California Bujinkan Dojo/カリフォルニア武神館道場

Vivimos una época singular. Nunca antes tantos pudieron parecer tanto sin haber sido casi nada. La inteligencia artificial ha democratizado herramientas que antes requerían años de disciplina: hoy cualquiera puede diseñar, escribir, calcular, invertir, investigar o producir imágenes y discursos con una facilidad asombrosa. En cuestión de minutos, se construyen apariencias que antes tomaban una vida entera.
Pero hay un límite claro, una frontera que ninguna tecnología puede cruzar.
Se puede simular el conocimiento, pero no la experiencia. Se puede imitar la forma, pero no el fondo. Y, sobre todo, se puede aparentar ser muchas cosas… menos un verdadero budoka.

El Budo no es una acumulación de información ni una estética bien lograda. No es un texto bien redactado ni una técnica bien filmada. Es un proceso humano profundo, encarnado, vivido en carne propia. Requiere contacto real: con otros, con uno mismo, con el error, con el dolor, con la duda y con el descubrimiento. Requiere alegría auténtica y frustración verdadera. Requiere que los sentidos —todos— estén despiertos y en relación constante con el entorno.
No hay atajos❗️❗️❗️
Para recorrer ese camino, hay que renunciar. Renunciar a la comodidad, a la ilusión de saber sin haber aprendido, a la tentación de aparentar sin haber sido transformado. Cada logro en Budo implica una pérdida previa, una entrega. Y es precisamente en esa suma de renuncias y conquistas donde el ser humano se reconfigura como un todo íntegro, coherente, real.
La inteligencia artificial puede ser una herramienta útil si se la ubica en su justo lugar. Puede ayudarnos a sintetizar información, a ampliar investigaciones, a ordenar ideas. Puede acompañar el estudio, pero jamás reemplazar el proceso del Keiko ( entrenamiento de Budo), menos aun, el trayecto del Shugyo.

Lo que no debe hacer —y no debemos permitir— es distorsionar la verdad.
No debe alterar la memoria de nuestro camino. No debe reescribir la historia de nuestro entrenamiento. No debe falsear los encuentros, las enseñanzas recibidas, ni los momentos compartidos con quienes nos guiaron.
Las fotografías del pasado, incluso en blanco y negro, conservan una belleza que no necesita corrección. Porque en ellas hay verdad, y la verdad no requiere retoques.
El Budo de Hatsumi Sensei es transmisión viva. Es mirada, es gesto, es silencio compartido. Es presencia y refinamiento de los seis sentidos.
Y eso, por más avanzada que sea la tecnología, sigue siendo profundamente humano.

Christian Petroccello.
Alumno de Bujinkan Dojo.

In the wake of a recent conversation with a mentor concerning the longevity of training as we age, an excerpt from the dojo syllabus serves as an anchor of inspiration and direction.

Train Your Age...
When students are in their twenties and thirties, they train hard. Four or five classes a week? No problem. Bruises from strikes to the ribs and arms? They clear up in a day or two. Learning to train through the pain when young is common practice. Broken toes, fingers, black eyes, and happy accidents are seen as a rite of passage. Testing the kihon is a common goal at this stage. Training is thought to be better if it means throwing and punching faster or harder. Interestingly, advanced practitioners look at the younger generation and chuckle. They know something the younger generation hasn’t yet recognized or comprehended. Shu Ha Ri? To the younger students, that’s mumbo jumbo - “Just train hard!” is the common focus.

As students get older, training changes. Experience reflected on and applied becomes knowledge. And knowledge leads to smarter - not harder - training. The Bujinkan ryuha kata become more important at this stage. Older experienced students notice when balance is broken earlier in the attack sequence. Kuzushi manipulation - it replaces the need to survive dozens of hip throws, an uchi mata, or worse...a weapon worn during a throw. The knowledge and experience becomes wisdom, allowing for more efficient training when the body can no longer support hard physical taijutsu.

In 1997, Hatsumi Soke started class at his Bujinkan Hombu during a warm August day by telling attendees to “train your age”. If we were hot, we should rest. If we were old, go slow. If we were young, train hard but don’t sweat! (We never did figure that out.) Soke was providing us guidance on how to train for the long run.

Young students need to train hard. But as students age, training changes. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. Banpen Fugyo.

It's important as a Bujinkan practitioner - especially an aging one - to not be burdened by what could be done yesterday. Instead, focus on what you can do today. Live in the moment without anxiety or a yearning to recreate youthful movement. Have an injury impeding your ability to take ukemi? Train with a partner without throwing and work on balance manipulation instead. Vision not nearly as good as it used to be? Focus on grabs and weapons retention. Use class to explore and enable what options you have today. Ukemi changes as students age. Practicing hard falls is important for young deshi. Older students may choose to reduce the impact of hard ukemi to limit injury or damage.

As physical training slows due to age, consistent training becomes paramount to longevity. Walking every day, practicing Shoshin and Gogyo at a slow pace, and increasing internal aspects of training (better diet, increased mental positivity, Bujinkan historical interests, etc.) are all enablers. Soke trained and taught until 88 years old. Many of his senior students have followed his path and continue to teach or train in their 70’s and 80’s. Soke gave us a template to lifelong training if we are willing to follow it. Learn to survive the dojo with what you have the capacity to perform today. Commit to this mindset and internalize it. Accept this as part of your fudoshin. Then keep going.

Bufu Ikkan!

In the Bujinkan, rank has never been a single-dimensional measurement. It’s not purely for technical skill and understanding, and it’s not purely symbolic - it’s contextual, relational, deeply personal and often not following conventional norms thus at times, controversial.

段位は終点ではなく、問いである。
Dan-i wa shūten de wa naku, toi de aru.
“Rank is not an endpoint, but a question.”

Practitioners must come to realise that Rank is not for just one thing - it is given for many things, and not always just for what they want to believe it’s for.

Some examples:

技術の評価 (Gijutsu no hyōka)
– evaluation of technical ability
信頼の証 (Shinrai no akashi)
– a sign of trust
貢献への感謝 (Kōken e no kansha)
– gratitude for contribution
関係性の表現 (Kankeisei no hyōgen)
– expression of relationship
成長の節目 (Seichō no fushime)
– a milestone in one’s path

At times, rank is also given if a teacher falls ill, and is forced to take action quickly for the sake of the Ryûha and lineage’s continuance.

Because of this, no two people with the same rank have necessarily arrived there for the same reasons, but often through very different “currents” along the same river.

Please think well.

南虎

People who do not grasp the true nature of a martial artist may well go to some trouble to knock on my door and request training, but unless they search for the heart of a martial artist, my teachings will fall on deaf ears. Yes, let us write Budoka as
"Martial flower", and leave it as one solution to Kajo-chikusei, the puzzle of enlightenment that you are all questing after.

Now, as a Doctor of Human Sciences, I would like to analyze the symptoms and morphology of various diseases which people searching for combat techniques are prone to contract without being aware of it.

Number One type
A hypoplastic (underdeveloped) form; self-centred, fussy about grades, and always wanting to be "Number One". This is an awful type. They do not even know how bad they are, and could be killed before they realize ... a real nuisance.

Business type
A type which develops from the conception of earning a living by the martial arts; they forget the Budoka's heart, and theirs is transmuted into the heart of a merchant.
They may end up believing that someone with many students is great - and if a student runs away from them they may feel as though they have lost some money.
Furthermore, they do not notice that as a martial artist they are a failure. Let me clearly state that in my experience no Tatsujin (masters) of Bujutsu or Bugei ever develops from such a type.

Reporter type
Someone who comes to me, but finds "collecting materials" more important than training, and takes notes and photographs which they then sell once back in their country. This really is deplorable. They are already incapable of going beyond the amateur's view of the martial arts - the "kata" (set forms) or "this is right but that is wrong" mentality, etc. They do not even get as far as realizing they have fallen into such a state.

There are many more types left. The "Sensei-Shihan" type, the "Mood" type, the
"Collector" type, the "Violent" type, the "Animal" type, the "Religious" type, the
"Philosophical" type...

The important thing is to understand that the true nature of the martial arts can only be perceived once these types have all been made transparent. The flow of Takamatsu Sensei's Bufu (martial way) started with framing in the transparent, beautiful and natural flow of Shinden Fudo-ryu. The beginning for me was following an invisible flow of light as it flowed through space, to knock on the door of Takamatsu Sensei's Bufu. My encounter with Takamatsu Sense in some ways resembled the old tale of the opening of the cave door on Shinshu Mt Togakushi'.
Until recently people have tended to see the Bujinkan as being only Ninjutsu and use Ninjutsu as a catch phrase, but it is about time we became aware of the full scale of the Bujinkan. The Bujinkan martial arts incorporate the flow of nine schools of martial ways, with a history of three thousand years. You should not torget that you are martial artists on a space shuttle. Do not be distracted from the framing; you must persevere to the end. "Single-mindedness" can be thought of through its sound “Sennen" as also meaning one thousand years. "If one thousand days pass the techniques will appear by themselves" is a common phrase in scrolls, and I believe that from this you can hear sounds joining you to a space beyond. If I also rewrite “Ikkan" not as perseverance but as joy, then the sound waves can spread out so that some gladness, health and happiness are discovered.

宗家Hatsumi

Often people do not attend regular classes and only attend seminars on particular themes. After they’ve experienced the seminar, they disappear again, even after clearly spending considerable money to acquire the correct uniform and equipment etc.
There are varied reasons of course. If it’s the experience they’re after, than they will get it but, it will be fleeting and short lived. Some people may also attend believing that the seminars will teach them "special techniques" beyond what is taught in general classes. It’s funny seeing excited people attending, only to soon realise that the seminar is really just an extended normal class that they generally avoid going too 😆

I’d like to say that if you think this way and/or believe you will improve this way, you will not.
You definitely cannot call yourself a martial artist. Only through consistent training on a regular basis will these seminars be of any real long term benefit. Also, it is a sickness of many throughout the world to not train at a Dōjō regularly, but just attend a weekend seminar or visit Japan for a week to receive rank or ‘be seen’ to be training ( keeping up appearances ).

This is not studying the martial arts or being a martial artist.
It is just pretending.

南虎

It may sound like a matter of course, but during your training you will undergo various social and personal experiences. Not all of them will be fun. On the contrary, trying, sad, aggravating, or boring things are more common. That is exactly why Sôke is preaching a method whereby anyone can learn together and urge each other on enjoyably, without forgetting the most important point, the soul of the martial arts. No matter how often you tell them, those who are stubborn, who lack a cooperative nature, who want to be No. 1, or who have too strong a desire to maintain their egos, will not be able to understand this martial art.

The "nin" of ninjutsu can also be interpreted as the "nin" of ninshiki (awareness). Sôke says that true courage is being aware of everything, and then going beyond this. If this is lacking, then no matter how many techniques you know you will make mistaken decisions. If you just try and think things out yourself, there'll often be mistakes. This applies even more to those still undergoing training. Making mistakes is unavoidable. If you think you are mistaken, then correct it. If you practice again correctly, then that's all you need. This also needs courage. It takes time, natural time until you can understand Budô. And those who can't endure the many years are no different from those who don't understand culture, art, and human nature.

Nagato 先生

Congratulations to for her perseverance and commitment to achieving rokudan (6th Dan)! You continue to inspire those around you with your spirit, integrity and embodiment of the true essence of Budō.

For one who never thought she’d make it this far, we are so proud to stand with you on your continuing journey. Gambatte kudasai!

“.....In a similar way, the schools' techniques were adapted to the region where they were developed (geography and nature of the ground). It is a fact that you don't fight in the same way when in a muddy rice field, on the steep slope of a rocky mountain, on a sandy beach, in a bamboo forest, or the inside of a house. The KUKISHINDEN school has kamae (fighting stances) that are very low and stable, this comes from the fact that one of the origins of this ryû’s techniques comes from the navy (kuki suigun) and when you are fighting on a boat, stability is of the essence.”
Hatsumi 宗家

Kukishinden Ryû Dakentaijutsu Yoroi Kumiuchi

“You must practice correctly,gently and relaxed. Some people say, “that’s too soft” or “too slow”, but if you are trying to learn correct movements nothing can be “too soft”’or “too slow.” Surely this is plain logic - can’t everybody understand it?”

Nagato先生