Category Archives: Keiko

Just do the ‘form’… with precision…

Peter-san: So this is really stupid. But it was only on Friday – which was actually the first time that I stopped swinging the jo in a shallow trajectory from waki, which is something I’d been doing to avoid the intentionality of trying to have them meet in shomen-uchi…. but on Friday, when I just did the shomen-uchi, that was the first time I realized that ‘the form’ is not a visual thing.

Kimbal Anderson Sensei: Oh no. Oh no, no…

Peter-san: It’s not a precise collection of appearances, it’s the whole body working as a… like a ‘macro‘… So that you can deploy the ‘macro‘.

Kimbal Anderson Sensei: It’s a mudra. ‘Mudra‘ could be translated like ‘macrocosmic’, ‘microcosmic’, holographic’ and all that. Right?  And so… a lot of people have trouble with the concept of form, because they don’t realize that it’s full. They tend to think it’s some appearances: a bunch of very precise, approved appearances. But if you do the internal form and if someone looked at it, they’d say “oh, that’s it!”

Peter-san: So…well… it’s a whole. It’s a whole thing.

Kimbal Anderson Sensei: Yes, I’ve heard that about aiki…!!!

…Kannagara Aiki Taisai(2)!!!…

…at TSUBAKI GRAND SHRINE OF AMERICA

…all photographs by Joe Melberg…

Doka

Using a rounded piece of wood, know the moon on the water!
– – – the dream of Muso Gonnosuke Katsuyoshi

Do not think about hitting your opponent,
Move without thinking, like moonlight into a leaky cabin.
– – – Yamaoka Tesshu

A man knows for sure:
However hard he hits the flow of a river,
The simple fact of a trace in the water:
–   doesn’t happen.
– – –  Hoshina Chikanori

…Kannagara Aiki Taisai 2019!!!…

…at TSUBAKI GRAND SHRINE OF AMERICA

…all photographs by Joe Melberg…

The sayings of Hirokazu Kobayashi Shihan…

You should never make the same movement twice. If, as you watch a technique, you have the impression that it’s the right hand that’s pushing, well then, probably it’s the left, or even, if it’s not the left that’s pushing, then the right is pulling. If you think that the action happens above,  it is performed below. When you are attacked by a single person, act as if there were four attackers. Try to see better but understand that the thing that is being done is never the thing that you see. That which is apparent is never that which is truly.

Focus on the idea of being endlessly grateful, whatever might be the thoughts and events to which this applies. Say arigatai till you feel your body full of energy, then yoku naru without limiting this wish in any way… For whomever applies this rule, dekinai koto wa nashi. [there is nothing they cannot do].

[The way of aiki is] a Way for the forgetting of the self.

Every time [be] exactly at the center.

Aiki-ken contains [all] the necessary elements for the expression and understanding of the spiritual dimension of aikido.

Hold on to your partner’s arm the way you hold a baby in your arms, and dandle it [OR: cradle it,  rock it gently,  sooth it].

Never be afraid of not having enough energy, give unceasingly to others, and for as long as you do that, energy will come, still stronger, still more alive and abundant in you.

You’re showing too much [of] what you know. From now on, never display more than thirty per cent of your power…  When you teach, also, you must not show more than thirty per cent.

“Why” is an idiotic question. There is no “why”.

– – – reported by André Cognard Shihan  (So-Shihan of Aikido Kobayashi Ryu and designated successor to Hirokazu Kobayashi Shihan) in Petit manuel d’aikido,  pp. 52-3, 88, 108, 109, 116, 136;   Vivre sans ennemi, pp.33, 37.

…the sayings of Sasaki Masando Shihan…

There is someone who is not me in my little left finger, in this finger which closes my sword-grip. You can sense it during CHINKON.  The way in which you go from “cupped, round hands” to “triangle hands” [the chinkon mudra]…

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If you put yourself into KAMAE and close your eyelids, for example, alternatingly: close them, then re-open them, slowly, then close them, and so on… you notice each time you close your eyes, at that moment, precisely, all your attention goes down to your hara, automatically. It’s strange to notice that! It’s like a little “explosion of the instant”: ISSHUN-BAKUDEN.  From this I draw the conclusion that the ideal would be to do Kokyu-ho with open eyes, but with the same feeling as with the eyes closed….

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< Sensei suggests an exercise: :> In seiza, lean your torso forwards, slowly: the whole torso up to the point where your balance breaks… then return to normal and start over, and so on, continuously, very slowly…

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…sa-yu-nage!!!…

Embu for the 2013 Hyde Park Street Fair (1)

On Saturday September 14, 2013, Kimbal Anderson Sensei and members of Komyozan Dojo performed embu at the Hyde Park Street Fair, in honor of the Kami of the people and of Great Nature.

Consul General Hiroshi Furusawa and Kimbal Anderson Sensei

…Ki-kata and Tanren-ho…

In aiki keiko,  the most important things are practising ki-gata, and doing tanren-ho.   And Ki-gata absolutely have to be practised  [in a spirit of] shinken-shobu.  Because  in budo,  of course,  there has never been any such thing as a “sporting” contest.   Any  contest that does occur  is a  life and death struggle.   And yet,  seeking a contest for no reason  is  a terrible, terrible mistake.  Truly:  destroying life, shedding blood,  that is the biggest mistake a human-being can make.

– – – O’Sensei,  probably audio-recorded by by Masatake Fujita, transcribed by Sadateru Arikawa Shihan,  published in Aiki-Shinzui, p.161

Fast and Slow!!!…

– – – by Kimbal Anderson Sensei

One of the things that I’m always belaboring is the idea of  “move slow”.

One of the reasons I want you to move slow is to make sure that you’re co-ordinating your body correctly. The other is that you have control of your speed – I know at first that doesn’t seem as obvious… But I’m trying to make sure that you have the ability to control your speed in time and space.

So. Often, people move quickly thinking that, well, the real thing will happen really fast. Which may have some truth to it. But I would say that if you’re pretty perceptive, you won’t put yourself in that particular situation often. But then, if you think about driving, perhaps, and it’s snowy and icy and then just right in front of you it all of a sudden starts to develop into that thing we all know…

Now, being able to move into shikaku quickly could be called fast. A person thinks to strike, and in their activation they activate their ki and their body’s committed to moving – and ‘phwwt’, like the speed of light, you’re in the correct position…

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