Day 10 – Judgement day

If you go to Japan, you have a chance to train with other people. Unless you are injured and need to rest your body, it’s best if you train with your partner whom you can trust because he/she knows you very well. But If you’re not tired and feel fine, if your are not sick or injured then train with other people when you’re abroad!  Preferably, you should try and train with a higher grade (level) than you. (in as far as grade reflects level but that’s an entirely other story), or at least someone who has the same level. I tend towards the higher ranking grades, because they’ll progress you faster and point out your mistakes sooner.

Today I trained with Darren Horvath, he is huge! When he steps on your toki, you feel your foot getting crushed and then he’s still only using his big toe, hehehe! I really like the difficult partners. You can’t use brute strenght on them, because that will only beget you more violence than you wish for. So you have to be smart and adapt to their body’s in the best way possible. But adapting to someone is not always possible because your two body’s are just not compatible nor complementary sometimes.

This is where things like technique and skill will come in play. Also distance, balance, timing, rythm and the way of when and how you apply them (strategy).  But there’s also a limit to this. Strenght, speed and precision, are also important factors. Together with technique and skill (experience through training and/or real fights) will make someone invincible. If you increase one of these factors, it balances out one of the others. The odds of meeting someone who has all traits in huge abundance are relatively small. But in a dojo, the chances of this are radically higher when you train with higher grades. At this level, it’s hard to adapt even for a skilled warrior like me! There is always room for improvement, no matter at wich level you are. Chance comes into play, and one must make his own fortune, but that’s another story.

After Oguri sensei’s class, there was Soke’s class. I trained with Diana and we even got chosen to show our technique to class. That’s always exciting and exhilirating, but it has not always been this way. In the past I used to freeze up when there were people watching, but I came a long way and learned how to relax and just to be in the moment of ‘now’. The word ‘zanchin’ comes to mind. Generally, people have a short attention span, typically not exceeding ninety minutes, but you should train this to last longer: it has been known about Takamatsu sensei that he once fought for a few days in a row! Imagine yourself!

Soke said a whole lot of things, which are too many to touch upon in this post, but I’ll give you my interpretation of class. What we learn contains a whole range of other things. A technique contains many different layers and many possibilities are the outcome. You might even have hidden weapons or not, all depending on how much kyôjutsu you apply. Strategy is a very important aspect of ninjutsu. If this sounds vague, then know that the Japanese language is a very rich one, which encompasses many meanings with the same words. Even those with a thorough knowlegde of Japanese are often looking for comparisons that don’t exist.

Given this and the fact that Soke is not always so clearly ‘showing’ what just happened (when his uke is already down on the ground, suffering in pain and agony) it must become increasingly clear to you, that ‘transmission’ is not always a clearly outlined and structured path for you to copy and paste. Which by the way he doesn’t encourage because he always says: don’t try to copy me, try to remember the feeling of it.

At this point you should know that there is a funny thing about the human brain: it will tend to fill in the gaps itself. So in fact these gaps are your unique experience of the technique, and because everybody will have a differing understanding; every-body is behaving and moving in a different way. Although similar in a way, but not the same.

So it’s not only the physical part that I’m speaking about. I myself tend to lend scientific explanations and couple them with philosofical ones to draw paralelles between the physical and the metaphysical: It’s like the body is like a root. The more ‘techniques’ and ‘experience’ you have, the more you can adapt to the circumstances (environment) in wich you are planted. Your brain is like the top part of the plant that’s sticking out of the ground. The spirit is more like the interaction that the plant does, as this is the way of the plant: he has a role and it’s a part of a bigger cycle and ecosystem in which everything is connected. In return the plant gets what it needs to survive and thrive, depending on the quality of the soil (the basics), the amount of sunlight and water (your nurishment; the training). If there’s a slight windy gusp (an attack), you don’t get pulled out by it imediately because of your thorough rooting.

But words and actions are not sufficient enough to completely convey the exact thoughts and feelings that you have. Together they give an idear but nothing more.

Feelings tend to be hollistic, thoughts are rather rational. Together they form the make-up of your mind. But where do your thoughts and feelings stemm from? They stemm from something else. Some awareness that surpasses thought or consciousness. It’s this that is a challenging thought for people. Because here we are on the quantum level of thought where thinking conciously about something will change reality and in turn the way you act on it.

At this stage it’s a funny thing to know, that we have more nerves leading from the brain towards our senses than from our senses towards the brain. This means that we are conceptually designed in such a way that we actually have concious control over what information we want to percieve (choice) from our senses. That’s why we easely tend to pass judgement on wether we like the things we see or hear. We continiously conceptualize reality by rationalising it and passing judgment. So it’s your own interpretation and perception that interacts with your conciousness. But this is not per definition reality as it is.

The trick is not to think, not to think to perceive, stop rationalising, let things be, become peacefull and calm inside and project nothing. you’re like a dark mirror: the light shines in, but does not reflect. To put it in taijutsu: Uke acts, and because of this you have choices, but you don’t fall into the trap of his choises, instead you leave all options open and because of this you can move freely. Could this be ninpô?