Chuo Middle line & dantien

I am currently in Okinawa on short break with my wife and have a lot if time in the early morning and evening for Aunkai practice.

I am working on a hint that Murata-san at training mentioned to me about where does the chest point/Juji drop too?

I think I can roll my spine and get it into the correct spinal alignment and that has now made my stance and hands / arms much heavier.

The chuo or middle is the centerline and balance point of the body but is moveable and can shift to either side of the torso during exercise or when in free movement. It's a point of reference and to which my weight and balance returns. It is also the basis for all the Aunkai exercises and must be focused on and understood.

This centerline also connects to the dantien area and the connection needs to be correct. This is where I got to thinking about what Murata san said. The centerline runs through the central chest point and this point drops to connect to the middle dantien region. I have been dropping the chef point down the chuo into the dantien but on the outside of my body on the surface which created a okay connection much better than I had before. But in reality the chest point must drop internally through the inside of the body to a point internally about 10-15cm inside the body to hit the correct dantien or weight point in the lower middle section of the torso.
I have been practising this for a week or so and the connection feels much better and the back feels even more relaxed and expanded than before which is definitely correct. Now I am working on stacking every bit of weight that I have in my upper body on top of and more importantly through that point.

Training tonight

Sensei is about to leave for France tomorrow we had last lesson with him. He taught us so much tonight, he is a great teacher, a good man with a very good heart. Another teacher with not such a big heart would have left us all by now....

He taught a lot of principles tonight and I am still trying to order and understand what he taught. When I have practised them and understood them for myself and in my body I will try to talk about them in another post

Recently in my solo practice I understand much better what my posture requirements and spine position needs to be and I am much more relaxed and understand much better what I need to be working on.

This is all well and good but if I cannot keep those body principles, connections and posture requirements in live situations under pressure than basically it means I have nothing in a Bujutsu sense.

I have to learn to bridge the very difficult gap between solo practice and free sparring and learn somehow to keep the Bujutsu mind and body principles in place. This is very difficult without reverting back to my old body movement and fighting habits. If you think it's easier it's not.....

I think this is where the spirit is very important, we have to think very deeply about what the Bujutsu aunkai spirit is and how to develop it. You can sense it around Akuzawa sensei and it is our job to take a bit of it and develop it for ourselves. What does Bujutsu mean? What does it really mean and what type of individuals do we need to be and what type of mind, heart and spirit do we need to develop. These are very deep questions which I need to take very seriously...

His teaching style is mostly very relaxed and he is easy going, but if you look closer he is very serious and severe on himself and the disciplines he puts himself under in order to develop his art of Aunkai

A teacher like Akuzawa sensei comes around once in a couple of generations, we are very lucky and we have to grave some of his spirit now......

Juji - centre chest point

Akuzawa sensei talks a lot about the juji, the centre point of the chest. Why is this point important? I think it's important for the correct posture and it must relax and drop to connect and hookup to the lower spine and tailbone. If the chest stays up and does not relax then a person will never be able to connect their upper and lower body. Softening and dropping the juji point takes the gravity point lower into our body and helps us to understand in more detail the natural structure and inherent potential of our Bujutsu frame and body.

Competiton

I have done a lot of thinking about sparring and competition recently. Many people who train in budo or traditional martial arts are 100% against competition. The comments of there are no rules on a real fight are valid in a sense but are people who train in traditional martial arts really training for a real fight? I don't know maybe they are, but without going around seeking street based altercations I think it is difficult. Then there is the other end of the spectrum people who only train for competition and dismiss the traditional martial arts as archaic and useless.

I was originally from a aikido background many years ago and did not believe in competition in MA. However when I can to Aunkai Akuzawa Sensei soon pushed me to compete in a number of full contact kickboxing and sanda competitions. We did lots of sparring and the pressure and doubts start to build up and I started to find our who I really was. The sparring and competition showed me how I personally dealt with fear, ego doubt and pressure. It was not easy and I was not who I thought I was. I found though that the more I competed the slightly better I got at dealing with everything. So incrementally you get better and improve with experience. I now compete in Bjj tournaments and the pressure is the same even though there is no striking, I realised competition is as close to real fighting a human can get without getting in a real street fight and everybody feels nerves and some fear and how we cope with them and what we learn from having these feelings is most important.

I also believe that if we never learn about how we move , think and feel in a chaotic environment like a competition replicates, then we will never learn about bujutsu and it's principles. However if we believe competition is everything and that's all we need we are solely deluded. If we are only focused on winning and being the strongest then that is going to lead me nowhere. I want to win in competition of course but what am I willing to do to win.... In competition and sparring it's important to want to apply the correct body and mind principles and to move in the right way and fight in the right way and with the right spirit because in the end competition is just a testing ground for my Bujutsu.

Akuzawa sensei teaches the importance of flexibility and ambiguity in the mind which is of the upmost importance for bujutsu and AUNKAI training. I must be flexible and open to try many different things and training techniques to improve my Bujutsu including but not limited to competition.

In the end though it's not not about winning or losing or about fighting other people, that proves nothing to me or anybody else. It's all about what spirit. I can develop, how can I develop myself so I am a better person, the battle with in is what is important, nothing else matters....

Resetting the Operating System

I understand recently that we as humans grow up and develop a body consciousness a template or model which we become familiar with. I realised that for my beginning years in Aunkai training I was trying to overlay Aunkai principles and train movements on top of a mind body template that was wrong. So no matter what things I learned or tried to learn the underlying operating system was wrong so none of the applications worked. Now I have reset my operating system and continue to reset and refine it and now the applications are working better. This is easy to read about and conceptually understand but the body mind or body conscious or operating system is hidden under many layers of the mind and already feels natural and is difficult to access and to be aware of. This is I believe is a very important and difficult part of bujutsu.

Cambodia Training

I have been on my honeymoon in Cambodia for the past week. Have been training every morning on the beach one be sand. The soft sand and bare feet give a new dimension to the feeling and external and internal balance. I have spent the last couple of days on working on dropping the Juji point in the thorax down internally to connect and hook it up to the spine. This loads more and more weight into the legs and makes the top half of the body light.
Cambodia is a beautiful place and it great to train in front of the ocean with the sand under my feet and ocean breeze on my face.

Genri/Principles - Imashimeru

I trained at Aunkai tonight and realised that I have to be strict and stick to principles. In my training recently I have really begun to realise some key principles. However tonight when I did free practice my ego took over and I wanted to be aggressive and impress and I forgot my body principles. This is not practice and has no meaning.
This is why Akuzawa sensei spoke before about the importance of "imashimeru". Imashimeru means to tighten, control and discipline your mind, body and heart. When you you want to go crazy and use all your muscle you must control and use Bujutsu body movement principles only. Same with thinking, it must be always controlled and not let free to run wild.
Changes are only made though consistent daily implementation and action of an idea, nothing else works.