Shintaido of America (SOA) is honored to announce the release of the English version of Shakunetsu; Chronicles of the Creation of Shintaido, a Japanese Martial Art. The goal of this collective biography is to provide the stories of many who studied Shintaido in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Pierre Quettier, author of the book, shares his academic analysis of these interviews.
Shakunetsu was first released in French in January 2022. In October 2022 the board of SOA agreed to sponsor the efforts to release an English version of this book. A group of five, Peter Furtado, Nancy Billias, Lee Seaman, Lee Ordeman, and Pierre Quettier guided by the coordination efforts of HF Ito, undertook the editing and proofreading of the English version.
First let’s understand the time and settingwhen the creation of Shintaido was being developed.
Pierre Quettier, Shintaido General Instructor, author, and sociologist states:
“In the extraordinary burst of the sixties, a group of young Japanese idealists embarked on a quest typical of the time: to break down the cultural and class barriers of the venerable budō to bring the essence to the greatest number. They founded Rakutenkai, the “society of optimists”, then, in 1975, a brand new discipline, Shintaïdō.”
Peter Furtado, Shintaido Senior Instructor, Journalist, and historian writes in the foreword:
“This unique book is complex in its ambition and structure. At its heart is the raw material of history – it brings together the oral testimony of 19 Rakutenkai members who describe in their own words how they came to join, what they were seeking and what they found. But this is supported, and given meaning, by the more academic commentary of sociologist and shintaido instructor Pierre Quettier, who carefully places their testimony in the contexts of the Japanese martial and other arts, and of the youth culture – in Japan and around the world – of the time, which had many similarly grand ambitions to change the world, though taking a different path up the mountain. He also offers a personal, honest, and sometimes painful account of the process of meeting the contributors and assembling the texts. As a social scientist who takes the name of that discipline seriously, he sticks closely to the evidence he has collected, declining to conjecture or judge, and refusing to repeat myths unless they can be grounded in fact. In the introduction, he explains the physically and emotionally arduous – and extended – process of preparing this work.”
HF Ito, Master Instructor, and co-founder of SOA remembers how important he felt about having these biographies collected from Rakuntenkai members:
Some time at the beginning of 2000, I got a call from Pierre Quettier who wanted to interview the former Rakutenkai members, who devoted their young lives in order to create Shintaido founded by Master Aoki during the ‘60s~’70s, I immediately understood his intention as a sociologist!I remembered there was a series of documentary films produced by NHK, in which the directors collected stories of many Japanese engineers, scientists, & entrepreneurs who worked behind scenes, in order to encourage & rebuild the Japanese industry, economy, and technology which were crushed by the events of WW II. The title of this program was “Project X”. So, this is how I started to work together with PQ to publish a book, later named “Shakunetsu!”
Pierre Quettier describes his enthusiasm for this academic project:
“Having studied ethnology . . ., now holding a teaching-research position at the University of Paris 8 and well versed in biographical methods in the social sciences, I decided to take up Bernard Ducrest’s historical project as my own and to initiate a process of collecting life stories of the Rakutenkai members. H.F. Ito was enthusiastic about it and in 2002 I obtained a small budget from the head of my service at the university; with it H.F. Ito and I traveled all over Japan to interview the members one by one.”
Members of the project team who spent nine months of intense editing and proofreading share their impressions.
Senior Instructor Lee Seaman:
This is an amazing project. I began practicing Shintaido in Tokyo at the end of 1975. Ito-sensei had left for San Francisco the month before, the Shinjuku office was being run by Minagawa-sensei, and my first keikogi was labeled “Sogo-budo Renmei” rather than “Shintaido.” Because I understood Japanese, I was often asked to translate formally and informally at gasshukus, and we also went to Sunday services at Nogeyama, so I got to know many of the original Rakutenkai members. I’m so grateful for Pierre’s interviews, which capture the voices of their keiko and the joys, fears, and complex human relationships, not only of that time and place, but also the Shintaido art form as it lives and grows in our lives today.
Senior Instructor Lee Ordeman:
It was a privilege and a great benefit to participate as an editor for the Shakunetsu project. I helped edit the book’s biographical section, which will be of most interest to those of us who practice shintaido. Even though I practiced in Tokyo for 10 years in the 1990s, I only got to know a few of the Rakutenkai members mentioned in the book, and so I was very interested to finally read the personal stories of so many of our oldest sempai. I was fascinated to learn about their childhoods, sometimes very challenging, about how they met and started keiko with Aoki Sensei, Ito Sensei, and others, about their daily lives and experiences in keiko and what shintaido has meant to them beyond the dojo, even after leaving shintaido circles. All the bios inform our current practice and how we relate as a community. Some of them are quite moving and inspiring. I now enjoy a deeper sense of the people who came before me, whose bodies helped create and transmit the forms and the spirit of shintaido to others and ultimately to us. The movement of their bodies can be felt in our movement, and now their stories can be understood and felt as our story.
Senior Instructor Peter Furtado:
“I am a historian who has spent my career communicating academic historical understanding to non-academics and across cultures globally. Pierre asked me to help him in two key ways. First was to support his chapters that contextualize the interviews at the heart of the book, and in particular to work with him on placing the Rakutenkai in the context of 1960s Japan, notably its countercultural and radical spirit, in order to ensure that the book’s references, some of them quite obscure, make sense to a modern Anglophone audience. Second was to introduce the book by way of a Foreword that explains both its rather unusual structure and its author’s approach, deeply grounded in French academic tradition, in order to help the American reader, who is more likely to be a Shintaido practitioner than an anthropologist, understand what to expect.
It was a great privilege to contribute in this way and to work with Pierre who was amazingly constructive and responsive to queries great and small. I believe the book is both fascinating and important in multiple respects, and it’s wonderful that Shintaido of America has invested so much time and energy in publishing it in English.”
Instructor Nancy Billias:
Working on this project has been a very special kind of group kumite. Through proofreading and copyediting, I have learned so much about the origins and early days of Shintaido! What began as a chore became an enticing process. Each meeting has really been like a mini-keiko, with the instructors doing fine-tuned quality control in meticulous detail and with constant deep attention to faithfully transmitting the history of our art form. The result is a precious artifact that will benefit every Shintaido practitioner. Many thanks to Pierre and Ito and the whole team for their dedication to ensuring that these memories are recorded for future generations.
Gratitude is also given to other volunteers who gave their time and talents. These volunteers for editing include Stephen Billias, Derk Richardson,and Guy Bullen. Sarah Baker has formatted the work for a print-on-demand via Amazon. Thank you also goes to Mieko Hirano for consolidation of biographies and translation, Peter Furtado for the Preface of English edition, Pascal Lardellier for the French foreword and Jean-François Degremont for the afterword. Pierre Quettier receives the deepest gratitude for 20 years of nurturing the writing and translations of this book.
Much of the time when we undertake a new venture, we don’t know the full extent of what the journey will entail. Writing a book is a prime example of this. Recently, with the collaboration of my writing partner Marcey Donnelly, I self-published my debut book, “The Inside Guide: Breaking Through to Intuitive Wisdom and Inspired Living”. It has been quite a ride and I was honored when asked to share some of my experience in Shintaido’s “Body Dialogue.” This article aims to highlight the book’s overview, its connection to Shintaido, and how the practice helped me in preparation. Additionally, I will discuss specific aspects of Shintaido mentioned in the book and their significance.
A brief overview of the book
“The Inside Guide” serves as a transformative manual, guiding readers to introspection. Within its pages, a self-directed framework leads individuals on an inner journey, exploring their interior lives and uncovering innate wisdom. Offering breakthrough tools and profound insights, the book sheds light on how our minds create our reality. It empowers readers to work with their unconscious minds and unlock the hidden keys to lasting positive change. Moreover, it steers them toward a mystical awareness, culminating in living a truly inspired life aligned with their purpose.
The book is sectioned into three parts that are titled: Finding Answers, Overcoming Obstacles and Living Purpose. These parts also correlate to mind, body and spirit. Obviously, there is a link to Shintaido in these themes. I’ve always experienced Shintaido as a holistic practice, so even though much of the time the focus is on the body, our mind and spirit are developed as well. The book parallels a similar approach to keiko in reaching for the center of the being and then encouraging the reader to express their purpose from that center out into the world.
Why now for this book?
The timing of this books’ release is relevant as we consider the intersection of societal needs and the need for effective tools for the development of individuals.
In our current society, external distractions increasingly divert our attention away from introspection. Social media, daily demands, recreation, and even our focus on others often hinder us from dedicating time to self-reflection. Consequently, we are losing the contemplative focus crucial for personal growth. However, as most of us already know true transformation begins from within. The purpose of “The Inside Guide” is to inspire individuals to look inward and discover the peace, goodness, energy, and talents that lie within themselves.
In working with many clients over the years, I’ve seen a common theme that they cannot figure out how to clear what is holding them back. They keep getting stuck in the same recurring patterns that run interference on leading a full and happy life. By fostering greater awareness and equipping readers with practical tools, this book aims to enhance individual well-being for the betterment of society as a whole.
How Shintaido helped me prepare
Shintaido, with its holistic approach, played a significant role in my preparation for writing this book. Three particular practices come to mind:
The practice of Tsuki helped me to be singularly focused on a particular outcome, to be linear in my intent to complete a goal and to focus my energy with the entirety of my being. While I must admit, this seems like an ongoing practice for me, I did find improvement in reaching my goals the more I worked with my Tsuki.
Another aspect or keiko that I found useful was that of coming from our center. In Kumite, we reach for the center of ourself and our partners and we express from that center outward. This practice gave me a deeper understanding of how to do that not only from a movement perspective, but also in how I show up and work with my clients. I recognize the essence of those I work with and support them in their authentic expression.
The third exercise is I found particular helpful was Eiko Dai. To me this supports really putting oneself out there in life without the fear of judgment from others. Artists in particular, often grapple with insecurities when sharing their work with the world. They must overcome the stereotypical “artist angst” when exposing themselves to outside critique – how will my work be received, will I be laughing stock, will the world and my peers take me seriously? With the free expression we foster through Eiko Dai we can overcome this challenge and release ourselves from the needless preoccupation with what others think. We simply express with our full self.
Benefits of Shintaido in becoming more successful
Beyond the obvious health benefits of Shintaido, such as joint mobility, flexibility, strength and improved circulation, benefits also happen in the psycho-spiritual aspects. Body awareness helps us get in touch with unconscious content buried deep within, unveiling patterns that can limit our expression. We can use the practice to see how physical patterns in our body and in our movement reflect psychological patterns that can keep us inhibited. As we practice and become more fluid and natural in our movements, much of the time it will reflect and shift in the psychological pattern as well. Personally, Shintaido has helped me combat depression and discover a more vibrant and energized approach to daily life. By embracing the movement, the expression and the connection with others, I unlocked my natural abilities and found the confidence to be myself in a unique way. Shintaido practitioners find the practice when they are ready and gain the specific benefits they require at that point in their lives.
Some aspects of our practice that are mentioned directly in the book and why I included them in my work
The most obvious and explicit reference to Shintaido comes toward the end of the book when I talk about “proper timing in taking action.” I will share the excerpt below but I must first clarity why it positioned where I did and why I chose to include this particular practice. Throughout the book we work with the metaphor of reaching the mountaintop and returning to the village. This is a way of discussing our spiritual and/or peak experiences and the need for the integration of those experience into our everyday life. In part three of the book the focus is primarily on ways of being that support living an aware and awaked life in the world – the return to the village. To that ends, I chose to discuss proper timing as one of the ways people can work with living in the world. Here is what I wrote:
The Journey to the Mountaintop and the Return to the Village – pg 15
The mountaintop represents our retreat from everyday life and the clarity of enlightenment. We go to the mountaintop to have our spiritual experiences. The return to the village is the integration back into our everyday life of whatever spiritual experiences we have had on the mountaintop. That aspect, that return, is where a lot of peoplehit challenges.
We will discuss this more in Part Three, but it is important to understand that this book helps people make that journey back to the village. It gives them a roadmap not only for reaching their mountaintop, but just as importantly, for integrating their spiritual awakenings into their everyday life.
And then,
Proper Timing in Taking Action – pg 241
As we begin to follow spirit, listen internally, and take action in the world, there is a proper timing as to when to take action. We are looking for an opening or a window in time. What is the exact moment when my action is going to be most effective? Sometimes that means acting immediately; sometimes that means waiting. Not always jumping immediately into action, but waiting for the right timing. Waiting for some signal, the cue, or an opening.
How do you know the best moment to jump into action?
It is almost like a window opens and then you jump through it! If you wait for the proper timing, then when you take action, it works like magic, like clockwork. If the timing isn’t right, things may not work out.
This concept comes from martial arts. In the martial art I practiced called Shintaido, when we are practicing “attack and receive” scenarios, there is a proper timing to receiving your opponent’s attack. If your timing is superb, you can move in a relaxed, slow state and still beat the other person. We call that “A-timing.” If I am too soon, my opponent has time to adapt. If my timing is too late, then I must speed up and rush to deal with the situation. There is a timing that comes from perceiving the right moment but in a different kind of way. The perception, how to sense into that, is a different kind of perception.
When we practiced, we explored that timing by learning to sense the other person’s intent in our own bodies. When anyone moves their body in any way, there is first an intent in the mind. Then that intent travels in their nervous system, to their muscles, until it transfers into movement. When you get sensitive and open enough, you can actually feel another person’s intent. Before they actually start to move, you can move according to their intent. This means you are already ahead of them once they actually start the movement.
By analogy, we can see that there is a proper timing to our actions. If you are too soon or too late on your timing, you are not going to have the most effective outcome. This may seem like a very nebulous concept. Even during martial arts practice, it was very nebulous. It is almost like a “psychic feeling” in your body; this person is about to move, and I act, trusting my body’s sense. If they’re already moving, I am too late.
What is this little window of proper timing? When is the moment when your action is going to be most effective? If it is too soon or too late, you might not have the best results.
You can begin to track it by noticing your timing in everyday life. Are you showing up right on time? Are you showing up early? Are you running late? If you say, “Oh, I am running late,” your timing is not correct. If you are too early to your appointments, then it is also not proper timing.
Being “on time” is being in the right place at the right time. Notice if you are showing up early or late in your life and explore adjusting your timing. Maybe something is saying, “Not yet.” Maybe wait a day or two, a week or two. We are just trying to listen for those “impressions,” if you will. The gut hunch on when is best.
All of Part Two of the book is primarily focused on the body, but more specifically on our neurology and how it affects our experience. However, toward the beginning of Part Two, we discuss the importance of the body and increasing one’s sensitivities by noticing more subtly in the body. This seems to have a particularly Shintaido “feel” to it, so I will share these excerpts:
Your Body Allows You to Feel – pg 111
If you did not have your body, you would not have the ability to have experiences. More specifically, your body is exceedingly important for the feeling aspect of your experiences. Your feelings are a very important piece in the field of transformation as well as for your inner guidance. Noticing feelings is an ability that comes easier for some and takes practice for others.
The deeper truth of your experiences comes from the somatic or body level. An experience from the somatic level will often show you more than you could uncover through a verbal inquiry from a mental place. It can show you more quickly and more efficiently if you’re willing to see it.
You can begin to explore sensations and your different experiences from a somatic perspective by asking yourself, for example, “Where am I feeling this sensation? What does it feel like in my gut? What do my hips feel like?”
You could go piece by piece through your body and begin to notice experiences at the body level. When there is a particular experience there is a way to start exploring.
Exercise
Sit still. Keep your spine straight. Then notice. What sensations come up? What do you do with those? Accept them by allowing them to be. These are the first two levels in working with a somatic approach in transformation. Notice the sensation and allow it.
Sometimes this exercise will begin to unlock some of the emotions that go along with an experience. If you sit quietly long enough and do not try to “wiggle out” of something, generally, the deeper content starts to arise.
Sometimes you can be carrying emotions in your body and you do not notice it until you sit in silence. You may start to recognize a particular feeling or that something was going on that you were not in touch with. That is part of meditation; that is part of noticing.
However, there are instances when noticing and accepting does not get to the desired change in a deeper pattern. In those cases, we need to practice transformation, and that is what this part of the book is about, the deeper keys to transforming your experiences.
For now, this is about noticing the feelings in your body. Recognizing feelings pulls you out of your mind because you actually notice what is happening in your body. It bears repeating: If you did not have your body, you would not have the ability to have experiences. Through this practice of noticing you create an opening for more information. Exploring through your body is the key. Again, your body is very important.
Deeper Aspects of Your Body – pg 112
Since the body is what allows you to have experiences, you can begin to build your ability to notice your sensations with finer and finer levels of detail. You might have a sensation, but there are the gross and the subtle levels of the sensations you encounter. Typically, people only notice what is coarse or heavier, but as you progress, you build your acuity to notice the sensations with more and more granularity.
As things get deeper, as you progress more into the spiritual aspects, or the unknown dimensions of the inner terrain, a lot of times very subtle sensations can have a very big impact. Generally, when the sensations are subtle, they are more difficult to notice. In addition to the awareness of the sensation, as we have mentioned, the location in your body of the various sensations is also a big factor in developing your acuity.
What are you feeling for a certain experience in your body and where are you feeling it?
The body holds certain aspects from many of the experiences in our past. We hold things in our hips, we hold things in our backs, we hold things in our shoulders, and so on. As you start to explore through the body, you can notice where you are holding tension. What happens as you begin to work with that tension? What content thoughts, feelings, memories or emotions arise as you release certain tensions in your body? This tension is sometimes referred to as our “body armoring.” It is a way people protect themselves from the unconscious content they don’t want to see.
Throughout the book we also highlight key concepts and then, for easy reference, we provide a summary of all these key concepts at the end of each part. The following example is from the excerpt above and is the main takeaway that bears repeating:
KEY CONCEPT Without our bodies we would not have experiences. Through the practice of noticing how our bodies respond to the external world, we create a new level of understanding ourselves.
There are various other small instances throughout the book that a Shintaido practitioner could identify as inspired by the practice. I have given these few examples in the hopes that you better understand the link of Shintaido practice to the success of whatever endeavors you undertake in your life. It has been a great honor to share my perspectives with you and I invite you to read the entire book and explore working with me directly if you want to accelerate your transformative journey. Many Blessings!
Shintaido and nature; Nature and Shintaido – always have been linked. I was reminded of this during our recent Shintaido of America Podcast discussion when the topic of Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) was discussed. As I reflected more on nature, the teachings of nature on the cycle of life and on giving meaning to life. I realized this connection from the soil to the sky can result in moments of Yugen (a deepening of emotional awareness triggered by awareness of the universe).
One moment of such awareness was in New England in the fall of 1986 at Spring Hill. Annelie Wilde wrote about this in Body Dialogue:
During Friday evening keiko we were treated to a magnificent display of stars. As we studied variations of mochikai, someone turned off the surrounding lights. Lacking competition from earthbound illumination, the stars seemed to multiply and move closer to the earth to fill our hearts and souls with wonder and reverence. lto-sensei asked Faith Ingulsrud read to us from Psalms 19:1
“The heavens declare the glory of God, The vault of heaven proclaims his handiwork; Day discourses of it to day, night to night hands on the knowledge. No utterance at all, no speech, No sound that anyone can hear; Yet their voice goes out through all the earth, And their message to the ends of the world.”
To prepare us for hoshiotoshi or knocking down stars, he told us about the Italian painter Fontana, who painted a canvas all gold and then cut through the canvas to reach the other side. Our objective was to scratch out a mere 1000 stars. There were so many stars in the heavens that night that even if we had each succeeded in our task, none would have been missed.
Perhaps I have stirred some memories for you – at the beach, on a mountain top, in the wilds of national parks or green space in the inner city. I think now of how alive the soil was and is beneath our feet with each handful of soil teaming with life. What moments are stirred for you?
Join us in the monthly Shintaido of America Podcast discussions. Our next meeting is 27 June 2023 at 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern, 7pm UK and 8pm Europe. Contact Connie at president@shintaido.org for the ZOOM link.
On May 1st, 2023, after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease, James Cumming took the MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) medicine, which is legal in the state of Vermont where he lived. He passed away peacefully with his wife Evangelina “Vangie” Holvino by his side.
James was a longtime Shintaido practitioner in England. He also spent time in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he stayed for a time with Bela Breslau and Ito-sensei. Here’s a photo of James (on the left) doing Shintaido on a beach somewhere with his longtime friend and business partner John Kent.
I got to know James through Bela. When we moved East in 2004 to build and run the Shintaido Farm, Bill Strawn and Eve Siegel, friends from the Bay Area let Bela know that that James and Vangie were still living in Brattleboro, just a few miles up the road from Deerfield. We connected with them. James came back to Shintaido, participated in a few classes at the Farm, and reconnected with Master Instructor Michael Thompson and other people in Shintaido Northeast.
James introduced me to Tai Chi, which I have been studying for a dozen years now. This is a great debt I owe James, because Tai Chi turned out to be the right practice for me at my age–soft, relaxing, thoughtful. James and I worked on a non-fiction book proposal, and quickly grew close. James and Vangie had many friends in the area, particularly among the Tai Chi students of teacher Wolfe Lowenthal. Somehow, possibly through the practice of Tai Chi, James had managed to stabilize his Parkinson’s and for many years he was in relatively good health despite his illness. Unfortunately, at the end of last year, James fell in the parking lot of a medical facility after a doctor’s appointment. That fall precipitated a difficult period of decline marked by stays in three hospitals and rehab places before returning home after three months.
You can read more about James’s struggles and joys in his and Vangie’s website Paths to the End, where they posted updates about James and created a forum where people could talk comfortably and exchange ideas about death and dying. Though he looks a bit forlorn in the picture on the home page of their website, James was a strong man with a terrific sense of humor, dry and wry in the British way, but also capable of a loud belly laugh when the mood struck him. He was gentle, inquisitive, warm, a loyal friend and a rousing companion. Bela told me stories of she and James and a few other roustabouts having long evenings of carousing in San Francisco. Here’s a picture of a young James, around the time he met Vangie:
James and I had many wonderful talks on a variety of subjects. Among other things, I learned that James had been a pilot in the RAF, though he never had to serve in combat. For many years he and John Kent taught cross-cultural learning classes. Later James and Vangie gave workshops on change through their company Chaos Management.
My favorite picture of James is this one of him handling a falcon at New England Falconry in 2019:
Both James and the bird are majestic.
James included a link to the British Army’s Last Post bugle call as part of his final post on the Paths to the End website. Quintessentially English, James was a citizen of the world. Shintaido practitioner. Tai Chi student, international traveler, gifted teacher, loving husband, cherished friend.
I was looking for some words from Tai Chi or Shintaido that might sum up James’s life and ending. What I found instead were the last lines from The Soldier, by the poet Robert Frost from James’s adopted home state Vermont:
General Instructor Jim Sterling asked me and Bela to submit an article to Shintaido of America’s Body Dialogue newsletter, using excerpts from our recently published novel Pilgrim Maya that reflect our background as longtime Shintaido practitioners.
Although we never use the word Shintaido in the book, Shintaido was the inspiration for many scenes. We have both put many episodes from our lives into this novel. For example, in one chapter the main character goes to Japan and attends a wedding. Bela participated in a wedding ceremony in Japan. In this article, though, we’re going to confine the excerpts to two that will be familiar to anyone who has practiced Shintaido, especially those practitioners in the Bay Area.
In Pilgrim Maya, the main character, Maya Marinovich has lost her husband and baby daughter in a freak car crash. To find a new start, Maya leaves Boston for San Francisco. She gets involved briefly, but passionately, with the leader of a Japanese-Jewish cult movement. This part of the novel is not based on Shintaido, but the excerpt below about a hike up a hill in Tennessee Valley in Marin County will be familiar to Bay Area practitioners of Shintaido. Ito-sensei led many groups up that hill over the years. In the second third of the novel, Maya, lands a job as assistant property manager for The Bon Vivants, a group of artists in a co-housing building in Oakland. Later she learns details about the accident and spirals into depression and thoughts of suicide. In the final chapters, Maya meets Buddhist teachers Eli Ronen and his wife Reva, and begins a lifelong process of healing and transformation, finding meaning through helping others. Here are two excerpts that were inspired by our Shintaido experiences.
Bela Breslau and Stephen Billias
A hike in Tennessee Valley:
Chapter 8 The View from the Top of the World
It’s not that easy, I discover, to get to Tennessee Valley without a car. I suppose I could have asked one of the Tribers, but I’m still clinging to a loner’s independence. I take two buses and a long walk to get to the trailhead, at the upper end of a deep valley that leads to an ocean beach. The vivid air smells of sage and salt. It’s easy to find the Tribe of Dan in the area in front of the parking lot by the first gate into the valley, a common meeting point. Their white robes make them stand out from the young couples with baby strollers and the avid hikers in shorts and hiking boots. When I arrive, a California Highway Patrol officer is interrogating Sajiro while the rest of the Tribe stand around looking amused. Manami comes up to me immediately.
“Wonderful,” she says. “Glad you came.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Oh, we get this all the time. He just wants to make sure we’re not a terrorist group.”
“Are you a terrorist group?” I ask. Manami just laughs. The CHP officer soon leaves, apparently satisfied that Sajiro and his people aren’t going to blow up anything or throw themselves off a cliff in a mass suicide. The Tribe starts down the flat, easy trail out to the beach, but after a quarter mile they veer onto a steep path up the side of the hill. I struggle to keep up. Sajiro is a good hundred yards ahead already. I can’t tell whether his followers are letting him be ahead or whether he’s just in much better shape than everyone else. It takes us a good forty-five minutes to crest the ridge. We walk another quarter mile to where the views are most spectacular up and down the coast and far out to sea. I wonder if we’re going to do more chanting and moving, but we don’t. All we do is face the ocean in a natural stance. Though he isn’t saying or doing anything, Sajiro is leading us. Some people have their eyes closed. Others have them open. I’m looking around, wondering when we will finish, wondering what this is all about and at the same time totally enjoying being here on the continent’s edge with amazing views of the Pacific.
After the meditation, Sajiro turns and stands with his back to the ocean, facing us. “This is always here,” he says, gesturing to the panorama of sparkling water, golden hills, a cloudless day with a heaven full of different shades of blue, sky and ocean meeting at a soft line in the far distance. “Don’t be afraid to come back here, any time. Even if just in your mind.” The walk down is somewhat easier. I catch a glimpse of the city of San Francisco, just for a minute between the hills. It shines white and pink like a fairy castle in the air. Then Sajiro is walking by my side.
“Very beautiful and peaceful, isn’t it?” he says.
I nod, still somehow embarrassed and strained by being near him. He laughs easily and puts his arm over my shoulder and says how glad he is that I have decided to be open to the beauty around me, and that it reflects the beauty that is inside me. I am surprised at the ease and innocence of his gesture and what he says. I laugh easily also, letting go of the tension and uncertainty.
A keiko in a Japanese martial art that strongly resembles Shintaido, followed by an episode of takigyo (waterfall training) that some Shintaido practitioners (including Bela) have experienced:
Chapter 21 Zen Body, Zen Mind
The next time I do yoga, I see Jimmy again and am impressed by his physical agility, grace, and balance. I remember what he said about studying a martial art of some sort. Over the next several weeks, I start looking into martial arts. As helpful as I find yoga, the nightmares have persisted. Maybe something more active and rigorous would speed things up, dislodge the body memories of nighttime car crashes. Something tells me it might also augment my development in meditation. I’m never sure what drives me but with the help of my Zen teachers and my therapist Sarah, I’m coming to trust and believe in myself and I follow my intuition, my instincts. It’s San Francisco—with a cornucopia of offerings available—tai chi, karate, aikido, tae kwon do, as well as lesser-known practices. I try classes in different forms but nothing fits. Tai chi is too passive, karate too focused on combat and self-defense. I continue my long walks, and on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I find myself in front of the Kiri-Do dojo on California Street. With a start I remember that this is the family dojo of my new friend from yoga, Jimmy. A large poster covers the window.
Need to Change Your Life?
Try Kiri-Do (The Way of Cutting)
The Martial Art for Personal Transformation
A jolt runs through me as I read the words. That’s me: I need to change my life. I’m on the path already. Maybe Kiri-Do is what Sarah was getting at when she suggested a body-centered practice. At the end of the next yoga class, I approach Jimmy and ask about beginners’ classes.
“We’re all beginners. We always will be. You should just come. We all practice together. Are you free Wednesday night? If you are, come by. I’ll be there too.”
So here I am showing up for class on a drizzly San Francisco Wednesday night. I’m wearing grey sweatpants and a long-sleeved white t-shirt. The dojo is a nearly empty room with a scuffed and worn wooden floor and a tokonoma altar in one corner. Everyone leaves their shoes and street clothes in the outer entry way. The first thing I notice is that there are few students, and they’re all in incredible shape. A youngish woman welcomes me. She’s not Japanese, but she’s dressed in a white martial arts outfit I later learn is called a gi.
I’m surprised when Jimmy comes out. He’s wearing a white uniform, white special shoes, and a white skirt-like covering that makes him loom large. When he sees me, he smiles broadly and nods in my direction. The class is about to start. Jimmy has everyone form a circle.
Jimmy leads warmups, a series of increasingly strenuous stretches, starting at the top of the head and working down to the lower part of the body. It’s not too hard. I’m getting a bit comfortable. We reform the circle at the end of warm-ups and have a short standing meditation. An older Japanese man walks out from a back room. He’s shorter than Jimmy, and has the square body of a martial artist, compact, muscular, with short-cropped gray hair and glasses. His face is severe, with none of the easy warmth Jimmy projects. He notices me right away and comes over to me while the rest of the class waits on the side. Jimmy hurries over to make an introduction.
“Father, this is Maya, a friend of mine from yoga class. Maya, this is my father, Mr. Ueda. In class we call him Sensei.”
Sensei nods. “Hello, Sensei,” I say, and I bow, something I learned from my time in the Tribe.
“Please just follow. You are not expected to know what to do. Jimmy will be near you.”
What happens next surprises me. There are a series of partner exercises that include leading and following and jumping. Lots of jumping. After twenty or thirty minutes, I am completely exhausted and surprised. I thought I was already in pretty strong shape, but these exercises are something else. Also, there is something to the way we are touching one another. Holding out our hands to support the person doing the jumping. Jimmy comes by to be my partner toward the end of the break-out session and I follow as best I can. When I lead him, I notice how the slightest movement on my part sends him jumping up almost to the ceiling. I try to pull back my energy, but he just smiles at me and continues.
We again stand in a circle for a brief calming meditation. We do some strange movements accompanied by sounds. I continue to do my best to follow. The rest of the class is more technical. As far as I can tell, it’s basic karate stuff, except the students aren’t sparring, there’s no headgear or padding, and when they do partner practice, they don’t strike each other. I try to follow Jimmy’s father, the teacher, but it’s hopeless. He doesn’t explain anything and pays no attention to me. I’m supposed to copy what he’s doing, without any instruction. Oh well, I think, waiting for the class to be over so that I can leave and never come back. A funny thing happens toward the end of class. We take up wooden practice swords. I notice that each of the students has one of their own, carefully wrapped in cloth scabbards or furoshikis. Jimmy gives me a loaner. We follow Sensei in a series of cuts. Jimmy comes over to correct my form because I’m holding the sword upside down, but in my defense it’s hard to tell, since the thing, I learn, is called a bohkutoh andis just a straight, heavy piece of hard wood that barely resembles a sword; it has no curve and only the hint of a blade edge, though it does have a rough point which keeps me from holding it by the wrong end, thank goodness! The funny thing is, I like it all—the sword, the cutting, everything!
After the class, Jimmy comes over to ask how I am and what I thought. The other students are filtering out of the dojo, bowing to the Sensei and bowing at the entrance before turning to leave. I intuitively understand that they are appreciating and acknowledging the sacredness of their practice space. My time with the Tribe and in Japan taught me at least that much.
Just as I am about to leave, Jimmy’s father comes over to the two of us.
“Why are you here?” he asks. It’s a challenge. I wonder: Did I do something wrong. Have I presumed too much in some way I’m unaware of?
The question takes me by surprise. I don’t have a quick, easy answer. Sensei is silent; he’s not offering anything. He waits. He expects an answer. I think about it. Hesitantly I start to give a response:
“I’ll tell you why I’m here. I love the zazen, the sitting that I’m doing at the Zen Center. I love the kinhin, the walking meditation. I have terrible nightmares; my therapist told me it’s from my worst memories locked in my body. And, sometimes I get so restless that I just want to—”
“Scream—” he says.
“Yes.”
“So. I see. Scream, right now.”
“What?”
“Go ahead. Scream.”
I look at Jimmy, but he’s stepped back and is letting me have this moment with Sensei on my own.
“Scream what?”
“Anything. ‘Yes!’ ‘No!’ Your scream is a meditation also.”
“I don’t know,” I say doubtfully. Okay, I’m not completely ignorant. I’ve heard of Primal Screaming. It’s so unlike anything Eli and Reva are teaching me.
“There are many ways,” Sensei says. “Even within Zen. Many ways. You have to find your own way within the No Way.”
“No Way?”
“Exactly.” And he opens his mouth and lets loose a yell that roars around the dojo until I think it’s going to shatter the windows that rim the upper level of the room.
“Try,” he says. “First, go deeply silent. Then, scream!”
“Ah,” I say. ‘Go deeply silent’ is a clue. I kneel down, make myself small, concentrate my breathing, empty my mind. I go toward the place that I’ve been seeking these months in the zendo. This time when I get there—instead of grasping to stay in it and immediately losing it, always fleeting, never settling in—this time I jump up and give out a shriek that comes from the depths of my being, from the inside of a smashed car, from the newfound power I have found through meditation. I start to cry, but then I stop.
Sensei smiles for the first time and says in a kind, almost gentle voice: “You have pain locked in your body. I’m glad you are here even if it is for a short time.”
Can he see the pain I am holding? Can he see the hot molten river that still flows somewhere inside me? The one I’ve tried and am still trying to bury. To escape. Can he see the pain from the accident? The part Sarah says is locked in me?
“Now, try running around the dojo screaming.”
“Wait, what? Why? What for?”
“To free yourself, of course. Sitting is good, standing is good, walking is good, all will get you where you want to go. You have good teachers at the Zen Center. Now try. Cut! As if you have a samurai sword in your hands, the sharpest blade imaginable.”
“Cut what?”
“Cut everything. The air, the walls, the sky. Me. Yourself. Scream!”
I have no idea what I’m doing but I try again. And again. And again. Each time, Sensei exhorts me to try harder, express myself more and more. Finally, I get frustrated and angry, and I run around the room like a crazy woman, yelling, “Yes!” and “No!” randomly, hating the teacher, hating this foolish exercise. When I stop, I’m crying. As before, I stop myself, a new thing for me. Before I can say anything, he says: “Better.” That’s all. It’s just a moment, but in that instant of complete release I see possibilities.
At the next meditation session in the zendo I mention my first Kiri-Do class experience to Reva. She knows of the Uedas and approves of the idea of me taking up another practice.
“It can only help,” she says.
I also mention my new sword practice during an early-morning session with Sarah. She also approves, using almost the same language as Reva: “Perhaps it will help.”
I make Kiri-Do a regular part of my routine and go to class weekly. I even get a gi and a basic wooden sword, bohkutoh. I notice the students treat these plain swords with utmost respect as if they were sacred objects, keeping them in their coverings except when using them, and bowing after each use. I’m never going to be a master swordsman, but the one-pointedness, the intense focus and concentration required is certainly good for taming my erratic mind. It’s deepening my zazen in ways that I can hardly understand. I learn the basic cuts, and I enjoy the way the combination of the gently strenuous yoga and the outright arduous Kiri-Do classes complement each other.
A couple of months go by. One day after yoga class, Jimmy mentions that there’s a special Kiri-Do event planned for the weekend and asks if I would like to go.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s called takigyo. Waterfall training. Up in Marin. My father will lead it. If you want to come, show up at the dojo on Saturday morning.” I’m noncommittal with Jimmy. The idea brings back memories of the hike up Tennessee Valley with Sajiro. I think about it and decide I shouldn’t let the past influence the future. No regrets, the Buddhist texts say.
On Saturday, Sensei takes a vanload of students up onto Mount Tam. We drive halfway up the mountain, park in a lot near Lake Lagunitas, and hike up an almost hidden path. I soon learn why the trail is avoided by most hikers. It’s steep and slippery. Water runs down it, making footing treacherous as it parallels a runoff stream, sometimes crossing it. High up on the mountain we come upon a waterfall, the rivulet spilling over a ledge more than twenty feet up, into a shallow pool. It’s a magical place, a hidden dell of wondrous natural beauty, sheltered and tranquil, the water splashing into the pool musically. Sajiro’s words about the ocean view at Tennessee Valley come to me unbidden: “This is always here.”
“Here,” Sensei says. We all take off our daypacks and the others start to change into their white gis. No one cares about modesty, so I strip down with the rest and put on my gi. Sensei stands at the edge of the pool and chants a prayer, intermittently clapping his hands. A senior student informs me that this is a supplication to the water god to keep us safe and not send anything over the fall onto us while we’re there. “It’s a Shinto thing,” he says. I shrug off this oddity and watch as Sensei enters the water first. He stands under the plunging cascade, takes the horse riding stance, and executes tsuki punches, each time emitting a shout which reverberates over the sound of the water into the surrounding silence of the forest. When he’s satisfied that the falls are safe, he leads us, one by one under the waterfall, senior students first, and leaves us there for as long as we can stand it. Before the first person goes in, he says: “In Japan the water would be much stronger than this, and much colder, but for American students this is a good first time for takigyo.”
Some people last only seconds, others revel in the pulsing crashing liquid beating down on their heads. Some simply stand there, and others perform imaginary sword movements; and no one takes their sword into the cataract even though people have brought theirs with them. When my turn comes, I’m shocked by how cold the water is, and I think that I’ll stay in for only a second or two. I find myself standing straight and still. I lift my hand up and reach up into the water that’s crashing down and cut forward with my arms. It’s the movement I did from the balcony a long time ago, when I was planning to jump and end my life, the time when I turned away from death and towards the struggle to find a way to live.
When I step out, hands reach out to assist me. I stand by the dark wet rock next to the falls and support myself with one hand. I look at my white hand against the dark shining wet black rock. The rock is me. I am the same as the rock. We have become one.
On the next Wednesday, as I enter the dojo, I’m shy for some reason. The waterfall training humbled me and at the same time ignited a fire inside me. How can standing in cold water ignite a fire? How can my white hand be the same as black rock? How can black rock be me?
Jimmy starts the class by asking us to form a circle. This time we sit in seiza position on our knees with our eyes closed. There’s an obvious space in the circle and I’m expecting Jimmy’s father to step into that space and meditate with us. Instead, a tall blond woman quietly slips into the circle, wearing the white skirt that I have learned is called a hakama. I immediately recognize her as Jimmy’s mother. She is the Sensei’s wife, and the Sensei this evening. She has curly blond hair that frames a round beautiful face. When Jimmy ends the meditation, we all bow toward her.
She steps into the circle and asks us to hold hands, to let the energy of the circle pass through us, through the left and to the right. I’m surprised at how the circle comes alive, pulsating, swaying as one. When we start the class, we again do more cutting movements. The difference is that we do them slowly as if we are cutting through a thick liquid. We end up reaching to Ten (Heaven) and slowly cutting down. This is my movement, that I’ve done instinctually. It is the movement that saved me from jumping. It is my waterfall movement. It’s wonderful to follow this strong woman. The entire class is free hand. No swords, but plenty of movement, plenty of cutting using our hands and arms, with many different partners. The end of the class is simply running and cutting with our arms for a long time. Energy comes and goes, surges and ebbs until I am in a trance of movement and meditation.
At the end, Jimmy calls us back into a circle for meditation.
“Jimmy, your mother is amazing,” I say after class. He leads me over to introduce me, and I have a sensation of surrender. I’ve found another teacher, another woman to help me find my way.
I never miss a class of Kiri-Do. My sword work becomes more assured.
Similar to my experience in the zendo, I surpass some students who have been practicing much longer than me.
“It’s not a competition,” Mrs. Ueda tells one student who is peeved that I’m progressing so rapidly. “It’s not a competition with anyone except yourself. Remember that.”
My posture changes. I notice that when I walk down the street, people are, if not truly afraid of me, then respectful. I doubt a mugger would ever pick on me, I’m projecting too formidable a presence, without doing anything martial whatsoever.
Then one day it all ends suddenly.
In class one Wednesday evening, Jimmy’s father is watching me in partner practice with another student, Paul, a guy I don’t know well. Paul is a lanky white guy, not so much muscular as lithe, stringy, flexible, and quick. We’re practicing timing and cutting techniques. We have to catch the other’s movement. Beat him or her to the punch so to speak. Sensei stops us almost immediately after we change roles. He gives me a funny look. I can’t read it. Is he going to praise or criticize me?
“Do you want to defeat and humiliate your opponent?” he asks. “Do you wish to be victorious and ego proud? No! You want to lead them into mu, emptiness. Suck them into the vacuum space where there is no ego. Can you do that?”
He gives me that look again, and this time I think I understand. It’s a test, like the first day when he made me run around the dojo forever. I stand with my eyes closed for a long while. Sensei’s eyes are on me. Paul is waiting. To do what Sensei is looking for, I must connect with Paul in some way that I haven’t yet. I must find his center, cut it open, and let it expand. I have an instantaneous momentary vision of the poster of Kuan-yin hanging on Taisha’s door in The Laundry. Unbidden, the phrase “kill him with kindness” comes into my head.
I face Paul again, look at him as deeply as I know how, really examining him, his strengths and his pains. He looks away at the last instant before we bow. Then, each time he raises up his sword, I slash across his body in the space he’s opened up. I’m shredding him with each cut. In some weird way as I’m cutting Paul, I’m revealing myself also, opening up my shell and letting inside and outside merge. I finish the round and bow deeply to Paul, who also appears to have been strongly affected by the experience. He walks away with a slightly stunned expression on his face. Sensei approaches me. He doesn’t bow, which would be totally out of character, but he cocks his head to one side and says:
“For you the sword is a step on the path. For me, it is the path. It is my life. Different paths. I’m glad ours crossed.”
I bow, holding back tears. Sensei is dismissing me. He knows I’ll never study sword long enough or hard enough to follow his path. I can’t let anything, even the practice of Kiri-Do that I enjoy so much, get in the way of my true search. We both know this is my last class. As Sensei Ueda says so wisely, I’m on my own path and must follow it.
Interested readers can go to Odeon Press to purchase the book from a variety of sources including Amazon, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, and iTunes.
Greetings from your friends at the board of Shintaido of America! It’s time to renew your membership. Last year we added to our membership and QUADRUPLED the amount of traffic on our website. Can we do that again this year?
Your $60 annual membership fee now offers more benefits than ever. While most groups are now (thankfully!) back to holding keikos in-person, the technological lessons learned during the pandemic have continued to stretch and strengthen our practice.
Zoom offerings:
Connie Borden, Rob Gaston, and Sandra Bengtsson continue to co-teach a weekly Sunday ZOOM class from 9am to 10am Pacific Time. Everyone is welcome to join. Many of these classes are available on the Shintaido of America YouTube channel.
Ito-sensei teaches regularly on Zoom from his home in France. From the UK, General Instructor Charles Burns teaches several classes each week from his dojo. Shintaido of America members are warmly invited to join.
The second season of the Shintaido Podcast was launched on February 5, 2023, on several listening platforms. Season Two of the podcast begin with chapters of the book Untying Knots: A Shintaido Chronicle by the co-founder of Shintaido of America, Master Instructor, Michael Thompson, narrated by General Instructor David Franklin. Michael Sensei was feted at the launch by the receipt of a Lifetime Achievement Award during which several of his students offered their memories of his gorei. Here’s what one member said:
Watching the podcast brought many memories from the last 20 years. I consider myself so damn lucky for being introduced to Shintaido and all of you. I often wonder where would I be today without Shintaido, what life would I have, who would I be… Gorazd Drozina
Also on the Podcast, David hosts a series of interviews on Shintaido-related topics with various people familiar with our practice, including the visual artist Mario Uribe, rock musician Amanda Palmer and classical conductor Kent Nagano.
General Instructor and Shintaido of America Board Director Connie Borden hosts a monthly podcast discussion group on the last Tuesday of each month. Please contact Connie if you’d like to join in!
In addition, Shintaido of America supports our community of practitioners by providing members with:
1. Full access to the Shintaido of America Website. Check it out! New things are happening all the time! We now feature a media page that includes all our newsletter, YouTube and Podcast links.
2. Body Dialogue is now completely digital and appears in real time as postings on the website.
5. Liability Insurance for instructors and students – so you and your students are covered no matter where you practice. This is available to members at no cost.
6. Access to the most up-to-date changes to the curriculum, which continues to develop, especially the Kenjutsu curriculum.
7. Support to our instructors and the National Technical Committee.
8. Communication with International Shintaido Technical and Exam Committee (ITEC)
9. Leadership by Shintaido of America and ESC as the organizing and sponsoring organizations for international activities.
10. Shintaido of America examinations and Shintaido of America Diplomas.
11. Shintaido of America has 4 grants for 2023. These grants are to support start up costs for new classes or expand Shintaido into healthcare and associated settings. Contact Connie for more information.
Membership fees are still only $60. For ALL of the benefits listed above, your annual membership works out to only $5 a month, or 16 cents a day!
Alternately, a check for $60 payable to SOA can be mailed to:
Shintaido of America Membership 426 Day Street San Francisco, CA 94131 (as of 12/2023)
We sincerely hope you will consider renewing your membership, and join us as Shintaido of America moves into the future!
Connie Borden, Chair SOA Board of Director Shin Aoki, Chair SOA NTC Sandra Bengtsoon, Treasurer Nancy Billias, Membership David Franklin, Podcast Michael Thompson, co-founder H.F. Ito, co-founder
by Jim Sterling On February 5, 2021, Shintaido of America (SOA) held a celebration via Zoom to honor Michael Thompson, Doshu, with a Lifetime Achievement Award. During this event over…
In the Northeast, our coldest cold spell this winter came in February. It was down to zero where I live just north of NYC, and windy as well. In an otherwise mostly mild winter, it suddenly felt dangerous just to be outside. My chickens, who usually strut around happily in the open air all season, took refuge in their dog crate and did not want to come out. I was reminded that cold, very cold, and extremely cold are all quite different things.
So it was for Kangeiko weekend. I planned to join the gasshuku late, driving up to Massachusetts in time to make the second keiko, because I had business at home on Saturday morning. That morning I got voice mail from Mary Foran saying, “The dojo has no heat. We are in the basement with a space heater. Just letting you know in case you want to rethink coming all this way.” I texted back, “Unless you decide to give up and go home, I’d like to come. I want to see everybody.” Since Kangeiko means cold weather practice, and since we’ve done a lot of Kangeiko together for many years, I didn’t think there was much chance of disbanding because of cold weather, even extremely cold weather.
Sure enough, when I got to the Town Hall in Petersham, Massachusetts, I was greeted by friends in down vests and gloves, saying, “Wear whatever you want for this keiko as long as it’s warm.” They led down to the basement where, with the help of the space heater, the space was up above freezing, just barely. Bela Breslau had taught that morning, and had to start by discussing with the group what to do about the lack of heat. Unfortunately, a couple of people had needed to drop out because the cold wasn’t workable for them, including Michael Thompson who had been scheduled to give some of the instruction. The people who stayed had begun by huddling in a circle and sharing verbally some of what was going on in their lives. Then Bela led freehand sword cutting. Swords turned out not to work because the basement ceiling was too low.
For the second keiko, Matt Shorten led warmups and Stephen Billias taught. I found that the basement was really very cold! After a 3-hour drive, it was hard to feel that warmups had done much in the way of warming my body. But as we went through our usual keiko progression, bringing more vigor into our movement, the warmth started to come. We practiced more sword movements free hand: hasso and mugen. Finally, Stephen asked if we were willing to go upstairs into the dojo with no heat at all, so we could use our swords. We agreed, we went, and it was even colder! But – now we had bokutohs and boken. And Stephen had us working in pairs. There is something about the alertness that comes with kumitachi that warms my body, every time. It was especially noticeable once Stephen put us in groups of five, with four attacking one who stood in the center. The eyes, the brain, the blood, the arms and legs all went on high alert. Now it seemed good to me to be doing such a very cold weather practice, bringing life and warmth into the depths of winter.
Stephen brought us outside for a final tenso-shoko. We stood in a patch of the village green and cut forward as the church bell struck five and the bell tower of the Town Hall turned orange in the setting sun.
Dinner was at Matt and Bonnie’s home, cozy, potluck, with a dog and a fire. Some of us stayed at Hartmann’s herb farm, a place we have been before, before the pandemic, before Joe Zawielski sensei’s passing. It was good to be back. As Margaret Guay- who was my roommate – said to me, “This feels important.” The importance was not in the content of the keikos so much as in the resumption of the gasshuku kata. It was important to eat together, to do more than one keiko and experience the physical/emotional/spiritual changes from one keiko to the next. It was good that at least some of us could be together under one roof.
On Sunday morning, Margaret led us in beautiful katas: diamond eight (free hand and then with sword) and finally Taimyo Part One. As we walked out of Town Hall after saying our goodbyes, guess what! It was up to forty degrees. The cold weather lasted just as long as the Kangeiko.
It had been three years since Pacific Shintaido was able to host its annual Kangeiko gathering in person. But, after two years of surprisingly successful virtual workshops, with participants from all over North America and Europe interacting via Zoom, Shintaido practitioners came together over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend to explore the theme Hei Ho: The Strategy of Fighting, the Strategy of Peace. On Saturday, January 14, and Sunday, January 15, four keikos were held in the gymnasium at Claremont Middle School in Oakland.
General Instructor Connie Borden and Senior Instructor Rob Gaston accepted the invitation by the Pacific Shintaido Board—Shin Aoki, Cheryl Williams, and Derk Richardson—to serve as guest instructors for Kangeiko 2023. Both hold Yondan ranking in kenjutsu, which was the general subject for the workshop. The specific theme, Hei Ho: The Strategy of Fighting, the Strategy of Peace, was inspired by a 2020 interview with Master Instructor Masashi Minagawa (published in Body Dialogue on November 6, 2022). In his opening ceremony remarks, Derk quoted Minagawa Sensei’s comments on Kangeiko (“we refresh our old selves and go back to the original beginner’s mind”), Kenjutsu (“The sword can be used as a tool or compass which can show us how to manage our lives, it can show us which direction to follow”), and the concept of Hei Ho. “The word Hei Ho 兵法 … means the Strategy of War. If Hei is written differently [using another Chinese character 平] it can also mean Strategy of Peace 平法.… Therefore, there are two ways of studying martial arts, the way of war and the way of peace.”
Before we began warmups, led by Director of Instruction Shin Aoki, Rob Sensei led us in an exercise to help set our intention for both Kangeiko and the coming year. He asked the ten attendees to offer up words that spontaneously came to mind when we thought about achieving peace in the world. Responses included “love,” “empathy,” “compassion,” “forgiveness,” “community,” “diversity,” and more. Rob Sensei urged us to fold those thoughts into our intention and hold that intention throughout the workshop.
After warmups, Connie Sensei led us in several sets of Reppaku, two linked movements in Taimyo kata. Drawing fists to hips, we opened palms and extended them forward while taking a right hangetsu step. Then, bringing feet together and the backs of our hands together at the chest, we reached up overhead, twisted our hands back, and cut forward and out while taking a left hangetsu step. Connie Sensei offered the images of emptying our pockets, lightening our loads, letting go of the burdens we carry, and spreading the seeds of intention, and then flying up and opening out to see the view before us. After a couple of repetitions, we were encouraged to find our own inspirations and images as we repeated the movements.
For the next hour, Rob Sensei led us in kiri-oroshi kumite, a partner cutting and opening technique, keeping in mind the goals of reconnecting and establishing a physical and spiritual conversation. Keiko one concluded with Rob Sensei leading us in Hoten Kokyu Ho, the gentle kata of embracing the great universe, bowing, embracing the tiniest universe, and rising up again. Those of us familiar with the poem Rob Sensei had written to correspond with the movements might have envisioned expanding our awareness from ourselves to others, to greater communities and cultures, to nature, the biosphere, and cycles of birth and death, and to the solar system, galaxies, and black holes, acknowledging that we are made of stardust and the universe is in us, and finally expanding our awareness to Ten and rising up to Ten Chi Jin.
The next three keikos were dedicated almost entirely to kenjutsu, with participants using bokuto or, in some cases, bokken. Connie Sensei and Rob Sensei taught alternating segments of the curriculum they have developed together. On Saturday afternoon, after Sandra Bengtsson led warmups, Connie led us through stepping practice with bokuto—steps number one through four, plus irimukae, holding the bokuto in a vertical position close to the body and doing step number one, as if stepping into one’s sword. Rob Sensei guided us in sword-drawing techniques and in practicing the transitions between shoko and tenso. And Connie Sensei gave us instruction in bokuto kumite, dai jodan versus jodan, demonstrating with Rob Sensei and adding new partner pairings until all participants were doing the kumitachi. Keiko number two ended with 15 minutes of open-hand Tenshingoso kumite.
Keiko number three, on Sunday morning, began with Connie Sensei leading a freeform style of warmups with the aim of dissolving the roles of leader and follower, emphasizing listening, softening, releasing, and achieving fluid movement. Rob Sensei reviewed the previous afternoon’s kumitachi, which we practiced with different partners and many repetitions. Connie Sensei introduced one-hand Tenshingoso kumite, with one partner responding to the other’s four Tenshingoso movements, cultivating a tight, elastic “ma.” We did the same in two lines of partners facing each other, one side leading and the other responding, moving together in a chorale. In the end, practitioners in both lines did all four Tenshingoso movements, the lines flowing back and forth like ocean waves. Ten minutes of Wakame brought the keiko to a close.
For the last of the four keikos, after Derk led 30 minutes of warmups, we continued with our kenjutsu practice. We divided into two groups. One person stood in the middle, sword raised in tenso. One by one, the others stepped forward quickly and cut the stationary person with jodan kiri komi. Each practitioner took a turn in the center. Our final sword practice was eiko dai kumite, dai jodan versus jodan kiri komi. It started with Connie Sensei and Rob Sensei. Then it became a rotation until everyone had participated. The last few pairings became more free-flowing and continuous. The keiko closed with Connie Sensei leading us in another movement from part one of Taimyo kata, Sai-Zan, “breaking through mountains.” She has reflected deeply on this movement’s relationship to the practice of death awareness, an analog to an army’s retreat, in focused concentration, without fear. But, as a coda to our Kangeiko curriculum, it felt more like an affirmation of life and of our collective intention to move forward with what we had learned.
Overall, the kenjutsu curriculum that Connie Sensei and Rob Sensei created for Pacific Shintaido’s Kangeiko 2023 was fairly basic—simple, foundational movements with a lot of repetition and opportunities to practice with different partners. For those practitioners with less kenjutsu experience, it provided an opportunity to develop muscle memory and inhabit the form. For more senior practitioners, it opened up the space to go deeper into their relationship with the sword—bokuto or bokken—and explore the meaning within. For all, there was an exhilarating suffusion of tenso feeling. We thank Connie Sensei and Rob Sensei, and participants from the greater Bay Area and from Florida, for making Kangeiko an expanded moment of self-refection and enhanced connection with our fellow Shintaido “beginner’s mind” practitioners, the human community, and the universe.
I wrote a recent article on grief, death and loss; I now have some reflections on the benefit of practicing Taimyo Part I — specifically the movement 碎山/Sai-Zan “breaking through mountains”— using kokyu in relation to the individual practice of death awareness. As a forewarning, the subject is awareness of one’s mortality, so you may wish to pick the best time to read and reflect on this topic.
What can be practiced with Sai-Zan within Taimyo? This was a focus of study at the Quebec Gasshuku in September 2022: we step back while doing a tsuki forward, we step back a second time, while keeping our concentration, then we step back a third time bringing our fists to the center of our chest/heart and then tsuki forward to finish with our arms open wide. The analogous military strategy is when the leader retreats with their troops while keeping concentration, keeping troops from fleeing in fear, and making sure no one is left behind.
Sai-Zan and its application to living life was the focus of a dinner discussion in Quebec. I asked the group, “Can you name other (non-military) heroic efforts threatened by almost certain demise?” Here are some of the ones I thought about: the doctors and nurses in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in the stranded nursing home with its frail residents; neighbors like Ko Ueda taking food to isolated neighbors during the COVID pandemic; Mike Sheets taking sandbags in wheelbarrows up our street to prevent garages from flooding, when a large water main broke and sent rivers of brown sludge down our street. Can you think of examples?
I have been reading and reflecting on how our mind resists awareness of our mortality. Fears and regrets are often reasons to avoid this subject. What do most of us really wish for? One desire is to build an ideal world, to live fully, so we may not want to ask ourselves “What if?”
And what about our daily life awareness? I was fortunate to experience 20 years of working in hospice and palliative care, experiencing death and dying up close. I was aware of my mortality and the ever-present reminders of the shortness of life that made me stay awake and stay aware.
I see a practice for death awareness, so I explored doing the three movements of Sai-Zan, while incorporating what Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in his book, The Blooming of a Lotus:
Knowing I will get old, I breathe in, Knowing I can’t escape old age, I breathe out. Knowing I will get sick, I breathe in. Knowing I can’t escape, I breathe out. Knowing I will die, I breathe in. Knowing I can’t escape death, I breathe out.
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Determined to live my days deeply in mindfulness, I breathe in. Seeing the joy and benefit of living mindfully, I breathe out.
I brought this practice to a local hospice during an open mic session on death and dying on November 3rd. Comments included “visceral,” “cathartic,” and “a way to process grief.” For Shintaido and students of body movement, there is focused work with the breath – kokyu – breathing in through the nose; breathing into the belly and slowly releasing. We can practice Sai-Zan with a focus on our breath while stepping backward and reaching forward with our arms/fists.
This is an unfinished essay – how might you finish it? How do you develop awareness of mortality? What parts do you resist or how do you avoid daily practice? What are your deepest fears? What are your greatest joys?
Watch the Reflection on Sai-Zan on Shintaido of America YouTube channel.
*Many ask me “What’s next Connie?”- hence my moniker: Next Steps Connie.
Phillipe Beauvois has been a student and teacher of Shintaido for 45 years along with Taichi and Shin-Anma Shiatsu. He participated in the First International Shintaido Gasshuku in 1980 and studied with Robert Breant. In 1985 he started teaching Shintaido on the French Riviera in Grasse. Phillipe, who has been diagnosed with terminal head and neck cancer, reflects on his learnings and his wishes for future students.
Consider visiting Phillipe´s website (in French, can be translated into English in a browser).
