CHINKON KISHIN NO HO: the method for calming the spirit – – –
Most practioners of aikido still begin each practice with exercises combining body movement, the chanting of names, and breathing associated with vizualisations, similar to those which the Founder of Aikido used to practise.
These exercises are, in Japan, designated by the term “CHINKON KISHIN NO HO” – which translates as: “the method for calming the spirit”. This definition will come as a surprise to many aikido practitioners, who undoubtedly have no suspicion that such is the goal of these exercises.
But what are these exercises? Why are they still practised today? What utility do they have?
* The CHINKON KISHIN NO HO exercises and their origin
We owe these exercises to a Shinto/Buddhist [sic] monk, KAWATSURA BONJI (1862-1929). It was he who brought back into current usage a system of self-purification (misogi) which had existed in pre-Nara Shinto practice: at a time when it had not yet been influenced by Buddhism or Confucianism. This system consisted of a series of exercises with names that are difficult for a Westerner to pronounce: FURUTAMA [FURITAMA] – OTAKEBI – OKOROBI – IKUBI NO HO – AMA NO TORIFUNE [AME NO TORIFUNE].
FURITAMA: this exercise is done sitting seiza. After reciting the NORITO SOJO, we shake our closed hands up and down, to the point that the torso is shaken, all the time pronouncing the name of HARAIDO NO OKAMI (the kami of the land of purification in Shinto mythology). It is said that after this exercise, it is possible to foresee that which is good or is bad.
OTAKEBI: this is a practice used in sumo wrestling. The two practitioners face each other and each, in his turn, lifts one leg then the other. This is a way to be conscious of TOKOTACHI NO MIKOTO and thus unite your body with the divine. In Shinto mythology, it is the exercise that AMATERASU O MIKAMI did when he [sic] welcomed SUSANOO NO MIKOTO.
OKOROBI: is a shout expressing the divine power of TOKOTACHI NO MIKOTO. We shout I…E to call up all the evil spirits, and then we shout E…I in order that with this shout all the evil spirits return to [the good] that they originally were.
IBUKI NO HO: this is a breathing method which brings us into a state of harmony and uniformity with the kami.
AME NO TORIFUNE: after an initial norito, one would be doused in water or would enter [cold, naturally running] water and then perform the exercise. KAWATSURA BONJI thought that thanks to this shu-ho one could realize unification with the almost innumberable spirits residing in all the cells of your body, and NAOBI [the Great Original Spirit] – which is to say: supreme potential consciousness, which is original consciousness, and which directs those innumerable spirits.
The Founder had practised these exercises with KAWATSURA BONJI and he introduced them into aikido. HIKITSUCHI Sensei recalls, for example, that in 1953, O’Sensei would perform sequences of O-MUSUBI (IKUBI NO HO) – OTAKEBI – OKOROBI..
But what is the situation today with these practices?
* The current state of practice of CHINKON KISHIN NO HO
In most dojos, if this method is still practised, it is limited in general to two exercises: TORIFUNE and FURITAMA. But in the manner that I was taught by my teacher Michio HIKITSUCHI Sensei, and in the way that I continue to practise today, there are other exercises described by KAWATSURA BONJI, though the manner of performing them has been modified. FURITAMA, for instance, is practised standing, and not kneeling, and it is interpolated in between bouts of TORIFUNE – and, naturally, without the dousing with water.
The practise of CHINKON KISHIN NO HO begins with an exercise of “breathing with the hands”. We visualize “air” entering into the hands, while we direct them alternately at the ground and at the sky. After this comes four handclaps, which symbolize the four elements: sky [or empiness], fire, water and earth. After that, with the hands in the form of a circle over the hara, we visualize various sounds (I-KU-MU-SU-BI..) while inhaling and exhaling. HIKITSUCHI Sensei gives a beautiful image for these visualizations: “When you exhale with the sound I, you watch with your soul how this breath extends out into the universe; then you inhale with the sound KU and you watch with the eyes of the soul how this breath circulates in your body.”
After this come the TORIFUNE and FURITAMA exercises. In TORIFUNE, simultaneous with uttering the sound HO while pushing our arms forward and the sound EI while pulling them back, we visualize “pushing” and “pulling” the whole Earth. In FURITAMA, we join our hands at the level of our navel, and shake them while pronouncing the names AMATERASU O KAMI (the sun goddess), O-HARAIDO NO O KAMI (the god of purification), and AME NO MINAKA NUSHI NO O KAMI (the god of the center of the universe). The rhythmic pronunciation of these names of divinities from Shinto mythology facilitates the exercise: one’s thinking is occupied, placing our concentration between our two eyes is made easier, and the body relaxes.
KIAI comes after these two exercises: starting with the fingers crossed at head level, thumb and index finger pointing at the sky, we cry E…I , as we bring them quickly back down to the hara.
We finish our preparatory exercises with a series of circular movements designed to direct throughout the body the energy which has accumulated in the hara and the chest.
* The point of these exercises
The end of the previous section is already one answer to the question one can ask about the usefulness of these practices which are not of our era and which, to our eyes, can seem too much tied to a particular belief-system.
Those are points I agree with; but nevertheless, these exercises are at our disposal, and one only has to perform them correctly to discover the benefits, even their importance.
When you succeed in investing fully in the exercise of visualizing the sounds I-KU-MU-SU-BI…, very quickly the center of your hara becomes warm. This feeling of warmth can even become like a feeling of burning and extend into the chest. This verges on being unsettling – because one always likes to know what is going on. In the same way, during FURITAMA, you may experience a feeling of warmth in your fore-arms, arms, and sometimes in your legs. Thus we have, thanks to these simple enough exercises, a valuable, and repeatable experience of something hot circulating in our body, and we can better understand why the founder of aikido, in filmed footage, when explaining the I-KU-MU-SU-BI exercise, always raises, in a circular movement, his hand from his hara to his chest. He is indicating the circulation of this “mass” of warmth in the body when the exercise works well.
Another very interesting experience happens with TORIFUNE and with FURITAMA. In TORIFUNE, if you are successful in unifying the movements of your body with the sounds EI…HO, the sound of your own voice changes; it becomes deeper, earthier, but at the same time sweeter. At that moment the speed of the movement of your own body increases of its own accord, but without leading to any breathlessness. In the practice of FURITAMA, it can happen that the hands move more and more quickly, independently of our intention, and our body, instead of getting stiffer, will relax, and so make easier the circulation of energy. It will then be possible to apply the same kind of feeling to the execution of a technique.
These experiences, in addition, offer some other interesting points which I will leave to each to meditate upon. O’Sensei entitles one of his talks “Aikido is the Marvelous Functioning of KOTOTAMA…”. Now, KOTOTAMA is the belief that words and sounds have a spirit and a power (see Takemusu Aiki p.192 in the French translation). To experience at our own level, in our own body, the effects of the vibrations of the words which we pronounce during these exercises should pique our curiosity and lead us to take an interest in the founder’s explanations of KOTOTAMA, and through this discover what is truly Morihei Ueshiba O’Sensei’s aikido, and at what level of perception it views both human existence and the universe.
About fifteen years ago in Japan, there were some people who did not practise aikido but who were nevertheless interested in the Founder of aikido: in particular attempting to ascertain how this man could have developed such abilities. One of the explanations they proposed was that O’Sensei had found an equilibrium of the body thanks to the waza, an equilibrium of breathing thanks to CHINKON KISHIN NO HO and an equilibrium of the spirit thanks to his encounter with DEGUCHI ONISABURO. They postulated that it was these three equilibria allowed him to make use of his true KI potential. I don’t know what that really means, but why should we not, in our turn, profit from CHINKON KISHIN NO HO to try and discover this equilibrium of breathing? As for the equilibrium of the spirt, to each his own Way…
– – – Gérard Blaize [Shihan], 7th dan Tokyo Aikikai, from the Ecole Aikido Durand Patrick website, retrieved March 8, 2014