Play!
Last night Soke re-emphasized a very important point that he has been talking about for years. When he first visited the USA, he used the word “play” to give practitioners to cue to start training. This word is very significant according to Soke and carries deep meaning in how we should be training and our thinking of taijutsu.
To play is to be childlike, and to remain “sunao”, or in English, pure. This way intention remains pure and your heart is always zero. We play in our training as a child does, to explore innocently our world of Budo. This also refers to, as Soke has stated many times this year, “the room for play” in taijutsu. This is similar to the aspect of being zero and “free” as Soke often states.
In this year’s theme of Kukishin Ryu, we are working on developing this room for “play”. This also incorporates the ability to seamlessly incorporate the use of weapons into taijutsu. And just for further clarification, weapons in the Bujinkan definition are basically anything, and not fixed on common sense perception of what a weapon is. We are taught that anything is a weapon and therefore our common sense falls into what is conceived as uncommon sense.
Please find and maintain room for play in your life and in your taijutsu. This is a very strong hint to discovering what Hatsumi Soke is currently teaching.
June 13, 2007 at 7:35 am
Doug, thank you for another great post–especially as it concerns something we have all heard in person or on various dvds or have read. I never conceptualized the idea of playing with that of a child. And I wish I had earlier as it makes a lot of sense. Watching my nephews when they were toddlers was interesting as they never kept trying the same exact thing to reach a desired result–somehow insisting that it SHOULD work, instead they would just try to get what they wanted in some other way–henka, I suppose.
Also the idea of creating room to play and to be free enough to utilize anything as a weapon (maybe a tea cup even?) seems to also help lead us away from perceiving objects as only what they are (i.e. this is a cup, it is only for drinking, this is a book it is only for reading) so that we can begin to be free enough to not only utilize things as weapons, but also begin to see objects as tools for any variety of purposes they do not exactly “fit” (this is a cup, I can use it for a planter, or this is a book, but I can also use it for a mop).