of it may have been absconded.

Silvi convoys from the airport with her group – you travel in a group to minimize kidnappings and muggings - to the camp, dropping off desperately needed supplies and meeting with the camp “president,” a young man, for there are few old people in Haiti - life expectancy is just 48.

Camp entrance.

The school itself is modest – a concrete slab, plywood walls, and corrugated roof - but its worth to the tent camp may be beyond measure. It has been reasonably successful, teaching English to almost all age groups, employing a small staff, and even attracting ‘outsiders’ – Haitians from around the city - to its promise. The school and Silvi’s mission is also humble enough not to be noticed by local officials, who might be looking for payoffs.

Silvi’s mission is not to run the school – it is a gift to the camp, they are expected to grow it. To that end, she incorporates a school board, made up of residents. It was at their first meeting she heard about the violence.

The camp president and principal of the school wants $150 to pay off eight men – also residents of the camp - who have already vandalized the school, threatened staff, and nearly beat a teacher. They punched holes in the walls and told the president if they do not get their money, they’ll tear apart the school, they’ll raze it. Silvi knows well this cycle of threats and payoffs in Haiti and the fact payoffs only lead to more payoffs. She makes a decision – she wants a meeting.

The schoolboard with a member of the "eight" at the end on the left.
Silvi is to his left.

Despite concerns from her church, that any meeting with these men could result in violence, she presses and gets it. She opts to meet in open space, in full view of camp residents, with plenty of witnesses. But the eight refuse - they want a one-on-one with Silvi in the school. She agrees.

Surrounded, the first thing she does as they sit is ask their names. They grudgingly tell her and then reiterate the threats. She listens. She’d like to give them money, she’d like to help them, but there are just too many starving families who need it. “You have the power to destroy this school,” handing back to them their own threat, “It’s up to you to decide” which is more important – your wants, or the needs of this community. Silvi places the school’s future in their hands. They quiet. Then in no uncertain terms she says if they continue to threaten, vandalize, let alone perpetrate violence, she will pull her team out and never return; her church’s support and their resources will disappear for good. “Would you like to see me again?” Silence. Then the nods come - yes, we want you to come back.

And for the time being, the eight quiet and return to their lives. That was October. But by the end of November, they were at it again. But this time, perhaps emboldened by Silvi’s actions, the camp president did what he did not do before – he took them to court, where they were threatened with jail. And all Haitians know, if you go to jail, you may never come out. That does the trick.

First frame, October 2010.

Silvi activated the eight’s respect for life, their Life Value, by weighing their petty wants against their entire communities’ needs and empowering them to set the balance. She gave them the opportunity to live “a better life” when she gave them the power to decide the same for others.

Silvi is a happy, humble, wonderfully strong woman and we wish only great things for her and her mission. The school itself is expanding. Now, with 400 registered students and two-hour classes morning and afternoon, it’s thriving. And they’re adding classes to the roster in computers, Spanish, and even a course for a driver’s license.

Life in the school.

Silvi never resisted the intention of her opponents. In fact, she acquiesced to their initial demands for a direct meeting. When she gave her name and asked for theirs she let the eight know she considered them all equals, even though their behavior was clearly not. She even told them she would pay … except for all those other starving people. What I like most is the fact she used against them the very threat they were using against the school. She used their own technique, their own intention, even, against them.

At my wedding, my new mother-in-law told me a proverb: 念ずれば石をも通づ (nenzureba ishi o mo tsuzu - if one prays, focuses the will, focuses the intention, one can pass through a stone). In other words, with a strong will, one can do anything. “Ishi” (石) means stone, however “ii shi” (意志) means intention. So - 念ずれば意志をも通づ - if one focuses intention, one can pass through that intention. In other words, we can make our own luck.

This idea is about getting out of our own way. If we can erase the “wanting” to treat opponents differently, erase the “wanting” to do a technique, we can edge closer to erasing any hint of duality in our own physical awareness that both leads our opponent to an intention of opportunity, while also serving to protect and shield ourselves and others from that very intention.

Bear in mind, if it’s simply one or the other, we can be exposed and have it used against us, which might threaten ours or others’ survival. Rather, it needs to be both at the same time – true and false, vulnerable and protective, opportunity and trap, surviving and living. We can take a step closer to shaping that paradoxical movement, but we have to “pass through” our own ‘wanting’ – our own will/intention - to “make it happen,” to “force it” to occur. In other words, what would be the point to forcing someone unwilling to shake our hand? Would it hold any meaning at all? A handshake doesn’t force – it offers in a way that cannot be refused and does not resist when accepted. This will be our own dojo’s theme for 2012.

We should be able to approach everyone with an extended hand and a warm smile, regardless of what we may know is true in our heart. This “contradiction” is perhaps a glimpse of Taijutsu’s universal connection between people, when one extends their hand in friendship, the other does as well, and they shake in earnest to make physical the goodness of their spirit.

Have an inspired 2012!

James

Sensei Obvious

2011-11-29T11:18:00.005-06:00

Hey Jim. Hope this finds you well. Saw this article, thought I'd pass it on. I think he makes some pretty damn good points. What do you reckon?

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-truth-about-violence/

Okay, for those who don’t know who in blazes Sam Harris is I can only give my own account: a Harvard professor, with a PhD in neuroscience; a bestselling author of several books, most notably promoting atheism and decrying divine faith – take “The Moral Landscape,” a big advocate of using science to discover morals and values. And now, it seems he’s stepped into the martial realm with some thoughts. His “Truth about Violence” blog treats us to three principles of self-defense:

1. Avoid dangerous people and dangerous places

2. Do not defend your property

3. Respond immediately and escape

In other words, don't do this, don't do that, and then do do what we would normally do anyway.

“Avoid dangerous people and dangerous places”

This is a very good principle. Here’s another very good principle in the same vein off the top of my balding head:

“Don’t rub Crazy Dave’s Inferno Sauce on your butthole. Not even one dab.” *Shaking Head* Just don’t – you will have bad memories.

Harris’ main point here is the following:

The primary goal of self-defense is to avoid becoming the victim of violence. The best way to do this is to not be where violence is likely to occur.

Sage. Here’s more sage stuff:

Patient: “Doctor it hurts when I do this.”
Doctor: “Don’t do that.”

Does it really take a PhD in neuroscience to realize we should ‘avoid dangerous people and places?’ Is this Dr. Harris’ measured conclusion after a series of peer-reviewed studies appeared in the academic journal, “Oh-No-You-Di-n’t!” Who doesn't know this? It’s like when interviewers ask football coaches what their strategy for the day’s game will be: “Well, we figure if we score more points than the other team, we’ll win.” Wow, it's like he's Sun Tzu!

Harris is a decent writer and he’s written an opinionated piece, but “principles of self-defense?” Try observation through experience. Look up the word principle: “a comprehensive and fundamental law.” Even if we take this first maxim to mean, 'Don't behave in a way that invites violence,' does it really alter the way we were behaving before reading his blog? What "principle" is this of self-defense? It seems to me it’s simply good advice, in fact, one I like to think, many if not most decent people are probably raised on. So, is it really advice? Let alone a principle?

But let’s take it at face value. Okay. So, then, what if we live in, reside in, a dangerous place? What then? What’s the “principle” now? We should not go home? We should not go out? How does this help us now? We should just move? What if we can’t?

It would be great if by our location and behavior we could all simply avoid the people and places of violence, and if we could, we wouldn’t need self-defense as we know it today. But isn’t it the fact violence can occur anywhere at all – where we work, live, drive, shop, eat, sleep, travel, or piss? No matter how we're behaving? Isn’t that what worries people? We don’t know where or how violence will occur and if we did, I’m pretty sure we would avoid it.

“Don't defend your property”

Right. I get where he’s going with this – your wallet isn’t worth your life; a gun is shoved in your face for your new iPad – go buy a new iPad. Got it. But could there ever be a case in which we are justified in defending property? What if that property is life-protecting or life-sustaining? The real question is, is there any property worth dying for?

You are carrying a cure for cancer in your backpack and you’re mugged. The loss of this prototype cure means the deaths of thousands, maybe more. Maybe even people you love. Would that be worth fighting/dying for? Harris uses the example of not defending your vehicle from vandals - just call the police. Sounds reasonable. Unless, your wife is pregnant, due any moment, and you need the car to drive her to the hospital.

And we don’t need to make up hypotheticals. Folks trapped in their homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana waited upwards of a week until they saw their first policeman and in the meantime had to contend with roving bands of armed looters, looking to steal food, water, and guns. It happened in Haiti too after the earthquake.

Take the riots in London or America – some shop owners turned out to defend their small businesses from fiery ruin. If your business is how you feed your family, and without it means going hungry and destitute, guess what? You show up with a cricket bat. Or a shotgun. And some did. (Sales of baseball bats in England on Amazon.com rose 5000% during the riots.) My point is there are cases that could be made for defending property. So, this is not some immutable principle of self-defense. It’s Harris’ advice.

“Respond immediately and escape”

Harris writes:

“This is the core principle of self-defense: Do whatever you can to avoid a physical confrontation, but the moment avoidance fails, attack explosively for the purposes of escape — not to mete out justice, or to teach a bully a lesson, or to apprehend a criminal. Your goal is to get away with minimum trauma (to you), while harming your attacker in any way that seems necessary to ensure your escape.”

I love this - “attack explosively.” Awesome. Here’s another:

“You have no alternative but to explode into action, whatever the risk. Recognizing when this line has been crossed, and committing to escape at any cost, is more important than mastering physical techniques.” (Emphasis original)

“Explode into action.” Brilliant. I can’t wait to teach my Mom to explode.

“(Martial arts sparring) doesn’t prepare you to respond effectively to a sudden attack, in which you have been hit before you even knew you were threatened, and it doesn’t teach you to strike preemptively, without telegraphing your moves, once you have determined that an attack is imminent.”

“Strike preemptively without telegraphing your moves.” I am a lifelong martial artist who’s trained for more than 30 years on my “moves.” I teach and train three times a week consistently – sometimes four when doing five-hour seminars once a month - and I have trouble doing all of this. Who does Harris think he’s writing to? Batman? Honestly, this is all just silly.

Look, the gut response of anyone whose life is threatened by another person is to escape. This is normal. Natural. Everyone tries to get away. Everyone. Escape is the first immediate response, not exploding into action. Thor explodes into action – he’s the God of Thunder and has a big hammer.

It’s when we can’t get away things get complicated. We’ve heard of ‘fight or flight?’ Well, when “flight” is not an option, “fight” is not necessarily first on everyone’s to-do list. Does this mean no one will fight back? Of course not, some will with or without training. My point is even if attacking your attacker is an option, the majority of people will not do it.

This is the mistake Harris and probably many of those who read his blog and thought it reasonable are all making – they are taking for granted they will fight back. Because fighting back seems reasonable and is easy to assume from behind a computer screen reading a self-defense blog from your favorite atheist; if Sam Harris says I can do it, then I must be able to, right? However, this spits in the face of horrifying reality when rough, violent people are commanding you do something you would never do.

When safety and life are threatened by other humans and escape is not possible, some people “posture,” or put up a good front, trying to talk their way out. But most people will “submit” and just give in and give up - if there’s a “truth about violence,” this is it. Survivors of school and mass shootings who “played dead” later recalled to interviewers they just gave up and “waited to die.”

They couldn’t flee, they didn’t counterattack, they didn’t posture, they submitted. This is the actual baseline response, the predictable human behavior of most people to life-threatening danger from another human - they don’t want to get hurt, they don’t want to die, they will give up. This is what the overwhelming majority of people will do. It is to be expected.

Jeff Cooper, a Marine in World War II and Korea, and responsible for what is known as the modern technique of defensive shooting, wrote this:

“Any man who is a man may not, in honor, submit to threats of violence. But many men who are not cowards are simply unprepared for the fact of human savagery. They have not thought about it … and they just don’t know what to do. When they look right into the face of depravity or violence they are astonished and confounded.”

If we wish to counteract this confounding response of our very nature, the bottom line for the majority of humanity that is not born with a Chuck Norris beard and fists named “law” and “order” is we need to train – and train consistently - to learn a new and different behavior. No one just puts a checkmark in the box next to, “elbow to the solar plexus, kick to the groin” – hell, even Jeff and Chuck got trained. But to expect that the average person, the regular person, is capable of doing so is not simply misguided, it’s dangerous because it perpetuates a myth (one would think Harris would be on board with this, right?).

This myth of ‘fighting back’ is not isolated to those under direct threat. Check out David Brooks’ piece, “Let’s All Feel Superior” in the New York Times where he mentions “Normalcy Bias,” “Motivated Blindness,” and “Bystander Effect” as explanations as to why a Penn State graduate student didn’t knock the shit out of Coach Jerry Sandusky and then call a SWAT team to join in the beating when he walked in on him raping a ten-year old in the shower. The fact is even folks witness to violence, in a crowd or individually, have an extraordinary apprehension to helping others at the receiving end – no calling 911, no aid provided, and certainly no laying hands on perpetrators.

If we'd like a preview of our own gut reaction, we should do ourselves a favor - jump on You Tube or simply google "fight" and watch a dozen videos of actual, brutal confrontations. These are just the kind of people we are concerned about defending ourselves from - still feel like "exploding into action?" Now, place ourselves in the opposite perspective - would we help any of these people? Call Police? Stop a victim's bleeding? Jump into the fray? If not, congratulations you are "normal." But if you are someone who usually goes to the aid of others, then chances are you will come to your own aid. In fact, I think aiding others is great training to help yourself.

Now, bear in mind I’m not saying this baseline behavior is right, moral, or ethical, I’m saying it is to be expected. And if we wish to change our expected behavior, our “normal” response, then we have to train. Period. When high schoolers tackled Kip Kinkle at Thurston High during a murderous shooting spree on May 21, 1998, they may or may not have had previous martial arts/self-defense training. But they played football – a heavy physical contact sport. In that, they were all “trained.”

Oh, and I love the bit about abandoning our child to the predator with a knife. Does Harris believe he or anyone else would actually do this? I can't believe his ‘moral landscape’ is that bleak.

Now, look, a friend asked me for my thoughts here and I’m not writing this simply to tear down Harris who ostensibly was just trying to help others. And it’s not to say Harris is completely wrong from an anecdotal perspective. If my sister, who has zero martial arts experience - except the shared memories of a mean older brother who tried out techniques on her - told me these three points, I’d be like, “Hey, great sis, glad you know them,” since it would give me some solace she didn’t take her own safety for granted. I think we can all agree that Dr. Harris – who receives death threats for his writings, no less - does not either.

But I want my self-defense advice to be active and actionable, meaning it compels and motivates me to do something new, preferably a something new I am confident I can do. Negative advice – don’t do such and such – is not active and rarely actionable, since it usually is only applicable under “in this case don’t do this” kind of thing.

This post from Harris seems to be what reasonable people might find reasonable about self-defense advice, but that doesn’t mean it is. It seems to me anyone reading it is likely to simply agree, place a check next to the box for each point – yep, I’d do that, yep, I’d do that too – but other than a gooey sense of self-satisfaction that they and Sam Harris are on the same page, I am not certain what they learn to alter and create new and better behavior.

I guess if one were planning that evening to go to a dangerous place, not avoid dangerous people, defend their wallet at all costs, not “explode into action” and escape, and instead fight back like a fat 10-year-old girl, but after reading Sam’s article, stayed in and watched reruns of “Doctor Who,” he’s done his job.

Now, I refuse to be critical without at least offering myself up for criticism. So, here are my three principles of self-defense. They are based on the prinicples of Taijutsu: position, leverge, initiative. In part two, I’ll detail them:

1. Activate higher levels of awareness by threat assessment of location, lifestyle, and activity
2. Create countermeasures to known/unknown vulnerabilities
3. Consistently train physically to protect others, for one's own resistance and escape

"Embrace" Taijutsu

2011-10-30T14:30:00.008-05:00

Shihan Morganelli,

I came upon your website/blog and wanted to thank you for allowing access to your amazing articles. Your insight has given me another perspective and is quite helpful. I have been given food for thought by one of my shidoshi-ho. He has told me that I need to "fully embrace taijutsu." I am currently training for my blackbelt test. Being highly analytical I understand the words yet strive in searching for the whole meaning and the path I need to achieve this. I agreed with his thoughts wholeheartedly. If you have time I would appreciate any thoughts or insight you may have.

Thanks so much for the email - I appreciate your kind and touching words.

I heartily agree with your Shidoshi-ho, you should fully "embrace" Taijutsu. However, it may be difficult to know exactly what this means. And what is clear, in the Bujinkan, which has wide and varied perspectives, it can mean different things to different people. For me, it means to embrace the unembraceable, make logic of the illogical; to accept the paradox.

The word paradox comes from the Greek word “para” meaning ‘contrary to,’ and “dox,” ‘accepted opinion’ or ‘expectation.’ Any paradox is two statements, both true, that contradict one another. Courage is a prime paradox - a strong desire to live that takes the form of a readiness to die. Paradoxes are not meant to be figured out and logically concluded, they are meant to be accepted, for truth is inherent in the contradiction. Such can be the nature of truth – it’s always stranger than fiction because fiction is made to suit ourselves.

Even nature is a paradox – it is balanced by being naturally unbalanced. Nature exists in many respects by the Golden Ratio (1:1.618), found all throughout nature’s form, from the way a flower grows to the proportions of the human body. From the animals of the African steppe, to the orbit of the Earth, nature is never in equilibrium, but a continued state of balanced imbalance. Yin and Yang, In to Yo, Kyo to Jitsu - all of these concepts represent nature’s "balance," but not its equilibrium. These concepts are never equal to each other, their proportions keep the other in reasonable balance as they fluctuate, expand, and contract.

And who’s to say our own human nature is any different? The human condition seems to be a continual re-balancing of the decisions we make each day between self and others. And as it turns out, ‘others’ take up most of our decision making - perhaps that ratio is ideally the Golden Ratio as well?

Similarly, many aspects of training are paradoxical: Hide in plain sight; change is the only thing that does not change; Mark Hodel used to say our best friends prepare us to deal with our worst enemies, and let’s not forget the eternal Song of the Gokui, "In the world of martial arts, one should not stick to strength or weakness, softness or hardness; rather one should transcend physicality and understand the void, 'ku,' regarding the body also as empty."

Hatsumi sensei in a recent interview with CNN said knowledge is all very well, "It gives us law, and culture and science. But knowledge is not enough. It must be balanced out with Budo, which can never be explained. It can only be understood by doing."

In 1998, I was just about to leave Japan after living there for close to three years. My final class with Nagato sensei was way the hell out in Higashi-Matsuyama, Saitama, an hour on the express train from Ikebukuro. In August, the dojo was an oven (and in winter, a freezer!). The class was a tough one; I was sensei’s Uke the entire time and my partner was particularly hard on me as well. In short order, I was dripping wet, like emerging from a pool, and frustrated with my seeming lack of ability.

After class, I thanked sensei for his teachings and he wished me good luck back home. I asked him, when I get home, what should I concentrate on? He answered in a blink, “Everything.” I must have crinkled my brow - everything? But I don’t know everything. He nodded, “Sure you do. Train everything;” bo, gun, shuriken, fukiya – everything. My hour-long train ride went pretty quick after that with me lost in thought. Of course, he was right. When Taijutsu is trained correctly, to learn one thing is to learn 10,000 things. It took me longer than a flight home to accept that paradox.

Taijutsu offers us at least three important paradoxes that I believe represent the ‘shingitai’ (heart, technique, body) nature of training. It is interesting to me that each of these paradoxes re-enforce one another:

1. Tai, the body or the physical, activates the Kukan (void, empty space) to become a shield.

2. Gi, technique or the mental, knows we must be willing to kill only to protect life.

3. Shin, heart, or the spiritual, is well stated by the words of Uesugi Kenshin who said, "Those who cling to life die, and those who defy death live."

What do all three of these paradoxes have in common? Simple, there is a single answer to decipher them. Hatsumi sensei has said we cannot know Taijutsu unless we live as if already dead. What does he mean? The questions we might ask are: Why ought the Kukan become a shield? Why ought we be willing to kill only to protect life? Why ought we embrace death to embrace life?

I have my own thoughts on these questions. I do believe the answer can clarify our morals, activate respect, and sustain our ethic. But the answer is found only when we embrace the unembraceable, make logic of the illogical, and accept paradox.

Best,

~James

GASSHUKU 2011

2011-10-22T15:54:00.001-05:00

Thanks to all who supported our annual retreat. Already looking forward to next year!

~James

Shidoshi Joe Bunales

Shidoshi Jeff Patchin

Shidoshi Jim Delorto

Lake Beulah

Knife sparring with Kris McKinney

Defending others

Makko ho with Tomoko Morganelli

Morning Makko ho session

So, are you good or evil?

2011-09-11T22:09:00.001-05:00

A few months back, Jack Hoban was interviewed by a TV crew from the BBC. The links below are the resulting show that speaks about the science of morality and just how important our ethics are.

Check it out:

Are you good or evil? Part 1

Are you good or evil? Part 2 (Featuring Jack Hoban)

Are you good or evil? Part 3

Are you good or evil? Part 4

A Sword to Cut Stone

2011-08-25T21:05:00.000-05:00

It’s official - Gasshuku will be October 7-9, 2011!

Our 12th annual retreat returns us to Camp Edwards in East Troy, Wisconsin (about 1½ hours north of Chicago) - a little country respite with natural beauty and rustic charm, so we can train, and train, and train some more. Gasshuku is that one weekend a year when we set ourselves to recalibrate, remembering why we train in the first place.

We’ll bed down at Hoffer Lodge this time, enjoy our usual hearty morning breakfasts in the dining hall, and then take kamae on Edwards' rolling meadows.

The Boardwalk at Camp Edwards

Training will follow this year's Bujinkan theme of Kihon Happo and Taijutsu, as well as our own - "Ichi go, Ichi e." We'll also look at integrated skill sets from stealth, stalking, camouflage, climbing, escape and evasion, to weapon sets, like shuriken. In fact, if you’d like to offer a specific skill set, please contact me.

Instructors include myself, and Shidoshis Joe Bunales, Jeff Patchin, and Jim Delorto, all of whom have trained with me for more than 10 years and have extensive experience beyond that.

Training in the Bujinkan is unique and as such, every instructor's take on training is slightly different. Recently I was talking with a long-time practitioner, who was having some trouble moving forward in their training. He was confounded about his Taijutsu and felt he had tried all manner of method to improve it, so he asked my advice. I told him, he had it backwards - sharpening his technique wasn't going to make his Taijutsu better, only re-calibrating his principles would do that.

I make it a point not to view Taijutsu as an amalgam of 'technistic' movements from across a historical and/or 'linealogical' timeline, searching for quantifiable outcomes in non-quantifiable conditions - in essence, thinking specific techniques provide solutions to ever-changing problems.

However, the reason I choose not to train that way is simple - it's not because I think that type of training doesn't work, on the contrary, it can, and plenty of people train that very way, practicing specificity as answer to the unanswerable. The problem is I don't believe we work that way.

Training isn't about how much we know, but how well we know what we know. Techniques in themselves cannot calibrate us, they are only useful once we are calibrated. If we perceive the use of Taijutsu as merely means to an end, then it stands to reason that the end inexorably justifies those means, granting us license to dish out whatever hot, steaming bowls of creamy "justice" we think apply, without realizing we do so from the darkest of places, where "right" is simply our version, made up, imagined, based solely on our own personal beliefs, cultural standards, relative values - our own sense of pride. But pride condemns us in a court of law and withers and weakens against the judgement of the guilty conscience, an affliction that has ever burdened warriors since Herodotus first chronicled the self-induced blindness of an Athenian at the battle of Marathon in 490 BC.

So, the philosophy must become the physical, the ethos must become action - that's why we train, to physically clarify our ethos, to physically activate our philosophy, not only for our corporal protection, but to fortify our spirit, embracing the warrior's universal humility to reconcile the scars scored upon the soul. The physical itself, on its own, is devoid of meaning without it - a sword cut technique is simply that, a procedure to cut with a sword. But the technique gains priority, consequence, only by fulfilling higher action - ethical action, which is always moral-physical.

The sharper our understanding of what is moral provides acute awareness of what is ethical, and our Taijutsu is the direct action of our ethic. With a moral philosophy as our base, Taijutsu becomes lucid, our behavior, our movement becomes the creative spontaneity of ethical awareness, one that protects us, everyone around us, and even our enemy, if possible, killing only to protect life - the warrior's everlasting paradox.

This perspective is not opinion, it is not simply what we think or believe, it is, in fact, Taijutsu's foundation, its uncommon sense, the counter-intuitiveness of our human nature made physical. When one is ignorant to it, there is no spark to ignite the connectivity of Taijutsu, only technical procedure, while openings remain open, leaving us dangerously unprotected as the kukan collapses, time evaporates, and leaves our 'intuitiveness' in charge to ramp up the speed and pour on the power in futile effort to 'get ahead,' thinking our technique is to blame, when in actuality it is the woefully lax initiative, poor positioning, and inadequate leverage that account for our absent advantage. We are dancing, but missing the beat. We are moving, but have no rhythm. Focusing on the singular tree, leaves us blind to the wonders of the ancient forest before us.

When we recognize the warrior ethic, accept it, Taijutsu manifests, the kukan is as shield, our openings disappear, and we not only 'see the space' (thank you, Jack), but also 'shape the space,' and thereby dictate the outcome. Our ethic drives our tactic and chooses our technique. This is "ninshiki" - we are (sub)consciously ahead, naturally earlier, and can sustainably remain so.

So for us, training isn't about making our Taijutsu better, training is about making us better - Taijutsu the gift of our perseverance on the path of Budo, to clarify, activate, and sustain the ageless common sense so many warriors over so many millennium gave their lives to protect and preserve.

~James

Bujinkan Shingitai-Ichi Dojo Gasshuku

October 7-9, 2011

Edwards YMCA Camp and Retreat Center

N8901 Army Lake Rd

East Troy, WI 53120

Schedule:

• Friday, October 7th

o Check-In: 5:00-6:00pm

o Training: 6:00-8:30pm

James Morganelli

o Dinner: 9:00pm

• Saturday, October 8th

o Breakfast: 8:00-9:00am

o Makko Ho: 9:00-10:00am

Tomoko Morganelli

o Training: 10:00-12:30pm

James Morganelli

o Lunch: 12:30-2:00pm

o Training: 2:00-6:00pm

Break-Out Sessions

James Morganelli

Joe Bunales

Jeff Patchin

Jim Delorto

o Dinner: 6:30pm

o NightGames: 10:00pm

• Sunday, October 9th

o Breakfast: 8:00-9:00am

o Makko Ho: 9:00-10:00am

Tomoko Morganelli

o Skill Sets: 10:00-12:00pm

Various Instructors

o Lunch: 12:00-1:00pm

o Training: 1:00-3:30pm

'Hoop Training'

James Morganelli

Joe Bunales

Jeff Patchin

Jim Delorto

Supplies:

• Sleeping bag and pillow

• Toiletries

• Training gear

• NightGames gear (camouflage, boots, gloves)

• Flashlight with red lens

• Extra batteries

• Rain gear

• Snacks and drinks

Cost: $130.00 (pre-registration)/$150.00 (at the door)

Includes: All training, lodging, Saturday and Sunday breakfast.

Shidoshi bringing at least three students can attend for half price: $65.00

Tshirts available for $20.00ea

Please remit checks for pre-registration to:

James Morganelli

6312 N Lakewood Ave, Unit 1

Chicago, IL 60660

Check out our Facebook link:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=267232556621456

Turn 40. Train. Get a sword.

2011-08-07T10:52:00.008-05:00

So, I turned 40. I taught and I trained. Afterward, we had tacos and margaritas. But this time the birthday sombrero came out. I got to wear it and it's pretty awesome - very throw-downable-and-dance-around. After a couple drinks, I came close.

Over that weekend, I taught and trained again and the boys got me a sword. It's a really nice sword - hand crafted and detailed by our own Bryan M. It's got a naked-lady-geisha tsuba, a live, custom 'ninja-to' length, a hand-carved handle, and even represents the colors of our dojo - black, orange, blue, and stuff. Oh, and this is pretty cool ...

We had fun training. We always seem to. I like to think it's because we're in tune with what we need to be in tune with, letting everything else come up when needed, when necessary. And that's the rub, ain't it? Knowing what is necessary, illuminates what is not.

If one sets themself on the path of Budo, Taijutsu is necessary; it recreates the kukan as shield, one that protects yourself, others, and all others, even the enemy. That's a hard one, isn't it? In fact, it's the hardest one. Taijutsu, when done right, is life-protecting-respecting-sustaining. In this regard, Taijutsu is an ethical imperative for warriors, and we just can't do it right, unless we do it in a moral way. This begs the question: How do we know what is moral?

But that's the great thing about priorities, they allow us to discern here from there, this from that, now from then, and ultimately, right from wrong. Without a qualifier, all things are even, all things are equal, all things are relative. When there is no one thing that is special to us, that is sacred, ideal, then all things are given chance to jockey to be such. And it gets confusing.

If one equivocates martial arts with the art of martial Taijutsu, then mastering that Okuden level Gyokko Ryu kata (you know, the one where you twist, and grab the guy) becomes just as important as the awareness to judge when we should use our abilities and how to apply them reasonably and responsibly under given circumstances. And where does it end? Answer: It doesn't.

You see, it can't - if everything is a priority (because nothing is) then every kata is just as important as every other one, every detail of all the minutiae of our collective lineage and history must be first swallowed whole and memorized: You can't just have a piece of cake, you must eat the entire cake for that's the only way to understand that it's chocolate. (But don't I only need one piece - in fact, one bite - to know if it's any good? In other words, if it's worth eating?)

We humans are not meant to roam compass-less for the same reason cell phones burn out earlier when constantly trying to locate a signal - our own human nature will defy us. If what we tell it to do is in reality innately unreasonable, we lessen ourselves, are weakened, easily confounded, and on the path to disillusionment by our lack of direction, our lack of priority.

If one sets themself on the path of Budo, one must know the right from the wrong. Otherwise, we can't use Taijutsu. Hatsumi sensei has said as much and written about it many times. Taijutsu is not difficult, only made so by our perception of it. If you wish to do it well, just remember three things: whenever you move, protect yourself, protect everyone around you, and also protect your opponent, if possible, all at the same time. That's it.

Shidoshi Joe Bunales giving Charlie Harrison what for.

After training, we hit the bar, had a drink, and shared some laughs.

I'm pretty certain, it was the safest bar in town.

July 10, 2011

2011-07-23T12:24:00.000-05:00

Been busy, but for good reason.

Thompson's Rhetorica

2011-06-11T22:44:00.003-05:00

"Any bias you show will be used as a weapon against you."

"Never start 'negative music.' It cancels intel."

"Practice 'Tactical Civility.'"

"Showtime!"

"You can never change attitude at the moment it is being given."

"Let a man's attitude drift like a boat downstream - judge them by their behavior."

"Deal with attitude when it is not an issue."

"Know your weaknesses."

A 'mushin' riddle: "There is a man at home. He is wearing a mask. Another man is coming home."

Street Truth: "People never say what they mean, especially when they're upset."

"Empathy absoarbs tension."

"Be inspired by everything you teach." (It will keep you teaching.)

"The body cannot lie."

"Thank god for the woman who throws plates when she's mad at you - she's still in love."

The master of Verbal Judo, its originator, its founder, Dr. George "Doc" Thompson, has died. Doc was 69. His death unexpected.

He was the English professor turned street cop, a PhD, who over the course of several decades, taught one million professionals his matrix of redirecting negative behavior through persuasion. It was Thompson's take on Aristotle's Rhetorica. Although it would be impossible to survey, it is probably true the teaching and use of Verbal Judo has protected countless people and saved countless lives.

If you know nothing of VJ, do yourself a favor and at the very least buy the book, "Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion." You may find several uncanny correlations to training.

I certainly didn't know Doc well, but what I did know of him, I liked. It was hard not to. I had only just gotten to know him, recently taking part in a VJ cert last March. He was gregarious, bigger than life in a way; he could walk into a room and own it by sheer personality alone. A bear of a man and probably a genius on some level, he treated me like a peer when we first met even though I wasn't. That was Doc. He was that guy - a man you wanted to know. He will be sorely missed by his family, his friends, colleagues, and those who took part in his training.

Doc Thompson and those like him (although there are probably few with his kind of influence) are fascinating people, illuminating us through hard-wrought experience an anti-intuitive perspective that reliably makes the world a better, safer place. Doc's vision was clear, so is his message - save lives and get home safe. His training reflected that and people responded in droves; one million professionals taught - think about that!

"Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back."

~Heraclitus

Doc was arguably that one bringing the others home.

Thank you, Doc.

Night of the Living Groupons

2011-05-22T11:54:00.000-05:00

So, last Friday night we had arranged a special night of training - I was calling it 'Better Half' night, when all the guys were free to invite their "better halves" - wives, fiances, girlfriends (and family and friends, of course) to training for our 'Taijutsu Primer.'

I figured it was about time we create an opportunity for others who don't train regularly to gain insight into defending themselves and protecting others as well as perhaps see us and training a little differently. The plan was to introduce the Primer, setting up a grand experiment for all of us to test the durability of this contextual training. I didn't plan on training all night and figured we’d be across the street clinking margaritas before long (we eat tacos every Friday night after training - it's like a thing). The night was also to give opportunity to watch delivery of the concepts – important because I want the senior guys to have a firm understanding.

So, the plan, if there was any plan, was for a fun night all of us could remember, a night when we passed on the training to those we want to have it most.

And then a 'Groupon' happened. No, not a 'grope on' - a group coupon. For those living under rocks, on Mars, with earmuffs on, here's the Wikipedia entry:

Groupon (a portmanteau derived from "group coupon") is a deal-of-the-day website that features discounted gift certificates usable at local or national companies. Groupon was launched on November 2008, the first market for Groupon was Chicago, followed soon thereafter by Boston, New York City, and Toronto. As of October 2010, Groupon serves more than 150 markets in North America and 100 markets in Europe, Asia and South America and has amassed 35 million registered users.

The idea for Groupon was created by now-CEO and Pittsburgh native Andrew Mason. The idea subsequently gained the attention of his former employer, Eric Lefkofsky, who provided $1 million in "seed money" to develop the idea. In April 2010, the company was valued at $1.35 billion. According to a report conducted by Groupon's marketing association and reported in Forbes Magazine, which was reported by the Wall Street Journal, Groupon is "projecting that the company is on pace to make $1 billion in sales faster than any other business, ever".
Got it? Well, I didn't got it.

When we showed up for training we found, like, 15 people waiting for their Groupon lesson - my Groupon lesson. Turns out the Center had signed up with Groupon to offer classes at - you're going to love this - a 95% discount where $1 gets you $20. And our little Bujinkan class was first to bat.

Read the Fine Print.

Now, granted, it would have been nice if someone had, like, let me know, or something. But, whatever - Banpen Fugyo! Ichi go, Ichi e! I only regret that I have but one life to - you get the point.

So, with around 30 people in the room, we quickly realized that our little Friday night get together just got real. This was not a punishment, it was an opportunity. See, almost all these new folks had zero experience - no training background whatsoever; this was to be their very first time. I thought that fortuitous. And before starting, I had a chance to go around the room, shake hands and chit chat - these were nice people. Clearly interested, they had spent their whole dollar to take a chance on what it would get them. It bought them time with me. And I gotta tell ya, I let'em have it.

Who's here for martial arts training, I boomed at the room. They raised their hands. Great - we're not going to do that. They looked at me like, huh? Instead, we're going to look at what makes martial arts work.

Martial Arts weren't invented for self-defense, I said. For the last 100,000 years mankind has had a very effective form of self-defense ... it's called running away. Martial Arts were developed when we couldn't run away, when we had to protect others.

I told them this was easy, and natural, that they could already do it, and we were here to coach it out of them. We trained for about an hour - the room was raucous and exciting. With just a little coaching, these new folks - our better halves and our new friends - settled in. With a welcoming and respectful attitude, we had everyone moving with coordinated goals in short order. People who had never trained before were soon taking balance, gaining leverage, and downing partners with their maneuvering. Smiles were wide and laughter came easy - these folks were having fun and recognizing something no one had ever pointed out to them. And ... no one got hurt - always a bonus.

After an hour, they were done - I could see the shift from enthusiasm, the quiet onset of fatigue signaling the brain is full. With everyone still smiling, still having fun, I brought it to a close -remember, less is more.

At the end, I told them this was a gift from us to them, but that it was now their responsibility, and it would not get better without training. I also told them it was their choice as to what they would do with it - would they use it to bully others or would they use it to prevent such? And I told them Jack Hoban's "Bully" story.

We bowed out and thanked everyone for coming and they thanked us. Turns out, some are planning to come back. And if they do, that's great. They really were good folks.

And then we gathered up our little group, now with few new faces, went across the street and had a taco.

Man, was it good.

The Ukemi Primer

2011-05-13T13:08:00.001-05:00

Hi James,

Thanks again for the great mail, really insightful! I especially like this idea of using two concepts to illustrate a third, I will definitely try to use this next time I take the class.

I think you absolutely nailed it with the comment about people "waiting to be taught". Sometimes, even when doing very simple drills which emphasize creativity, some students still want me to demonstrate the "right way" first. Of course, they don't realize that I have as much clue about the right way as they do! Every opponent, every situation is different -- even in training -- so all I can do is provide examples, rather than pre-baked solutions. However, when they get into the swing of things, they can really use their creativity. I did a balance breaking drill the other day when the tori had his hands stuffed into his belt. I overhead in the changing room one guy complaining that he couldn't do anything from that restricted position and his friend answering: "oh, but the guy I was training with took a step, twisted, then stepped then twisted again in the opposite direction and then..." etc.etc. I hadn't even shown them anything, just said: "now do the same drill this time with your hands in your belt!". As you say: less is way more.

One issue is also with the students' preconceptions of what "martial arts" actually are. Some come from a classical Japanese martial arts background, some come for self-defense, etc.etc. But whatever it is, they have an idea beforehand what training should be. In this context I think it takes them a bit of time to adjust to this way of teaching.

Thankfully they have fun, which means that they come back to training. Also, most people in the Bujinkan resist this kind of training, preferring more quasi "koryu"-style training. I really wonder about the future of the Bujinkan sometimes!

By the way, what is your "ukemi primer"? It sounds like it could be very useful!

The 'Ukemi primer' is similar to the Taijutsu primer in that we are trying to let students discover the principles rather than merely show them techniques.

Ukemi is known as the prevention of injury and is a way of moving, sensing, and ultimately preventing harm. It is often paired with Taihenjutsu, a method of manipulating the body - rolling for instance - to adjust and move within our surroundings to escape or prevent harm. There are a number of techniques representing Taihenjutsu Ukemi, but it is only truly learned through experience. I train the concept as learning to use the body to 'give way to gravity' – a larger lesson, in itself, for the betterment of Taijutsu in general.

In training, we do a lot of falling down. But dropping to the floor is much more than simple synergy with the opponent’s action, it is 'releasing’ ourselves from harm. Ukemi is directly related to Otosu, release, and the act of releasing and transferring our position, momentum, and advantage into our next movement and moment. Just like Taijutsu, there is no beginning or end, only inherent and necessary change.

I like to characterize Ukemi by the phrase, “the body has no corners,” an idea Hatsumi sensei first introduced and works well to frame the feeling. A helpful way to think about Ukemi is the way a baby moves on the floor. The position they sit in is very similar to Position 1 from Junan Taiso/Makko Ho. This is where I begin teaching Ukemi to new (and old) students and it is the start of the primer.

When first practicing Ukemi, there are several aspects to keep keenly aware of – they are very similar to aspects of Junan Taiso/Makko Ho:

1. Activation of the posture (spine)

2. Positioning (re-positioning) to create potential energy/momentum

3. Giving way to gravity to proportionally use space/kukan

Begin in Position 1 on the floor - a seated position, draw the feet in toward the groin, the soles of the feet come together, and there is at least a fist’s distance between the groin and the heels. If one cannot for whatever reason draw their feet into this first position, then draw the feet in as comfortably as can be managed. The back is straight. The shoulders are back, thrusting the sternum forward. The torso rests on the sitting bones of the buttocks. The hands rest on the ankles.

Now, activate the posture - have the feeling of trying to touch the ceiling with the top of the head. Feel the sitting bones in the buttocks and look up, leaning backward until the edge of losing balance. Know this position and feeling well. Tip just a bit more and lose the balance, falling backward. As you fall, round the back, and extend the legs straight forward, bringing us back to the seated position. Don't rely on muscle to bring us back in balance, rely instead on reshaping the body's form to produce counterbalance.

The lesson here is that positioning, how the body is shaped/aligned, creates and affects our momentum, both potential and active. When we change the positioning of the body it should naturally create either active or potential energy to 'swing' us, if you will, into a new position. Shaping the body by expanding or collapsing its form provides the necessary functionality to give way to gravity, the proportional use of the space around us for maximum benefit. All of this may sound different from the position, leverage, initiative principles of Taijutsu, but I assure you they are in fact identical - I'm using slightly different terms to paint a little broader image.

The context training comes in when we challenge students from this position to 'get to their back' or pick up a weapon or shape themselves in accordance with their environment - roll through a doorway, for example. I've used yoga mats and paper plates to provide visualization for movement - change a person's direction on a yoga mat to get them to do forward, back, side rolls/movement, and paper plates can provide beginning and end points. I've also placed backpacks in people's arms saying it was a child and challenging them to stand up, roll over, whatever, but not harm the 'child.'

The point is to unlock functionality rather than limit it with technical procedures. If done successfully, students will be able to move in an easy and relaxed manner, becoming comfortable on the floor, and even performing various techniques naturally without ever being shown them first. I usually wind up saying, congrats, you just did a front roll, or whatever. Once they 'get' the feel for moving, refining it by naming, explaining, and demonstrating it becomes far easier.

I usually cover:
Forward turnover
Backward turnover
Sideways turnover
Forward/backward/sideways roll
No hands roll
Controlling movement with position
Moving with weapons, equip (backpack, flak vest)
Two-person Ukemi drill: one taking the other's balance, the other returning to balance

The bottom line here is this type of training gives folks a context, a base, a framework from which the rest of their understanding can organically grow. If we think of techniques and principles in terms of language, then techniques are our vocabulary, the words we use to shape and refine our meaning. But simply knowing a lot of words doesn’t necessarily improve the way we communicate, which is what language is all about. Think about it: were we to simply learn words in a new language with little to no idea of how those words fit together - no grammar, no accent, no conjugation, let alone how this new language 'thinks' (Japanese and English think completely different) - we'd simply end up with a bunch of words we could jumble together, but this would not improve our communication and meaning would be lost.

However, if we know the principles of communication - context, content, and delivery (again Taijutsu: position, leverage, and initiative) - it places us in the pole position to learn and utilize any new vocab as we may need and see fit, thereby broadening and even maximizing our inherent ability, granting us opportunity for further efficiency - maximum effectiveness, with minimum input.

Can you see the difference in learning principles first and refining techniques afterward, rather than learning techniques first and reverse-engineering their principles? I think it works well one way, but becomes clumsy the other, in this case, like a person trying to impress us stringing $10 words together, their meaning (ability) may become shallow. But there are many ways to comprehend training and we have to use what we think is best at the time, changing as change is necessary.

I hope on some level all of this will help. But please bear something in mind - it's not our job to make anybody good; taking responsibility for the ability of others is too much. But what we can do, what I believe we are obligated to do, is provide the very best opportunity for others to get as good as they can. But this means we can't just be good, we gotta be really good.

Keep in mind, Taijutsu and martial arts are not the same thing. Training is not complicated, we just think it is, and sometimes design it that way - I've seen commercial models ransom information to students and ultimately misconstrue the attainment of technical procedure as the single key to higher ability, compelling students to keep chasing that next technique with little understanding of what to do with it.

Pair this with blurring perception by imitating philosophy we really don't understand or choosing to look no further into a clarified mindset, or worse following a dark road of training to become a "killer" (I saw one guy stitch the words "BAG OF EVIL" onto his gear pack) and we've really got ourselves trouble. So, in my opinion the last thing we should do is confuse our comprehension (or anyone else's) with too many details, especially early on.

Let's keep it simple: endeavor to discover the right mix - for each of us - to unlock our physical potential and clarify our perspective based on a sound ethical philosophy.

Let's keep going! We'll make it!

James

The Taijutsu Primer

2011-05-10T12:56:00.000-05:00

Subject: Beginners training again

Hi Jim!

Recently I had the opportunity to take the beginners training at our dojo again (I'd stopped recently due to baby-related activities), and this time I was taking the class by myself. I was hugely inspired by your recent posts on training methodology (Ode to a warhammer, the girl who learned taijutsu in 10 mins, etc.) and I think that the classes went very well as a result. Many students came up to me afterwards to thank me for really enjoyable and educational training.

It was especially nice to hear from one woman who had literally just started that she found the way I taught to be much more "fundamental" or "basic" than the other instructors and so she could get a grip much more easily on the training. Having trained with Steve in London and attending your seminars plus discussions, blogs, etc. I think that you guys have a really great way of training, especially for beginners who have no context to begin with.

One thing I noticed is that it's very easy (at least for me) to slip into teaching techniques as it is much, much easier than teaching principles. Coming up with a good drill to illustrate distance/balance/timing is a lot harder than "hey, here is my version of Ichimonji which I picked up from a DVD". Also, teaching techniques conditions the students to "win" when they are tori. A really valuable thing that I picked up from training with Steve was "get hit!". I find myself constantly reminding the students that getting hit or making mistakes is perfectly fine and that this is how you learn. As my instructor says: "it's always frustrating to do something that you can't do!". I think (I hope!) that the students are responding to this and finding the training ultimately more rewarding as a result.

So, this is a long-winded way of saying "Thanks!" for all the inspiration! If you have any fun drills that you've been doing recently, I'd love to hear about them.

il Colosseo, 80 AD

Always great to hear from you! Very happy these ideas are working - we've been having much success with them and are planning to take them even further. In fact, we've created a 'Taijutsu primer.' Much like our 'Ukemi primer,' it is geared to transfer physical understanding through contextual movement. Its elements are Taijutsu principles, position (re-positioning), leverage, and initiative (which is like timing, but not exactly); they are introduced solely as waypoints during the primer and are usually only confirmed to the student once they are actually doing them.

The idea is to coach the student to navigate through their movement with a partner with only as much information as is absolutely necessary, which, it turns out, is hardly any at all. In fact, in this case, less is not just more, it is way more - I've gotten people moving with just a sentence or two and (here's the weird part) without showing them any kind of physical example, forcing them to do it on their own and make sense of it.

The Pantheon, 126 AD

Remember, people are up against their biases - waiting to be taught, which seems to shut off their own cognitive skills, and waiting for permission to become able, appealing to us as 'expert' for confirmation and approval of what they are doing. Therefore, one of the jobs in context training is to eliminate those biases and reactivate the student's own 'common sense,' thus empowering the student to own their movement. The way this is done is by allowing the student to discover it for themselves, so the last thing they need is a lot of yakking from us and multiple technical examples. Just let them do it. They will.

Oculus of the Pantheon

It is difficult to describe the primer because as we move through it I am gauging comprehension, making points as needed. I was thinking of writing it out to create some sort of checklist, but decided otherwise, concerned it would simply become a technique in and of itself, which it is not. However, I think it might be helpful to at least have a framework.

The key is to use two principles to illuminate a third. For instance, if talking about leverage - balance - then show it through re-positioning and initiative. If describing re-positioning, show it through leverage and initiative and so on - two will always get you the third. Think of Pythagoras and his theorem.

First, set the tone - this is important. Tell students this is easy. Tell them martial arts are natural and they can already do this, you're simply going to coach them through it. Psychologically, this eases their mind.

So, here we go: Take their hands. Then move and take their balance. Show them that re-positioning breaks their balance and gives you leverage. Let them do it to you. Get their feet moving and allow them to connect re-positioning with breaking the balance. Once they've gained leverage, show them this is the time to keep moving, but in a new direction that places their partner into an even worse state of balance and they fall over.

Piazza del Popolo

I usually emphasize only a few things throughout all of this: breaking/taking balance and downing partners to their back or stomach, because it's a solid outcome everyone can get. Also, make sure they 'give way to gravity' and let it work for them - this has to do with having enough space/position. The last bit is to emphasize 'leading' the opponent - think 'leading' in dancing - instead of waiting for the opponent's attack and reacting to it (more on this below).

Now, increase the distance between partners - make them reach for each other. Same drill, same outcome, same feeling - re-position, break the balance, gain leverage, change direction, re-position and so on.

Now, sit everyone on the floor. Start over by them holding hands. Same drill - take partners out of balance and to their back or stomach, but they have to stay on the floor, no standing up. You'll be surprised to find how creative some people's movement will become here and with little direction. Just keep telling them to put partners on their back or stomach. Now, increase the distance - make them reach for each other. Same drill. To switch it up, you can have one of them stand up mid-movement to gain leverage on the other.

Trevi Fountain, Bernini design, 1762, Rome

Lastly, stand them all back up and repeat. And that's it. The less talked about the better. You can even add weapons. Done it. It works just as well (I've had newbies using a hanbo successfully inside a few minutes).

Suffice it to say, the student needs to comprehend just three things to begin successful application:
1. Maneuvering begets opportunity
2. Opportunity begets advantage
3. Advantage begets maneuvering

You can think of it as (initiative begets) re-positioning begets leverage begets initiative begets ... and so on. Or think of it like this - where students need to be moving, what or how they need to be moving there, and when to keep moving.

Throne of St. Peter, Bernini, 1666, St.
Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

See, positioning is actually re-positioning, we never really stop moving, ever. I mean, even when we stand still, the body is still shifting itself minutely for balance. So, this re-positioning - moving to a new location - physically places us into new space that may hold opportunity to use against the opponent. Leverage occurs by recognizing the opportunity of that new space to upset the opponent's equilibrium, which grants some advantage against them - we're in balance, they are not, we can strike them, they cannot strike us.

Once we have secured some advantage, however small, we can exploit it by again changing direction and re-positioning. In effect, we can increase our advantage and decrease the opponent's opportunity to gain advantage over us. Like I tell my folks, the more we get the opponent thinking about themselves (by gaining leverage on them), the less time they have to think about us, and that's a good thing.

Now, it may seem like the key to all this is just to keep moving, or breaking balance, or something, but it's more complex than that. It's really initiative, the most obscure of the three, that provides the gravity here, the connectivity, the 'God particle,' if you will, to the scale that balances position and leverage. Students are out to create and control moments, 'lucky' moments, which are by definition, 'in the right place at the right time.'

Michelangelo's Pieta, 1499, St. Peter's Basilica,
Vatican City. He was just 24.

So, 'when' becomes the crucial decider - when students move, when they change direction, etc, which is why this concept of 'leading' the opponent is so very important to any success here. Waiting for the opponent is useful only at the very beginning (allowing them to take hold from a grab, for example), so students can measure balance. But once they've done it, have a sense of it, move away from the idea quickly making sure students are consistently ahead, earlier, than their partner/opponent. This is absolutely vital. Don't let them get grabbed - make sure they are moving with enough space to gain leverage on their partner (this is where partners actually start to contribute to their own demise).

Now, were you to explain all this to a new student, they would jump off a bridge. So, don't. The trick is to allow it to occur on its own, casually - remember, this is something they can already do, they just don't realize it. Our job is to allow them to realize and recognize it. Context is the key - clear away only what they do not need, only what impedes them (generally too much information - like this write up!) and folks can do this on their own.

See, when you dissect it, it really doesn't sound very cool, does it? But, I'm telling you, when it hits, and that person "gets it" - look out, you're in for some awesome. This is powerful medicine because at the end you tell them it is now theirs - they own it - it is their responsibility, it will not improve without continued training, and they should use it only to defend themselves or protect others, thus 'activating' them. The smile alone is worth it.

Michelangelo's The Last Judgement, 1541, the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

The power of context is a funny thing - we usually take it for granted, like this: Tomo and I are invited to dinner by one of her friends - a lovely young couple, with a three-year-old boy, who is adorable. So, we have a nice dinner and the whole time the kid is racing around playing with his toys. I engage him at one point playing with this exaggerated clock, where the dial spins and makes noise and the kid can set the time and all kinds of crap.

The kid's having fun, so I look at my watch - 10:30pm - and I say to him, can you show me on your freaky little clock thingy, what time this is? And I show him my watch. He looks at my watch, looks at the clock, back at the watch, the clock, watch, clock ... And I'm thinking, just move the clock hands, kiddo. And then Dad strolls over, "He's three. He doesn't know time. We're lucky if he shits in the bathroom."

See? What a lesson in context! Forget teaching students to tell time, understand the nature of time, contemplate time - maybe we should first make sure they can shit in the bathroom.

Let me know how it goes. I'd appreciate any insights.

Best,

James

Enter the Ethical Warrior

2011-04-25T11:09:00.000-05:00

Yes, we just wrapped up another visit from the ethical warrior himself, Jack Hoban, who never ceases to amaze us with his energy, message, energy, enthusiasm, energy, and energy.

BLACK BELT magazine's June 2011 issue - 50th anniversary -
is out along with my interview with Jack Hoban. In it, Jack speaks
about his history and the importance of clarifying the 'warrior ethic.'

Jack came to town to clarify warrior ethics at the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA) conference in Wheeling, IL. More than 700 trainers from around the country, and perhaps the world, were on hand to share ideas and learn from each other. It is the premier event of its kind and happens once a year.

He was invited to give his "Ethical Warrior" presentation - his thoughts on protector ethics derived from his work with the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, a moral-physical approach to activating protector values. It is based on a theory of human nature, so powerful, its realization has promoted respect among unlike peoples, quelled violence, and stopped unnecessary killing. With the training, the Marines are transforming themselves from the stereotypic ‘killer’ to the Ethical Warrior - the life-protectors of the 21st century.

As it turns out, the Law Enforcement community has been doing its own soul-searching for some time now. We don’t have to ask why, just open a newspaper or check the Web to see a story on our protector professionals exhibiting poor, if not downright criminal behavior, overshadowing the good work done by their majority. Jack’s message resonates with trainers and officers, who understand the need for a recalibration. But calibrated to what? People believe there’s a crisis of morality in America today. But it’s not true, says Jack – there’s a crisis of ethics. So, exactly what is an ethic?

Jack begins his EW presentation by asking the very same questions the Marines struggled with as they embarked on creating their program. At the time, Jack knew training young Marines to physically protect self and others was the very best way to instill warrior values, but first they had to clarify those values. And so, they began by examining the Marine Corps' core values: Honor, Courage, and Commitment. And that’s when the trouble started …

What trouble, you may be thinking. What could possibly be wrong with values like honor, courage, and commitment? Are they not great values? Perfectly suited for the warrior? But, wait a minute ... don't terrorists talk about honor? Ever heard of an 'honor killing?' "Honor among thieves?" Is that the same honor we're talking about? What about courage? Don't terrorists believe it's courageous to sacrifice themselves by blowing up and killing 'infidels?' And they certainly are committed. In fact, they talk about their commitment to ‘jihad,’ their religion, their values ...

So, let me get this straight … the Marine Corps – American servicemen and women - and terrorists share the very same core values? They’re morally equivalent? And if they are not, how are they different? What separates United States Marines from Al Qeada?

These were the difficult identity issues the Corps was dealing with. Of course, they felt they were different - if an insurgent shoots a Marine down and closes with him, that insurgent is likely to empty the rest of his bullets into him. No one disputes that. But when the reverse happens and a Marine shoots an insurgent down and closes with him, if that insurgent is no longer a threat, that Marine will render first aid. And if that Marine chose to kill that unarmed insurgent, he could face arrest and be charged with murder (we could also say the same thing using Police Officer and Criminal). Does anyone believe the Taliban is putting their people on trial for murdering Americans?

There was no moral equivalency about it - they were different, but they needed to articulate why in a basic, common sense way, not some pseudo-intellectual freefall through semantics. In fact, they realized they had to clarify a great many things that most people took for granted. For example, what exactly is a value? Or a core value, for that matter? Are all values moral? How do we know for sure a value is moral – simply because we think it is? Or is there some way to qualify our values to make certain they are moral? Are ethics and values the same thing? What exactly is an ethic? How do we know when our actions are ethical? Not easy questions are they? The great thinkers have struggled with these very concepts for eons and now the Marines were trying to answer them.

The reason there was difficulty clarifying the Marines’ core values is because most (if not all) values are relative – important because we think they are; which is why we can see how the Marine Corps and the Taliban could share the very same values. It’s called Moral Relativism and is defined as “truth or falsity of moral judgments is not objective. Justifications for moral judgments are not universal, but are instead relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of an individual or a group of people ... "It's moral to me, because I believe it is."” What was needed was a qualifier – a superseding value that qualified relative values as truly moral.

Enter Robert Humphrey, a mentor of Jack Hoban. Humphreys’ theory, the ‘Dual-Life Value,’ was conceived in war. He first observed it in the heroic actions of the men he commanded as a Marine rifle platoon lieutenant on Iwo Jima. He would come to recognize the balance and imbalance between the value’s ‘self and others’ concept, which holds we consciously or subconsciously value our life (self) by the simply reasoning that we have not taken our lives, which we could freely choose to do. We also value the lives of loved ones (others) and can reason to value by extension ‘all others,’ even those outside our group whose behavior we disagree with.

Reason acts as the fulcrum between ‘self and others,’ with the balance slightly in favor of the ‘others’ side as we may reason to give up our life in order to protect someone we love. Therefore, on its face the “true north” of the DLV is ‘life,’ but actually it is recognition of the ‘life value’ inherent to all human beings and characterized as an ‘inalienable right to life.’

Jack being interviewed by PoliceOne.com

Humphrey himself said it best: "Obviously, it does not mean that people are not different in almost all measurable ways. You may be bigger than I am, smarter than I, better built, stronger, faster in mind and body, better looking, possess a more popular skin color, etc. Nonetheless, in one way, in a way that eclipses all others in controlling importance, I AM YOUR EQUAL: MY LIFE AND THE LIVES OF MY LOVED ONES ARE AS IMPORTANT TO ME AS YOURS ARE TO YOU." ("Values for a New Millennium," Robert L. Humphrey, pg 51, emphasis original).

This recognition and respect of the ‘life value’ is the DLV’s law, its foundational concept for one simple reason: life is not a relative value, it is an objective value - we either are alive or dead, and if we are dead, we no longer have need of a ‘life value.’ Aside from all the world’s relative values, contributed by all the cultures of the Earth, life is the single, universal, objective value every human being shares in common with every other human, no matter our standing, who we are or where we come from. There is nothing nebulous about this - we each have a life, and we value it, consciously or subconsciously, or we would not be alive.

Seminar 04/16/11

Without even knowing it, most of us already adhere to both sides of the life value and live our lives accordingly, balancing out our singular wants, with the needs of others. However, some of us, and they are very few, do not. They still live according to the value, but in an unbalanced manner. For example, when the value is tipped toward the ‘self’ side, someone, like a serial killer, reasons to live only for themselves – selfishly - in a most violent way. And when the value is tipped toward the ‘others’ side, an individual can reason to live only for their group - self-lessly - like a suicide bomber. Thankfully, the people who carry out such violence are few in number compared to the rest of us.

The DLV is a recognition of a superseding value that can clarify relative values as moral and stands in direct opposition to Moral Relativism by asking a single question: does the relative value protect life? Or in this case ‘respect the life value of others?’ Since life is an objective and universal value, shared by everyone alive, the DLV becomes an excellent judge of the morality of every relative value there is, by making ‘respect for the life value’ the qualifier between them.

"Nice guys finish last ... Unless they got their shit together."

For example, I like vanilla ice cream. But if I attack every vanilla ice cream disliker I meet, because I deem their ‘vanilla disliking value’ to be inferior to my ‘vanilla liking value,’ the DLV would rightfully judge my behavior as immoral. Because I choose to reason my own relative value – liking vanilla ice cream – as superior to their inherent life value, regardless of whatever relative value they may believe, my behavior is immoral. Remember, the singular law of the DLV notes that a particular relative, cultural value, tradition, or belief cannot supersede anyone else’s ’right’ to their inalienable life without being immoral.

Can we understand how the Taliban, the Nazis, and the 9/11 hijackers did not place life or a life value as the “true north” of their moral compass? In fact, they placed their own relative, cultural values as true north, values they reasoned superseded the value of all of their victim’s lives. Moral relativism occurs here in rejection of a universal life value - the Nazis claimed moral license to burn innocent Jews, because they reasoned Jews were their inferior and the 9/11 hijackers claimed moral license, because they reasoned infidels were their inferior.

Moral relativism gets its “truth” from having no absolutes, but unlike relativism, the DLV’s method of observation and explanation of behavior is based on an objective absolute - the sanctity of life itself. It challenges us to clarify our perspective and behavior with respect for that sanctity, making us aware of the natural rights and duties that exist toward each other. When we understand these duties, we can voluntarily choose to place ourselves at greater risk – spiritually, emotionally, and in some cases, even physically - to protect the health, welfare, and lives of those around us.

We can approach higher ethical standards in dealing with the least of us, including violent offenders, by intuiting respect for the value of life, even when someone’s behavior is not equal. For our protector professionals, law enforcement and military, this reasoning may also serve to better protect them from the psychological damage that occurs in having to kill a fellow human being, and there is great hope it may even lower rates of PTSD and suicide by stating, in effect, an oxymoron – you were forced to take life, because it was the only way to protect life.

Someone pipes up - what if they're ‘Army strong?’

Jack smiles, "Send in the Marines."

By the DLV’s reasoning, we could ask the morality of all kinds of values. For instance, is truth a moral value? Most might say, the truth is the truth, it is neither moral or immoral. Really? Got kids? Gonna tell the truth and let a pedophile know where your kids are? Truth here is not a moral value, is it? In fact, it would be immoral to tell the truth, because in this case the truth does not protect life, does not respect the life value.

Is freedom a moral value? It can be, when it is operating in a life-protecting manner. But I can assure you, when it becomes unbalanced and too much freedom actually endangers life, like here on the West and South sides of Chicago, where children are dying by the carload because of the ‘freedom’ of gangs to operate illegally and violently, it is not moral. In fact, what we have seen is a rejection of freedom by victims for the security of a ‘code of silence’ – a protective barricade from retribution, by those who fear the gangsters more than they trust the authorities.

Is divine faith a moral value? We may believe so, but so do radicalized Islamic terrorists. Their divine faith is used to justify the deaths of innocents all throughout the world. Which means divine faith is a relative value and must be qualified as moral or not. How do we qualify it as moral? When faith is life-protecting, life-respecting, it is moral, but when it endangers and takes life – like Islamic terrorists use their faith - it is immoral.

Even the church’s four cardinal virtues are relative values: Prudence, Justice, Restraint or Temperance, Courage or Fortitude. Unless qualified by the ‘respect for the right of inalienable life,’ they cannot be truly moral. As we saw, even the core values of the Marine Corps - ‘honor, courage, and commitment’ – can be corrupted to make logic of evil – Al Qaeda can say their agents are honorable, courageous, and committed as well. But when we weigh Al Qeada’s actions on the DLV scale, we find them immoral precisely because they believe their group’s beliefs, traditions, and culture to be of greater value than their victims intrinsic ‘life value.’

And what of those who choose not to believe in God or are agnostic in their beliefs? How does divine faith work for them? The brilliance of Humphrey’s theory is if you believe in God or do not believe in God, the reasoning is sound. Should divine faith simply preclude our ability to reason and deconstruct our own nature? On the contrary, even St. Thomas Aquinas applied Natural Law theory to reason why “Good is to be sought, evil avoided.” He didn’t just take God’s Word for it, he used God’s gift of reason to explain why.

The DLV does not address divine faith for one simple reason – it is not equipped to, so it neither supports faith nor dismisses it outright. But with studies showing humans hardwired to be moral creatures, even born that way – the work of sociologist Stephen Pinker, who argues against the notion of the ‘blank slate,’ or the surprising experiments at Yale University discovering a rudimentary morality in infants – it seems the DLV leaves the door open for discussion, discovery, and debate on where this hardwiring comes from.

Personally, I believe it comes from God, but this is not a prerequisite for acceptance of the DLV. In fact, I would argue God is the inspiration of this design for one simple reason – why we value our lives defies explanation. Are they important simply because we think they are? Or is there a superseding value to them that at this point in our evolution we are not equipped to answer? The DLV is a rejection of moral and ethical relativism, standing in direct opposition to that amorality because it reasons our proclivity to value our life, the lives of those we love, and by extension ‘all others,’ to be inherently moral. But it gives no answer as to why. On this, the DLV is silent and rightfully so.

To wrap up, I’m quoting Jack Hoban and his “Bully” story, that I believe answers the very questions the Marines set out to answer early on.

"The Bully"

You are a kid in the schoolyard. You see a bully. He thinks he is the “top dog.” That is fine. That perception is a relative value. But when his relative value supersedes the life value of another kid – in other words, when the bully picks on and/or punches the other kid – this is wrong.

Here is the rule: relative values, no matter how “great,” cannot supersede the life value.

You see the bully picking on the other kid. You feel – in your gut – that this is wrong. Congratulations, you are moral. (By the way, most people are moral – they know the difference between right and wrong).

Now…you see the bully picking on the other kid. You overcome the “freeze,” you overcome the embarrassment, and you go tell a teacher. Congratulations! You are ethical. (Ethics are moral values in action).

Now…you see the bully picking on the other kid. You overcome the “freeze,” you overcome the fear, and you go to the aid of the kid being bullied. You put yourself at risk. Congratulations! You have the makings of an Ethical Warrior.

And as we know, it doesn’t end in the schoolyard does it? There are bullies everywhere, in our communities and all over the world, in fact, occupying high offices and wielding power – superseding the life values of others with their own relative values. If we’re going to counter bullies, whether directed at us, others, or ‘all others,’ we first have to know the difference. Once we do, we can choose to stand up for ourselves or the bullied. Why? Because I got news for us – we have the training, we have the know-how, and whether we like it or not, it may just be, in that moment, our responsibility. Some people can practice the whole of their lives and never understand this.

So, don’t just practice, train. When not standing up for themselves or others, warriors, especially ethical warriors, train. Because if we don’t, if we can’t walk our talk, if we can’t make it work, can’t do it, nobody is going to take us seriously, nobody is going to listen to us and give us a chance to do the right thing. And we should ask ourselves, what’s worse than doing the wrong thing at the wrong time? Simple. Not doing the right thing, at the right time.

Train. Live a better life. Repeat.

Rome, Italy - April/May 2011

2011-04-12T10:32:00.003-05:00

In the last week of this month, I will travel to Rome, Italy, with my fiance, Tomoko, as well as my family for a vacation. We will stay until about the second week of May.

The last time I was in Italy was April 1995, just before I left to live in Japan. I have very fond memories of that first Italy trip and look forward to making new memories.

As we'll primarily be in Rome, I would be interested in any information about training. Tomoko and I love to make new friends, learn, and share our experiences, she being one of the few licensed 'Makko ho' instructors outside of Japan. In the Bujinkan, we know Makko ho as Ryutai Undo.

Please feel free to drop me a line - maybe we'll share a cappuccino together!

Grazie!

James
Contact: james@sgtidojo.com

The Girl who learned Taijutsu in 10 minutes

2011-04-09T13:56:00.002-05:00

She’s young and pretty, wears her hair cropped, and her 5.11 BDUs lay on her buck-twenty frame with authority. Her name is Jill. We meet at TacComm training where she’s my partner for a segment. She’s nice as pie. She’s an officer with Marquette University’s Public Safety Department – a college cop.

As the TacComm instructors refer to my martial background, Jill leans over asking for advice: She’s already a Defensive Tactics (DT) instructor (which could mean almost anything), but is looking to begin martial arts training in earnest. Could I recommend one? I’m happy to help. Choosing a martial art should be based on answers to several questions: Why do you want to train? What do you hope to learn? What are your options for instruction – any groups on campus or schools you’re willing to drive to? We chit-chat. And then I have a thought (‘Ichi go, Ichi e’).

So, I say to her, “Ya know, since we’re here all week, if you like, I can show you martial arts in about 10 minutes.” Her expression furrows to concern, but with a Cheshire-cat grin - “Whaaat?”

Courtesy Jon Phillips

This year’s training theme of Kihon Happo, challenges us to explore not only the technical applications of training, but our foundational understanding as well. Foundational to me means ‘context.’ Learning by context is to discover one’s own ability, rather than waiting to be instructed, and grants permission to do it. Context also means that teaching anything to Jill (coincidental name - see “Ode to a Warhammer”), and more importantly, having her retain it, means I have to understand the context of our situation, and there are several factors in play:

1. With the exception of DT training, she has zero experience in martial arts (not necessarily a bad thing). Yet at any moment her job may require her to protect or defend herself, a colleague, or civilian contact. It may also require her to take offensive action against a non-compliant contact, with or without back up from other officers.

2. Setting aside her department’s ‘continuum of force,’ any application is further complicated by technique training she’s had previously in DT. By way of attempting to recall how to twist a wrist, what so-and-so said about applying arm locks, or utilizing techniques she does not understand, she may place herself and others unintentionally in greater risk under given conditions.

3. To keep my sanity, I choose not to address, except in passing, all the specialized gear of her trade she would inevitably be wearing, from tac vests, to armor, to various weapons, and restraining devices, any of which have the equal potential to assist or become a liability against her in a blink.

4. And bear in mind, all of it would be under stress, in differing environments, with possibly chaotic, ever-changing situations.

5. Oh, and I figured I’d get one shot at this before totally confusing her.

Courtesy Jon Phillips

After class the following day, we walk outside the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Training Center, find a quiet spot on the lawn and begin. I walk her through a few “rules,” then set her loose. It takes her several tries to get her sea legs, but very soon she’s moving and slamming me to my belly and back, rolling me into positions of compliance. I try grabbing her, punching her, kicking her, tackling her – no matter. She’s moving, upsetting my balance and gaining leverage, taking me out of the fight, switching my own intent from trying to harm her to trying to save myself.

Now, granted, we trained longer than 10 minutes, but only because she was having so much fun kicking my ass. I coach her further to drop in whatever DT training she knows into the moment (opportunity) created. Now she’s got my balance and dropping elbows, kicks, and slaps into the fray at the worst possible moments for me. By the end, I’m out of breath – she’s good – and stand up covered in leaves and dead grass. Well done, I tell her.

She is astonished and almost cannot believe what she is doing. The look on her face priceless – childhood wonder amidst dismay, like I had just shown her magic is real. I end the session – we have trained for about 40 minutes, between talking and moving – and tell her this ability is now her own. She is responsible for it and most importantly she must train it with others – it will not get better on its own. Smiling, she thanks me repeatedly and we part.

It seems to me, the foundations of Kihon Happo not only extend into technical areas that we will spend a lifetime refining, but more importantly, exist contextually on a roadmap of our own making, that we can look at and instantly know where we are, where we are going, and how we can get there. With these bearings we can effectively communicate Taijutsu to others, whether weekly students or those who don’t train regularly, but need this gift to potentially save lives. Being able to help Jill was a thrill. In fact, I couldn’t have slept well knowing I had a chance to assist her and declined. I hope it helps. Perhaps she can even pass it on.

Look, no one needs to be taught how to defend themselves, ‘self-defense’ is coded into our human nature - no one is openly attacked or murdered without receiving defensive wounds, pull the plug on life-support and the body will fight to survive for as long as it can. The truth of the ‘Life Value’ here is simple - if you are alive, you either consciously or subconsciously respect your own life, simply because you haven’t taken it. Anyone attacked will defend themselves, people study martial ‘self-defense’ so they can learn to do it better.

Courtesy Jake Geisel

Regardless of style, technique, tradition, or lineage, Jill was able to realize an ability she already had, I merely coached her as to how to embrace it simply and naturally. Again, I don't think I actually taught her anything, only directed her to recognize what she could already do, and give her permission to do it. I see this as by far the most challenging aspect to martial training (and perhaps education in general) – instead of discovering one’s own intrinsic ability and refining it, people unavoidably begin training with biases - waiting to be instructed and waiting for permission to become able. This can create a division in perception, confusing ‘practicing’ (programming of procedure) with ‘doing,’ which may take years of training to reconcile.

I am more interested in folks recognizing their inherent ability and then refining what they already understand they can do. Perhaps this is similar to what Soke writes about as “whole body sense,” the instinct of wild animals that move the instant they notice danger. When Takamatsu sensei first began his own training, Toda Sensei and his dojo used him as uke for an entire year before teaching him any techniques. It sounds like this kind of context was also the basis of much of Soke’s training with his teacher, as Soke reflected on it saying Takamatsu sensei always trained ‘for real,’ and Soke was given the densho only years later.

Courtesy Jake Geisel

As Budoka, techniques are crucial to our development; they supply us with procedure to pair with principle to give us efficiency – highly effective output with low input. Many techniques are counter-intuitive and can only be learned through quality instruction. A technique’s inclusion with any of the schools of the Bujinkan is often considered proof positive of their ageless efficacy. But any technique’s value must be weighed against its application within Taijutsu, balancing out to exploit opportunity and maximize advantage.

Soke has talked about schools of martial arts having lost their Taijutsu, becoming empty vessels of techniques, curriculums of procedure. Is the reverse also true? Could it be said that Taijutsu is not comprised of any particular school of martial art, merely exemplified by them? In the Bujinkan, for example, if we did not have nine schools, but eight instead, would it make any difference in our understanding of principle - of Taijutsu? How about seven? Or six? Or none? Can it be said that Taijutsu exists independently of any external technical form? And if it cannot, then what did I elucidate to Jill?

The brilliance of Hatsumi sensei’s teachings and Bujinkan training is even though for Jill I stripped Taijutsu of its DNA - its culture, tradition, lineage, technical and mechanical forms - it still resulted in a martial awareness that retained its core values as a means to protect and defend life. Could I have shown Jill a technique? Even several? I suppose. But why give her procedure, when I could confer insight, an insight that any and all techniques may be utilized within? An insight that does not require any specific technical data to operate, that does not wait to be instructed, and certainly does not wait for permission to protect and defend.

True warrior arts empower and inspire the moment we activate their ethical and physical message as one: A good friend is shipping off to Afghanistan next week, “Hey, you know martial arts … anything you can show me before I go?”

“Sure – as long as you pass it on to your buddies when you get there. You got 10 minutes?”

Note: Intently watching Jill and I train was a fellow TacComm student - a certified instructor in several martial arts and lifetime practitioner, who admitted much of the Bujinkan training he’s ever seen seems like ‘a fortune cookie, wrapped in a Zen koan.’ But the following day he pulled me aside with great sincerity, “What you did yesterday with Jill … that was really cool.”

10 Questions with Shidoshi Jim Delorto

2011-04-01T18:04:00.000-05:00

Jim Delorto has been training with me for more than 10 years now. He started back in the early days, when I had just returned from Japan and I was teaching in the back of a video store in Elgin, IL, more than an hour from where I lived, three days a week. Eventually, our Friday night trainings became legendary: we'd start about 7-ish and train all night long, finishing sometimes at midnight or later, and then go out for beers. Great times.

Jim has probably been my most consistent student. He is exacting in his movement, yet supple in application. His exterior is quiet, reserved, but inside his thoughts on Budo race as he searches ever deeper for meaning. Jim is also one of the nicest, politest people you'll ever meet. And he's an incredible teacher to boot, mixing application with real-world data to give folks context and clarity.

~James

What is your personal martial arts biography?

Like many I was swept up in the ninja boom of the 80s and the martial arts boom in the 90s. I would read the old "Ninja" magazine and I even bought my first ninja book at the ripe old age of eight - Steven Hayes', Mystic Arts of the Ninja.

When I was ten, I began training in the martial arts. The first style I picked up was a blend of Judo, Aikido, and Karate called at first, "Budo Aikido" and later, "Budo Tai-jutsu." I received my black belt in this at 16 and was a 2nd degree when I moved on. In high school, I really began to experience a wider array of martial traditions. I was a wrestler my freshman year and also began to study Shaolin Chuan Fa Kung Fu under Sifu Chris McClure, Sifu Catherine Blaisedell, and Sifu Gia and Dino Spencer.

It was through my time at this school I was exposed to a multitude of other systems through guest instructors and seminars. I came in contact and had training in Xing yi, Baqua, Tai Chi, Jujitsu, Kali, Escrima, Arnis, Muay Thai, Hapkido, and western boxing. I met and training with a great many teachers with exceptional backgrounds, including a shaolin monk. I also studied fencing. Shortly before leaving high school I attained the rank of junior black sash.

Upon entering college, I took up Jidokwan Style Tae Kwon do, Aikido, and Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu. By the end of my sophomore year I had stopped taking both Tae Kwon do and Aikido and focused all my attention on the Bujinkan. While both other arts had been enjoyable and I advanced well - Cho Don Bo in TKD and 5th Kyu in Aikido - and had exposure to a Korean TKD Olympic Champion and one of Ueshiba Sensei’s students, neither fit me as well as the Bujinkan.

I began training with Gabe Logan and through him came to train with James Morganelli, who I currently train and teach under. I have trained in the Bujinkan for 10 years and along the way have attended seminars with instructors such as Mark Hodel, Jack Hoban, Ed Martin, Dick Severence, Andrew Young, Luke Molitor, and others. I have participated in two Tai Kai, two Bufest, and one Buyu camp. I have traveled to Japan twice and attended classes with the Japanese Shihan and Soke and look forward to future trips. My Godan test was passed in 2007.

Why do you train?

While I hate to give a simple answer to such a deep question, I train because it makes me better in all areas of my life. Through training, I am a better man in all the roles that I have in society. I’m a better husband, a better son, a better friend, a better student, a better citizen, etc. Training makes me better in all these areas of my life.

What do you think is/are the core value(s) of martial arts training?

This is a very difficult question to answer. For me, I’d say the core value from which all others spring is life. All the other values that martial arts of any style claim to value, all come back to life. Because all of those other more relative values are all to protect life, whatever they are - strength, power, cunning, perseverance - whatever it is. They all should be used as tools and means to protect life.

Can you explain your method of training and teaching?

To be honest, no I can’t. While I can try and pin down what I do to both teach and train, it would only be true for a moment, and then would change. One day I might focus on the technical aspects of a movement or waza, the next on feeling the energy of the attacker. I tend to, for lack of a better turn of phrase, train/teach on a whim and see where it takes me.

Is there a “secret” to training?

Ganbatte. But not just keep going, keep making progress no matter how small an increment.

What would you recommend others do, to improve their training?

Learn to seek and enjoy being frustrated. It means you’re doing something new and that means progress.

What are the biggest differences today, than when you first began training?

There has been a swap from physical to mental. Training is no longer as physically demanding as it once was. We used to train for 4 or more hours a night and be physically exhausted. Now we train much less, about 2 hours a night, but the exhaustion is more mental.

What is the role a martial artist plays in our world?

To be honest, martial arts today is entertainment. It has become a means of making a buck. That is why I don’t think of the Bujinkan as a martial art, it is a warrior art. Warrior arts are those that adhere to the true spirit and purpose of what used to be “martial arts.” Warrior arts protect all of mankind; most so called “martial arts” have forgotten this, their true purpose. And that is truly sad.

What one thing would you contribute to a “Book of Knowledge?”

I’ll steal this one: "Education is not about filling a bucket, it's about lighting a fire." William Butler Yeats

Do you have any great hope for the future of martial training?

I would say my one great hope is that the few of us that practice in the true spirit of a warrior art can do so in a way that shows our world it can be better than it is and that we as human beings are better than what we have been.

WOOSHA!

2011-03-21T18:15:00.000-05:00

The video is grainy, but bright. It is December 19, 2003, and we can see part of a table and chair against a wall inside a police interrogation room. A scruffy man is led in by a detective and seated in the chair. He looks forlorn. Dr. Thompson speaks up, "This guy is a cop killer," he points to the screen. All of us inside the darkened classroom turned theater silently acknowledge. The video plays on, the detective returns, handing the man a bottle of water, "Here you go, amigo." Thompson speaks again, "That just saved that detective's life."

The scruffy man opens the bottle methodically, takes a drink, the detective leaves. A moment passes. The scruffy man is thinking. He reaches under his shirt, produces a handgun, and blows his brains out. Blood erupts from his temple, pouring out like a dropped bottle of wine. His eyes swell shut, his nose drips blood, his body deflates. "Holy fuck," detectives return, "Nobody shook him (searched him)." The scruffy man's head lolls. "Holy fuck ..." Blood taps dances on concrete. The video fades to black.

How many fights have any of us ever been in? And how often? I can count on one hand the number of times I have used physical force - just ask me about the Ritz-Carlton bar fight. I cannot, however, count how many fights I have not been in - countless. Why? Simple - I usually talked my way out of it.

Dr. George Thompson and Capt. Gary Klugiewicz (Ret.)

This past week I became a certified 'Tactical Communications' instructor after I was invited to complete a 40-hour course in "Verbal Judo." It was outstanding! If you are unfamiliar with VJ, look it up - it's founder, Dr. George Thompson, started teaching VJ some 30 years ago after getting his PhD in English Lit, and then switched gears to serve some 20 years in Law Enforcement, where he figured out and refined VJ techniques.

The video above was one of many, illustrating the idea that our words can either be a stitch in a bulletproof vest or a nail in our coffin. The scruffy man was a cop killer, just arrested, and many might have treated him with disdain, venting their anger and emotions; had the detective done that, no one might have thought twice about it. But, because the detective followed Thompson's 'First Universal Truth' - "Everyone wants to be treated with dignity and respect," he didn't arm the scruffy man with a reason to kill him.

Thompson, a long-time martial artist, describes VJ as a 'martial art of the mind.' And he's right - VJ's principles are psychologically based on observation of the human condition and designed to teach one how to take advantage of another's verbal aggression, tip them off balance, and gain control. He speaks about letting go of one's ego, maintaining our temper, focusing only on another's behavior, letting their angry words slide off us like water on a duck's back. Thompson cleverly reconciles his years of police work with Aristotelian models of rhetorical persuasion and lays it all out in clear form. He even jokingly turns a personal kiai into a summary acronym - WOOSHA! (Win Only On Secret Hidden Agendas).

With my Resolution Group International collegue Craig Gray

Throughout the week, the class is punctuated by examples of people saving lives using the trained mind and 'tactical courtesy' as a baseline for conduct. There's the story of an officer, kidnapped at gunpoint, convincing his aggressors to give themselves up saving all their lives including his own, or the legendary gang detective, whose past professional conduct, even with despicable thugs, saves his life one night: A bogus 911 call is actually a gang initiation designed to assassinate a cop, but when this detective answers the call, the thugs lower their rifle, explaining to him some months later, their respect for him (because of the respect he had shown them) saved his life.

Thompson himself is called in to negotiate with an unstable father holding a knife to the throat of his three year old. Throughout their conversation, Thompson searches the father's words for the key to use against him. When the father says he does not want to kill his son, but has to because he is possessed by the devil, Thompson convinces the man to allow a priest to perform an exorcism. It works - the father releases the boy, is taken into custody, and lives are saved - the boy from his father, the father from police snipers.

Like 'Taisabaki' maneuvers the body, TacComm is 'Kotoba o sabaku,' maneuvering with our words. As 98% of all conflict is verbal, we should remember Taijutsu is not simply a physical art.

10 Questions with Jack Hoban

2011-02-21T14:43:00.006-06:00

On Saturday, April 16th, 2011, I'll host a Taijutsu Workshop with Shihan Jack Hoban in Chicagoland. We've been seeing quite a bit of Jack lately and he has again worked us into his busy schedule. I am not at liberty to speak on all the opportunities ahead for him, but suffice it to say, they are numerous and exciting! My small contribution will be an upcoming interview with him accepted by Black Belt magazine.

Why is there such buzz for Jack? The answer is simple ... and not so simple. Throughout our world's often violent history, lesser men have found a useful tool in the chronic dehumanization of their enemies and of the society in which they fought to subjugate. Institutional dehumanization, exemplified by the world's most vicious regimes and now on full display in this year of near constant revolution, enables brutalizing and killing more rapidly and without question while safeguarding despots to steal or maintain the reins of power they so selfishly desire.

But one archetype has held fast against such easy victory - the iconic noble warrior. They alone questioned the very nature of their use of force. Inspired by the ethical leaps forward offered by the tenets of religion and divine faith, they were compelled to reconcile the honing of their individual martial skill with its justifiable use on others, its effect on society, and the greater good. In Japanese history, such notable samurai as Miyamoto Musashi and Yagyu Munenori, no less than the Kenpo teacher to a shogun himself, were challenged to contemplate the virtues of warriorship by Takuan, a Buddhist monk, and would leave behind astute works on the subject including the "Book of Five Rings" and "The Life-Giving Sword."

Today, we are far removed from the integral role martial arts once played in a secure society and as a result, in the modern training of martial skill there can often be a disconnect between the attainment of ability and its intrinsic moral imperative, providing little if any practical grounding for ethical application. This can result in the purely selfish pursuit for combative ability in and of itself. At its most basic level, Jack's training dispels the fog that for many obscures this innate moral-physical connection that can provide the clarity of justified use as well as virtuous core values. Training these ideals can make us realize our role in the storied history of warriorship and remind us just why we started training in the first place.

How is he able to do this? Jack has through his decades of martial training and apprenticeship, developed a keen understanding of nothing less than the profound: a simple, practical theory of human nature. The causality of our human nature is among the oldest questions - if not the oldest - in human history. Answers to 'why we are the way we are' carries implications for every aspect of society. Just imagine if there were common sense directions to resolve individual conflict, even war, a simple way to respect the equalness of our fellow man, improve cross-cultural relations, a remedy to dehumanization, and even a basic recipe for human happiness. Jack's theory, the "Dual-Life Value," provides clarity on these matters of the human condition, and people are listening, including the Marine Corps, Law Enforcement from across the country, and many in the civilian sector.

Along with shifting perspectives and changing minds, Jack's greatest breakthrough has been to turn the theory into actionable physical lessons by reconciling the many years he spent under the tutelage of Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, the wellspring of the last true warrior arts, and his mentor, Dr. Robert Humphrey, the DLV theory's original articulator, who was not a PhD, or any tenured academic, but a World War II Marine who fought on Iwo Jima, and formulated his theory based in part on the profound self-sacrifice of his men during some of the darkest horrors of war.

Join us for truly inspired training!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

1:00 - 5:00 pm

A Center for the Martial Arts - Soseikan Dojo

6856 West 111th Street

Worth, Illinois 60482

708-448-2454
Cost $75.00

Winjutsu link
http://www.winjutsu.com/seminars/hoban_chicagoland.htm
Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=192206177469120

10 Questions with Jack Hoban

Below are my "10 Questions" for training in this enigmatic art. In formulating them, I hoped to zero in on the foundational elements - the grounding balance and equilibrium we can sometimes lose in training's minutiae. I try to answer them myself every once in a while, if only to chronicle my own development. Please enjoy. ~James

What is your personal martial arts biography?

I studied some karate as a teenager, and then karate and escrima while I was in the U.S. Marines. I also boxed a little. I read about Stephen K. Hayes and went to some of his training in the early 80’s, including the first Ninja Festival. It was Stephen who was my first sempai and who introduced me to Japanese martial arts master Masaaki Hatsumi in 1982. I have been studying Bujinkan Taijutsu with Hatsumi Sensei ever since.

Why do you train?

I train – or practice – so that I can keep my mind and body sharp and healthy. Of course, I am always learning a little more each time I practice, but I am more focused on living a full and ethical life. That’s the purpose. Ethics to me are moral values in action – in other words being ethical has a physical aspect and a values aspect. These two aspects, the physical and moral, combine to create an ethic. The ethic of a warrior is the ethic to protect the life of self and others – all others.

What do you think is/are the core value(s) of martial arts training?

There is really only one core value, and that is life. I learned that concept, from two different perspective: from Masaaki Hatsumi, as well as from my Marine Corps mentor, Robert L. Humphrey, who articulated the Dual Life Value of human nature. They both said that the core of martial arts is to protect life. From the life value, all the other great moral values flow. Moral values protect the self - happiness, health, serenity, and so on. And moral values protect others – honor, courage, commitment, justice etc. As you can see, some of the great moral values protect both self and others. And they all have one thing in common – when they are functioning correctly, they are all life-protecting.

But they are still relative values. Our relative moral values must be constantly examined to ensure that they are always performing their life-respecting mission. For example, courage can become foolish martyrdom; commitment can become irrational fanaticism; honor can become self-righteousness, conceit, and disrespect for others. As relative moral values they must always remain grounded in the Life Value.

Can you explain your method of training and teaching?

This is one of the secrets I learned from my teacher. I don’t really teach. I train, and then, kind of, talk out loud about what I am doing and feeling. Martial arts, I don’t think, can really be taught; the student has to learn them on their own. Actually they have to be “snatched” from movements and actions of others. Sometimes they also can come out of “nowhere.” That is the creative mystery of martial arts training, and it only happens sometimes.

Is there a “secret” to training?

Well, I think there are two important things: luck – you have to be lucky and find the right mentor. The second is perseverance – you have to keep going. Some innate aptitude or “knack” for martial arts and physicality can help. But I think luck and perseverance are the most important factors and can make up for a lack of natural gifts.

What would you recommend others do, to improve their training?

First: Clarify your ethic – why are you training? Is it for yourself? Is it for others? Does your desire to train flow from your relative values or emotions? Or does it come also from your desire to protect life? Second: Practice! Practice by yourself and practice with others. Live a flexible, but healthy and physical lifestyle. You have to practice incessantly – every day.

What are the biggest differences today, than when you first began training?

Well, I am older and have a different view and deeper motivations, so I have changed. Another thing is that there is so much more information on martial arts – all kinds of martial arts – readily available. And there are so many more people than there ever were practicing. There have also been many environmental changes – types and availability of weapons, different kinds of enemies. But in a way, nothing has changed. The principles that are represented by the art we call “Bujinkan” are fundamental to the human experience and have a life of their own. They are the laws of the warrior. They will endure as long as there is one true warrior in the world.

What is the role a martial artist plays in our world?

A martial artist is a rather all-inclusive term. Many people have differing perspectives on what martial artists are and what their roles are. Therefore, there can be many roles: from someone who is interested in self-defense, to someone who is interested in exercise and “getting in shape,” to people who have an affinity or interest in the cultural and historical aspects of the martial arts – particularly if they originated in a country other than their own. Martial artists can play less benign roles, as well: some people want to be involved in martial arts because it gives them status or control over others. Frankly, I am not interested in any of those reasons. I see martial arts as the physical manifestation of our human proclivity to be protectors of life – self and others. Particularly others. I guess you would call that aspect of the martial arts “warriorship.” I often say that it starts in the schoolyard. You see a bully. His thinks he is “top dog.” That is fine. That perception is a relative value. But when his relative value supersedes the life value of another kid – in other words, when the bully picks on and/or punches the other kid – this is wrong! Here is the rule: relative values, no matter how “great,” cannot supersede the life value.

You see the bully picking on the other kid. You feel – in your guts – that this is wrong. Congratulations, you are moral. (By the way, most people are moral – they know the difference between right and wrong).

Now…you see the bully picking on the other kid. You overcome the “freeze,” you overcome the embarrassment, and you go tell a teacher. Congratulations! You are ethical. (Ethics are moral values in action).

Now…you see the bully picking on the other kid. You overcome the “freeze,” you overcome the fear, and you go to the aid of the kid being bullied. You put yourself at risk. Congratulations! You have the makings of an Ethical Warrior.

And it doesn’t end in the schoolyard. Almost all problems in our society and the world are caused by bullies – those who would supersede the life value of others with their own relative values. Warriors counter the bullies.

What one thing would you contribute to a “Book of Knowledge?”

I really don’t think I have anything special to contribute that hasn’t already been said, done, or is already part of our human nature. I do think we have made a clarification with our articulation of a warrior as a protector of life – self and all others – who will fight only when necessary to protect life. This contrasts greatly with some definitions of a warrior, and I am good with that.

Do you have any great hope for the future of martial training?

Absolutely, once things are clarified and articulated, the chances for them to spread and do their good work increases. Our ability to share information and travel will facilitate some bad things, but I believe mostly good things. And what could be better than the feeling of being a protector of life? Here is a little story. One time I was hinting to my teacher that I was concerned that I might not have copies of all of the densho (written documents containing the art’s techniques). He looked at me as if I were a little slow and said, “Jack, I made fifty videos!” I thought, “Of course!” Five hundred years ago things were passed from person to person and had to be written down on paper. Now we can share knowledge in a much more open and interactive way. We have all the techniques – with commentary, good and not so good examples, and countless henka (variations) all on video. So that part of it is handled pretty well.

There are also great examples of people with beautiful hearts and perspectives on martial arts, who are also fierce, brave and capable. Not all of us fit that description, but great role models are out there – and more accessible than they have ever been in history. That’s a good thing. Just as long as we pick the right role model – and are a little lucky.

An Attack on Dr. Humphrey's Dual-Life Value Theory

2011-02-07T23:06:00.001-06:00

If you haven't already read Jack Hoban's piece "Developing the Ethical Marine Warrior" - check it out, it's a great read.

But also check out "Chappy's" retort as well as rebuts in the 'Comments' section.

Interesting ...

http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/developing-ethical-marine-warrior

Under the Blade 2011

2011-01-07T12:00:00.045-06:00

“As for walls, think of them as being made out of ice. If you are a man who possesses a warm heart of natural justice, Hatsumi, hitting a wall will be no problem. Walls made of ice will just melt!!”

~Takamatsu Sensei

Shinnen Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu!

Happy New Decade, Buyu! With the greatest of hope, may it be peaceful and prosperous!

My god, we survived 2010! From oil spills that couldn’t be capped, to borrowing more of China’s money, to North Korea acting as rationally as Charlie Sheen. But take heart, humorist Dave Barry said there have been much worse years, “For example, toward the end of the Cretaceous Period, Earth was struck by an asteroid that wiped out about 75 percent of all of the species on the planet. Can we honestly say that we had a worse year than those species did? Yes, we can, because they were not exposed to "Jersey Shore."

But thanks to your support in 2010, the Shingitai-Ichi Dojo is going strong. Yes, we had our own oil spill – olive – in the kitchen, which was capped immediately, by the way, and yes, we probably did buy too many goods from China – turns out these words were made in China! Man! But we did not get drunk and threaten the sovereignty of South Korea. Totally not us.

We did find ourselves back in Japan, having a terrific, challenging, and “salty” time.

I was proud to be part of the very first Resolution Group International certification course with my mentor Jack Hoban and his hand-picked team of instructors. Jack also paid us a couple of inspiring visits here that are always great fun on the mat, and off it on a steady diet of steaks and stories. Chalk up another successful ‘Midwest Taikai’ and another of our annual Gasshukus; we also welcomed new students and new Buyu. And as always, we trained, and trained, and trained some more.

But not everything bright, brought a smile. Some, like a bomb, cast permanent shadows. We lost Mark Hodel. Our dear friend and mentor, taken far younger than anyone ever should be, whose council, assuredness, and good humor will forever be remembered by those who loved him. For Mark, the struggle is over, ours continues. We will picture him, arms crossed, nodding and smiling - “Keep going,” he would say. And so we shall.

2011 is the year of the Rabbit, known for peace and endurance - qualities that will play directly into our training themes. And this year, Soke would have us reach back to our beginnings to push our capacity ever further, making Kihon Happo (季翻初崩) the theme for 2011. We normally know Kihon Happo as the method of eight fundamental ways, but Soke has written it differently, as he does each year’s theme. Now, only Soke truly knows what he means, yet these martial riddles provide good training to try and decipher. It seems to me, this one is asking us to ‘make the breaking of the form, our natural state.’

Soke’s use of poetry here is another reminder that the basics are anything but basic. We would be wise not to study the Kihon Happo as answers to our most prolific physical questions, but rather as a smarter means of solving for them. In other words, relying on a particular set of answers is not as useful as a better method to solve questions that continually fluctuate. In an old issue of Tetsuzan, Nagato Sensei writes of Kihon Happo, “If you train for a long time, you become able to see at a glance whether someone’s basic movements are correct. They don’t have to all be the same, they must just be correct. That’s the feeling I want everyone to grasp. It takes time to understand this mindset. To a certain extent, the longer you train, the more you understand the basics and Budo itself. But it is precisely when you are devoting yourself single-mindedly to mastering the basics that you can’t understand the wider principles.”

I love that quote. I think the “correct” that Nagato Sensei alludes to is the balance between principles that make us effective, and techniques that make us efficient. It takes into account the fundamental nature of the kukan – change. The variable – change’s instrument – will always, each and every time, be naturally different. And if we are to “keep going,” we must continually acknowledge and adapt to this supreme rule. Which is why I don’t believe there can be “realistic” training – only real is real. No amount of training can make us aware of all the inherent variables - life is too strange, too coincidental, too real to know every technique, every answer. We can only ever learn to stay ahead, lead even, lest we fall into the variable’s wake.

During one tough operation in Iraq, combat teams were using tactical clearing methods – flash-bang grenades tossed into homes prior to entry. At one point, when a team member reached for a door, it suddenly opened and in its place was an insurgent - their eyes locked. Without hesitating, the member handed him the grenade and the insurgent took it. The member closed the door - BANG! Now, team members weren’t trained with that particular technique and had anyone taught it as viable, they’d have been laughed off base. Yet, in that moment, it worked.

Jack Hoban said, “The combat mindset is the ability to maintain a professional frame of mind despite the physical and emotional stresses of war. Professionalism under fire can be developed through a combination of conscious ethical discipline and consistent physical training. Warrior ethics - moral protector values in action - are the “true north” that guides us through the debilitating physiological factors, stress, and emotions that typically assail Marines in the “fog of war.” The training kicks in and we do what needs to be done.”

This is the challenge – to train ourselves to be useful in constantly changing moments – under stress - seeking not to win by forcing a particular answer, but using the ‘broken form, naturally,’ ever reconciling its emotional and physical detachment we can shield ourselves with inside the kukan to maintain our ethic. In 2010, Shinobigokoro had us bridge the gap to the opponent, shape the space, limit options, and endure the moment we have allowed them. For the past several years our own themes have had much to do with the shaping of the kukan – Tsunagaru, Asobigokoro, Shinobigokoro – each a step closer, each a more refined approach. For 2011, our own dojo theme will continue the trend in ‘Ichi go, Ichi e’ (一期一会), “one time, one meeting/one chance.” Physically, it will demand more patience, awareness, and resoluteness; the ability to shape options for the opponent and ‘let go’ under stress, pressing ourselves into the void – the formless counterweight to off-balance an opponent’s intention.

Soke's "One enlightenment, One meeting"

Philosophically, ‘Ichi go, Ichi e’ can also be interpreted as ‘one moment for a first impression.’ This past year, I was contacted by a young man on his way to becoming a missionary in South America. He had schooling ahead and wanted to train just in case some native were to poke him with a spear. So, with visions of Indy running from the Peruvian Hovitos – “Jock! Start the plane!” - I mentioned I could show him spear stuff, but that was not the point of training. Without enough experience to grant us the right perspective, nothing would protect him from making his new native friends feel they had something to fear. Approaching others knowing we have ‘one moment to make a first impression,’ is to communicate to them they have nothing to fear from us, erasing ourselves as target to become anonymous. Ethically and tactically it sets a trap only the opponent can spring on themselves, for it places the onus of conflict squarely upon their shoulders, forcing them to build a bridge to carry a fight to us that would be both obvious and reckless.

Overt defensiveness contracts the kukan, implying mistrust and disrespect, forcing others to feel an urgency to react. This can lead to spontaneous, dangerous action on the part of the opponent, forcing us to react violently, instead of leading, and shaping the moment to our advantage. But it all comes down to our perspective and how we define our martial training. It is said the highest form of Ninpo is to “win” without fighting, but what does that mean? Just like our Kihon Happo (季翻初崩), we must return to our beginnings for an answer.

This past year, Soke had us training Rokkon Shojo - less about a particular school or technique and more about the process, giving us chance to reflect on our journey and its ability to purify through endurance; begging questions: Who have we become? What compels us to volunteer our time, energy, and money to this physical pursuit? Why do we train? Asking why we train martial arts is the same as asking why it is important enough to train them. It may seem easy to answer because everybody’s got an answer: spiritual refinement, self-confidence, health and fitness, and the biggie - self defense. But are these answers good enough to keep us training? After 30 years, if I’ve learned one “secret,” a secret that trumps all others, it’s that we have to stick around long enough to learn something. But the numbers for longevity are not good - they stink. See, it’s not the beginning that’s hard – lots of people try martial arts - it’s the staying that is. And experience has taught, most who begin training will not stay.

For many people who decide to train, martial arts will only ever be a pop-culture hobby, a semi-mysterious pastime engaged for a period, when not busy with other hobbies or bar hopping. As Eastern culture, medicine, and religion continue to gain foothold in Western society, there will never be a shortage of people coming through training’s revolving door, which is great news for all the business-seis out there, bad news for those who are actually searching for meaning. So, if we plan on sticking with training, we better understand how to define it sustainably, but there’s the rub.

If we had to summarize the core philosophy of a major religion, could we do it? Say Christianity – model one’s life after Jesus Christ and be ushered into his heaven for all eternity. Can we do the same with other religions, Buddhism or Islam? How about the core philosophy of a political ideology? Conservatism – the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. Liberalism – the bigger the government, the better off the citizen. We’re on a roll. Now, let’s summarize the core philosophy of martial arts - of Budo Taijutsu, Ninpo Taijutsu. What is its main teaching, its core values we aim to follow throughout life? We should endure? We should be patient? We should live? To what extent? To what end? Are we clear enough to provide ourselves enough direction to follow throughout our lives?

Training is what we do, it’s how we define ourselves. Shouldn’t we be able to iterate a simple, single sentence that encapsulates and explains why? Religion is a philosophy of divine faith, politics, of social contract. And Budo? Is it just self-centered personal development? Then get a freakin’ life coach! Hit up a Tony Robbins seminar! We’re studying an ageless warrior art, from the last ninja alive, with lessons from stained battlefields and the survival of whole communities across the continuum of history, and all we can think of, all we can figure as the best answer for why we train is ourselves? It’s for me? That kind of thinking may be okay to begin with, but in the long run, it’s not sustainable - it’s too selfish.

Throughout history, martial arts helped to cement the social contract of communities when a warrior class pledged to protect people it felt it had a duty to. The martial arts were religious and mystical, often associated with claims to have been learned from God or the gods – not an uncommon thing in eras rife with superstition – with “special” or “secret” training giving rise to legendary status. The martial arts were political, creating a structure for the warrior class to lead by and ensure their rule. But since landing on our shores, we have tried hard to redefine martial arts for a modern age and for better or worse, pop culture has done the work for us – I got hooked on Lee Van Cleef's “The Master” in sixth-grade. Is it any wonder misconceptions still exist about their seemingly magical properties – even the courts think martial artists can cartwheel around attackers if one is “trained.”

Kuniyoshi's Rabbit Helmet "Shinozuka Iga no Kami"

On several occasions this past year, Soke made mention of the “gorin” – five rings – of weapons throughout Japan’s history – ken, tachi, jyu (gun), katana, and nuclear weapons. From the brutish ken, the skillful tachi was developed and employed at a time of Japanese warfare’s technological and strategic peak, an era when the best of warriors might fight each other alone, deciding outcomes so armies of others would not have to fight and die in vain. The importation of firearms and proliferation would lead to a reckoning that eventually foreshadowed their banishment. Enter the katana, once a companion blade to the tachi, imbued with an almost supernatural mythos to take (satsujinken) and give (katsujinken) life – the death-dealing and life-giving sword – it becomes the symbol of the warrior code, Bushido. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapon, but in the history of Japan they would receive twice the fire to cauterize the blood loss of a world at war, directing their nation’s will to dismantle a government-run, warmongering ethos, to seek peace and prosperity. It is interesting to me, these historical moments seem to mirror the rise of ethical values.

Soke recently spoke of the art fulfilling its role as ‘Jin no Budo’ – Budo of humankind. How can we ever live up to this auspicious, noble thought if we are confused about the nature of our own martial nature? Can we respect the life of our opponent as equal to our own, even when their behavior is not? Can we extend our protection to them the best of our ability as the situation merits? Can we release ourselves of the soft prejudices of our relative values, detaching from the form and rule of those me-and-mine-centered beliefs and recognize our inalienable universal values? Can we melt the walls made of ice? Can we ‘make the broken form, our natural state?’

I believe Soke’s message is clear - in learning to become part of the ageless history of Budo, we are bound to the intrinsic responsibility of learning to use its knowledge ethically or risk repeating the mistakes of history in our own future. For me, training is a self and others value – we begin for ourselves, but ultimately must balance it with the sake of others, teaching, coaching, providing the best opportunity to extend the art’s message of protecting and saving life.

Thirty years ago, I could think of no better reason than myself to begin training. Thirty years later, I can think of no better reason than others as to why I "keep going."

Let’s all keep going - we’ll make it!

James

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2010-12-24T10:41:00.000-06:00

We had terrific fun at Bonenkai! My great thanks to all those who came and supported it.

Look for my Under the Blade 2011 this January.

Please have a safe and very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

See you in 2011!

2010 Bonenkai Training and Celebration

2010-12-05T15:47:00.002-06:00

Seasons Greetings and Merry Christmas!

We’ve nailed down the date for our annual Bonenkai training and celebration for Saturday, December 18th!

Join us as we recap this year’s training in “Shinobigokoro” and “Rokkon Shojo” from 1-5pm at the Tenshinkan Dojo, the Japanese Culture Center at 1016 West Belmont Ave in Chicago. Cost for the afternoon training will be $30.00.

After training, we’ll retire just across the street to “Mi Tierra Cocina Mexicana” for some of the best food and margaritas in Chicago!

We’ll also enjoy a spirited game of “White Elephant” gift swap, so please bring a wrapped gift for exchange and possible savage, bloody combat. Last year, I brought a whole smoked ham. Yes, a ham. It killed.

Here’s hoping you can join us!

Best,

James

I would like to add - if you are a Shidoshi and are interested in coming, please feel free to attend as my guest and share your thoughts and experiences from your own year of training.

The Bujinkan is incredibly diverse with many different perspectives. When we share these perceptions with each other it can only strengthen our training and help us navigate this sometimes confounding warrior art.

Hoping we'll see you!
Check out our Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=106870052015#!/event.php?eid=164107683630983

Warriorship of the Ring

2010-11-25T14:11:00.000-06:00

Warriorship isn’t just an individual path we choose for self-enlightenment, it’s also something we share with each other, much like friendship and fellowship. Warriorship is that bonding - part of the ‘group ethic’ - we experience when we train together, sharing adversity while trying to understand this inscrutable martial art.

Recently, we had several gatherings that highlighted this ring of warriorship. Our annual Gasshuku was in October and we also had a couple of trainings last week with our friend and mentor, Jack Hoban.

Warriorship is nothing less than the search for values. If we ask ourselves “why do we train?” we’ll discover it is the same as asking “why is it important enough for us to train and keep training?” Warrior values are moral-physical – ethical - and unless we can see them both philosophically and physically encoded into the art, how can we ever comprehend its higher principles or the potential they hold for us?

“To me, a warrior is a protector of other people at the risk of his own life. But what they do that other protectors – like firemen - do not, is kill to protect life - this oxymoronic thing that actually undermines this feeling of nobility from defending others. Yes, I did protect others. Yes, I did protect life, but I had to take life in order to do it. This is an added burden. They almost cancel each other out. And that’s why people get sick from it. And you’ll surely get sick if you do it from the wrong mental perspective, out of anger or fear or prejudice or disrespect or dehumanization – you’ll get real sick. But even if you don’t, it’s still very, very difficult. And that’s why a warrior to me is the epitome of human endeavor because even though they protect humankind’s most important value, life, they may have to take it which is almost … so dangerous to you … that it can’t be overlooked.”
~ Jack Hoban

http://s742.photobucket.com/albums/xx70/sgtidojo/2010-11-Hoban-Seminar/

http://s742.photobucket.com/albums/xx70/sgtidojo/2010-10Gasshuku/

Martial Heart

2010-10-30T11:21:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, I woke up to the very call nobody should ever wake up to. You may have heard by now, but if you haven’t, we have lost one of our own – Mark Hodel passed away last Friday from a heart attack. He was 57. He is survived by his sisters Anne and Page and his son Andrew.

Mark was one of the first, a pioneer of the Bujinkan in America. As one of its “Founding Fathers,” Mark was the 5th American to take the Godan test, co-sponsored the first American Tai Kai, and completed some 40-plus years of martial arts training. A lifelong student, he also mentored those who asked (and some who didn’t) and watched over plenty of folks along the way, opening not just his home for training, but also his heart.

I first met Mark in 1999 and enjoyed a strong friendship with him ever since. He arrived with Jack Hoban, hosting the first Buyu seminar in the Midwest, or perhaps it was one of the first. There were like, eight of us there or something - it was very small. Mark introduced himself to me with a smile and a firm handshake, “Welcome,” he said. He was friendly, accommodating, and kind. He remained that way all of the years I knew him.

Mark recommended I teach at the second Buyu Camp I attended some years ago – a step into a larger world I might not have taken on my own. But that was Mark for you – he pushed me, mentoring with the confidence he would freely give away, recognizing and handing our own potential back to us saying, ‘keep going,’ (you’re almost there).

Training is a very personal thing. There is and probably will always be much debate as to its efficacy and essentialness – is it just a hobby sharing time with model shipbuilding and tennis? Or is it something more, something deeper, spiritual even? How we choose to answer that is incumbent on our perspective, the perceptivity of our training experience, and what it means to us in the big picture. I don’t go to church, I no longer practice my Catholic faith, I still respect it and believe in a higher power, in my own personal way. But for me, I train. Training answers for me the great moral questions, it directs my thoughts and actions and shapes my character; I believe in its law, a naturalness to understanding justice and what is right and wrong in the world around me.

Mark did too. He knew the importance of it, the weight and burden of it, so never questioned why, he just accepted, until such time he could understand things more fully, embracing the change, his evolution in thought. He was smart that way, patient, fervently loyal to training’s long-term goal, while prioritizing his life among his loved ones and friends. I will miss my friend Mark as will the thousands of other people around the world whose lives he touched.

Attached are 10 questions I sent Mark in 2002. He sent his answers back to me right away, as I recall, and I am so thankful he did. It is an amazing read - in his voice – and displays the quiet brilliance of Mark’s understanding of Budo. Some can train martial arts the whole of their lives and never realize the subtle shades Mark knew intrinsically, the nuances that provide that last piece of the puzzle, giving us clarity to navigate in a sometimes brutal world. Mark knew these truths simply, like he knew his name, like he knew the sun would rise tomorrow. His words, just like he did in life, shine a light on the path so the rest of us can find our way.

The life we lead is also the imprint we leave behind, the track others can see and sense and follow. The imprint Mark left was as a minder of the path, a guardian on it, standing sometimes on its sidelines just to make sure others were not getting lost, or confused, or standing still. And in those cases, he would reach out, offering us a necessary hand, righting our balance, until such time we needed to be righted again. And he would be there, again. This was Mark’s Taijutsu - his life’s last and greatest lesson - that inspired us and led us by example.

If you knew Mark, please keep him and his family in your thoughts. If you didn’t, please say a prayer for him, and one as well for yourself, that you might know someone someday, an expert in martial heart like Mark Hodel.

~James

10 Questions with Mark Hodel, 2002

What is your personal martial art biography?

I became interested in martial arts in the early 60’s. I started Judo when I was 11, and got my green belt in December 1964. I continued with Judo and Jujitsu (Kodenkan Style, Prof. Wally Jay, Alameda Jujitsu Club, Del Esposti, Marin School of Self Defense) and got a brown belt when I was 15.

When I was 16, I could finally attend the Karate class that I only could watch until that time. I became a martial art nut. I still have boxes of old Black Belt Magazines, including the December 1966 issue that introduced ninja to America and the February 1967 issue that introduced us to Hatsumi-Sensei: “A little more than an hours train ride from Tokyo in drowsy Noda City along the back waters of Chiba peninsula lives one of the more interesting men of Japan today. He is Yoshiaki Hatsumi, a modern day ninja…”

I think I may have been one of the first people to buy the Andy Adams book in March of 1970. I read it over and over, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would ever meet Hatsumi Sensei face-to-face.

I got my Black Belt in Shotokan Karate from one of Richard Kim’s (SFO YMCA) Black Belt Instructors, Gene Orlando, in September 1971. When I was in college in Santa Barbara, California, I trained with Bill Berk a student of Hidetaka Nishiyama (AAKF) in Shotokan Karate including attending tournaments and camps and going to LA to train with Nishiyama-Sensei.

I took several years off then moved to Stockton, California (1978), and trained for three years in Karate and Jujitsu with a student of Prof. Wally Jay and Coach Willy Cahill, named Art Diocson. I also trained simultaneously with Stockton based Filipino martial art masters: Gilbert Tenio, John Eliab, Leo Giron, Angel Cabales, and Dentoy Revilar.

I bought the first Stephen K. Hayes book in 1980 and became interested in Ninjutsu again. I saw a seminar in Black Belt Magazine that he was giving in October 1981 in Seattle, Washington, and went to check it out. His partner and Uke for the seminar was a wiry, crew cut Marine officer named Jack Hoban.

I started going to seminars in Ohio with Stephen K. Hayes and went with him on the 1983 Ninja Tour of Japan where I met Hatsumi Sensei and the Shihan: Ishizuka, Nagato, Kan, Saito, Kobayashi, Oguri, Nogouchi, Shiraishi, Seno, and others.

Stephen K. Hayes recommended that I train with Jack Hoban who was closer to me than Ohio, in San Diego, and introduced us. I started going down to his monthly seminars, given in a Quonset hut on the Marine base by the San Diego airport.

I invited him to come to Stockton and give a seminar for my little training group in January, 1984 - he did and that was the beginning of the Stockton Bujinkan Dojo. The picture of that first Jack Hoban seminar includes California students who are still active, Richard Van Donk, Mark O’brien, Bill Atkins, Dale Seago, Dave Furukawa, Miki Fujitsubo, and others.

In 1985, Jack Hoban and I started the Warrior Information Network, at that time a newsletter with training information. It has evolved into the WIN website on the internet: http://www.winjutsu.com/.

I have been active in the Bujinkan Dojo, co-sponsoring 5 Tai Kai’s, Sensei’s two newsletters, Tetsuzan and Sanmyaku, seminars, and camps and I have been to Japan to train 16 times. I passed the Godan test on December 4, 1989 (I was the fifth American). I have also enjoyed the international expansion of the Bujinkan and have attended Tai Kai’s in Sweden, England, and Israel

I now train weekly in Southeast Wisconsin, monthly with a group of independent instructors from around Wisconsin and Illinois, yearly at the Tai Kai, USA. I also co-sponsor the BuYu Camp in June in San Francisco and I go to Japan with a group of students every December for the Daikomyosai training.

What are the biggest differences in training today than when you first began in the Bujinkan?

The biggest change is the sheer volume of information available to the student. There are numerous books, videos, websites, newsletters and magazines that didn’t exist in the early 80’s. The second difference is the number of training opportunies available in dojos, seminars and qualified instructors usually no more than a couple of hours drive for most students. There is also a twenty year history of practice in America to look back on as part of the learning process.

Why do we train the way we do, e.g. yearly themes, yearly weapons?

This question begs the answer: because Hatsumi-Sensei told us to do it this way.

It may seem strange that he teaches “no technique” and then directs us to train within a defined structure, but I don’t think it is, even if it is frustrating to the student*. I think that Sensei is talking about an end - no technique - and a means to that end - the lesson in the waza.

I believe that all the lessons of Ninjutsu are coded in a three dimensional language called taijutsu, but that their meaning - the waza’s essence - is different, or changes, for the student as a he or she progresses in skill level. So we need to revisit the ryu and the waza over the course of our lives, over and over again probably, to apply the lessons to our current training level or awareness.

I also think he is giving us something constructive to do so that we don’t get cocky and start making stuff up - do the technique wrong well.

At the first Tai Kai in Yuma Mura, Japan, in October 1983, at a question and answer session, someone asked Sensei what he - the student - should do to become Soke. The translator said that the student should do his movements in front of a mirror, and when he moved like Soke, he could be the Soke.

What at first seemed to me, in translation, to be a flippant answer to a stupid, insulting question later made more sense to me. He gives us dozens of waza, hundreds of variations, weird concepts like snow falling off trees, dropping devils, and imperial palanquins and says do all this stuff, it will take years, if most of it sticks, you will be OK.

*At the BuYu Camp 2000, Julio Toribio told us this story: when training in Japan, Sensei watched his technique and said, “No power!” Julio asked, “Sensei, if I have no power, how can I do the technique?” Sensei replied, “No technique!” Julio then exclaimed, “But, Sensei if I have no technique, how can I do the exercise?” Sensei smiled and said, “Keep Going!” and walked away.

What aspects of training should budoka concentrate on?
Their health, family life, personal economics, then balance training activities. Don’t think about it too much, just do it.

Is there a secret to training?
Well, if there is a secret, it is still a secret to me (laugh)! If you are asking is there a simple top priority, I would say that it is to train with Hatsumi Sensei directly, or if that is not practical, train with people who believe that that is the top priority.

What is the best way I can improve my training?
Keep going.

Given the new climate of the world stage, what are our roles as budoka?
While sometimes warfare is a zero sum adventure, I believe that Ninjutsu in application is not. Any situation should be managed so that there is no bad after affect if possible. I would say the worst after affects are the consequences of death, hatred, and revenge. Sometimes good people have to do bad things, but it must never be their choice to do them, it must always be a last resort and without alternative.

The ironic thing about martial art training is that you practice with some of your best friends to apply to your worst enemies. The chilling reality of a real enemy is not usually part of the student’s life experience.

Sadly, evil is on the move in the world now and the chance that we will have to apply our training against real enemies is much greater after 9-11-01.

However, maybe that (applying our training) is our minor role. Our major role may be to remind those that we protect and defend, and each other, that our enemies are not animals, and while some will have to be killed, it is because they force us, and if we live, we will have to share the world with the rest when the war is over so we have to relate to them as fellow human beings, and get them to do the same. (www.lifevalues.com)

At the Daikomyosai training in 2001, Hatsumi-Sensei told us that we must prepare to deal with real enemies at their level, but without the hatred (my paraphrase of the translator).

“…The ninja’s duty is to be enlightened in the laws of humanity. There should be no fighting that does not follow these rules. Therefore, the enemy who stands against the laws of nature has lost his battle before he begins the fight. The first priority to the ninja was to win without fighting, that remains the way.” (Takamatsu-Sensei in an interview by Hatsumi-Sensei in his book “Essence of Ninjutsu”, page 23.)

If you could contribute one thing to the Bujinkan “Book of Knowledge” what would it be?
One thing? Well, I suppose it would be three admonitions.

The first is that simulating violence and talking about it in training is not the same as experiencing it. (It is easy to say “cut here” it is not easy to cut “here.”)

The second would be that the budoka treat his or her skills like a sacred trust, be careful when you apply them and to whom you teach them.

The third admonition is that the student must realize that when you apply your skills on a real enemy, your life will be changed.

How do you overcome problems with training or other budoka?
I am not sure I understand this question. I suppose the biggest problem students have is the money and time commitment required for training, so I would say that you must balance your economic life, personal life and training life because they are interactive whether you like it or not.

Regarding problems with other budoka, I really haven’t had any that I can recall. I suppose that if I did I would just avoid them, if they damaged me in some way, the legal system both criminal and civil exists to compensate that damage. This is not wild west any more, after all.

What is the future of the Bujinkan?
I wish I could predict the future! Well, from what I have observed, the Bujinkan Dojo is an expanding worldwide phenomena and I suppose that there will be thousands of little training groups all over the world that think and act local, but get together to share technology with each other periodically and remain linked by their common practice. Imagine a world filled with physical/moral, defender/protectors. Imagine communities where it is not safe to be a bad guy (laugh)!

Do you have any special plans for your own training in the future?
Like all students, I struggle with the “big picture” since the body of knowledge (physical skill knowledge) in the Bujinkan Dojo is huge. Some day I would like to be able to say that I understand it all, but I don’t worry about it, in the mean time I will just keep going.

Walking the "Plank"

2010-10-23T12:15:00.000-05:00

He was just lying there, but his dazed look invited others to inquire – in my neighborhood that was a concern. He wasn’t dead, but he was out of it and needed help. I suspected he’d been drinking and in a rambling slur he acknowledged such. I didn’t want to leave someone who couldn’t take care of themselves - he could be dying from some drug cocktail coursing through him for all I knew. And if I had left him, he could be mugged, beat up, or worse. So I called 911.

Perhaps my experience at the inaugural RGI Conflict Resolution Course the prior September weekend instilled in me a sense of ownership for this moment. I couldn’t help being inspired, the lineup of instructors was impressive: James Shanahan, 30-year veteran of the NYPD – a legend; Joe “Marine” Shusko, 30-year veteran of the Marine Corps and director of the Corps’ Martial Arts Center for Excellence in Quantico, Virginia – another legend; Officer Artie Mark, NYPD, the epitome of the ‘street-smart cop;’ Gary Klugiewicz, 25-year veteran of the Milwaukee Sheriff’s Department and president of “Verbal Judo.” The list goes on with agents from the FBI, US Marshals Service, and other professionals from the civilian sector. And leading this mighty pack of sheepdogs was none other than Jack Hoban.

In attendance were Law Enforcement, Marines, servicemen, teachers, and civilians, all of us looking for answers to resolve conflict, reduce tensions, and make the world just a little bit safer. The impact of the training was to do just that. From learning how to communicate effectively, to street smarts, to physical skills, to teambuilding, to philosophy, to a morning PT session right on the Jersey shore, all of the training, lectures, stories, and anecdotes were geared toward activating the inner ‘Ethical Warrior.’

The root of all conflict is disrespect and often leads to the dehumanization of one’s enemy, further obscuring the moral high ground. Cicero said, “Whom they fear, they hate,” and it is as true today as it was in Roman times. By dehumanizing the enemy and reducing their lives to subhuman stature, it makes it easier to do the rough stuff, the violence, the killing. So, activating respect for the lives of others and ourselves is the surest means to resolve conflict, while at the same time creates a powerfully strong, tactical advantage.

Joe Shusko recounted the story of his own son, a Marine stationed in Iraq, when he took charge of a unit responsible for finding caches of illegal weapons. SOP was to kick in the doors of villagers, swarm in guns up, and interrogate the homeowners. Not only were they not finding any weapons, they were still being attacked, and weren’t receiving any information from villagers. Upon taking over, Shusko’s son made a command decision – stop kicking in doors and interrogating, start knocking on doors and asking politely. Within one week of the change, they were inundated with information and were led to various caches and insurgents that could have harmed or killed innocent civilians and fellow Marines.

So, after watching over my inebriated friend, imagine my relief when a Chicago Police cruiser rolled up to help him. I approached the officers – a young blond female, and an older male – and gave them the story, even telling them his name was Dean (I had gotten that much out of him).

They were silent, walked right past, without even looking at or acknowledging me. They ambled over to Dean who was lying on the sidewalk and the blond yelled, “Get up! You’re drunk! This is ridiculous!” The male poured a bottle of water on him. Dean jackknifed up. I turned and walked home.

Shanahan had said over his long career he had known cops who could talk a rabid dog off a meat truck and others who could show up at the scene of the Nativity and crack skulls. A few days later, I recalled my encounter to Jack. He asked rhetorically, “Think they’re happy acting that way?”

Ode to a Warhammer

2010-09-20T10:55:00.000-05:00

So, I bought a warhammer. It’s nice – handmade from maple. It’s remarkably balanced. I named it “Gary” after the fellow who made it. I bought it at the Midwest Taikai in August. It’s my first warhammer.

When I brought Gary into the Ann Arbor ballroom and started moving with it, some folks approached me with consternation, “What are you going to do with that?” I was taken aback. They may as well have been asking what I intended to do with a hanbo, or sword, or rope. “Train with it,” I replied. They smiled, “Yeah, but … how?”

Now, “how” is a good question. But here’s a better one to me – “How do you not know how?” Isn’t this the Ninja art? The one supposed to grant us the ability to pick up and utilize any weapon whatsoever and use it to our advantage effectively? It seems to me, if we don’t know how, there might be a disconnect somewhere – with our basics.

Much of the talk at Taikai revolved around basics – how we needed to concentrate on them, practice them more often, make certain we understand them more fully. All of which begs the question: what exactly are the basics?

Most folks seem to agree the basics are the Kihon, Kihon Happo, and Sanshin no kata, some of the most fundamental aspects of our art. But here’s the problem … they’re not basic. They’re like a thousand years old, culled from actual battles, and collectively represent some of the most refined and advanced movement in the history of mankind. The Kihon, Kihon Happo, and Sanshin share something else in common – they’re all techniques; vehicles, models that illustrate, illuminate, and otherwise point us toward understanding the basics. In the use of Taijutsu, elements from all these techniques can be used, and probably overlap with each other along the way, but they’re not essential to the functionality of Taijutsu, they are mere examples - reflections - of it. But the basics are absolutely crucial to every and all movement in Taijutsu; we literally cannot move properly without them.

So, then, what are the basics? Well, let’s say we wanted to teach our little 8-year-old daughter “Jill” martial arts. How would we do it? Would we start her with the Sanshin, the Kihon, and Kihon Happo? About how long do you think it would take Jill to become effective using all of those techniques? And who is she going to use them on? Her friends? Bullies in the schoolyard? To be honest, I’m not so worried about them. I am however, worried about kidnappers, pedophiles, rapists, and murderers. Do we actually believe Jill could successfully perform Sanshin or the Kihon Happo to protect herself from any of them? At eight? Or nine? How about 10? Even after two years of training, I myself would be doubtful Jill could successfully use these techniques. And why? Simple, they’re not basic.

Here’s what I would like my little Jill to know how to do. I’d like her to be able to run as fast as she can. I don’t want her trying to Omote Gyaku herself away from some sicko, I want her outrunning them. I’d like her to be in shape, to be able to scramble up and scale things, run, tumble, and jump nimbly. I’d like her to be strong, be able to climb a rope, and have upper body strength. I’d like her to be able to squirm out of any wrestle, grab, hold, or lock I can place her in and get away. I’d like her to know she can spit, scream, cry, kick and scratch her way out if someone tries to pick her up and Daddy won’t be mad at her for doing so. I’d like to be able to hide or move quietly when she needed to. I’d like her to become more aware of herself and her surroundings and to always be thinking ahead, not waiting for somebody to tell her what to do. And she could learn to do all of these things in a matter of months, in some cases, weeks, even – no techniques, just games, fun games, that provide serious skills. Later, I would begin to layer in techniques - a twist here, a shuto there - but only as she matured, only as much as she understood her own role.

This to me is reasonable. This to me is basic. Why? Principles are the basic: distance, balance, and timing. Getting Jill in shape, and giving her a raw, visceral understanding of advantageous position and leverage on an opponent, at their weakest, most inopportune time grants her the very best chances to escape and survive. Not fighting back, mind you, escaping. Ninpo Taijutsu is based on escape; every aspect of the Shinobi’s life was dedicated to this ideal. They didn’t duel like the samurai, they used their Taijutsu for deception. They created all kinds of funky, freaky tools to assist them, while feeding the superstitions that would expand their legend and create hesitation in the mind of their next enemy. Ninja took the notion of the Bushido warrior and flipped it on its head, because they knew, if they didn’t return with the battle plans, or the reconnaissance map, or the secrets of the enemy, they knew people were going to die. Maybe their own people.

Principles make us effective. Techniques make us efficient. Why would we want our Jill to be efficient without being effective first? And if all of this is true, why would I train adults any differently? Why would I show them all the techniques and none of the principles? Why would I try to make them efficient before making them effective? Techniques on their own don’t work. And what’s worse, they can be lethal to us if utilized that way. To be effective, techniques must be powered, driven, applied by principle; gas is not the principle behind a car, the combustion within its engine is.

So, when asked “how” I would use my warhammer the answer was simple - with Taijutsu. But the better question, “how do you not know how?” is answered by our training perspective. Are there warhammer techniques out there? Yes, Shinden Fudo Ryu has some. Do I know any of them? Not yet, but I imagine I will at some point. Does it matter in the interim? Not really. When we can clearly comprehend the principles, opportunity and advantage become apparent, allowing us to capture the kukan in the right place, in the right way, and most importantly, at the right time. Techniques then fit into the captured space.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not saying we shouldn’t master our most fundamental models – the Kihon, Kihon Happo, and Sanshin are remarkable tools to expose and enlighten us to principle. But memorizing and programming their techniques, or any techniques, as solutions to lethal questions is, to me, leading us precisely to “how do you not know how,” where we must be instructed on every aspect of training, told and directed by the numbers as to how to move, how to respond, and in essence, how to think. Reacting with pre-programmed responses has never seemed as important to me as creating a spontaneous moment through principle that we can take advantage of.

The techniques of our art are there to guide us through the mountains and pitfalls in our understanding of advantage. Position, leverage, and initiative are the adjustments we make in our application of technique. But if we cannot recognize those foundational concepts, if our movement becomes myopic and intent on ‘winning,’ we lose the vitality of the kukan, and the space around us contracts, choking us of the few precious moments we may need to get home to Jill.

I'd want her to own this understanding. I think she'd want me to own it too.

The Hero and the Warrior

2010-08-23T00:06:00.010-05:00

Six people came that first time. We trained – all day – and ran around all night trying to sneak up on each other. The next year we did it again. And the year after that and the year after that. Pretty soon it was like this thing - an important thing, it turned out. In fact, we looked forward and enjoyed it too much, not to keep doing it. So we did. And we’re still doing it today. Gasshuku is shugyo. It’s two-and-a-half days when we volunteer our time and energy to concentrate on warriorship.

Google ‘warriorship’ and you’ll find it bandied about in new age circles – warrior coaching, self mastery, finding the ‘inner warrior’ – but it’s all just mumbo jumbo and clever marketing. No one seems to understand how to even define the warrior, let alone train others in their ways. So, why invoke the ‘warrior’ in such talk? Because of how we associate that strong archetype of the stable, centered, unflappable person able to deflect and defend life’s challenges, and our ideal self. In that sense, a warrior is really a hero.

But there’s something about a warrior that goes beyond even what heroes are capable of. Warriorship is not a complicated thing, but it’s also not an easy thing. Its roots are associated with war, to be sure, but not confined or limited to it. The best definition I ever heard of a warrior comes from Shihan Jack Hoban, an expert in ‘Ethical Warriorship:’

“A fireman is a hero. He protects life, right? At the risk of his own life. Runs into a burning building to protect someone he’s never seen before. Perhaps as a volunteer. And could die saving this person he doesn’t even know. That’s a hero. That’s the epitome of the self and others (value). Which others? All others. And what does he get for it? If he’s a volunteer he doesn’t get anything material. If he works for a town maybe he gets a civil servants pay. But what he (does) get for it is two things: one, he gets to save lives, which is the most noble, best feeling that a human being can get, and he gets the esteem and support of his peers and the people that he saved. He gets the inner and the outer feeling.

So, what’s the difference between them and a warrior? A warrior is supposed to protect people at the risk of his own life, but what he does that (others do not) is kill to protect life; this oxymoronic thing that actually undermines this feeling of nobility from defending others. Yes, I did protect others. Yes, I did protect life, but I had to take life in order to do it. This is an added burden. They almost cancel each other out. And that’s why people get sick from it. And they’ll surely get sick if they do it from the wrong mental perspective, out of anger or fear or prejudice or disrespect or dehumanization – you’ll get real sick. But even if you don’t, it’s very, very difficult. And that’s why a warrior to me is the epitome of human endeavor because even though they protect life they may have to take it which is almost … so dangerous to you … that it can’t be overlooked.”

There is a burden, a responsibility, in learning the ways and means of the warrior. The ‘self and others’ value inherent in Ethical Warriorship provides a roadmap by which to train by. Is it right to be excited by the pomp and circumstance of our training, the scope of our history, the minutiae and relentless pursuit of technical mastery? In a word, yes. This is the ‘self’ side of our training, the ‘selfish’ part we often, perhaps too often, get energized about, because it’s what we can most easily and readily identify – the part that seems to provide fulfillment. But we should be mindful here, not to allow ourselves to be carried away by the best intentions of our enthusiasm, lest it devolve into pride, self-centeredness, and relativism.

There is an ‘others’ side to the training as well, steeped in the honesty of movement, the tactical usage of space, and the ethics of the protector. We channel it through the principles of our art – position, leverage, and initiative – giving us the macro view that provides the necessary counterweight to find the stability to reconcile the two halves into one whole. It is our mature side, the ‘adult’ in us, providing perspective to “be real” about our movement, and come to terms with the warrior’s inherent burden and accept it.

We often excuse the absence of thought, word, and deed when it is superfluous, extra, or redundant, but what about when it is not? What about when it is essential, as in the protection of life and the lives of others? When inaction causes death, it exposes that which drives us to begin training, our most innate and primal fear – the grip of hesitancy, helplessness, and inaction, the spiritual nakedness that robs us of confidence to make us responsible or contributory to the death of someone we love. And it is through this we can decipher the imperative of our training, it’s crucial and key points.

Make no mistake, the warrior trains not to become courageous - the opposite of courage is not fear, but submission, a sick thing the warrior can never do. Since fear is an emotional response it cannot be eradicated, but after many years of hard, physical training we can discover its opposite – the assured and steadfast, peace of mind to know when to forgive ourselves for prideful activity, and when “doing” is the only answer, even at the cost of our own life.

Those first six people and I didn’t talk about this kinda stuff way back then. Maybe we had a hint, a sense of it, I guess. We trained and tried to exemplify what we had been taught the best we could. And even though we’re still doing that today, Gasshuku gives us a chance to do it together.

This year, I’ll host our annual Gasshuku on October 8, 9, and 10, at Camp Edwards in East Troy, Wisconsin. Join us for training, for shop talk, for camaraderie.

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=154256064584545&ref=mf

That thing, on the ground, with the bo … that was cool

2010-07-31T15:38:00.000-05:00

A mighty thank you to everyone who came out last weekend for our workshop and birthday thingamabob - so much fun. At the bar afterward, there was cake. And thunder! Then more cake.

A prospective student once told me rather than show up regularly, he'd spent his money on training DVDs to ‘get him into shape,’ so he ‘wouldn’t hold any of us back.’ I wished him luck and never saw him again – for some, owning information is so seductive, it becomes more powerful than the ability to utilize it.

There is an undercurrent of collection in the Bujinkan – for techniques, densho, kata, whatever – because we enjoy these aspects, respect them, and fully expect their knowledge to assist us in understanding this confounding physical philosophy.

But like ethics, “doing is what counts,” and this is no less true when it comes to our own ability. If our label is ‘Master Shootist,’ and we know stances, grips, draws, and ballistics, we can be sure at some point we’ll be measured by how well we pull the trigger and hit the target. For our friend, once he had watched all the techniques, he’d satisfied his curiosity and there was no reason to train – he already knew everything.

How do we know if a reliance on form has not superseded our ability to break and apply its principles to the actualness of the moment? How do we know if our ability is real and not virtual?

The workshop was hard, I admit it, but it raised this question. Practicing kata and techniques are known outcomes – a kind of programming that is different from sheer application. But at the workshop, we took movements with known outcomes and branched off into creative directions without knowing where we’d wind up, yet still shaped the space to our advantage. That was the point - gaining advantage no matter where or how we started or where or how we wound up.

Facts are inconvenient, so is reality. If our ability is hamstrung when applied to reality, we’ve a major problem. So, questions remain. Application is an unknown quality involving spontaneous creativity – the most difficult aspect of training - and reconciles the mechanical with the natural state. But it begs the question: what is the natural state?

We’ve many ways to describe this state, but little definition to give us actionable intel. Yes, the principles are distance, balance, and timing. Yes, Taijutsu is based on escape. Yes, we use the kukan as a shield to control the opponent. But there is something more, a truth from which all of these modifiers flow; a Rosetta stone that deciphers the parameters of what exactly Taijutsu must be if it is to exist.

When an architect designs a building, they can pull from their wildest imagination, with twisted schemes and broken thoughts. But if they intend to render it in the real world, they have to adjust it, apply it to reality. Though their shape, size, height, and usage may be different, all buildings – every one - share at least one thing in common, a fundamental, foundational rule that all buildings must abide by if they intend to sustain their existence: buildings don’t fall down.

Gravity exerts a force so powerful, every building must be built to defy its effects. At the very least, equal pressure is necessary to equal the force gravity pulls on it so it can stay upright and useful.

Like gravity, there is a force that pulls on Taijutsu with the strength to make it fall. And we must invariably defy its effects with at least equal pressure if not more. If we know how to define that force, we will understand how to naturally make the transition and reconcile our movement from the known to the unknown.

In training, we can design from our wildest imaginations and practice a variety of kata straight from the densho. But reliance on programmed movement is just that. At some point, we have to render it in reality, putting it into the kukan against an honest opponent, under given circumstances. The question is what foundational rule must Taijutsu abide by – above all others - to sustain its very existence?

Taijutsu Workshop and Birthday Thingamabob

2010-07-10T11:21:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, July 24th, 2010, I'll host a Taijutsu workshop from 1-5pm, at the Alfred Campanelli YMCA, at 300 West Wise Road, in Schaumburg, IL. The focus will be igniting the 'Taijutsu Triangle' (see my recent KOSSHI post: The Taijutsu Triangle ) and how to make sure all three principles of Taijutsu are in play.

Last Friday night we did some hard training and found out just how difficult this aspect really seems to be. So, the workshop will involve a lot of maneuvering, trial and error, and we'll also drop weapons into the mix, so make sure to bring your gear. By the end, I hope you come away with a real sense between 'practicing' to make Taijutsu and making and preserving it. Should be good fun. The cost will be $40.00.

After training I'd like to invite everyone for a 'Birthday Thingamabob' (an annual event we seem to do every July). We'll head over to 'Fox and Hound,' just down the road from the YMCA, grab a bite, have a few drinks, and share some laughs (probably at my expense).

And who knows, maybe we'll even get to watch "9 Deaths of the Ninja." Best Ninja movie. Ever. Ever.

James

The Taijutsu Triangle

2010-07-03T16:17:00.004-05:00

James, how do I get better at Taijutsu?

That’s easy. Just do Taijutsu.

Yeah, great. Is that like ‘keep going?’ Can you be a little more specific?

Let Taijutsu happen.

Wow. That’s makes it all better. Now, I understand. Wait, no I don’t. I’m already training Taijutsu.

Are you? Ask yourself if you’re actually getting Taijutsu, or just practicing to get Taijutsu. There’s a difference.

A diff-? What? Did anybody ever tell you, you stink?

Okay, so the conversation wasn’t just like that, but close. Last weekend, we covered a bunch of topics from our recent Japan trip, had some great training, and laughed a lot, like when I sat on Jeff’s face. Sorry, Jeff.

Many folks do have trouble with Taijutsu and are not altogether sure why. They wind up attributing it to all kinds of reasons – the position is off, they can’t get the leverage, the moon in not conjuncting with Uranus or squaring with Pluto, whatever. The bottom line is the principles of Taijutsu are not being activated at once.

Training Taijutsu is a lot like firestarting. There is a concept called the Fire Triangle; it’s a basic idea – fire needs three things: oxygen, fuel, and heat. Combine these proportionally for the circumstances and – boom goes the dynamite – we get fire. Taijutsu is no different. Combine the three principles of Taijutsu – position, leverage, and initiative (distance, balance, timing) – proportionally for the circumstances and we can create its elemental reaction.

But folks having trouble wind up using just one or two of the principles – usually position and leverage – but not initiative. Like heat, initiative, is the igniter of Taijutsu and burns its way through fuel (leverage) in direct relation to the amount of oxygen (position). If just one side of the triangle is not present in necessary amount, we may get smoke, but no fire. No combustion.

Too often I see folks practicing the skills sets of Taijutsu, rather than combining the principles to create it. The failing I witness most often is lack of space, literally room to maneuver. But this is not an issue of position, or leverage, or lack of proper technique. It is a problem of initiative - they run out of time. Less time = less space. More time = more space.

Fire, like Taijutsu, is a life-preserving survival need. We must know how it’s made, but we must also know how to use it to keep us warm (give us security), cook our food (provide us nourishment), and light our way (show us the right direction). But there is one more thing we can do with fire more important than both making and using, allowing us to be just one step from fire’s creation and its life-giving usefulness: Preserving it.

Early man would have used such ‘technology’ as the Long Match, a tube of wood fibers surrounded by bark to contain a burning coal. According to Tom Brown, outdoorsman extraordinaire, the long match will protect the coal as it smolders for hours, or days even. To light a new fire, the coal is simply dropped into a tinder bundle. In 2010, our long matches are called Bic lighters, but you get the point.

Life is too precious to have to make fire from scratch whenever we need it. It’s too difficult and unpredictable to bet one’s and loved one’s lives on technique. Many folks are so caught up in the skills to make Taijutsu, they may overlook its usefulness, let alone preservation. If we cannot ignite Taijutsu at the ‘time’ we need to use it - when we need it - but instead must build it from scratch each and every time for different situations, circumstances are likely to overtake us.

Who would choose to sacrifice effectiveness and functionality for acquiescence to form when life is on the line? This is crucial, because the truth is … life is already on the line, just like it has been since the dawn of time. We may have ipads and Yahoo! accounts, Ferraris and instant ramen now, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t all still trying to survive in a cruel world.

Make Taijutsu. Use it. Preserve and protect it.

The Ninja Diet

2010-06-18T14:29:00.001-05:00

So, you've probably heard of the, 'Ninja Diet,' right? Genmai, brown rice, umeboshi, dried plum, Azuki beans and what not? Takes some getting used to, but good for you - healthy.

Don't buy it. The real Ninja Diet is fried izakaya food - karaage chicken with mayo the base of that food pyramid. Strange pizza concoctions - we had one with cooked pasta on it ... yes, pasta. Convenience store food during the day and ramen fit in between. And everything lubed with abundant amounts of beer, beer, beer - 'dai jockey' for the faithful, with braver travelers downing sake and exceptional super-soldiers, shochu, Japanese vodka.

Oh, and did I mention you're up all night? And going all day? Training, sometimes up to three times a day? And with the best in the world, no less. Men with such high ability, it actually pains the brain to study with them. You're spending way too much money that you remind yourself not to feel guilty about. Plus you're trying to get over jet lag. You're in a foreign environment with possibly little to no language skills. Maybe you can't read anything. So, you wind up choosing that same damn sour plum 'convenie' rice ball over and over, even though you're desperately trying to choose the 'tuna mayo' one. Your voice is shot from screaming into a karaoke mic. You have to scream because everyone else is screaming, because, well, Bon Jovi's "Wanted, Dead or Alive," just doesn't sound right unless everyone is screaming. Oh, and you're drunk.

Well, maybe not drunk, but you've had ten beers and you really want to fight Yakuza now, but only if you won't get stabbed. Or shot. Which nowadays, even in Japan, is uncertain. So, you grab the wall telephone in your karaoke closet as your mates are screaming out "Hotel California" and getting the pitch all wrong, which means another low score, and order the third round of beers even though no one is halfway through their current mug. And someone inevitably hits on the Japanese chick who brings the beers, even if she resembles Ernest Borgnine in From Here To Eternity, when he was actually pretty svelte.

The Ninja Diet is an adventure. Healthy? Good for you? Let's just say it makes you stronger. Or at least, let's believe that until we figure out a more sustainable (read smarter) way to enjoy it. It's Musha Shugyo, the quest, the pilgrimage, the journey we take with our fellow shugyosha to hone our ability and broaden our capacity. It's no vacation, but it usually is fun, even when some turn salty from culture shock or frustration. But it's all part of the diet.

The reason for the diet is simple. We're trying to lose weight; to shed the pounds of all our unnecessary habits, beliefs, and desires and reduce ourselves to the kosshi, essentialness, the kanjin kaname no kosshi, that which is of critical importance. But that, of course, begs the question, what is it that we should know as critically important? What is this Gokui, essence, of Budo?

Soke "told" us such at last Sunday's training when he spoke at the beginning of class - lectured, really. He said we needed to study history, as people begin to repeat it. Becoming surprised is because one cannot see far enough ahead, because we haven't looked far enough back, studying the trends and rhythms of human frailties that have led to so much suffering in the world. In other words, relying on the form only leads to its completion, but does not give us the tools to forge any new direction.

Once again he chided those who believe technique is the means to illumination and reminded us of the Gokui no uta, song of the Gokui - "In the world of martial arts, one should not stick to strength or weakness, softness or hardness; rather one should transcend physicality and understand the void, 'ku,' regarding the body also as empty." Training Budo with childlike selfishness is to believe in the power of its minutiae, the white noise that obscures clear transmission.

Soke is imploring us to discover the right direction. He won't tell us directly, mind you - that's not good for us. We must discover it for ourselves. So, we trudge along the path as best we can, watching him zoom by on his jetpack.

The basics may be fundamental, but they are anything but basic. The Kihon and its waza are in fact the pinnacle of movement and technical prowess, not our most rudimentary forms. The most basic form we can provide to each other is not physical, it is the ability to recognize our purpose for studying Budo. Unless each of us can answer this question honestly, we obscure for ourselves the fundamentalness of truth so important to our own discovery.

When Soke mentioned the evolution of weaponry throughout Japanese history, I was taken by the fact that it mirrors the evolution of ethics as well. From the brutish and straight 'ken,' through tachi, and firearms, to the life-giving katsujinken, the katana became a symbol of valor, honor, and benevolence in a brutal land. Such is the metaphor for training itself.
There are all kinds of concepts, principles, and techniques to practice and study throughout our training. But no matter how well we program ourselves with the material, none of it makes any difference unless we can apply it when it counts. But when does it count? How do we know when it counts? If we never ask ourselves the question, there's never any reason to give a good answer.

It seems to me, Soke's theme for the year, Rokkon Shojo, is a means to perceive training in a different light, from a different perspective. "The purification of the senses through laughter," is not meant, like so many other themes throughout the years, to concentrate on our physical training. It is to place our training into perspective, a context, from which we can discern its meaning.

The Ninja Diet provides many ways to train - asobigokoro, a playful heart, Majime ni asobi, serious play, and shinobigokoro, the hidden, persevering heart. But to what end?

For so many years, Soke has directed us toward finding the means to express ourselves physically. Now, it seems he is asking us to understand life's most poignant question. A question that has befuddled philosophers, warriors, and scientists alike; a question that has been asked and answered and will be asked and answered again and again.

Why?

'Japan Download' with James Morganelli, June 26th, 2010

2010-06-15T20:30:00.000-05:00

It's great to be back! The training in Japan was tough, but inspiring. We've a lot of work to do. So, let's get to it.

On Saturday, June 26th, 2010, I'll host a workshop from 1-5pm, at the Alfred Campanelli YMCA, in Schaumburg, IL, 60193. We'll be covering our recent Japan trip with stories, concepts, and some cool souvenirs, including some of Soke's artwork. The cost will be $40.00.

I'll also be relating what we learned in Japan with our training themes of the year - Soke's, "Rokkon Shojo" and our SGTI Dojo theme, "Shinobigokoro."

Please bring training swords - fukuro shinai and bokken - bo, knife, rope, and hanbo as we'll be working with a variety of tools. If you have a long sword of tachi length, bring that as well.

Come out and join us!

Best,

James

Just disappear a little ...

2010-06-14T18:57:00.002-05:00

Well, we're home. It's been quite a week. We're tired, but I wanted to update as best I could before my head slams into the keyboard and I wake up Thursday.

Soke's class yesterday was great, profound even. He began with what seemed like 15 or 20 minutes of talk; talk about history, of current events, of the future of the Bujinkan, of what it means to study this art. He spoke of the evolution of weapons in Japan, from ken, to tachi, to ju (firearms), to katana. He touched on lots of stuff - difficult to process now, but I'll get at it this week. What struck me was so much of it included the macro view, not just of the art, but ourselves, and what it means to, "study Budo as a human being." He asked us to look deeply to discover the essence of Budo - it's human face - and not become stuck on the minutiae of techniques.

His movement was supple, light - Jiyu ni, with freedom. "Just disappear a little ..." he laughed as his uke seemed to thrust a bo right through him and then be thrown - bo and all - spectacularly. Sword, no sword, bo, no bo, weapon, no weapon, he moves with the very freedom of his consciousness, always in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time.

And at the end of class, when I saw Nagato sensei administer three Godan tests, I felt a dramatic shift in my perspective. The only way I can describe it is I could see him cut, before he cut. All of them passed.

It's good to be home. Me sleep now.

Kiss her with Ki

2010-06-11T22:16:00.001-05:00

Spent the past few days training with Nagato sensei, plus we were supposed to have training with Soke Friday night. But Ninja masters get days off too, so Noguchi sensei took over. Still, we had a terrific class, with Noguchi running us through Gyokko Ryu kata at breakneck pace.

I trained with Darren Hovarth the other day, which if you know Darren, at 6'7", 280lbs, and wide as a bus, is like training with a polar bear, armed with a knife. Darren has been around for quite a while and now lives in Japan from his native Australia. Not only is he quite good, he's surprising light on his feet. He was good fun and very helpful, offering his thoughts on Chuto Hanpa and the perspective Soke is trying to convey.

"Anything is okay, as long as it works," Nagato said, a familiar quote of his. Sensei worked against kicks and at points disappeared on his partner when he slipped under his kick and spun behind to control him as the student crashed down in a heap, so surprised by Nagato's lithe movement and timing. Sensei just laughed. At another point, he turned away from the kick and sat down on his uke, arms crossed, yet still covering every point of attack and escape his uke could manage. Nagato sensei's size is deceptive and one might think it would be hard to fit it all into the moments he does, but just one training with him is enough to come away scratching your head.

He also talked about putting Ki into a particular strike, a shuto, as an opponent reaches for you. "Hit them like your Mom would hit you when she's angry," he laughed. "Put energy into it." And demonstrated in animated fashion. "But don't do this to your girl ... kiss her instead!"

A gambling man?

2010-06-09T22:28:00.000-05:00

Tuesday night, Soke tossed attackers like dice. And once the dice were thrown, he sat on their faces, twisted their arms behind their backs, and generally made a mess of them. And he's not even trying. When he does try he winds up making Duncan Stewart do a front flip to keep his finger from breaking. "Hold them, without holding them," Soke was saying. Let them do the work. And he did, over and over again. Jutte, knives, swords, multiple attackers, it all came out. We even did some ground work from Fudoza and tied up our attacker, only to practice reversing the attack as well. The energy could not have been higher - it's 90 minutes of GO! By the end of the night I was beat.

I trained with Steve Olsen, long-time resident of Japan and another of Nagato's guys. Steve and I had great fun training, and not just because Steve is really good, but because training in Ayase with Soke actually allows us to move. Hombu is powerful to train at because, well, because it's Hombu. But with 100 people in the room, it gets tight. Ayase allows us all to breathe.

Earlier in the day we had the pleasure of training at Hombu with Someya sensei, the Bujinkan's resident sword master. Someya is particularly good at the form of just about everything. He took us through some sword basics and paired us with yari and naginata doing tachi techniques. Apparently, however, there are few, if any, actual techniques for tachi, because it's so old. Nevertheless, the training was great. He even set out some real swords and took us through a short history from the ken, straight sword, through tachi, han-tachi, and eventually katana, noting the differences between them.

One shinken he laid out was a tachi of very old design - the back of the blade was sharpened as well. He said it was a copy of the sword Japan's emperor has. I said, it must be expensive. He looked at me wryly. "Yeah ... it's expensive."

Good for what ails ya

2010-06-08T22:59:00.001-05:00

A bright beautiful day was the setting for our first training with Nagato sensei. It was great to see him and we had a chance to chat. Unfortunately, I wasn`t feeling too well, but training, being training, cleared that up right away.

There were 70 people at Hombu - busy, but not so bad you couldn`t move. Sensei put on his signature show. He seems even lighter now than he was last year, his uke nearly floating in the space around him. Punches, kicks, grabs, nothing ever seems to phase him. His position is always guarded, and yet he keeps open his path of communication to the opponent so he`s always aware of him and the changes they are making, maybe even before they are.

Towards the end of class, he pulled our own Steve Kovalcik onto the floor and gave him what-for. I was happy to see Nagato choose him. Being uke is tough, as a recent late-night, deep conversation - all our late-night conversations here are deep when copious amounts of alcohol are involved - revealed. When training with a partner, I have always advocated honesty in training, meaning 'move or you will get hit;' not in a harmful way, just a real way - this is happening, deal with it. But that's between partners. When we step before Soke or the Shihan, who are demonstrating and elucidating points, we aren't to treat them as a peer, that would only endanger them, and us - more us. So, we treat them with respect, and receive from them the most potent form a lesson can take - direct transmission.

Yesterday, we had great training with Someya sensei and finished the day out with Soke at Ayase - it was all rock and roll. More on that later. Heading off to Nagato's class.

Stop. Collaborate and listen ...

2010-06-06T21:29:00.000-05:00

Okay, so much to write. Not a lot of time. Yesterday we had a ton of training.
We kicked it off with Noguchi sensei with 9am training at Hombu. Noguchi sensei is great. He's personable, friendly, easy-going, and incredibly good. He breezed through pages of techniques from Takagi Yoshin Ryu, putting his own spin on the movements. As usual the lessons came fast and furious.

He emphasized 'karamaru,' to mix up and become one; like a growing plant that entangles itself with another, and demonstrated what he meant over and over, by blending with his partners in various ways - now he's sliding off your back, now he's rolling between your legs, now he's twisting you 180 degrees with just his head and neck around your arm. At one point, he wiped his face with a towel, flipping it into a partner's face - there was a bottle of ink hidden inside. Class only became more and more abstract, as he broadened and stretched each movement to a point where few had any understanding of where exactly to begin.

But that's one of the best reasons to train with the man - the challenge of seeing through to the principles at work, like fellow magicians trying to decipher his latest illusion. Terrific training.

Soke picked it up at 11am. He looked great and moved even better. Class started with his concern about training injuries, saying he was concerned, and we should be aware of the danger inherent in training. He was surprised more people had not been injured, given its nature.

Striking became the classes' theme, as Soke continually hit, punched, shuto-ed, and smacked all manner of uke around the floor. Most times his partners were unaware of where, how, and when they'd be hit and Soke incorporated weapons into this same feeling. Hanbo, sword, tachi, jutte, and shikomi
all shared moments with the man as he tried to impress upon us the particular and universal, and the point of their intersection. One uke said his fear of the tachi in Soke's hands opened up the space just enough for him to place it for lethal advantage.

He used a tea cup to cover and twist the fingers of one uke, unbalancing him only to drop him to the floor. He talked about Takamatsu sensei's thick fingernails, that could strip bark off of trees, and how he told him not to bother hardening his nails, as a weapon would be just as effective, and he demonstrated on a young Hatsumi using his pipe.

We finished out the day with Duncan Stewart. Dunc is a great guy, fun to talk to, and very good. He's fun to train with because he's excited to train - he's all over the floor, very creative, and yet is very cognizant of his Kihon roots, showing various incarnations of fundamental kamae and movements. He spoke about 'ikken hasso,' one strike, many changes as part of Soke's earlier teachings. 'Chuto hanpa,' half movements that leave uke with little or no ukemi, and 'yoyu,' 'catch and release,' like fishing with the opponent. All great fun.

This morning we had breakfast at Mister Donuts - Donuts-san. I'm having my coffee, Mike's got some crazy pasta-pastry thing, Tomo's rockin' some Green Tea thingamabob and we're listening to Vanilla Ice sing "Ice Ice Baby."

It's official. I'm back in Japan.

Training with Nagato sensei today.

To the East!

2010-06-03T21:56:00.001-05:00

So, I thought this year I'd ask Soke for something other than a Tengu.

Just saying.

We leave tomorrow - see you in Japan!

James

The Ethical Warrior

2010-05-23T23:43:00.003-05:00

I know what he wants, but I have to be sure. I mean, he’s got a spear. Not too many folks ask me to attack them with a sword when they have a spear, you know? It’s not something you take lightly.

So, I pause. Granted the spear is wooden, but sharp at one end, and I’m in no mood to wind up with seven and a half feet of wooden spear in my mouth. I like my mouth just the way it is – spearless. In fact I say, the less spear, the better.

So, I pause. I make sure. Maybe I make sure again. Then I attack. But I don’t finish the attack because a spear sails under my sword, under my arms, and past my right ear.

Somebody says, “Oh, my god …” It isn’t me, but I share the sentiment.

That was just a moment of mine with Jack Hoban, who taught a terrific seminar yesterday. Thanks, Jack!

We were fortunate enough to be joined by folks from Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, and across Illinois. My great thanks to these Buyu for their support – I wish we could train together more often; not only are they great Budoka, they’re great people, quietly committed, and serving their communities.

Check out the photostream: http://s742.photobucket.com/albums/xx70/sgtidojo/2010-05JackHoban/

Jack did not disappoint or mince words. He wrapped his message inside his Taijutsu and it is clear: train together and ‘keep going’ – but it’s not as easy as we think. It takes perseverance, patience, and not a little bit of courage.

Training can be scary. In fact, facing a spear may have been less daunting than answering some of Jack’s questions; hard questions that illuminate more than just their answers.

What is the essence of Ninjutsu? Of Taijutsu? Of martial arts? What is the purpose of training? Why are we better people because we train? Are our martial techniques and tactics reflective of our personal morals? If not, why not? Are we even certain as to what our personal morals are – what is the magnetic north of our moral compass? What are warrior values? How do they impact our tactics and techniques and make for better Taijutsu?

What if there were a single human value, a value so powerful, realization of it could stop disrespect, stop violence, stop killing, stop war? And what if we could learn to recognize it? Learn to activate it in others? Everywhere with everyone we met? Could we make the world a better place? Yeah, I know, my brain hurt all afternoon.

Jack Hoban is on to something, he calls it the ‘Ethical Warrior.’ He’s taught more than 500 seminars around the world over the last 30 years and isn’t slowing down – this year he’s off to Italy, Germany (again), and Argentina, to name a few. Not to mention he’s been teaching what he knows to the Marines Corps for years, and they’re paying close attention.

Think I will too.

A Counterinsurgency in Chicago

2010-04-29T20:30:00.003-05:00

Mr. Bay,

Why is it among all of the stark ideological disagreements between conservatives and liberals, many conservatives are in near lockstep with liberals on this issue? For a movement that considers itself the ‘party of life,’ I find that troubling. Here’s why.

None of the reasons you listed in, “The War in Chicago?” (many stipulated by Mayor Daley himself) even rank a distant second to the main reason everyone should support deployment of the National Guard into the troubled areas of Chicago – saving lives. At my last count in November of 2009, 36 schoolchildren had been killed by random violence here in Chicago. That number is higher today. Families and Police are unable to provide protection; in fact, CPD is 2100 officers short of full strength. A contract renegotiation this year means even more officers will retire and not enough are in the academy pipeline.

You said it “exceeds political hyperbole and enters the realm of blockheaded ignorance,” to compare Chicago to an Afghan war zone. I agree the two are mutually exclusive, but there are many factors in those foreign theaters that also exist in some form in these troubled local ones: low resources, low opportunity, low finances, high-income drug sales, prolific illegal weapons, warlordism (gangs), intense violence, frightened families caught in the middle, tribalism (you’re from that neighborhood, I’m from this one), generations of heartache, and meager hope. It is not normal for any community to lose this many children to this much violence – this is America. How bad does it have to get before everyone decides it is an unequivocal ‘war zone?’

We are disrespecting the people living in these communities because we are not advocating for them the very same security the rest of us can afford for ourselves, but which they cannot provide for – they have simply not been given the necessary protection that governments are obligated to provide to their governed. At this point, only the intervention of overwhelming sustained security appropriate to this level of violence can do that. And only then, when these traumatized people feel safe enough, when they trust the authorities more than they fear the thugs, will they give up the bad guys and reclaim their communities - just like in the Iraq and Afghan theaters.

The people of Iraq and Afghanistan have security today because soldiers and Marines with loaded weapons and the training to use them stand between the villagers and the thugs who mean them harm. Period. We would not expect cooperation from them in any way, to locate terrorists, inform on their plots, and turn against them, were it not for that continued security. In fact, the decided lack of security is the chief reason these people supported the terrorists in the first place. Just like here in Chicago, these folks have families to protect and no way to protect them, of course they’re going to side with the gangs and thugs with a, “code of silence.”

If schoolchildren and young people in your own neighborhood were being shot down and murdered at the horrific rate they are here in Chicago with authorities powerless to stop it, and leaders were talking of ‘taxpayers footing the bill’ and the procedural complications of Guard deployment instead of emphasizing the protection of the lives of yours/mine/their children … we could begin to understand why this is so insultingly disrespectful. These folks cannot stop their children from being killed and Mayor Daley spends $42 million on a failed Olympic bid. It should make us all sick.

The simple truth is this: we may make more money, be more affluent, and live in nicer violence-free communities, but in one way, a way that eclipses all others in controlling importance, these people living embattled lives in these besieged communities are our equal – their lives and the lives of their loved ones are as important to them as ours are to us. This is the very sentiment of the Declaration of Independence when it speaks of the unalienable right of life – our singular shared universal human value, superseding all other relative values, and the basis for every life-affirming moral value: freedom, democracy, liberty, and goodness.

In 1954, President Eisenhower deployed the 101st Airborne and the National Guard of Arkansas to protect 9 black schoolchildren from the mobs controlling the streets of Little Rock after school integration. They stayed for months until it was safe. The National Guard needs to be deployed now to rescue these people – protecting them and granting them the very same security we enjoy is the first step for them to reclaim their communities.

When we can put our own safety at risk to protect and stand between them and the evil that threatens their lives and their children’s lives, it will be the strongest message and acknowledgement yet to that beleaguered community of our respect for them as equals as well as noble affirmation of the Declaration’s intention of inalienable human equality. If we do not understand this, we don’t deserve to call ourselves Americans.

This is the right and moral side of this issue. Please reconsider this.

Warm regards,

James Morganelli
Chicago

Cause and 'Affect'

2010-04-25T14:57:00.001-05:00

“Never lose. Be effective. And don’t try to win – let the opponent make himself lose.”

So says Nagato sensei through a friend who has just returned from Japan. It feels good to hear him put very plainly what many of us probably take for granted, like it’s his own definition of Shin Gi Tai (I-chi). By that I mean, the spirit or will not to let ourselves give up, lose, or stop persevering. Knowing enough to know, how to make what we’re doing work, for what we’re doing it for. And not allowing ourselves to get ahead of ourselves by wanting to win, by showing our intention to an opponent, who could then use it against us. This is the kind of understanding we have to continually incorporate into our own training.

This weekend, we tried to do just that with our monthly workshop - the topic was bojutsu. Lately, I’ve taken a more refined approach to training, starting it off last month with hanbojutsu (the basis for all weapons) and looking specifically at Rokushakubo this past Saturday.

(Check out the photos here: http://s742.photobucket.com/albums/xx70/sgtidojo/2010%20April%20Seminar/)

Now, I could have just shown everyone grips, kamae, strikes, and kata, after kata, after kata, and let them figure it out – in like, 10 years. But I want people to be effective – today. And the only way I know how to do that is training by context – show them the map of where we are and where we need to go, and let them discover how to get there. The great thing about it is, it works. For instance, by repeatedly switching back and forth from hanbo to bo, I tried to demonstrate how a hanbo is not like a bo, and a bo is not like a hanbo, and yet they are more similar than they are different because of the way we must manage the Kukan – the underlying principle in all of Taijutsu. In other words, be able to strike (or whatever) without being struck. Once folks could perceive how the space of the Kukan expanded and collapsed around them – giving them more or less time to maneuver - they could figure out how to move in ways that gave them more time and not allow space to collapse completely. Now, I’m not easily impressed, but yesterday, I was impressed – everybody did it and did it well.

This is the very reason why hanbo is the basic and most important weapon in Taijutsu - it’s so easy to cheat with it. It’s small and maneuverable enough to ‘get away’ with faster movements that slip inside an opponent’s defenses and utilize our own power to perform the outcome we desire. But when you translate that understanding to other weapons - bo, sword, whatever - they fail, and we often don’t even know why, giving rise to thoughts of the superiority of the techniques, instead of their unifying principles of application.
I keep reminding myself it’s Shin Gi Tai I-chi – a unification ‘affect,’ caused by the effect of mindful training.

Do. Or do not. There is no ... uh ... no ... ugh, so old am I ...

2010-04-16T18:37:00.001-05:00

So I watched 'STAR WARS' for like the 400th time the other night; one of the few movies I can actually say that about. I enjoyed it. Still. I've been watching and re-watching the trilogy for more than 30 years now, since I was a kid, as I'm sure many of us have. I can't remember the first time I saw it, I was too young, but I do remember the first time seeing EMPIRE. And it's at that part, the part, ya know, where your world changes, the bliss of childhood ignorance is torn off like a scab, and nothing is ever, ever the same because Vader says to Luke ...

"I ... am your father."

I'm nine - "HOLY. SHIT. His father? That sunnavabitch is his father?!" Instantly I'm yelling lightspeed at mom, like she knows: "Is he really Luke's father?! Come on, Ma, this is damn serious!" Folks in the lobby could hear me - probably ruined the movie for half of them. I think I went home and recreated that scene with my figures. Those movies made such an impact. One we can still feel today. But why?

Simple. Jedi and the Force. Period. Everything else is cool, don't get me wrong - Vader, Boba, they're great characters - but nobody wanted to grow up and become Darth Vader - 'kay, maybe the sociopaths - but the rest of us normies wanted, needed, to become Jedi Knights. And if you were one of the few that didn't, if your childhood consisted of football games and track meets, ballet lessons, girl or boy scouts, you know "normal" stuff, and you just never really took any interest in the Star Wars universe or had daydreams of swashbuckling it out, saber in hand, against a maniacal horde of Sith jedi, well, then, you should really seek professional help. You're sick. Go see somebody.

You see, these three films shed a little light on the complex reasons behind our own training. I mean, are we really training to become Jedi? (Yes!!) Of course not, but heroic movies inspire, especially these. And once you've watched them (for say, some 17 years or so) there's a sense of ownership one comes away with. Which in turn explains the backlash to Lucas' prequels - he didn't just play around with the look and feel of the world fans had inherited, Lucas consciously screwed with its founding principles, its fundamentalness as one rooted in the enigmatic faith in the Force - midi-chorlians be damned. I mean just listen to Obi-Wan explain it and you almost feel bad for Lucas for messing with his own work:

"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together."

Simple. Graceful. Could just anyone automatically use the Force? No. You had to train. Hard. Train hard to feel the Force.

Which bring us to the similarities between Star Wars and training (come on, we all knew this was coming). To become a Jedi meant becoming aware of the Force and increasing one's awareness of its power and potential. Students first had to recognize that the Force was in motion, in flux, all around them, all the time. Tapping into the Force was accomplished through hard physical training.

How is it any different with Taijutsu? (All right, except for the moving stuff with your mind, living for 900 years until you look like a green booger with ears, and lightsabers. We don't have any lightsabers ... *sigh*). Becoming aware of the kukan, which is in constant motion, constant flux, and increasing our awareness of it can only be accomplished through physical training.

But what is implicit in Jedi training is something we tend to take for granted in our own - faith. Jedi students (and yes, I know they're called 'Padawans,' I'm trying to limit my exposure to 'nerd'ioactivity here) have to believe control of the Force can be done and they can do it, even if they can't right away.

How is that any different for us? We must train with those select few individuals that actually can do it, so we can be inspired by their ability and confidence. This is why we train with people we trust and go to Japan - our own Dagobah - because if we dedicate ourselves to training we can eventually make it our own. I can picture Soke saying these very words ...

"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmph! And well you should not ... for my ally is the Kukan. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it ... makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us ... and binds us. Luminous beings are we ... not this crude matter. You must feel the Kukan around you - here, between you, me ... the tree ... the rock ... everywhere!

Without faith in training, we'll never make it. And then, how the hell are we ever going to lift our X-Wing out of the swamp? Hmm? Hmph!

LUKE
I don't ... I don't believe it ...

YODA
That ... is why you fail.

Taijutsu Workshop with Jack Hoban

2010-04-13T22:34:00.004-05:00

I first met Jack Hoban in the summer of 1999, at a seminar in Kenosha, Wisconsin; about 10 of us showed up back then. When I introduced myself and he learned I had just returned home after living in Japan, boy, did he let me have it - he beat me for the rest of the day. "Just like Japan, right?" he said afterward. I had to laugh. I went home with a series of bruises and a tremendous respect for the man.

The training I've received from him since has challenged and changed me in many ways. Jack is highly proficient in Taijutsu - trusted by no less than the US Marine Corps to teach them to fight - able to seamlessly blend with an opponent's aggression to find just the right "space" to stay in a position of advantage. Jack's message is no less profound, for he was mentored for 17 years by the late Dr. Robert Humphrey. Among Humphrey's many accomplishments and storybook life, he worked with the State Department solving ideological conflicts around the globe for the US military. Based on his work, Humphrey would formulate a theory which he called the "Dual-life value," an instinct almost universally shared among people, and powerful enough to stop violence, promote respect, and activate moral ethics; a "Rosetta Stone" if you will for deciphering conflict resolution through a recognition of human equality and the 'shared duties' we have toward our fellow man.

As a former Marine himself, Jack wanted to help protect those who currently serve from the psychological damage we can do to ourselves for having to sometimes kill the enemy - we know it as PTSD. Incorporating the value into the Corps training, Jack has given rise to tougher and smarter Marines, able to make clearer ethical decisions on asymmetrical battlefields.

This May, we're lucky enough to host Jack for a workshop focusing on Taijutsu, weapons, defending others, and warriorship - it doesn't get any better! Come join us as Jack coaches our training, provides insight into ethical leadership, and tells some stories you'll surely want to remember.

Saturday, May 22, 2010
12:00-5:00pm
Alfred Campanelli YMCA
300 West Wise Road
Schaumburg, Illinois 60193

The cost will be $75.00.

This seminar is designed as an ongoing instructor workshop. However, classes are held in a non-competitive atmosphere. You do not have to be an instructor to attend; beginners and students are welcome.

For more information contact James Morganelli at james@sgtidojo.com

Jack Hoban Bio
Jack Hoban is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the U.S. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP) and assisted in its creation and continues to teach the program at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia and elsewhere. In addition to his military experience, Jack is a 25-year business veteran in the areas of information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) in healthcare and other industries. For 17 years Hoban was an associate of the late Robert L. Humphrey, noted conflict resolution specialist, and author of Values for a New Millennium.

Hoban has led over 500 workshops and seminars around the world. He has addressed the FBI, universities, and other government and private organizations on ethics and martial arts over the last two decades. He is Shidoshi Senior Instructor in the Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu and Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu systems under Grand Master Masaaki Hatsumi in Japan and has authored three books on warriorship.

F.B.I., lady. Hands up!

2010-03-22T01:14:00.001-05:00

James Bond has a license to kill. The Beastie Boys have a License to ill. Check out the Web, and you’ll see driver licenses for Mexifornia, Osama Bin Laden’s New York license, and even Robert DeNiro’s Taxicab License from 1976 – no mohawk. Who could forget the Corey Haim-Corey Feldman movie License to Drive - “Some guys get all the brakes.” (Heather Graham was in that!) There are software licenses. Business licenses. Marriage licenses. You might even download a license for the F.B.I. - Federal Booby Inspector. But a moral license? A license to be moral? Actually, it’s just the opposite.

In separate studies, Northwestern University psychologists and Associate Professors at the University of Toronto discovered similar findings. In the first study, psychologists labeled what they called a moral “thermostat,” while the Toronto study of so-called “green” consumerism a sense of “moral licensing.” To quote the UK’s Guardian,

“when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics".

This latest study only seems to support Northwestern’s, where psychologists,

“had the idea that our sense of moral self-worth might serve as a kind of thermostat, tilting us toward moral stricture at one time and moral license at another, but keeping us on a steady track. They tested this by priming volunteers’ feelings of moral superiority—or their sense of guilt—and watching what happened.”

Thanks for the article go to “We’re Only Human” blog, by Wray Herbert. (Check out the orginal articles, linked in "NIN"genuity.)

This moral licensing, or righteous behavior, is rampant and infectious throughout many aspects of society, including, but not limited to, politics, religion, academia, the arts, and social activism. When people are convinced they are right, based upon what they believe are higher ethical standards, these studies show, they can feel a ‘license’ to bend, obfuscate, or even break the rules. It is interesting at a time of intense national debate on the future navigation of the United States to note the pronounced moral license by which it is being led. And the frustration polls show the vast majority of Americans feel toward those ‘who know better’ than the rest of us about how we should live our lives.

Moral licensing in martial arts can be deadly. Knowing when it’s appropriate to use training can quickly lose ground to, “teaching the opponent a lesson” if we are unaware, unsure, or untrained as to how to know we’re slipping. This perversion of ethics occurs when judge also becomes jury and executioner.

We have to judge, we must judge, when it is appropriate to use training. Judging to use or not use martial arts is to judge the morality of behavior. How do we know when behavior is immoral? The Dual-Life Value, theorized by Dr. Robert L. Humphery, basically states that our right to life, and the right to life of our loved ones, supersedes any earthly or relative value. How can any ideal pursued by terrorists be of higher value or importance than the universal value all of us place on our lives and the lives of people we love? Real human equality is achieved by equating the value we place on our lives and the lives of loved ones to the value others – rich or poor - place on their lives and their loved ones and adjusting our behavior to respect that. Universal immorality occurs when this value is violated, either by disrespect or violence.

Righteousness comes from the absolute power granted by judge, jury, and executioner, apparent when we judge someone’s behavior to be immoral, but then decide to “teach them a lesson,” and carry it out. Moral license perverts our sense of justice by injecting our own relative values of right and wrong, often justified merely by our participation or association with them. I may think littering is a capitol offense, but I can't kill a guy for stomping out a cigarette on the sidewalk. When we force what we want onto the opponent, rather than dispassionately prevent what they want, we are guilty of the very same offense as the opponent.

Everything in Taijutsu is learned through the physical, and the more options we challenge ourselves with creating, the more responsible and effective we can become. Try using a sword or knife without cutting, a gun without shooting, a staff without bludgeoning, unarmed without forcing control. Mastery of the Kukan allows for all of these options. When used as shield, as armor, the Kukan forces the opponent into stalemate, where anything they do does them in. We may have rendered judgment to use our training, but it is the opponent themselves who become their own jury and executioner – they deliberate and execute the sentence. Taijutsu is coded with the ethic of its use, by way of the Kukan – the key to its stalemating strategy found in its positioning by this simple truth, ‘be able to strike, without being struck.’

The "Warrior Ethic" is not measured by what we want to do, but by how sharp our understanding is of what we know we must do. There is no sanctimony in judging moral from immoral, no righteousness in standing up to such immorality, and no elitism in preventing immoral behavior from succeeding. When we base Taijutsu not on what we want, but on what we are unwilling to allow another to immorally take, we grant ourselves the time and space to shield us from attack and protect us from even the weaknesses of our own will.

Fudoshin

2010-03-12T13:07:00.000-06:00

His look was half confusion and that other one, as if I were holding a small piece of shit just under his nose and asking him to smell it. “Treat him as if he’s a third grader,” I said again. And again, I get the “look.”

“If a third grader came running in here and up to you, stamped his foot three times like they used to do in Hong Kong to signal a challenge … how would that make you feel?” He thought about it and I could see the change in him. “Good, keep that as he punches you,” referring to his partner.

His partner punched at him – a solid honest punch, if he didn’t get out of the way, he was going to get cracked. The two met – intersected in a single moment - and his partner wound up on the floor. It was well done. “How did that make you feel?” I asked his partner. He barely thought about it, “He dismissed me.”

That word “dismissed” summed it up. I can remember squaring up with Nagato when I lived in Japan, hell, even now when I square up with him, the feeling is the same – dismissive. I’m not a threat, maybe nobody is for that matter. The utter confidence – how do we begin to achieve that?

There comes a point in training when the understanding of technique is not enough, the raw physical nature of training will not suffice, and to improve our ability means reaching beyond the way we perceive ourselves. Tough stuff.

The image I provided that night was a simple one, but useful for context. And context, we discover, is the key to understanding our greater role. Fudoshin, courage, is a difficult concept to explain, and even more difficult to pass on.

But he got a piece of it that night, so, I asked him, do you understand? He said, “It only makes for more questions.”

Damn that blue carpet ...

2010-02-23T22:03:00.006-06:00

Training Journal, Saturday, February 28, 1998

Today was my first day back training with Nagato Sensei and the boys. Although he had forgotten my name, he hadn’t forgotten my face. It was great seeing the guys – Tim, Rod & Larry were there. Scott is in Australia now.

We covered so much last night I felt a little overwhelmed.

‘Maai’ – distance – Nagato talked a lot on this. Having good distance allows for ‘NO OPENINGS’ in your defenses. It’s so very important to keep this in mind when you’re training.

Timing – having good timing allows you to move when your opponent moves. It involves sensitivity, knowing what they are going to do and reacting. This is a very basic (fundamental) but complex concept, but when Nagato talks about it, he makes it seem like a very advanced thing, and increases the urgency with which one should understand it. “Don’t play games.” We’re not baking cookies here.

There were a lot of techniques, lots of henka, I’ll try to remember as much as I can …

So wrote me some 12 years ago while living in Japan. I had some great times on those Saturday nights getting beat up by my teacher and friends. I was always coming home with rug burns from that thin dusty blue carpet – I’m pretty sure it was just spraypainted sandpaper Nagato had them glue right to the concrete floor.

My understanding of training these days is more refined than it was back then, but the concepts are still pretty much the same; distance and timing come up and quite a lot, the urgency is still there, and as always, plenty of henka. But saying this, I realize how much training has evolved, even in the scant time I have spent in the art. The manner of our training has moved forward.

Last Saturday, we held another workshop, a time we can all come together from our respective dojos and commiserate as a group. It was great fun, but tough. I’ve been very strict lately about maintaining the right ‘feel.’

Training to apply, rather than perfect, is more difficult, but much more useful. Even those years back in Japan, most of my training wasn't measured by how close to doing the movement I was, but if I got through it at all. Back then, Nagato used to say, "Move like me. Imitate me." But nowadays, he doesn't stick to that. If you need a place to begin, he says, try moving like me, but otherwise, "move like you." What a huge difference.

We tried to accomplish exactly that last Saturday, by seeing the connectedness between unarmed and various weapons, instead of looking for their differences. There is plenty of time to study why the sword is not like the staff, or why the rope is not like a gun. But there is precious little time to see when, where, and how their principles, strategies, and tactics overlap.

We may have whistling cuts, confounding knots, and run-n-gun three-inch groups at 15 yards, but none of those skills and abilities matter if we cannot create the opportunity to bring our weapons and Taijutsu to bear when we need them. Only an understanding of the big picture allows us to see where it is we're going from where we currently are. Even if we do get a few rug burns along the way.

Damn that blue carpet ...

Hatsugeiko-a-go-go

2010-01-24T15:03:00.001-06:00

Yesterday we had our first workshop of the year and I thought it went pretty well. But about halfway through, everybody felt the weight of their training. It wasn’t the training itself, per se, everybody could do the physical moving and throwing, locking and striking stuff; that wasn’t the hard part, or the part that exhausted everyone. Rather, it was reconciling the perspective that made our brains hurt.

Recently, I’ve been harping on the principles in order to apply techniques. This sounds good, but what does it mean? There are technical or mechanical aspects to unarmed and armed combat. We should be familiar with these in order to ‘operate’ Taijutsu. But it’s the principles that make Taijutsu work as, well, Taijutsu.

Learning how to gunfight, has (at least) three elements to it. The first is why we’re picking up the gun in the first place – the ethical, willful, or spiritual considerations. We need to know why, and it had better be a good reason, because we may have to one day live with its consequences, morally and legally. Next would be the technical elements of the gun’s (the machine’s) usage – the loading and unloading of it, its firing and safety, its disassembly and re-assembly, its cleaning, its ballistics, etc. All of these and more constitute the gun’s practical elements, because if we don’t understand them we simply cannot operate the weapon. But none of these techniques require the kind of dedication, time, and energy as the actual reconciliation between man and machine in order to gunfight effectively under given circumstances.

Putting a bullet on a target that may be trying to do the same to you is nearly impossible if relying on technique alone. The awareness and familiarity that must be created between the body, the gun, and the mind that operates both takes years of experience to build. Taijutsu is no different. Too often, folks get caught up in the accumulation of technical matters instead of concentrating on their application.

Do we have to know technique? Yes, there are practical physical links we must be made aware of to appreciate their usefulness. But knowing them and doing them, doesn’t make them effective - principles do. We have to train ‘under the circumstances’ against an honest opponent, in order to see how techniques can work – how changes in our position, leverage, or timing impact what we’re doing. When we learn how to drive, we get in a car and pull onto the road, not sit at home playing Pole Position.

As we progress and mature, internalization of principles directly affects the degree to which technique is utilized. Without understanding of principles, techniques must be used in their most brutal fashion, with all the power, speed, and strength we can muster, or else risk their failure – and often they fail anyway. A broad comprehension of principles however, give us the surest way to apply technique to the degree necessary as well as allow the kind of detachment needed to flow and improvise, inherent in movement not relying upon memorized muscle memory.

Under the Blade 2010

2010-01-07T13:09:00.004-06:00

We pulled up at Adrian's, Burlington, Wisconsin's famous ice creamery (sorry frozen custard - there is a difference) with a 30 year history of doling it out. It was a coldish day, but hell, we were in the mood and their little twists of custard are uber-tasty.

Tomo ordered black raspberry ice cream. A small cone for myself, I said absently to the counter grandma manning the place. But my treat wasn't the plain vanilla I was waiting for, it was vanilla and chocolate 'twisted' together. "Oh I'm sorry, I just wanted vanilla."

Silence.

Grandma's eyes narrowed. They were dark, hard, cold. The left one twitched. She'd seen me before, legions of me over the years, during sweaty days and sweater nights. Snot-nosed, bratty, crying, tip toes to reach the counter - we were all the same, no matter the age. She wasn't keeping it, but she knew the score, and I was losing. The business end of this 1000 yards was speaking loud and clear: look, punk, I been dishing ‘tard since you were shitting yourself in fuzzy-feety pjs ...

She finally spoke, a Dirty Harry voice, "That's wha'cha get." She let it lie. "That's wha'cha ordered." Her crooked posture didn't move. Her wrinkled mask didn't blink.

I swallowed, my mouth dry. I mustered a whisper, "Oh ... this is fine."

I sat still and ate my twist.

Shinnen Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu!

Happy New Year Buyu! Year of the Tiger! I trust we're all recovering nicely.

My frozen custard lesson encapsulated my year of training. 2009 was a travel and train year - Japan twice, New Jersey to see Jack Hoban twice, the Midwest Taikai, Gasshuku (our 10th annual), then London, England. We also trained like crazy, brought on some new students and Buyu, and learned a whole hell of a lot. Hope you did too. But only by year's end did I realize where I was being directed to go - Grandma just summed it up.

This past year, Soke wanted us to look at Sainokonki, our capacity, more or less, to understand Taijutsu; tough stuff, especially with so many things to take in. But perhaps that’s the point, just keeping up may be the first step to broadening our ability. Our own little dojo theme of Asobigokoro, creative or playful spirit, also got plenty of mat time. Using our position to shape the kukan made more options for ourselves, leading us to Tsunagaru, the connection, which will play a big role this year as well. How we communicate with our opponent says much about our capacity to further our own understanding, bringing us back to Sainokonki.

But this year, Soke has chosen Rokkon Shojo 禄魂笑浄, the 'purfication of the senses through laughter.' When Tomoko took a look at the kanji she grimaced, "Doesn't make sense." I had to laugh; it's Ninja writing, poetic and riddlesome. Shidoshi Duncan Stewart says on his blog Rokkon Shojo has "more to do with living and being able to smile, which, incidentally, is an inevitable consequence of forgetting about Budo." The concept of Rokkon Shojo is derived from a Buddhist Shugendo principle concerning purification, but Soke says this is not how he intends its meaning. I'm eager to see how he defines it throughout the year. You can read Duncan's write-up here: http://tazziedevil.wordpress.com/rokkon-shou-jou/

Soke would also like us to look at tachi, a very old type of Japanese sword. Original tachi were not a two-handed weapon - the short, weirdly curved handle on early versions was designed to be used one handed, usually from horseback. Only later, as design and technology changed, did tachi handles straighten out and technique followed. Blade design was also different - longer lengths and harder, but more brittle steel, precluded stabbing and blocking techniques, unless the blade was supported. This led to long-range slashing movements and wide kamae, since the sword was normally used in armor on a battlefield. The Uchitachi, a shorter companion blade, longer than a wakizashi would actually lead to the development of the katana. But what does Soke have in store for us? The good news is we'll find out.

In addition to Soke's theme, we'll have our own theme. Themes are interesting. They demonstrate where we're at in our training and what we believe to be important. If we look back at the themes Soke has chosen over the years, we'll find they often have dual meanings, sometimes more, but at least two. Let's call them the outer and inner, Omote and Ura, or physical and non-physical. This is important because choosing a purely physical theme makes it hard to apply the non-physical, and vice versa. It's good to have a sense of duality. In my own training, I have been looking more and more at how our perspective inside the kukan, points to many of the answers we seek about the outcome of confrontations. In other words, how our Ura can influence our Omote.

This past November 21st, Gerardo Sanchez, an exterminator living in New York, stepped aboard a D train and started acting crazy. He confronted a drifter over a seat, when plenty were available, pulled a knife and stabbed him to death in front of 20-30 terrified passengers. According to police, Sanchez repeatedly stabbed the man in his neck and face, slashing his carotid artery. The victim died at the scene, still in his seat, eyes open. But what happened next is the extraordinary part.

After passengers pulled the emergency brake and reported the crime, the train car was locked down - sealed - from the outside. A group of passengers, innocents all, were now confined with a bloodied killer, knife in hand.

Where would we have placed ourselves in that moment on the train car? Stuffed into the huddled mass of people seeking shelter from a killer? Or, having stepped forward, at the front of the crowd, positioning ourselves between the killer and others? It's a tough question, one we may never really know until it happens, but useful as a thought tool. Luckily, Sanchez pried open one of the train car doors just enough to drop the knife onto the tracks. No one else was hurt.

This stepping forward, collapsing of the space, the void, whatever you wish to call it, is the ‘moment’ of truth, so to speak. It is the moment we extend ourselves, communicate, to our opponent an opening, a vulnerability – one they can scarcely ignore. And why? Because it fulfils their intent, empowers them with the thrill of advantage, seduces with easy victory. In short, it places us at greater risk to do the right thing.

This past year, we paid attention to the connection and the perspective that can create it. I used Asobigokoro to describe our improvisational physical creativity and also asked us to maintain a light character, one free from forcing a favorable outcome and more conducive to the artistry needed to paint the ‘moment’ with Taijutsu. The ‘moment’ is when Taijutsu occurs. The ‘moment beforehand’ is no good and the ‘moment afterward’ isn’t either, for each of those succumb to the very problems inherent in training: the reliance on power over position and the ego inventing a future memory of victory, drowning out the good sense to stalemate.

The moment is not a spot, a place, or position, it is not any single time, constituting any single occurrence. Rather, it is an intersection of emotions, intentions, and actions, falling somewhere in the range of ‘then’ and ‘now.’ As I see it, training is not about trying to anticipate the moment the opponent will strike, but to endure the moment we have allowed them to strike.
Convincing them there is but a single choice for their will to proceed, makes us safer … as it does for them. But in creating, shaping, and imagining the moment with Asobigokoro, we must now have the courage to accept the burden of it, to step forward on the train car and collapse the space. The will to accept this fate, the spirit of perseverance, the hidden intention of our ethic, to carry on, sally forth, patiently enduring the consequences ‘under the blade’ is called Shinobigokoro. It will be our 2010 theme.

Taijutsu is the hardest martial art I have ever trained. To strive for greater ability takes more than just hard physical training. The art forces us to come to certain realizations and answer some of our most basic questions. Why do we begin training? What is worth training for? When should we use our training? The answers to these questions may be different for each of us, but in word only. The truth behind each answer is something none of us can deny – our role in training directly affects the role training plays in our lives.

In our Shingitai-Ichi Dojo, we teach teachers – those whose role will be to pass training on. We are not hobbyists, we are like-minded folks who gather together weekly to infuse the ideals of this ancient warrior way into our ethics, our thoughts, our movements. Why? Because we enjoy swinging swords and dressing in black? Because for some reason, we are hard pressed to articulate, we understand the importance of warriorship and its priority in the human experience, to guide, navigate, and coordinate us in a society that is sometimes as brutal and cruel as any found in nature.

We do not expect others to understand our commitment when we travel out on cold nights to make class, our respect toward values and ideals at a time when ambivalence is a sign of thoughtfulness, and our courage when we step forward on the train car, as others are scrambling to retreat. We realize there’s a role we have chosen for ourselves, or in some cases the role chosen for us. Training can define our role, and that’s enough for it to make sense. Grandma had it right - she simply gave me what I asked, not what I wanted. Training is no different: what we get is often not what we expect.

Budo Taijutsu/Ninpo/Ninjutsu is often called the “art of living.” But who’s doing the living? Normal people survive, they can bury themselves inside a crush of others on a train car to shield their body from a killer. But extraordinary people allow normal people, not just to survive, but to live - the fireman who runs into the burning building, the police officer who confronts the suspect, the Marine who patrols and holds the village, so they won’t come back. And then there is the rest of us, who train for the good of ourselves, who train out of duty to our loved ones, who train for clarity in that moment.

Are we learning to survive? Yes. Are we learning to live? Yes. But we are also learning something more, something that can perhaps only be realized through our study of Budo. I don't yet know what that is, but if we're ever to discover it, we need to train and 'keep going.'

This is what we get - it’s what we ordered. So, own it. At your next training … sidle up like you own the place, lay an elbow flat on the counter, lean in so she can get a good look at you, and speak up, “One twist to go, Grandma!”

Have an inspired 2010!

James

Bonenkai 2009

2009-12-20T10:19:00.005-06:00

Okay, this will be my last post of 2009. It's just we had such a great time the other night at our Bonenkai, I wanted to share. We had several groups coming together, which only happens once or twice a year, due to distance. We trained and talked about what we learned over the last year, saw old friends (Shawn!), ate some of the best sushi in Chicago, drank Asahi (Super Dry!), opened presents, and all with our Buyu, some of the best folks I know.

I want to thank Shidoshi Jeff Patchin and his boys for coming in once again from Rockford (almost a two-hour commute). When I got Jeff's yearly nobody-knows-how-to-drive-in-Chicago call, I knew everything was coming together. And it did.

Thanks to everyone who came, hope you went home with a smile, a full belly, and a nice little gift. I got a copy of one of Soke's Kuden series from the gang, and 'stole' a copy during White Elephant of "Nine Deaths of the Ninja,"
which, looking back, might not have been the smartest of tactical decisions, after viewing the credit sequence where Sho Kosugi swings a Ninjato in the middle of three dancing babes to the vocal stylings of a woman who probably (and thankfully) sang herself into obscurity. Check it out here, but be warned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDREMG8alS4

For my gift, I brought a ham.

Let's do it all again next year!

James

Check out the pics here:
http://s742.photobucket.com/albums/xx70/sgtidojo/09%20Bonenkai/

UPDATE 12/21/09 - "Nine Deaths of the Ninja" - Best bad Ninja movie ever ... ever. Do yourself a favor, watch this movie. Watch it with Buyu. And alcohol. Why?

1. Ninja vs Filipino midgets.
2. Screechy gay wheelchair Nazi guy doing his best Dr. Strangelove.
3. Hot "Foxy Brown" type doing her best Pam Grier.
4. You will learn more about attaching shurikens to a camouflaged jumpsuit than any other movie.

Complete your training - don't miss this!

kosshi

Shameless plug: Bujinkan Weapons.com

Under the Blade 2012

Sensei Obvious

"Embrace" Taijutsu

GASSHUKU 2011

So, are you good or evil?

A Sword to Cut Stone

Turn 40. Train. Get a sword.

July 10, 2011

Thompson's Rhetorica

Night of the Living Groupons

The Ukemi Primer

The Taijutsu Primer

Enter the Ethical Warrior

Rome, Italy - April/May 2011

The Girl who learned Taijutsu in 10 minutes

10 Questions with Shidoshi Jim Delorto

WOOSHA!

10 Questions with Jack Hoban

An Attack on Dr. Humphrey's Dual-Life Value Theory

Under the Blade 2011

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2010 Bonenkai Training and Celebration

Warriorship of the Ring

Martial Heart

Walking the "Plank"

Ode to a Warhammer

The Hero and the Warrior

That thing, on the ground, with the bo … that was cool

Taijutsu Workshop and Birthday Thingamabob

The Taijutsu Triangle

The Ninja Diet

'Japan Download' with James Morganelli, June 26th, 2010

Just disappear a little ...

Kiss her with Ki

A gambling man?

Good for what ails ya

Stop. Collaborate and listen ...

To the East!

Recommended reading

The Ethical Warrior

A Counterinsurgency in Chicago

Cause and 'Affect'

Do. Or do not. There is no ... uh ... no ... ugh, so old am I ...

Taijutsu Workshop with Jack Hoban

F.B.I., lady. Hands up!

Fudoshin

Damn that blue carpet ...

Hatsugeiko-a-go-go

Under the Blade 2010

Bonenkai 2009