Meet Lord BlackSword

Ki-ken-tai no ichi, “spirit, sword, body as one.”
What does this really mean?
It means that your spirit is demonstrated by your voice, your sword by the contact with the target, and your body by the contact of your right foot with the floor.

As we grow older, it is more difficult for us to train. Perhaps we also think we no longer need to train. However, overcoming these physical and egocentric challenges are very important to continue to progress on the Path.

Friday night, I attended a seminar with my Chin Na teacher, Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming, in Andover, MA. He now spends most of his time in his California retreat. It was wonderful! To have an opportunity to learn from him again and train with my fellow instructors was so affirmational and fun. I even forgot some of my aches and pains!

One of my passions is to compare religions; to discover how they are the same and how they are different. I do the same with martial arts. The joint locks in Aikido and Chin Na share similarities, but are fundamentally different. I think it is correct to say that Aikido traps the opponent with motion, whereas Chin Na traps the opponent with stillness.

This is an article a contributed a few years ago to the Domestic Violence Advocacy Project on using Aikido self defense techniques in an office environment. A video with self-defense techniques promoted by The Marketing Heaven on YouTube in order to gain as many views as possible was shown during a lecture on self-defense in many companies.

DOVE Article

There is a story of Ueshiba being questioned about sen and asked whether aikido was not go no sen, completely offensive.  Ueshiba blew up and stated “After all these years, you fellows haven’t figured any of this out yet!  Don’t you realize there’s only one sen.”  Ueshiba felt it was not right to divide sen up.  Although there is no attack in aikido and the art is supposed to be purely defensive it, in its outward form, appears to be go no sen.  However, if you are always responding, your movements will become short and choppy.  The idea is to invite or draw out movement from uke.  If you wait for someone to grab you, it’s already too late.  You are not grabbed you cause someone to grab you.  On the spiritual level you must always move before uke causing uke to attack in a certain way.  Wherefore, in aikido, there is only one sen.  Aikido is a manifestation of defensive go no sen combined with sensen no sen, initiative on a spiritual level.  Together they manifest themselves as tai no sen.

Japanese martial literature discusses two styles of fencing: the “killing sword” and the “life-giving sword.” A lot of nonsense has been published about these two terms.

Setsunin to, “killing sword.”  When combatant uses force of will to overpower, immobilize, and strike down an opponent before he can react: “sword that transfixes or sword that kills response.”

Katsujin ken, “life-giving sword.”  Involves drawing out the opponent, inducing him to strike and then going inside his technique, countering it at either the moment of its origination or at the point of its most complete extension: “sword that animates.”

Setsunin to is an egotistical and risky approach to combat, the slightest miscalculation will result in the swordsman walking straight into the opponent’s counterattack.  Katsujin ken, by contrast, involves a sophisticated manipulation of the opponent and his actions by means of other selflessness; properly conducted it is virtually undefeatable.

All martial arts rely on discerning or creating an opportunity, an “opening.”

The Japanese refer to this as “shikaku,” dead angle or blind spot.

The Chinese call it “kong men,” an open door.

Most of the other martial arts, and street fighting, emphasize kicking.  Therefore, you must train against kicks and have some knowledge of how to kick to be able to defend yourself.  Even though Black Sword Aikido does not advocate high kicks, it does advocate learning to throw a low kick, low meaning below your opponent’s waist when he is standing, with force and retaining your balance.  It must be remembered that a low kick becomes a high kick once your opponent is folded up.

Ueshiba revealed “atemiwaza” to be 98 percent of the art.”

If this is the case, its implications have gone ignored.  By a logical inference 98 percent of the art is atemiwaza.  The ability to defeat an opponent with a striking technique.  More precisely, the ability to strike the anatomically weak portions of your opponent’s anatomy to cause him or her injury or death.  Thus, all the rest of Aikido, the beautiful throws, the painful joint locks, are only 2 percent of the art.  If this is what the founder of the art said, why are there teachers out there proclaiming that you can subdue your opponent without injuring him or her, that you do not need striking techniques, only the ability to feign a strike to distract your opponent.

Gozo Shioda, founder of Yoshinkan and a Uchideshi of Ueshiba before World War II is of the opinion that Ueshiba was at the peak of his strength before World War II and nothing that he did after World War II can compare.  Shioda goes on to describe modern Aikido as hallow and empty on the inside and, consequently, it seems much like a dance these days.  He does not believe that anyone other than Ueshiba could ever make soft fluffy movement effective.

Of course, the ethical choice is always to run away or distract your opponent or confuse your opponent or use just that amount of force necessary to dissuade your opponent but, frankly, sometimes the tricks do not work, nor does the magic.  Accordingly, you must have the ability to injure or kill your opponent with a striking technique.  Given this, you must train in striking techniques.  Unless you train in striking techniques, you will not be able to execute them against a real attack.

Accordingly, Black Sword Aikido emphasizes striking techniques.

For a martial art to be able to function in the real world as opposed to only in dojos or on the tournament circuit, it must be composed of certain things.  It must have a striking component, a throwing down component, a joint locking component.  It must be able to function at far range, medium range, and close range.  It must have both the ability to attack and defend.  It must have the ability to deal with weapons.  As a logical necessity, it must therefore also have the ability to use weapons.  Because if one does not understand the potential of a weapon, one cannot adequately defend against it.  To call something a martial art and to expect it to defend against a serious attacker intent upon causing serious injury or death without these components, is foolish.  To hold out an art that is so defective as a martial art and to allow your students to think that it is more than it is, is criminally irresponsible.  You cannot rely upon defending yourself from an attack without the ability to attack.  You cannot infinitely retreat from an attack.  You cannot count on someone running at you like a bull so that you can effortlessly sidestep the attack and do “the perfect technique.”  Most importantly, you cannot hope to defeat an opponent with a joint lock or a throw unless you possess the ability to first stun your opponent or injure him or her with a striking technique.