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Kenjutsu Online
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7 contributions to Kenjutsu Online
4d •Â
Practice practice practice
In class we often talk about home practice or daily practices. Sure there is suburi and rokudangiri, and the kenjutsu and iai katas, but ultimately, it's the little things that do the most. One thing Angier Sensei would say is that every time you're at a red light, relax your shoulders. For me, when I have a second waiting for food to cook, I release my hips and open. Sometimes I'll do what we call "separating the body" and move into ichimongigoshi (I might have spelled that wrong, sorry Sensei). A big one for me was walking the dog. He'd stop to do his business, I'd fix my posture, and then start walking like we do on the mat. We also have cats. When I would scoop their litter, instead of just leaning over, I lower myself into seiza, scoop, then raise myself back to standing. This is also a part of making the art your own. *Everything* is kenjutsu. How do you incorporate your training into your every day life?
2 likes • 3d
@Joanne Hunter shopping carts also! I remember I was doing that at the store yesterday.
4d •Â
Every day practice
When thinking about every day practice our minds most often go to the physical movement, but there is so much more. For those of you who are newer we have the four horsemen of the apocalypse for Nami Ryu. They are assumption, expectation, anticipation and judgment. Think about how these things apply in our every day lives. Having a bad say? Have an argument with someone? Did you ride one of those horses? 🙂 I know i can be guilty of that sometimes so it's good to remind myself of the four horsemen. What are your thoughts?
2 likes • 4d
I love this post Joanne! I could go on for hours about this, because there are so many facets. I'm coming up on ten years in Nami Ryu, and I feel like I could be an Olympic level rider with the amount of times I've ridden these horses. This goes back to my "we're all human" speech where we all make mistakes. Do we want to avoid these things? Absolutely. But part of the learning process is learning to recognize when we're doing one of those things, and then learning to let it go and finally correcting it in the moment. Judgement is a big one, especially for us perfectionists with imposter syndrome. "Oh no, I assumed his attack would be different, and I moved wrong and now I'm stuck. Gosh that was a stupid mistake." In class, you can often just stop and start over when the judgement stops you. It prevents you from adapting. In advanced training or in reality, you're going to get hit or worse. The more you properly train, the quicker you can let that go and adapt accordingly. Randy Sensei often talks about our operating system, and how we are intentionally rewiring our brains so not only our default actions, but also our default thoughts fall in line with our principles. You automatically let your assumption go and adapt before judgement happens. For me, this is still inconsistent, but I try my best to not judge myself for it. Life happens, and we find ourselves dealing with a lot of stimuli and stressors. I do my best to let it go when I'm training, but sometimes, in the back of my mind, those thoughts are still grinding away, and it comes through in what I'm doing. Sometimes I can adapt around those thoughts, sometimes I incorrectly power through, and others I just fail. You can't learn without making mistakes, and failure is a big part of our learning process. All we can do is strive to be present in the moment, and let everything else go until the problem is resolved.
18d •Â
Are you prepared?
A part of our training is about every day preparedness. With that in mind, many parts of the country are expecting extreme cold, snow and ice this weekend. I am in upstate NY and high temps will be 9 degrees with below zero windchill. In the event i get stuck somwhere, i have in my car a wool blanket, extra gloves and a hat to keep warm. I also have some basic first aid supplies. What do you have in your car and/or home to prepare for weather extremes in your area? I am sure we can all help each other by posting suggestions for preparedness. Thanks in advance!
3 likes • 17d
Those are great things to start with. We don't get that kind of weather here in central California, but the mountains nearby get plenty of snow. I keep tire chains, a collapsible shovel, and a flashlight as well. It also wouldn't hurt to keep some crayons or candles as well as a fire starter of some kind, and dryer lint, which works really well as tinder. Some non perishable or long shelf life snacks--granola bars, MRE s, etc are also a good idea if there's a chance you could be stuck for awhile.
23d •Â
Just Relax
I find myself getting tangled up in words often, but I think there's a lot of value in unpacking the language we use in our art, and in adjusting our definitions as we learn. Today, we worked on relaxing our back muscles, and "relax" is one of those simple words that I've really had to think about over the years. When I first started training, I found that if I just relaxed my muscles, I would often wind up losing my structure entirely. I thought of relaxing as just "emptying my body of tension," and I'd get really floppy, and I'd be unable to actually perform a technique. Often, I'd just wind up gathering myself. I'm starting to understand relaxing as a much more active process. I am intaking breath, and softening my vision, and yes, relaxing my muscles, while activating my fascia and filling my body with the energy wave. There's a lot of active presence and subtle work required to truly relax. As much as we "do less" with our muscles, we are doing a whole lot more with the rest of our body parts. What are some of the definitions you've had to expand as your training has developed? And what are your thoughts on the complexities of relaxing?
3 likes • 21d
It's the day after that class now, and I've never been so sore from doing so little. 😂
26d •Â
Training in every day life
When we think about training it is often about sword techniques (or techniques from your respective system) and proper movement. Of course that is training but we can find ways to incorporate training into our every day lives. Today I really had to work on applying relaxation and remaining calm! I start work at 630am and today my computer didn't work. I had a lot of issues and the IT person, who was quite nice, was in Dublin with a very heavy accent. I could not actually work until noon! I caught myself several times letting frustration get the best of me so had to refocus. I was fortunate to have a coworker who is much better with computers help me and at one point we had to take my computer back to the server room to connect it there. Of course no table to put the computer on so I took that as another training opportunity. While my coworker was working on the computer, I used the least amount of muscle needed to hold the computer working on posture and breathing. So how do you incorporate training into your every day life?
2 likes • 21d
One thing I was recently reminded of is that we are all human. We make mistakes and we have emotions. Our principle says "don't hold tension", it doesn't say don't have any tension ever. Your day is a great example of every day training. Stuff happens, and you learn to let it go. It's not always easy. Granted, letting things go in the moment doesn't mean it goes away. We all have to shovel our crap eventually, to paraphrase Williams Sensei.
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