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Bujinkan Taka Seigi Dojo

		Vancouver, BC, Canada

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2. Please visit our Blog at:

www.vancouverbujinkan.wordpress.com.

News

1. Beginner's Classes starting in June 2021.

**FIRST CLASS FREE **

Send us an email to sign up for a free class before June 1 to see if this art is right for you.

Adapted Training Protocols RE: COVID-19

During these unprecedented times of worldwide counter-pandemic endeavours, everyone must work together in order to walk our path out of these conditions as uncscathed as we possibly can.

In doing so, however, the personal growth of the individual must not be neglected. Training must go on, even if our methods of practice must adapt to newly risen environmental hazards.

As of March 2020, we have been studying the forms of LONG TRAINING WEAPONS and the (now moreso) practical concepts of maintaining enough distance from an armed attacker.

This allows us to continue learning in a cooperative environment without violating social-distance protocols, and has proven a long-overdue but necessary review of armed foundations.

To learn more or join our dojo, please contact us.

There are no competitions in this art.

It simply would not be reasonable to insert combat training whose primary concern is survivability into a purely competitive environment governed by rules. Of their participants, competitions require a certain sportsman-like conduct which has proven quick to delude from the possibilities of real danger.

In a friendly environment, no competitors actually want to go home injured or having badly injured their opponent. To eliminate this possibility entirely, specific movement restrictions have to first be put in place. Then, tried adherence to the agreed upon set of rules on the parts of all participants simultaneously and throughout the entire match makes it possible for the competition to remain honest and true to its purpose.

However appealing, training with this limited mindset while under the impression that you are helping yourself or your future self in doing so is a trap and will only serve to hinder any ability you may have to operate freely and without hesitation when it actually matters. As the evidence would suggest, the environment of the modern world is most definitely capable of rapidly descending into something that is very, very much NOT a friendly competition.

So, the rules can clearly be broken. Without arbitrary rules, there is only reality and the very real dangers it may pose. In accordance with this fact of life, the nature of our study favours other means by which to measure success that do not entail beating up our peers and ultimately de-training ourselves.

...an exceprt from Student Manual I, Vol. 1.

To learn more or join our dojo, please contact us.

Choices, Choices, Choices!

The modern human species is believed to be around 200,000 years old - the Neanderthals about 600,000. That's a long time for a species to undergo natural evolution and manifest change. But DNA analyses show that there is only about ~0.2% difference between the Neanderthals and us today. When we consider that there is ~0.1% DNA variation amongst just our species today, the 0.2% seems rather small. So, if DNA markers are the right metric to use, then our species has evolved very little in the physical sense since the Neanderthals! Could the same be said for our emotional bodies?

When we dissect the psyche of the modern human, we come up with the usual suspects: Anger, Hate, Greed, Jealousy, Compassion, Rage, Self-doubt, Ego, etc. So, the question I'm posing is whether these emotions got manifested as an evolutionary change in our species or have they been there right from the start - kind of like Hydrogen and Carbon?

I don't believe evolution had any part in our nature. I believe these emotions are synonomous with life itself - as if it were a universal law like gravity between masses. Furthermore, these emotions are not unique to our species since I have seen many of them in animals - including my own pets. So, it's easy for me to say that these emotions have accompanied mammals since the very beginning.

But my real question is "why?". Why are these emotions synonomous with life?

The answer to this question is of course - survival! These emotions have been critical to keeping us alive. But, there is a better way - a way that frees us of petty conflicts, needless stress, greed, and clouding our judgement. That way is "Ninpo" - the wisdom of Ninjutsu. If you are interested in exploring this concept further, please contact our dojo. If not, I will close with these thoughts:

1. The emotions you feel are all a matter of choice and what YOU choose to experience. If you are met with negative energy, it really is your choice to allow yourself to get caught in the petty conflict, or if you choose to ignore it and maintain your state of "fudoshin" (immovable heart).

2. Where Fudoshin escapes, Ego enters. The ego indeed has a place in this world - it's what allowed us to survive this far - but we now need to re-learn the wisdom of ninpo, to limit engaging in conflict unless combat is the only option, it's use if we as a society want to start evolving.

To learn more or join our dojo, please contact us.

The Secret to Controlling Balance

Taking your opponent’s balance is absolutely essential for effective execution of many techniques in Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu. This is especially true when your opponent is much bigger and stronger than you. Done properly, your opponent will not recognize that their balance has been taken until it’s too late for them to recover; however, done incorrectly, your opponent will sense the attempt to take their balance, and will make the necessary corrections to re-align their body into a position of strength. And more than likely, it’ll end badly for you.

The secret to taking your opponent’s balance lies in the fact that balance is handled by the cerebellum – a primitive part of the brain. And, much like taking candy from a baby requires finesse, so does taking your opponents balance. This skill takes many years to master, and requires high-quality instruction.

Physics, psychology, and geometry provide the theory behind this subtle but critically important skill – the significance of which can be best illustrated by an analogy: “forcing your opponent off-balance is like using a sledge-hammer to swat a fly – the only person that’ll be thrown off-balance is you”.

To learn more or join our dojo, please contact us.

The difference between Power and Strength

This is a question that is not asked often enough in many martial arts because there is an assumed understanding that power *is* strength. After all, it takes strength to throw a 100 kg human, right? Well, yes and no – but it’s not in a way that you may think. Yes, there is a certain amount of strength required to hold your body together, and even more to keep your wrist from folding when you punch, for example. But beyond that, it’s not strength that enables a person to throw another much bigger and stronger person.

In Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, as with other balance-based martial arts like Judo, Jujustu, and Aikido (just to name a few), power is developed by using natural body dynamics. It really doesn’t take much for us to lose our balance. So, when our biological operating system senses that we have lost our balance, it’ll direct all of our mental processing power to that one critical task (to prevent injury) – dropping guards in the process. This allows trained martial artists to keep their opponent constantly off-balance by using whatever controls the next opening offers – be it a pressure point, a strike to a vital area of the body, or a joint lock. And therein lies the secret to generating power without using strength. If you understand that “power” is “doing more with less” and “strength” is “doing more with more”, then you can appreciate the difference between the two concepts.

To learn more or join our dojo, please contact us.