My cousin has started teaching Tai Chi. In fact, he launched his website late last year, you can check it out at http://www.lxtaijiquan.com/teacher.htm

It was interesting to go through the site, it brought back many memories of my younger days. When we were teenagers, I was training in praying mantis (while haboring my ninja-dreams) while he was pursuing tae kwon do with his trademark seriousness and sincerity.

After I started National Service I stopped pursuing my goal of mastering praying mantis. Looking back I realize how foolish that was, because I had no good reason to stop. Time? Energy? Oh, come on! In Israel the ninjutsu people in the army will go AWOL for the sake of training. They saw sneaking in and out of the army camp undetected as a necessary part of their ninja training. And I can’t even muster the effort to make a training trip once a week?

While I grew slack, my cousin grew even more serious, and began to take tai chi lessons from MY praying mantis Sifu. In a sense we can say that he took my place and eventually became more of my sifu’s student than I am. He wasn’t given some black belt/black sash thingy to show his credentials, we don’t do things like this in Chinese Martial Arts. But he was given permission from my sifu to teach. And that, in the Chinese scene, counts for a lot.

So right now, where do we stand? I’ve gotten my Sandan in Bujinkan Taijutsu, and I am glad for it. I know I can teach, in fact, my sensei has repeatedly bugged me to go start my own classes. But my cousin has kept on in my original path, one that I have no reason for leaving, other than laziness. Somewhere deep inside me I still feel like a chinese stylist, not a Japanese one. I don’t think it is a matter of race. I suspect it’s just that nostalgic, yearning-for-childhood side of me that wishes that I kept up my first art as well as my taijutsu.

Hence the title of this post. In a parallel universe I would have continued on in my praying mantis training and maybe even taken up tai chi. Maybe by now I’d be the one teaching those two arts, not him? I guess I’ll never know…

A few nights ago, my elder boy saw me practising junan taiso. He asked me “Daddy, why are you doing this? It’s so easy!”

(this, by the way, is because I keep telling him that he should practice whatever is challenging but good for his body. The implication he got is that if it’s easy it need not be practiced.)

“Son, this is NOT easy at all for your daddy! You see this?”

“Yah!”

“This is as low as I can go for now!”

“Are you sure???” I hate the incredulous tone in his voice!

“Yes, son. This has ALWAYS been tough for your daddy…”

“You see? I can go lower than you!”

“Yes, son, in this you are better than your daddy…” It’s ok to admit this to a seven year old once in a while. “Do you know that when I was your age I couldn’t even touch my toes like this?”

“But, daddy, you are thirty-something years old! I am only seven, so you should be better than me in this!”

“Son, stretching is one of those things you have to keep practicing to stay good at! If you are not that good at it to begin with, you need to work even harder… just like your daddy!”

With that he proceeded to do all the stretching exercises I was doing, but a lot better, of course. That was an evening of father-son bonding over junan taiso. I am sure I am gonna remember this conversation fondly for years to come!

Junjie
Shunketsu

One thing I believed for a long time was that Chi no Kata (from the Sanshin) shouldn’t be taught to beginners first. Two reasons: first, the san-shitan ken is very difficult to get right (distancing is tough); second, it doesn’t have the vital offline movement that characterizes most of the Bujinkan waza.

So I believed that Sui no Kata was the best way for beginners to start off.

Now I’m not so sure

I was working with a newbie recently and he had gone through the Sui no Kata for a number of lessons. And yet he was still struggling with getting the kamae right. As a teacher what should I do? Isolate the problem areas and let him focus on that, before bringing everything together again, right?

And as I tried to help him with that point, I suddenly realized that was exactly what Chi no Kata was doing – isolating the kamae. Bringing the practitioner to a Shoshin no Kamae (a more elemental form of Ichimonji) for both the initial reaction and the response after that.

Now I am patting myself on the back because the newbie later said that going into ichimonji and stepping forward with fudoken felt a lot more natural. Dang, I’m good!

Junjie
(Shunketsu)

Been pondering this issue a lot.

Here’s the struggle. I love Bujinkan Taijutsu. I can teach and train that all the time and be really happy. But yet there’s a lot of self-defence info and thoughts stored up within me, and I’d love to impart that to people as well.

Problem is: if I were to do that I’d have to teach a lot of stuff that’s from outside the Bujinkan. So I don’t feel comfortable identifying what I teach as being from the Bujinkan.

So, do I have the ego size necessary to call what I am doing Bujinkan ++? Or make no reference to the Bujinkan at all? But also doesn’t feel right. It is Bujinkan taijutsu I know, I come from the Bujinkan and I am proud of it.

Anyway, I’m going to ponder this more. I’ve also been writing some material and information for the students, as well as planning the lessons. James (one of the other black belts) was telling me that I’m going to need structure if I do these classes. I reminded him that I not only like structure, I am the most anal retentive of the whole lot of us.

He was supposed to violently disagree and say “Don’t say that, JJ! You are actually quite a nice guy!” But he didn’t…

I got myself a jo about a month ago, and I’ve been taking it out and playing with it regularly.

I’ve never been taught any official jo techniques, so my practice has been made up mainly of furi, uchi (jodan, gedan toh tsuki) and some sanshin type stuff. When I got it from the shop the lady said something along the lines of “what kind of workout can you get with that?” My reply was “If I wanted a workout I’d do push-ups!” But after a month of seriously playing with the jo, and I find my arms and legs all wobbly, I think I’m getting more of a workout than I planned for.

And that’s good!

As I said, I’ve never been taught the official Bujinkan jo waza, so I did whatever I remembered from hanbo instead. I used to think that people were needlessly anal about the difference between hanbo and jo length, since they are about a foot apart in length. That was in the days before I did more kenjutsu. Now that I’ve done a lot more kenjutsu, I realized that one foot makes a LOT of difference! A jo gives the wielder a large advantage over an opponent with a katana!

A few years back we had a small class and my shidoshi showed us some bo vs katana material. There wasn’t enough bo to go around, so I used a jo instead and used tai sabaki to make up the difference in length. My shidoshi didn’t comment on it, so I assumed that I did the distance correctly! But that does give me a sense of where to go next when I start getting bored with what I am working on now. I can start looking at the bojutsu material and practice those. Goho, Ura Goho and all that, even though they are not meant for bo per se, will certainly help me get more proficient in handling a stick.

And besides, I AM going to get a bo soon, so that I can put in some REAL work on it!

Karl got his 5th Dan!

He went to Japan, took his sakki test and passed. So he’s Godan now.

Justyn is of course proud of this, and justifiably so. Karl is very much Justynian in his mindset and taijutsu. In fact, a lot more Justynian than I am! So Karl’s passing of the sakki test as a result of normal, regular training (no sensitivity or ki exercises) is a pretty strong vindication of Justyn’s teaching approach.

You can guess this has been pretty inspiring for me. I don’t see myself going Japan anytime within the next year or so, and besides, I am still 3rd Dan. But still, Karl’s Godan is a reminder of what is coming up soon in my own Budo journey.

Can’t imagine, it’s been 9 years since I first started lessons, and at that time there was only one yudansha in whole of Singapore. Now in Karl and James’ class the newbies get to partner with black belts so much. Honestly, they’ve got no excuse to not do well!

There’s a punching bag, one of those big heavy ones hung from the ceiling, at a gym near by. Yes!!!!

I love the solid twack sound that comes from connecting with the bag with a fudoken. That does help me feel a lot better, a lot more confident about my tsuki.

Hatsumi Soke wrote in one of his books that there is no way to acquire reliable striking skill without actually hitting something. Well, I’m proud to announce that whatever striking I’ve done before (mainly shuto on bus-stop pillars) seems to be working, at least when I test out my strikes on a punching bag.

The way the bag is set up doesn’t inspire enough confidence for me to kick it. I’m no master of the Kung Fu secrets of Death, but I really think I’m gonna damage something if I sokuyaku that bag. So I guess that’ll have to wait for now…

Looking back on my nearly 9 years of training, I find it interesting that I’ve only had some form of training injury 3 times. That works out to about once every 3 years on average.

(while the dissers diss I shall continue as if they don’t exist)

The first time was when I got kicked in the ribs by a Tae Kwon Do guy. I caught his first kick and didn’t immediately follow-up with kicking his balls out of existence. So he did a Tae Kwon Do jumping-kick-me-with-the-other-leg thingy because I hesitated.

(And once I recovered I kept drilling keri gaeshi…)

Another time was when we were doing Fubi (Shinden Fudo Ryu) ending off with Ashi Jime. My partner didn’t get the Ashi Jime right, so my sensei walked over to him, used one kick to kick him into the right position, and I couldn’t walk properly for weeks after that.

The most recent one came in April this year when someone in class managed to mess up an Ura Gyaku and the preceeding Kuzushi and yet have me fall with all my weight onto my gyaku-ed wrist.

Yeah, strange things happen, I know…

Training injuries are a hassle. I try to see what I can learn from them, but I’d rather be un-injured and continue with my regular training regime. From the ankle one I learned how taijutsu works when I can’t put all my weight onto my right foot. That was a great lesson. But from the most recent one the only lesson I got from it is don’t laugh even when someone messes up an Ura Gyaku. Bad things can still happen!

Junjie (Shunketsu)
Singapore

I have been missing my personal training sessions. Adjusting to work has been tiring, but most of the time I miss training because I’ve been really busy. Sometimes I had to go 3-4 days without any proper workout or training, not even stretching or qigong.

So when I get back to it I find that my maximum number of reps has dropped, sometimes even by half. You can guess how discouraging that is.

For the record, because I do not have regular access to a gym and weights, my fitness regime is made up of body weight exercises, the Royal Court from Matt Furey’s Combat Conditioning. I was trying to work up to a decent number of reps first before I vary the exercises. Now that my reps have dropped I guess I’m still gonna be on these for a while longer.

Yeah, it’s frustrating. The fitness level DOES affect my training, especially the number of reps I can do for kenjutsu and all that. And at this season when I am trying to progress in my taijutsu, my frustration is like a relentless backbeat pounding away at the back of my mind.

So this is what I am going to do. I’m going to:

1) Do ONE thing a day at least. Even if it is only stretching. Avoid a totally sedentary lifestyle at all costs.
2) Remember that in my first 5 years of my Budo journey, I did push-ups at the most 2 or 3 times a year (yeah, it was that bad). Even if I work out only 2 or 3 times a month now I am still 12 times better off than my first 5 years in Budo Taijutsu.
3) Watch videos – whether they are from the Bujinkan or from other arts. Seriousness and intensity are contagious, so I’ll put myself where it can spread to me and affect my training.
4) Remember that I want to train in Japan someday. I keep reading of yudansha going to Japan and making fools of themselves because they were lacking in the basics. I don’t want to be one of them!

How will all this go? I don’t know. I’ll keep you updated!

Junjie (Shunketsu)
Singapore

Just had a personal training session a couple of days ago. Went through the Torite Kihon Goho by myself and as I did so I had this feeling that I was filling up into my rank.

You see, my Shidoshi has said before that he promotes the way he was promoted, and how Hatsumi Soke too was promoted – early. He said that rank to him is more a measure of potential than achievement, he never felt ready for any of his rank advancements, and so he promotes us the same way. The onus is then upon us to live up to that potential and take the next step in our training.

People have argued the pros and cons of such a grading method for ages. And frankly, Hatsumi Soke doesn’t care if you change it when you run your own Bujinkan Dojo. And that is what the Israeli practitioners have done, created a super-detailed and strict grading system with various kinds of tests and all that.

On my side, I got promoted to sandan at the beginning of last year (2008), just after I felt comfortably settled into my nidan. I felt I was a pretty good nidan in fact. Then I set my goal to reach my sandan by 2008… and got it by the first class of the year! One of my friends was commenting “That means you don’t need to turn up for any more classes this year!”

So what does it mean? Does it mean that I am ahead of the game because I got it around the time I felt I was a pretty good nidan? Or did my Shidoshi award me sandan because he felt I was getting too complacent? Or am I just making a big fuss over a relatively small matter?

At this point of my journey, I am being driven by what I think a Bujinkan black belt should be. Because of how wide a range of training material we have in the Bujinkan, I believe that I should strive to grasp a wide range of our material. If that makes me a kata-collector, so be it. I also believe that since a wide range of weapon work has been taught to us by Hatsumi Soke, I should also have a decent grasp of weapon skills, at least enough to teach those weapons to others.

Bear in mind that I know these are all MY opinions of what it means to be a black belt. My Shidoshi has a different opinion, as will probably every yudansha (black belt) in the Bujinkan. That’s just how it works.

There were no such problems in my praying mantis days. My instructor didn’t create a ranking system. He was one of those traditional Chinese martial artists who was fortunate enough to earn a living from teaching. He felt no need to dress things up with a complex ranking system; either you thought you were getting your money’s worth in training or you weren’t. And if you wanted to become really good, you did it the old-fashioned way – pay your dues, both in fees, time and personal practice.

If you were good he’d let you let the warm-ups for the newer people. In the chinese styles, 10 years was not considered a long time frame. Many people don’t feel ready to teach the chinese style arts even after 10 years.

I took lessons for about 4 years or so. By the standards of other arts I guess I’d be a shodan (just hitting a black belt). But I never felt I was that good at praying mantis. I wonder what would have happened if my instructor awarded me some kind of cert? Probably the same thing that has happened to me in my Bujinkan training – I get really insecure, feel loads of pressure, and get on with even more training.