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.

Who is the problem

If the same problem follows me everywhere I go then I have to accept that there is a high likelihood that I am that problem. I can moan, complain and feel sorry for myself, buts it my responsibility to fix the problem. It's alway my responsibility, this is the hard road of Bujutsu and applies to everything in my life if I am to truly stick to principles of bujutsu.
I have to change my ingrained habits, negative emotion and reactions that happen in my mind and in my body in order to change my spirit to a true spirit of Bujutsu.
Monk Shidejian said when he was younger if you touched him or looked at him the wrong way he would fight. Now he says after many years practice you can slap his face hard or punch him and he will just smile at you. I think his spirit has changed, he has taken responsibility for this change through his own training and self discipline.

Annimals

If I think about a dog or a cat! How does it move? From where does it get it's power and agility? It moves by it's spine... It's spine is very free , so it can move very naturally. Now how does a human who walks on 2 legs get the same freedom of movement in the spine? This is key to bujutsu......

Ego

Had a tough work at week, working 15 hour days and was very stressed and frazzled by the end of the week. It's taking me a lot of time to unwind. I went off at a guy at work in a bad way, I felt on the edge....I also said something very unkind to a fellow Aunkai member tonight, it was very wrong and I hurt him by what I said. I have along way to go before I am the man I want to be...my ego is very strong, but me ego tells me it isn't very strong but it is.... I care greatly about people say or think about me, I have to let it all go, none of it matters. I need to have a big heart, I need to open it and look to where I can help and be good to be people..
I have to stop looking for ways to feed the never ending appetite that is my ego. Being a man and a Bujutsuka means that I have to take responsibility for the change and make it now, no more excuses... I want to be the man, that dreamed about being when I was a boy .