Japanton – Chronicles of Anton in Japan!

Recently there was a tai kai featuring two friends of mine, Paul Masse and Rob Renner.  You can see a preview for the video here.  It can be purchased at www.bujinkanlife.com for 29.95 US.

I am waiting for my copy right now actually.  I usually would not pre-approve a video but these are two guys who have significant Japan experience.  There is a real connection that they have which I have to insist people analyze and try to emulate.

A short note about Paul and Rob.  Paul Masse trains weekly with sensei where he is occasionally translating.  In fact all the times that I have been in Japan I think I have been to one Hatsumi Sensei class where I did not see him.  The same can be said about Rob.

In addition to Sensei’s classes Rob trains with Oguri, Nagato, Noguchi and Seno Senseis.  He occasionally translates for Oguri and Nagato senseis.  (Rob also teaches 5 classes a week at his own dojo.)

Thus you can be sure that you are in good hands when you learn from them.  That’s all I have to say about this video, for now.

So I talked about the true centre line before.  The less space you have the more important this will become.

The art of Budo Tai Justsu works because we can control the space (well this is one of the reasons) and when we are doing seated waza it is no different.  This is why when you are doing the seated kata (or kata from a seated position) you must use your body to maintain the space.  This includes putting your legs and arms in a way that obstructs your opponents entry into your space (like in sei chu sen).  Having space increases your mobility, your movement allows you to control the distance.

Until we can effectively control the space in all situations (even seated), we can’t hope to understand the basics of Budo TaiJutsu.  Those who don’t understand basics in my opinion are wasting time trying to learn the higher level techniques.

Now I know that I have said this on numerous occasions in class, and I think that I may have mentioned it on this blog before as well but I am too lazy to use the search.  When you are practising something new, don’t go full out.  Learn the technique properly by slowly increasing intensity.  It is easy when dealing with “Ground Fighting” to go 100% with very little risk of injury.  Although it’s safe it will hurt your technique and taijutsu concepts.  You may win at first using speed and power.  It’s easier to build muscle than technique, but technique will win in the long run.  Build up intensity gradually and learn the correct way.

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.

I am not going to make this a post where you have to follow along with complex mathematics.  I just need to explain a few things which I believe will help you understand a bit about generating power for strikes.

Lets first look at the quoted equation.

K = 1/2 mv²

or

Energy = 1/2 x mass x velocity squared

I will not get into momentum (which we all know is an integration of the previous formula right? 😛 ).  I will take time to explain why speed is not important.  Well maybe that’s going to far, I will explain why speed is no more important than technique.

In the simple equation that I have above, if you have a certain mass behind your punch, (let’s say half your body weight) and a certain speed (the velocity does not matter) you will create a strike with a certain amount of energy.  Now if you double the mass behind your strike and the speed stays the same you double the energy.  If you double the speed behind your strike you get four times the energy.  Thus speed is the answer right?  WRONG!

Do you understand how hard it is to increase your speed?  You will hit a wall and it will diminish with age.  Have you ever tried to move a car?  By changing your technique you can add a considerable amount of force behind you.  I would go as far as to say that increasing the mass behind your strike is 8 times easier than increasing your speed, and 13.42 times easier to maintain in old age (by my arbitrary but seemingly accurate predictions).

But wait there’s more!  You don’t always want to strike quickly.  You might want to change up the speed to throw your opponent off their game.  In this case having the correct weight behind your strikes using proper technique to anchor some of the mass from the ground is even more important.

In conclution, don’t believe the you need speed nonsense.  It is a misunderstanding of the classical mechanics when applied to the Human Body.  I am willing to debate anyone on this, it can be quickly articulated and demonstrated in person.  So if you have people who doubt send them my way I welcome the peer review.

The Mayor and some of city council of Edmonton came up with a great idea.  To reduce knife violence we should ban the sale of knives in the city.

I will have to comment on some problems with this.

1.  The knives are already here.

People in Edmonton have knives.  If someone wants to get a poket knife they can get one.

2.  Kitchen knives are sharp.  So are box cutters.

People will just start using other blades in their stead.

3.  Edmonton is not an island nation.

Leduc, Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain… you will still be able to get knives from any of these places, how will they stop the sale of knives?  Demanding proof of address at time of purchase in those cities as well?

I understand that there is a problem with violent crimes in Edmonton right now, but there must be better solutions to this problem than trying to ban the sale of knives.  I mean that’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard.  I am glad to see that our politicians are not above stupidity, I was starting to feel inferior to US politics (a la intertubes).

It has finally happened.  I have students who are asking me for the information.  What do I need to know, what do I have to work on at home.  If my tear glands had not atrophied years ago I would be crying with joy.

There is something to be said about self motivation.  I have said before that I need to provide the information, but it must also be retained.  Ask me what you want to know, I will tell you.  If you need something before that to grasp the concept, I will let you know.  If you want the one concept that you need to work on (as far as I am concerned) I will give it to you.  I want to make you better than I am faster than I got there.

Nothing would make me happier than attending classes taught by a former student.

That’s right, I am guilty.  My admission to the charges however allows a certain leniency from my peers.  Let me explain how this all came about.

Because I have been teaching classes consistently over the past few years, I have been in my comfort zone.  When you teach something you know, you make new discoveries but you are not learning anything new.  You may be improving your current skills but you are not expanding your skills.

I am lucky in that I have a chance to travel to Japan and attend seminars which push my current understanding.  But at home when I am teaching I refine current knowledge while those attending the classes make real improvement.  That is until now.

He goes be a few names, “The Booj”, “The Shidoshi Killer”, “one who knows”.  He has taken up Thursday night classes.  This allows me to train, not to think about how to improve other people, but to ingrain movements in myself.  To go through repetitive practise, these are the things which improve taijutsu.

If I fall into the trap of only training when I teach, I am a coach not a practitioner.  The Bujinkan does not need coaches.  The Bujinkan does not need teachers, we have Hatsumi Sensei.  Budo is not an academic exercise like teaching a subject in school.  If I go over some problems in Math I will improve as I show you how to do the math.  If I am teaching you to play the piano, I can show you a scale, you practising the scale does not make me a better pianist, it makes you a better pianist.  Disciplines that take physical skills do not improve but through training.

I invite all of my friends and students (which are usually one in the same) to engage me on Thrusdays as a fellow student and equal.  I’ll say it again, the Bujinkan does not need teachers it needs us to train.

When someone gets you in their mighty Judo Grip, which I hear is the most powerful grip (kung-fu grip comes a close second), what should you do?  Well if you are in the Bujinkan, I can tell you what your most likely response is.  Matching the grip right?

This should not be necessarily the case.  If someone wants to grapple with you so why should you follow their lead?  You fight how you want, not how they want right?

So here is my first Bujinkan Training drill in a long time, san shin from Kumi uchi.  On person grabs in kumi uchi, the tori goes through the sanshin  (left and right) from Kumi Uchi.  This is done with both people with a right lead, left lead, one with right one with left, hand positions for the uke reversed, both hands collar grab, double wrist grabs…

I could go on for ever, but I won’t, just give it a try if you run a class and let me know how it goes.

Your life is on the line, train well.