The new Honbu dojo
Today was the first training with soke in honbu dojo. He opened speaking about a new honbu dojo that hopefully can be started on in 3-4 years. The current honbu will stand here for five more years, then the city will build the railway where it stands now.
Soke asked us to spread the word that it is ok to send in donations for the new honbu dojo. I would suggest that each dojo-cho will collect money and donate it in the name of respective dojo.
Bujinkan.ME News #38 (Seti, web updates, Budo Shop)
Hello buuyuu's!
Daikomyousai just finished (I wish I could have been there, I have to try harder for next year). I heard they trained outside, and Kihon Happo was the theme, at least for the first day. Hopefully someone will update me for the next newsletter at the end of the year.
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Web site updates & RSS
I have had a lot of time to work on all our web sites recently, so I think you should check them out.
- Kabutoshimen has become a real Bujinkan portal, I have included a lot of news sources that is constantly updated.
- Bujinkan.ME (also iPhone optimized), I created something i just call the Superfeed. It collects RSS feeds from different sources in four steps.
- Superfeed, this is all our blogs in one, if you just want to subscribe to our blogs this feed is the only one you need to subscribe to. If we create a new blog or move one, it will automatically be updated in this feed.
- Superfeed2, same as above plus selected Bujinkan bLogs we this is really good.
- Superfeed3, same as all above plus selected Bujinkan forums we think is good.
- Superfeed4, same as above plus YouTube videos tagged Bujinkan, Google Blogsearch for Bujinkan. Note the last feed is experimental, there is no way to control the content completely. I had to filter out one Bujinkan forum because it is too heavily spammed, I might do that with others to in the future if need be.
- Soke classes, is always up to date with the original web site. But our site also now includes a live weather forecast of Matsudo (which is the closest city to Honbu dojo and Ayase classes).
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Taikai 2009 Update
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Nothing new since the last newsletter. The interest seems a little low right now and we need help advertising the TAIKAI. You can help us with a banner or just a link to our web site, or talk about organizing a group trip to the TAIKAI in your dojo, anything encouraging people to go is good for us, and we appreciate it greatly.
The application form is on-line, the following instructors is coming.
- Duncan Stewart, Shihan (Japan)
- Juan Manuel Serrano, Shihan (Spain)
- Lauri Jokinen, Shihan (Finland)
- Mariette vd Vliet, Shihan (Holland)
- Mats Hjelm, Shihan (Sweden)
- Morten B. Østenstad, Shihan (Norway)
The application form for TAIKAI is now on-line! On the taikai web site you can click on the button in the top right column from all pages. Sign up before the end of the year and you will receive a gift from us at the Taikai. Please spread the word!
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The new web shop has been up and it works really well. Note the shipping costs is really flat rate shipping cost 49 SEK to the whole world (gratis frakt inom Sverige!), we had to adjust some prices slightly to cover the p&p costs, but the DVD prices is unchanged. There is no new products this month, the last ones was Masaaki Hatsumi - Taikai Sweden 1988, Dean Rostohar - Knife and Baton seminar and Aluminium training knifes.
We will release new/old Shinken kata dvd's very soon.
It is Christmas time soon and if you want to have the order before Christmas you should order as soon as possible. We can not guarantee any latest time for ordering to get it in time for Christmas, but we are fast, we send the items within one or two days and the rest is up to the post offices. In Sweden you usually have it the next day, in other countries 3-5 days. But being Christmas it could take a little longer than usual, but of course you know that.
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Join the Bujinkan SETI team!
Almost 10 years ago I joined the SETI by installing the “screensaver”. I discovered that you could create teams and work together. It was fun and exciting to see how we did together, then somehow I forgot about it until now. I went back to see if our team was active and to my surprise it still was! My account was still there, so I had to log in, download the new program and fire it up again and contribute to the Bujinkan SETI team.
On Wednesday November 19′th 2008 it was 2 active members, at top team no 3548, 723 recent credits (with a total of 424,647 credits) and ranked as 7,562. If you click on the links above you will see that we are climbing up rapidly.
I think it would be fun if you also joined the Bujinkan SETI team in search for extra terrestrial life. If you think this is silly, there is several other organisations you can help by lending your CPU when not in use to.
Click here for the official Bujinkan SETI web site http://kesshi.com/seti/
Please spread the word!
Update: We are now four active users and have tripled the credits produced.
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Seminars the following months
For more seminars see the Bujinkan.Me/seminars list (here is also information how to add seminars to this database). Sponsored seminar...
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2008-12-05/2008-12-07 - Tuusula, Finland
Christmas Camp, with Shihan Lauri Jokinen
For more information (price & schedule etc.) please contact nagareru@hotmail.com More info... http://shinden.fi
2008-12-19/2008-12-20 - Stockholm, Sweden
Hankyou 2008, with Many instructors
This is Kaigozan Dojo's traditional Christmas seminar. We invite all instructors that want to come and share what they have learned this year (please contact us!). If you want to have good fun don't miss this, the cost for the seminar is kept really low. More info... http://kaigozan.se/seminars
2009-01-16/18 - Helsinki, Finland
Shihan Moti Nativ Seminar (Shihan Moti Nativ)
For more information (price & schedule) please contact nagareru@hotmail.com
More info on... click here
2009-02-07/08 - Stockholm, Sweden
Keiko seminar intro to this years theme (Mats Hjelm)
Introduction to this years theme. Mats is doing his annual January trip this year to.
More info on... click here
2009-03-14/15 - Stockholm, Sweden
Keiko seminar with Holger Kunzmann (Shihan from Germany)
Shihan Holger Kunzmann from Germany will be in Japan during February, after this trip he will come here to share what was being taught there.
More info on... click here
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Short news and Notes
- On Sunday November 16'th Soke told us that you (as the instructor) should say 千早や振る 神の教えは とこしえに 正しき心 身を守るらん Chihayaburu Kamino Oshiewa Tokoshieni Tadashiki Kokoro Mio Mamoruran" as well when you do "Shikin" at your class.
Read more about it on Kutaki.
- This seems to be needed to be reminded constantly. When going to Japan and training, please do what you can to help the administrators of the classes so it runs smoothly.
- This is one of the many unwritten rules, and it always needs to be reminded! If you are allowed to take video of the trainings, you do not automatically have ok to post the video clips anywhere on internet, selling or giving away to strangers. If this is something you intend to do, then you need to ask if this is ok. This is just common courtesy, show some respect and don't take things for granted.
- There was a Bujinkan Enbu at the Fuse Benten in Kashiwa in October, celebrating a 1200 year old shrine.
New, here is a link to a 35 minute video of the Enbu.
- ...Please send me news to put here!
空間感覚 Sense of space
As you know this years theme is the Togakure school. And what we is studying is the 面 OMOTE, outside or the visible and the 空間 KUUKAN. Next year we will be studying the 裏 URA, the inside, what is not visible or the secret. Soke said that next year we will go beyond kuukan.
First I'd like to remind you of my previous posts about not going ahead too soon, and instead follow the natural way and do things with good timing. So what he meant by going beyond kuukan we can leave for next year... no need to worry about that now.
空間 KUUKAN means space, room or air space. The first kanji KARA means emptyness, vacuum or blank, also SORA means sky or the heavens. The second kanji MA means space, room, time or pause. It can also mean many other things, for example KEN which is a measurement used between pillars, the same length as a tatami mat, 1,818 meters. In Koto-ryu for example you should be able to jump 2 ken sideways.
Other Japanese budo arts use and emphasize the same kanji for 間合い MAAI (interval), but in Bujinkan we instead speak of kuukan which has a deeper meaning. It is not just the distance, it is more how you use the distance that is important. For example if you have a pistol on your right side of the hip, you should keep this side away from the opponent so that he cannot take your weapon, and also so that you have room to draw your weapon off need be.
So this year we are developing our 空間感覚 Kuukankankaku, our sense of using the space between ourselves and the opponent as well as everything else around us, including possible weapons, doors, trees, stones, cars, other people etc.
In art they also speak of kuukan. For example using a big white paper and not too much black ink. Instead of looking at the black ink you look at the big white spaces. Or a zen garden one stone in the middle of a big field, it is the same thing, kept very simple. Maybe the same thing can be said about budo, keeping the techniques simple and leave plenty of room that can be used if needed, instead of complicated techniques that leaves out the freedom to henka, change. The key is to keep it simple, I think.
青銅 Bronze is better than gold
In sports the gold medal is the highest level but in Bujinkan we think that the bronze medal is the highest level.
青銅 The first kanji is AO and means blue or green (when some one says ao it can mean both blue and green!). The second kanji DOU means copper.
銅 DOU can lead electricity and is more useful than gold. In taijutsu we take the natural 道 DOU (way or path). The way is not decided until the opponent has taken his position, like electricity doesn't jump from one place to another before it can. Taijutsu is the same, we can not do the technique before the opponent has given us the opportunity where it comes natural. This is the 道 we should take.
Then Soke said look how I take this punch with my 胴 DOU (body, trunk, waist) and laughed.
This is the play of words and kanji Soke often does. I think he does this to break patterns and make us think in different ways we usually thinks. Building new synapses in the brain. Shortly after this he spoke about hijoushiki (see my other post about that).
非常識 Lack of common sense
Some people do the most unexpected things. They do what you think is impossible or what you think is stupid. Someone who is unexperienced in budo have their own theories of what works and not. They are not molded into a system that taught them how to do things, so they do what they think will work. Or it could be a martial artist from another style using techniques you never seen before.
Soke said the other day that we should develop this 非常識 HIJOUSHIKI, which means lack of common sense. We should learn to see these unexpected things coming and respond naturally and not be surprised. He did not say anything (as far as i understood) about "banpen fuugyou" ten thousand changes without beeing surpriced. But this came to my mind immediately, it is the same thing.
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