Japanton – Chronicles of Anton in Japan!

As those who train with me know, I have over the course of my short time in the martial arts tried many different styles.  Karate, Judo, Aikido, Jujitsu and Chen style tai chi to name a few.  There are even more that I have seen and not had a chance to try.  Unfortunately I have abandoned the other arts.

The Bujinkan consist of 9 schools and hundreds of of kata with ten’s of thousands of variations.  There is enough information to spend 9 lifetimes studying.  There is a depth of feeling and skill which I have yet to see reproduced in any other martial art, by any other martial artist besides Hatsumi Sensei.  There is a breadth of knowledge which has literally saved the life of students and myself.

When my life was on the line, it was saved by this Budo, as long as I have permission I will dedicate my martial arts training to the art of Hatsumi Sensei and his standard bearers.

Your life is on the line, practise well.

We have restarted our curriculum cycle.  As I have mentioned before we are going from 4th kyu to shodan.  This will be new to a lot of the students as it will be new to me teaching the material.  For the longest time I have been going over the lower level kyus (higher number kyus) to get the basic movements ingrained in (y)our bodies.  Now it is time to get the higher level concepts integrated in your movement.

Many of the techniques which you will study over the next few months are going to be techniques you have seen before, I will just spend a lot more time on the details of how these techniques work so that you can become creative with their application.

I will warn you in advance, in the Bujinkan Shodan is not a big deal.  In Japan as a whole shodan is not a big deal.  It literally means lower rank.  It is more of an indication of dedication rather than proficiency.  As soon as you forget that conversations like “That person does not deserve that rank” or “We have a more stringent grading than everyone else” come up.  This is not the correct approach.  As soon as you get the idea that because you are associated with a certain way of doing things gives you a sense of pride, you have lost the point.  The rank doesn’t matter as long as you can survive.

If you are in a fight and have a shodan under a stringent curriculum but still lose it means nothing.  What is important is that you learn the feeling that Hatsumi sensei is trying to convey.  Once you have that feeling everything else will fall into place.

Your life is on the line, train well.

In our budo, there is more than just the physical aspect of technique.  I am going to spend a little time talking about the mental aspect of our techniques.

Budo is a very unique activity which I feel must be associated with a intellectual realization.  Like music, art or mathematics; you can have the same groundwork with different results.  Through an exploration you will come to a moment where something will make sense and the task will become so easy you will wonder how you were having trouble with it before.

Two budo-ka of equal physical ability will not necessarily be even in skill.  This becomes apparent when you are dealing with multiple opponents.

With multiple opponents, you can not become attached to the techniques and skills which you have learnt in the past.  Sometimes you need to abandon your techniques half way.  Sometimes you have to take the initiative.  When you are at a disadvantage is when your skills are really shown.  You must be an artist, creative with your tools.  You need to know what to put in and even more importantly what to leave out.

This is a bit of a scatter brained Hatsumi-esque post but if you want more information on what I am getting at ask me.

Your life is on the line, train well.

Well I was going to post something on a new insight I found into the striking timings, but I am getting harrased about not posting.  So if you want a new post you will have to ask a question in the comment.  You know something that I have done or said in class about which you are unclear.  Anyhow I am done, those at class to day know who to thank for this.

In short doing what I say, and not doing what you feel in too much.

Let me explain, I will teach you skills you need to train in class and I will teach you techniques which you are able to preform and receive with your skill level.  I will also give instructions on how “hard” to train.  When I say slow down, it’s probably best to slow down.

So if you hear my voice raised ever, you have probably been doing something very wrong for a long time.  If I tell you to stop, I would suggest highly that you do that.  I will not have injuries in my classes on account of carelessness.  Next person to step out of line during a class I will deal with you on the spot.  I will not produce a dangerous nobody.

You have been warned.  Your life is on the line, train well.

I feel that I should mention this, specifically for musha dori.

When you have musha dori (the lock) we often try to scoop up the opponents elbow.  To fight you they are using their muscles plus gravity.  If instead you drop your body while keeping your hands in place, you are using gravity against their muscles.  I hope you can understand without a visual.  I use musha dori because it’s easy to illustrate.  If you need a crude Anton Diagram I will give it to you.

If you can understand this method of movement you can use it in nearly all your techniques.  If you start to understand this the need for strength in your techniques will decrease significantly.  In fact I will argue that sometimes adding strength will be detrimental to your techniques.

Give it a try, you will be pleasantly surprised.  Your life is on the line, train well.

That’s what we are about in the Edmonton Bujinkan Crowd.  I will just make short mention of it because I am waiting for a first hand full detailed account.  That said one of the dojo’s members was nearly crushed by a falling pipe (industrial sized) but used ukemi (a dive roll specifically) to get to safety.

This is why ukemi is important, I am a firm beliver that if you learn it well it will help you more often than the combative techniques.  Don’t disregard ukemi.  Your life is on the line, train well.

As those who have been at class know, we have started our ground fighting month.  I have decided to start with Suwari Waza because you can (or should be able to) relate the earlier months principals to this new situation.

This of course is easier said than done.  There are some differences between standing waza and seated waza and they are as important as the similarities in some cases.  I will help you out with one difference that could make all the difference in the world.

Generally when seated you have three points of contact with the ground not two.  This changes the points where your opponent is off balance.  Understand that it is a bit more difficult to move your opponent to an off balance situation however there are now three close points to take their balance.  Your opponent is a tripod, generally with one point of the triangle pointing at you.  This makes it difficult to drag them forward.  If you move them backwards though, you will find it easy to take their balance.  Going directly left and right might be a bit difficult however forward and to the right as well as forward and the the left are two more directions where you can more easily take your opponents balance.

This is very difficult to explain without either drawing a diagram of showing it through pictures.  Those of you whom were at class however should be able to see from whence I come.

Essentially I will break it down intellectually like this, if you have one point of contact with the ground, I can push you over in any direction easily.

If you have two points of contact, there are two points where you can be taken easily.

If you have three points of contact, there are three points where you can be taken most easily but each one will be harder than the two points from the previous example.

It’s easy to show but hard to explain, this is the nature of budo in general.  Everyone let me know if you need further clarification, or maybe I might even put a diagram with enough requests.   Your life is on the line, train well.

I have often been told I am a difficult person to understand.  A friend of mine (Cliff) seems to have the best explanation.  I pack to many references in what I say.  If you don’t have a similar background in Education or interests you will not get a lot of what I say.  So I decided to make up a list of clips that will help you in class if you are having trouble understanding a few of my quotes.  You don’t have to like the same stuff, you don’t even have to watch it, (the required part was a joke) it will just help you understand a bit better.

1.  Venture Brothers – the guys in Calgary got me on this one.

2.  The Young Turks – when you hear me say “Weak Sauce” or “B-E-A-T, beat.” this is where it comes from.  (Warning some clips are left wing politics heavy for you conservatives reading.)

3.  Family guy – Self evident I think.

4.  Metalocalypse – because Budo is metal, and Toki is the man.

5.  Hamlet, Othello and Much Ado about Nothing – Cause I liked those ones.

6.  Bruce Lee Movies – Cause we are a martial arts class.

7.  Mas Oyama Trilogy – Cause Sonny Chiba is the man.

8.  The Strongest Karate – Cause I used to take Karate, and back in the day Karate was bad ass.  (Can you spot the Bill Atkins look alike?)

9.  Histories Strongest Disciple Kenichi – Some people who write about martial arts research concepts.  This is the best researched martial arts series I have ever seen.

10.  Japan Stories – This is from the shihan and other Japan residents.  I reference teachers movements and mannerisms as best I can.  You have to go to Japan to get who I am impersonating that day.

Oh I guess I better add some science fiction, Lenny Henry and other British Comedy (I think we should return to the gold standard).

When you find yourself in a confrontation often you become your own worst enemy.  You hesitate and have movements full of fear.  This is deadly to a martial artist.  If your heart is filled with fear, you can’t use the techniques that you have leaned.

Trust me when I say, if you hesitate things get worse.  I won’t bore you with details online, but if you ask me over a pint or two I will let you know.  When a fight breaks out lives are on the line, there is no time for you to doubt yourself.  This leads us to fudoshin…

Fudo shin or the immovable heart is an important skill to learn.  In the martial arts it is essential, but it will serve you well in life.  Having a heart which can stay calm despite adversity will make you a much better martial artist, able to defend themselves and not lose your head.  When you loose yourself to anger you loose track of your goals.

So in class as teachers and students, train fudoshin so that you will be ready for all sorts of situations in life.  I may post some more on this when I am a bit more motivated.