A 先輩, sempai, senior was beside me today in training. I struggled to interpret what Hatsumi Sensei was showing us, and kept looking at sempai. What could I steal from him, stealing from Hatsumi Sensei? My 相手 aite, partner, is awesome to train with – so balanced, really hard to throw, and quite strong. I felt like [...]
Archive for the ‘languages’ Category
自由な変化: Free henka
Posted in art, change, languages, peeps, Philosophy, tagged 武神館 on October 11, 2009 |
縄 Let Loose
Posted in black pyjamas, languages, Literature, Philosophy on August 6, 2009 |
On Tuesday night, Hatsumi Sensei talked about the concept of 縄の空間, nawa no kuukan, or the rope space. He alluded to the ritual use of rope in Shinto practice, and said that an alternate reading of the kanji 神, kami is nawa, homophonous with the Japanese word for rope. He said we bind ourselves to the kami with the [...]
実聞 Hearing with your own ears
Posted in black pyjamas, languages, Philosophy on July 30, 2009 |
Tuesday training at Ayase, Hatsumi Sensei talked about 虚空, kokuu, which is the name of a technique in 玉虎流骨指術, Gyokko-Ryu kosshi jutsu. But what is in the kokuu? The word 虚実, kyojitsu, means falsehood and truth. It starts with the same kanji as kokuu. The 虚 part of the word means variously empty and false, [...]
武芸者 Bugeisha
Posted in black pyjamas, Japanophilia, languages, Philosophy on July 28, 2009 |
A martial artist is called a 武芸者 bugeisha in Japanese. Yes, the last two kanji and the pronunciation of them are the very same as geisha, and the three kanji together mean “martial art person”. The geisha and the bugeisha have a lot in common. In order to become profficient, both practice long years at both form and [...]
Martial, literary and fine
Posted in black pyjamas, languages, Literature, peeps, Philosophy on April 5, 2009 |
What an old lady knows about looking like and being: My German-speaking great grandmother was not impressed by post-war fashion worn by the young ladies of a house she worked in. They were impeccably dressed but their rooms were filthy, which outraged my usually reserved Oma so much, she remarked, “Oben hoi, und unten foi.” The nuance [...]
先輩 Sempais’ blogs
Posted in black pyjamas, communications, Japanophilia, languages, peeps on September 9, 2008 | 3 Comments »
In his new book, Unarmed Techniques of the Samurai, Hatsumi Sensei included some of his calligraphy on 色紙, shikishi, the coloured boards, often with gold edges, that are so often used for keepsake Japanese writing such as calligraphy or haiku. One of them featured in the book is 忍友, ninyu. I suppose one of the [...]
