Seigan no Kamae by Chris Bernsdorf (Ger)

“Kamae is attitude” was written a few years ago, this is an updated version of it.

Budo Taijutsu begins with the study of “kamae” or body posture. This first introduction to budô gives us a strong physical foundation, which allow us to grasp the true essence of natural body movement. Unfortunately with time passing, we seem to forget the value of training the basics in general and particularly the body postures. In each Bujinkan Ryûha there is a set of given kamae that is called kurai-dori. If we translate “kurai” and then “dori” the meaning is “about grabbing” and it looks that it is dealing only with the physical aspect of fight.  But a good dictionary tells you that “kuraidori” in one word means “positional notation”, like the digits after the comma. This induces precision and it translates by “precise notes for postures”. It is a lot different from kurai + dori !

Even though the Ten Chi Jin ryaku no maki has a basic set of 9 kamae, each particular ryû has differences which depend upon the time where the kamae were created, and the evolution of warfare they had to adapt to. How do you “Ukemi” (receive, dodge, absorb) a bullet?  So kamae is not only physical, the mind gives also value to the posture.  ”kamae” means posture or attitude, so apart from the “physical attitude” we now have to consider the “mental attitude”. This is why when teaching the basics we speak of “tai gamae” and “kokoro gamae“. The tai gamae is the body posture where the kokoro gamae is the mental attitude.

If we broaden this understanding it can be also understood as our “attitude in life”. Having good kamae in the dôjô is nice nut it is even better to have a good kamae in life. This is our human attitude that makes us different. Having a good technical ability is not enough and from my perspective too many do not have a good attitude in life as human beings. If you thoroughly study your kamae on the mats they will change your attitude in life. When sensei says that our goal “in the Bujinkan is to create better human beings” he means that the study of the tai gamae will change your kokoro gamae, not only in the dôjô but also in life. Even though there is no spiritual teaching in the Bujinkan, no link to any religion or mystical system, Hatsumi sensei has created and transmitted a powerful tool to help us become true human beings (bujin).

As always there is always more in the ura of things than the omote let you think there were.

First I’d like to remind you of my previous posts about not going ahead too soon, and instead follow the natural way and do things with good timing. So what he meant by going beyond kuukan we can leave for next year… no need to worry about that now.

空間 KUUKAN means space, room or air space. The first kanji KARA means emptyness, vacuum or blank, also SORA means sky or the heavens. The second kanji MA means space, room, time or pause. It can also mean many other things, for example KEN which is a measurement used between pillars, the same length as a tatami mat, 1,818 meters. In Koto-ryu for example you should be able to jump 2 ken sideways.

Other Japanese budo arts use and emphasize the same kanji for 間合い MAAI (interval), but in Bujinkan we instead speak of kuukan which has a deeper meaning. It is not just the distance, it is more how you use the distance that is important. For example if you have a pistol on your right side of the hip, you should keep this side away from the opponent so that he cannot take your weapon, and also so that you have room to draw your weapon off need be.

So this year we are developing our 空間感覚 Kuukankankaku, our sense of using the space between ourselves and the opponent as well as everything else around us, including possible weapons, doors, trees, stones, cars, other people etc.

In art they also speak of kuukan. For example using a big white paper and not too much black ink. Instead of looking at the black ink you look at the big white spaces. Or a zen garden one stone in the middle of a big field, it is the same thing, kept very simple. Maybe the same thing can be said about budo, keeping the techniques simple and leave plenty of room that can be used if needed, instead of complicated techniques that leaves out the freedom to henka, change. The key is to keep it simple, I think.