ki: foundation, fundamental
hon: real, main, true, present
Eight in five and two in one;
a million steps
to the dragon’s lair.
ki: foundation, fundamental
hon: real, main, true, present
Kihon are the essential techniques that constitute the foundation of any Japanese martial art. Kihon are practiced as a part of kata (set sequences) but should also be practiced independently. The practice of kihon is essential to training at all levels, and kihon are fundamental to the mastery of all movements of greater complexity. The ability to practice kihon repeatedly with diligence, enthusiasm, and a spirit of enquiry is the best indication of a student’s potential.
By necessity the study of kihon consists of repetition. This is stressed in maxims like “ten thousand hours achieve the goal” or “a hundred thousand swings bring mastery.” Yet other factors must be taken into account if repetition is to bring success. Without proper guidance, the outcome of lengthy repetition is often chronic injury, and maturity in the art is never attained. Unfortunately it is those with the most enthusiasm and commitment who are likely to suffer this fate.
Repetition should not be mechanical. Counting repetitions may help in getting through a set of exercises, but it dulls the mind. In traditional Japanese arts, the student is often asked to perform basic actions with “beginner’s mind.” This is sometimes misrepresented as simply emptying the mind or “doing” without thinking. When one does something for the first time, the experience is fresh and vivid. This freshness must be rediscovered over and over again in kihon by maintaining a clear and open mind. Clearing the mind is undertaken so that one can see more of the field of action, not lie down and fall asleep in it. Mistaken notions of the void result in vacancy of intent and dangerous inattention. As soon as one is competent, training should be undertaken with a real blade to reduce such tendencies. The true void is a state of absolute awareness and intense creativity.
The mind must be fully engaged in and responsive to the training. If one trains with this attitude, the mind grows broader and comprehends more and more dimensions to the activity. As the movement grows fuller and more integrated, stresses are reduced and injury avoided. It is not a case of trying to be “creative” with each repetition. The desire to find something novel in order to overcome boredom is a poisonous distraction. Pandering to this part of the mind cuts one off from the roots of reality. One should dive deeper into one’s resources, closely observe, and respond intuitively. In this way innate knowledge will reveal itself by stages.
In neurological terms, when you learn a skilled action, you are laying down a circuit. Once this has been achieved, sports scientists advocate specialized speed and power training to enhance the production of this circuit. As a result, athletes spend less time practicing core skills. However, if you refine technique according to natural principles, so that actions are increasingly initiated from the center, speed and power can be effortlessly accessed.1 Traditional martial arts stress that there is no limit to the refinement of basic actions, since one can explore increasingly deeper layers of the mind-body. This is enshrined in the ideal of the kamiwaza—the divine technique.
All martial arts begin with footwork—ashisabaki. Power production and movement should always be initiated from the feet.
Ashi itari tai itari ken itaru.
(First the feet, then the body, and finally the sword.)
For the beginner this means that the feet are placed first, the body weight is then transferred, and this shift is projected through the sword. As the student progresses, this sequencing changes, although the origin of power remains in the feet.
Most people who start sword arts cannot wait to hold a sword, yet the best foundation training is restricted to footwork only for the first six months. This will accelerate the learning process since it eliminates the need to spend months later on reducing overuse of the upper body. One of the omote (external) principles of Nakamura Ryu Battodo is to keep one’s movements as close as possible to normal walking. Musashi makes the same assertion and goes on to list especially inappropriate ways of moving commonly taught in his day (jumping, floating, and stamping).
Nevertheless, the demands of wielding the sword require that in order to keep the center stable, stance naturally lengthens, widens, and deepens according to the movement of the sword. Any instability in posture is magnified when the arms and sword move overhead or out to the sides, and even more so when a target is cut through. If one were wearing full yoroi (armor) and wielding a heavy battle sword, the stance would be even deeper, and this is reflected in the kata of schools such as Kashima Shinto Ryu. These adaptations should always be understood as modifications of normal walking, and artificial footwork should be avoided. It should also be remembered that gait and stride length vary among individuals and change with age.
Suriashi—the sliding step—is a useful way of training integration of ki-ken-tai-ichi (energy, sword, and body as one) because the pulling in of the back foot to complete a step recovers the body’s center. The combination of suriashi and short stance used in Kendo has evolved because the kendoka is not required to cut but only to strike, and a rooted stance is therefore unnecessary. Tameshigiri soon reveals the unsuitability of this kind of footwork. Practice outdoors also reveals the defects of this technique. If the ground is muddy, pushing off from the ball of the rear foot results in sliding back instead of moving forward. If there is unevenness in the ground, the sliding foot will catch on protruding rocks and roots. From long experience of deadly encounters outdoors, Musashi advocated the opposite action.
With regard to footwork, one should slightly “float” the toes and strongly press down the heel.2
In one of the oldest and most respected koryu—Katori Shinto Ryu (notwithstanding the tremendous precision of this school’s kata)—detailed footwork is not prescribed, and students are expected to find their own natural stance. It is significant that this school also practices extensively outside in the fields.
The central power that results from the complementary movement of the two legs can be achieved in many ways. All require strong legs and flexible ankles. Complete tanren (conditioning; see chapter 3), including squatting exercises and moving slowly in low stances, brings the strength and flexibility to perform these steps securely without compromising the knees or lower back. The strength of the hips and lower legs and the flexibility of the ankles are of particular importance. These qualities require correct breathing and abdominal pressure. For this reason, beginners should start the first tanren exercises together with kihon practice. One sign that the internal work of tanren is beginning to bear fruit is that the feet grip the floor spontaneously at the completion of a cut.
Once the legs have been conditioned, success in mastering kihon (as in every other subject) comes from the correct sequence of learning. Whatever the school or style, one must reduce the syllabus to its essentials and proceed in mastering the essential techniques in a step-by-step manner, resisting temptations to skip ahead.
According to Nakamura Taisaburo Sensei, there are eight basic techniques (kihon waza): the straight vertical cut (suichokugiri or kirioroshi), the diagonal downward cuts to left and right (kesagiri), the diagonal upward cuts to left and right (gyakukesagiri), the horizontal cuts to left and right (mayokogiri), and the straight thrust (morotetsuki). By not differentiating between left and right, Musashi’s system reduces this to five, resulting in a total of four cuts and the thrust.
Although the sword moves in different planes, the actual trajectory of the sword is the same in all four cuts. By recognizing this, one can then reduce the total to two—the often described “cut and thrust.” In actual combat, the diagonal cut is the essential cut (see chapter 5, “Tameshigiri”), but it is technically very demanding. For this reason, beginners should first learn the vertical cut (kirioroshi; literally “cutting and letting fall”) first. The demanding part of this technique is getting the sword into a position from which to deliver the downward cut. As the name for the technique suggests, it is then largely a matter of letting gravity have its way. The lifting forward and up of the sword (furikaburi) is very close to the action of the thrust. In this regard, the thrust is the ultimate kihon from which all other techniques stem and consequently should be learned first.
The tsuki was the most frequently used technique on the medieval battlefield since it was easier to pierce the weak points in armor than to cut through it. Establishing a conscious connection with the tanden (vital center) is easiest with the thrust because the action stems directly and perceptibly from that center. The action of the tsuki also establishes chudan kamae (middle guard), tenouchi (grip), and sensitivity to the kissaki (sword tip). For all these reasons, the tsuki is the most fundamental technique, and yet in most schools it is the least practiced. The only sure way to learn is through uchikomi—repeated thrusting at a target (see chapter 4).
When the tsuki is established in this way, the most demanding part of the vertical cut has already been learned. The logical sequence for learning the five (or eight) kihon is therefore as follows:
Just as tsuki prepares for kirioroshi, kesagiri is merely an adaptation of the vertical cut to follow a diagonal line through the target. It requires better coordination and greater stability in the core than does the vertical cut, but it is actually easier to control during the act of cutting. Once the diagonal line is learned, by cutting downwards, the reverse cut comes easily with some adjustments in tenouchi and a natural turn from the hip and waist. A stronger waist turn and application of the enkeisen (circular trajectory) in a horizontal line achieves yokogiri. When this last basic cut is achieved, all other techniques will be recognized as reduced, combined, or one-handed versions of these five techniques.
On the first day of training, sword and human meet as alien objects; over time they become one living thing. Eventually the blade will magnify and project the actions of the body, reflect mood and mind set, and ultimately point the way to the core of being.
Although the eyes play a part in the manipulation of the blade, this is largely achieved through the sense of touch. The fine sensitivity of the hands allows a progressive tuning of the body to the sword and of the sword to the body. Through the hands, one learns to sense the angle of the blade, the position of the kissaki (sword tip), and the flow of forces in the sword, body, and target. In tameshigiri (test cutting) one can sense the texture of the target and the quality of the cutting action. In kumitachi (sparring), when swords meet, one senses the strength and, more critically, the quality of the opponent—the degree to which he or she is integrated with the sword. For this reason the ura (inner/hidden) principle of Nakamura Ryu is tenouchi, the world “inside the hands.”
The first imperative is simple. The beginner must learn to stop the swinging sword securely. This must be mastered before using a shinken (live blade) or beginning tameshigiri. Losing the grip on the sword at the end of a cut can result in severe injuries. Security of grip is achieved through an inward spiraling action of the arms. For the most part, the hands remain relaxed, while keeping the fingers in continuous contact with the tsuka (handle). The photo shows the correct position of the hands in chudan kamae (middle guard) with the little finger of the left hand close to the end of the tsuka and a small gap between the hands. This position (together with a tsuka of appropriate length) allows for the free and fluid achievement of all the basic cuts in combat. The completion of the cutting action is secured by the correct placement of the “dragon’s mouth” (the web between the thumb and first finger) over the top edge of the tsuka (in both hands).
The importance of the “dragon’s mouth” (the same area is commonly termed the “tiger’s mouth” in Chinese internal arts) was explained to me at length by Nakamura Sensei, while I sat next to him watching a class. At the time, I was recovering from surgery following an injury to this area. Nakamura Sensei described how he had once cut deeply into the base of the thumb while sheathing at speed. The tendons and nerves of the thumb had been severed, and, since this occurred in the days before microsurgery, movement of the thumb could not be regained. Nakamura Sensei had instructed the surgeon to sew up the wound so that the shape of the dragon’s mouth would be preserved. As a result, he had no problem controlling the sword afterward, despite the lack of any gripping power in the thumb.
Figure 3. Tenouchi
Chakin shibori (the wringing out of a wet cloth) is often recommended for developing correct tenouchi. Those who repeat daily the hundreds of repetitions required for the traditional cleaning of the dojo floor eventually realize that this action is achieved not by tightening the hands but by a fluent use of the whole upper limb. The only gripping action required is momentary and can be accomplished by the little finger (and to a lesser extent the ring finger). Any added tension in the hand restricts movement, reduces sensitivity, and disturbs mental equilibrium.3 Most beginners instinctively adopt a diametrically opposite use of the hands, and this must be slowly and patiently undone together with the upper body tension that accompanies it. With daily intensive practice this reversal can be followed in the changing pattern of calluses that appear first at the base of the index finger and then move across to the little finger before finally disappearing altogether.
When the sword is held in both hands, the differing roles of the right and left hands results in a further adaptation. The left hand transfers power into the sword and acts as the fulcrum of the swing; the right hand acts as a sensor and gentle stabilizer. If the right hand usurps this role, the amplitude and acceleration of the swing are reduced and the trajectory disturbed (this is a common cause of failure to cut through a target). One of the most demanding aspects of tenouchi is the instantaneous change required when changing from a two-handed grip to using the right hand only.
Enkeisen refers to the circular movement of the sword during a correct cutting action. This is not a simple circle but a spiral that includes circular movements at three joints—shoulder, elbow, and wrist. (In some cuts this is enhanced by a turn of the waist and hips.) Combined correctly, these components produce great power and acceleration without stress on the joints or sinews. The sound produced by a swinging sword can indicate the accuracy and fullness of the technique. The tone and quality of sound vary according to the amplitude and integrity of the swing. When all the joints are harmoniously utilized, the resulting arc produces a deep, full sound. If the movement is restricted, a higher-pitched whistling sound results. With experience and a suitable sword,4 one can also tell if the hassuji (angle of blade in relation to the cutting action) is correct (see chapter 5, “Tameshigiri”).
The enkeisen is best learned performing the vertical cut (kirioroshi) and standing in a long front stance (see photo). Here one is well-grounded, and the initiating action of legs, coordinating role of tanden, and transmitting role of the spine can be can be most clearly apprehended. One should begin with the kissaki in contact with the sacrum and finish with the tsukagashira brought in to press the lower abdomen below the tanden (itself four finger-widths below the navel) with the kissaki about 12 inches from the floor.
Figure 4. Kirioroshi, the vertical cut. The complete technique is performed in a long training stance stance through full extension to final position below the navel.
This full-span vertical cut must be well understood before attempting the other cuts, where additional factors like hip turns and crossing of the hands are involved. Without this foundation, the essence of suburi will never be grasped. Use of the tanrenbo and kabutowari (the helmet splitter—a heavy sword with a blunt edge) as well as katana and bokken can accelerate the learning of suburi with fewer repetitions and fewer injuries. For example, the equivalent of five hundred swings of kirioroshi with a two-pound katana can be achieved by performing the following kihon combination set:
50 moderate swings of the two-pound katana
50 slow swings of the four-pound tanrenbo
25 moderate swings of the four-pound kabutowari
50 full power swings of the two-pound katana
and 25 swings of the light one-pound bokken (to release the muscles)
The order here is important, as each set prepares the body for the following set. Not only does one reduce repetitions and consequent wear and tear by more than 50 percent, but the varied weights and balances of the swords used work the joints and pathways in complementary ways to accelerate learning. As we shall see in later chapters, uchikomi (target striking) and tameshigiri provide further variety, learning, and advantages in the training of the basic cuts, especially with regard to targeting and tenouchi.
If one fails to complete these initial stages of kihon training ki-ken-tai-ichi (the unification of energy, sword, and body) will be ever elusive. In the quest for speed or power, arms (and legs) may grow superficially powerful, but unless training is focused on coordinating the action of the limbs, this approach results in weak technique, loss of balance, “telegraphing,” and vulnerability to the opponent. Timing is the key, and the synchronizing of one’s own actions must be achieved before one can make any sense of the realm of sen (initiative and timing in attack). As with tenouchi, the scope for development is endless.
As soon as beginners have strengthened their legs and learned basic tenouchi, they should learn to perform suburi, moving in such a way that they register the connection between foot movement and the generation of power in the swing. This is best achieved first in half steps and then in complete steps using kirioroshi (the simple vertical cut), moving forward and then moving backward.
Kiai refers to a bringing together of the energy or energies. In the beginning, the most important function of the shout or vocal kiai is to break the rigidity of the mind. This exposes a variety of energies, some helpful and some unhelpful. The student discovers a release of tension and blocked emotions, but this must not become an end in itself (at first it is hard to differentiate between vital energy and excitement).
Training the vocal kiai develops discrimination because in the struggle to produce the right sound it becomes clear that making a physical connection to the lower abdomen is required rather than an exciting of emotions. The energy of the tanden area is most important because it has the power to evoke and integrate the vital energies from all over the body and mind in a split second. As access to this area increases, the power of ki-ken-tai-ichi grows. When this is grasped, the kiai can be developed as a powerful tool in triggering an opponent, enhancing a technique, or recovering alertness (zanshin) after delivering an attack.
A warm-up sequence involving circling all the joints while standing in natural stance (shizentai) is essential and also provides the best opportunity for establishing posture. This is achieved by manipulating the navel and adjusting the position of the chin. The back should be kept spread so that the solar plexus does not project forward. The tongue should be curled, the tip placed to the roof of the mouth behind the top front teeth. The tongue and throat must remain relaxed and the chin must be adjusted so that the back of the neck feels “full.” At this point the ears, shoulders, hips, and ankle joints will be in a vertical line. Attention should be given to maintaining this alignment while circling the joints from the neck down to the ankles. Once practice of kihon begins, posture should be corrected sparingly to avoid inhibiting the movements of the beginner.
“Posture” is an inadequate translation of the term shisei, which means, literally, “shape of power.” This suggests that what defines correct form is not external alignment but the capacity of that shape to generate power. One of my teachers used to regularly refer to a solitary deformed tree that clung to the side of a very exposed hillside. For a month we passed this tree every day on our way to training. He used it as an example of how the life force can develop most strongly in adverse conditions and through “distorted” forms.
Body shape is an expression of inner energetic structure and the breathing patterns that feed it, and these are in turn a reflection of mental habits. In sparring, successful assessment of an opponent’s abilities and intentions depends on one’s ability to see through external form. Learning to perceive one’s own underlying patterns is the first step in developing that skill.
Forcing people into an “ideal” posture inhibits development. Most beginners are accustomed to moving in a poorly coordinated and inefficient manner. Their shape and coordination feels natural, and allowance must be made for this so that the person is able to relax while learning. The teacher’s function is to bring the student to a point at which they experience the increased ease and power that comes from moving closer to their center.
The slow movements of tanren afford the best opportunity for transforming these patterns. In these exercises, the mind has time to adjust and register the moment when power moves through the center. This insight can then be applied to kihon practice. When actions are performed at normal speed, it becomes clear that posture has more to do with the timing and sequencing of actions than alignment. In other words, shisei equals ki-ken-tai-ichi.
The idea that practice of a single technique can bring supernatural power or enlightenment is attractive in its simplicity, but illusory. In Japan, people often practice suburi with a wooden or bamboo sword as an isolated exercise without participating in any other sword arts. This is usually performed with great expectations and very poor technique and has limited benefits. Yet as part of a complete tanren, suburi carried out with a complete and integrated movement of body and sword has a profound effect on the energy of the spine. For this reason, it is one of several techniques used by Japanese tantrikas to stimulate the energy of the central channel (others include abdominal manipulations, waterfall immersion, and breath retention).
However, such practices are only considered effective when the peripheral channels of the inner body have first been made to flow freely through exhaustive preparatory work. These nadis or “flows” are often depicted as snakes, as in the famous representation of the “cosmic dance,” the Shiva Nataraja. As the energy flows more freely, movement of the limbs grows increasingly serpentine.
Correct wielding of the sword engenders such movement since tenouchi depends on a spiraling action through the arms and correct trajectory (enkeisen) on an undulating action through the joints. When cutting movements issue from the body center, they effortlessly transmute into additional circular or spiraling cutting arcs. Perhaps it was in an effort to describe such movements that the image of the flying dragon was born. If kihon are practiced correctly, this freedom of action is the natural outcome. This is the goal of the happo giri (eightfold cutting system) of Nakamura Ryu, and this is the realm of kamiwaza—the outcome of years of comprehensive practice.
1. The understanding of these principles begins with tanren or conditioning—see chapter 3.
2. From Gorin no Sho; translation by the author.
3. The energetic significance of the different areas of the two hands can be gleaned from studying appendix III.
4. Some swords and bokken have been constructed so that they produce a strong sound even when swung inaccurately. These weapons are worse than useless.