MY ENCOUNTER WITH HATSUMI SOKE

My eyes were drawn to a man with a special sense of presence who was surrounded by forty or fifty people. That person was none other than Bujinkan Soke, Masaki Hatsumi, who has been in videos, books, and on television. Looking closely, I saw that most of the people in the crowd were foreigners, and that there were few Japanese.

"Pleased to meet you. I am Akira Hino."
As I think about it, I recall that my image of this "Ninpo Grandmaster" from TV and magazines, since I had begun my research into traditional martial arts decades ago, was that of a ninja/man of mystery/superman.
At that time I came to the realization that there were so many foreigners because he had been going to foreign countries and diligently introducing Japanese martial arts.

In my time researching martial arts, or rather human means and talents, I had watched Hatsumi-Soke's videos so much that the picture quality had changed, so involved was I in this research.
However, there is a point that unless you actually see it, see an actual [live] demonstration that there are parts you won't understand.
that is the "sen no sen" (taking initiative) of delving into the techniques of martial arts.
I have a hypothesis that martial artists who have excelled, or that is to say those who are called masters have a point in common--they can take "sen no sen" (taking initiative or reading the opponent's intention).
That is, they have the technique of 'waiting sufficiently between the operation of the opponent's will to attack and the commitment to the actual attack.'
In regards to that point, one unfortunately cannot measure the minute mental reactions of a master just with video.
This becomes even more true the more one becomes a master.
On that note, I had been waiting many years for the chance to somehow or other meet Hatsumi-Soke, and I had finally made this a reality.

IN THE MIDST OF FLOWING WITHOUT HESITATION

Practice starts with Hatsumi-Soke demonstrating how something should be done.
I am told that this year's theme is jyo.� (cane).
I understand that in Bujinkan training, a theme is chosen for each year and then thoroughly 'wrestled with' throughout the year.
This is a practice where everyone has a soft handmade jyo� so as not to cause injury, for the purpose of reliably attacking to the spot which Soke is indicating (not stopping an inch short--"sun-dome"). The way of using the jyo� is not in the manner of 'kata' which conform to traditional forms, but is something very modern and moreover something that corresponds to real fighting.

In other words, they don't just go through each kata one after another, but start from, for example, when the opponent punches .
. . how does one move one's body? From there, many ways of using the jyo�, or not using the jyo�, unfold. And, finally, one follows through until one's opponent is in a state where he can't move.
So this is the way of fighting of a soldier--practicing how one should move depending on a real situation.
Hatsumi-Soke explains a certain flow and everyone practices it.
To the extent that one can, one moves from that flow to other developments, giving an overall feeling much like practicing a jazz improvisation. In that, I saw another reason that this training was accepted by foreigners.
Hatsumi Soke's Bujinkan Budo� is put together from forms where one would put on armor and fight in the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period), before the occurrence of many so-called ryuha(schools) of martial arts.
But I was surprised at how modern and sharp their way of fighting and moving is, that it doesn't give the feeling of a bygone era.
One fact about fighting or the essence of martial arts is that even though eras may change and time may pass, it is still the giving and taking of life.
During that time, human [physiological/psychological] framework and means have not changed, so I understand that it is appropriate even in modern times.
Another surprising thing is that during its [years of] history, the way of fighting hasn't become bizarrely formalized, lost its teeth, or, by rationalization, spoiled its essence of 'giving and taking life'; that it has been inherited as a way of real fighting.

In all of Hatsumi-Soke's movements, without a doubt, the elements of traditional Japanese martial arts have been inherited unbroken, and even more than that, it would not be an exaggeration to call him a 'living encyclopedia of budo'The myriad treasures of the martial arts which are packed inside Hatsumi-Soke's person are not just his--they are a cultural legacy of the Japanese people. How is he carrying on that legacy without distorting it?
I deeply feel that this problem is the grave responsibility of not only the students of the Bujinkan but also of people who research the martial arts.

As a matter of course, Hatsumi-Soke's demonstrations are without a hint of strain or waste[d effort], and he scathingly blows his opponents away.
At every point in his demos, Soke's image as a practitioner and as the inheritor of traditional martial arts is concealed, where the "tactics which stick to the movement of the opponent's mind [or spirit]", add up.
In a given demo, Soke shows something a few times and explains some points.
After that, the students begin to practice.
Without the opponent sensing it, using the jyo� to attack his shin, inside the shin, eye, instep, using "taihenjutsu"where the movement of one's body weight becomes the weapon--in all of this, "after leading the opponent's senses, you can 'let him have it.'" So to his opponent, it looks as if he suddenly appears and disappears, and one's senses are completely disturbed.
So Hatsumi-Soke covers the opponent's attack and falls in line with the opponent's movement at the instant he tries to counterattack, and then Soke moves to his own attack.
He controls even his opponent's so-called 'unconscious reactions.'
That is what he calls 'kyojitsu no tenkan' (the interchange of truth and falsehood).
Not every movement has the speed of Western sports--in that sense his movements appear very calm. They are quiet, Japanese-like movements, like the spectacle of water flowing in a river at different depths--here calmly, there powerfully; or moving freely and wildly like leaves falling from a tree branch and yielding to the currents of the wind.

TECHNIQUES DON'T MATTER!

Hatsumi, during one demo, was sitting by my side and telling me various important 'episodes' in the martial arts. "In a real fight, you have to be two moves (or techniques) ahead.
Techniques don't matter--if your intuition isn't working, you will be killed!" Upon saying this, he broke off in his speech and it was a while before the next word came out.
Of course, these hastily spoken words did not literally mean, "techniques don't matter.
" Because Hatsumi-Soke has assimilated such 'techniques' into his body to the degree that the motions of his body are about the same as when drinking a beer at dinner, it is even more a matter of intuition [for him].
This is the same that can be felt in real time when he is teaching men of combat in foreign countries.
"In some foreign countries, a man might be urinating without a care. If you're fooled by that, he might attack you with a weapon.
They hide it in their pants, see?
What else will detect that besides intuition?"
His thought stopped for a while.
Such things can't be imagined without actually experiencing them.
Sure enough, how many Japanese martial artists have thought about such things? Truly, this is indescribable as anything other than a living martial art.

IT'S ALL RIGHT IF YOU CAN'T DO IT--YOU'LL JUST DIE, THAT'S ALL

Watching practice, the genuine problem, that Hatsumi-Soke's techniques may not be picked up by anyone, was running around in my head.
So, aware of the rudeness of the question, I asked, "since these techniques are difficult even for Japanese, and too difficult for foreigners, won't your art come to a dead end?"
Soke said,
"That's all right. If they can't do the techniques,they'll just die is all; besides, the most important points can't be taught by words--one must acquire them on one's own.
" Hatsumi-Soke's words draw keenly near to the bare essence of things.
There is power just in the way he says obvious things in an obvious way, without ornamentation. "If you can't do it you'll just die is all," may seem natural or obvious, and it is--the thing we are dealing with here is not the lessons taught to a child. Moreover, to those who think of martial arts only in their head, only in terms of the dojo or of matches governed by rules, and who hear Soke's words only, they may sound simply like a violent anachronism.

To start with, the essence of martial arts is about the giving and taking of life.
Because of that, various methods (in other words, "techniques", are born and those "techniques" seek to unite the body and the mind or spirit, and are tied in essence and substance to the state of "shinshin ichijo" (oneness of body and mind). Those things must be realistic techniques which human beings can realize, not "words." From that standpoint, Hatsumi-Soke's words are the essence of martial arts as well as being the words that resound with the most consideration for the purpose of acquiring techniques.
Again, the acquisition of techniques is not just in their careful and considerate explanation, but is decided by the attitude and determination of the person learning them.
These are words that make it clear who is learning and who is teaching, as if by really turning modern one-way pedagogy upside down.
They are also the substance of inquiring into the problem of human consciousness which can be stated, "what is learning?" Really, the foundation for the attitude of learning is not to start from the one teaching to prepare strict teaching material; it is also for the one learning to use free will to self-determine one's teacher.
Hence, it is to inquire of the proper attitude, in other words the self-consciousness of the one learning.

LEARNING FROM ZENTAI (THE WHOLE BODY, THE WHOLE THING)

When I asked Hatsumi-Soke, "When you first went to learn from the late Takamatsu, what was the first thing you learned? For example, footwork or how to punch?" He said, "the whole body (zentai), everything." My head got so warm, that I knew my brain was working 100% to be able to explain the structure of those words.
It must be so--no matter how much an element of martial arts is analyzed, and you try to pick one out and learn it, that one thing (element) is the whole of martial arts, and the essence follows.
In other words, nowhere does it depart from the point that the essence of martial arts is, "life hangs in the balance." Again, to work only on a part is not martial arts--and so it is impossible to learn [one element] as martial art.
I can not imagine what (specifically) Hatsumi-Soke learned from the late Takamatsu, but it must have been the essential qualities of the martial arts, and the sort of training that he could feel with his body at the level of 'actual feeling' (jikkan).
In other words, it must have been something frightening which shook up Hatsumi-Soke's life, rather than logic, argument, or "swimming on mats." Otherwise I don't thing his first words would have been,
"techniques are useless; intuition is everything."Actually, in the word "zentai" [meaning 'the whole body' or 'the whole thing'] there is one more element--the whole of the late Takamatsu's human being. In other words, his way of thinking, his words and nuances, his everyday conduct and demeanor.
Because even in such non-everyday technical pursuits as the martial arts, one's whole being is expressed.
That is, the late Takamatsu's bearing and words were built from the martial arts and are wisdom from real combat--each 'cell' of his being is martial art.
And there, just now, we start to see the attitude of the learner as discussed previously.
What they are learning is martial arts, but also it is unmistakably the entire 'human history' of the teacher.
If that cannot be understood in its entirety, then the parts will not become clear.
So as a matter of course, one must observe the teacher's whole (everyday life) and from there discover the path with which one finds one's way to the martial arts.
Hatsumi-Soke must have been able to continue the work from the ten some-odd years he was visiting the late Takamatsu.

OBEDIENTLY

One thing that surprised me when watching forty or fifty students was that no one was practicing selfishly by doing their own thing.
Moreover, I didn't notice any of the arrogant-looking people which one is usually liable to find in the various martial arts systems.
When I asked Hatsumi-Soke,
"why don't you have any selfish, arrogant students?"
he replied,
"fortunately they soon quit--they disturb the mood [of the training] and don't learn anything.
" Hatsumi-Soke himself says that when he first met the late Takamatsu, [he thought],
"This is it! There's no one but this man," and intuitively chose his teacher. He says,
"Because I had made my decision, I obediently received everything. that's how I became who I am.
anyway, obedience was the basis for everything." Well, this is a reasonable answer.
One should throw away everything and learn obediently because one has made a determination of will--surely this is the 'rule of right' for the purpose of learning something.
Surely if there were even one human being in the dojo to disturb the atmosphere, the entire consciousness would become diffuse and without a direction to be chosen, the practice would not improve.
In that meaning as well, the pithy words "fortunately, they soon quit," take a decisive measure.
Hatsumi Soke demonstrates things a few times.
The students stare hard at these 'E-class difficulty level' demonstrations which are only given a few times. At the word "play," everyone works on what was shown.
They move on to the next one whether the students can do it or not.
It seems that the same 'technique' is not done twice.
At first glance it may seem to be a haphazard method of practice, but it is not.
The pupils are absorbing it admirably.
That may be because everyone is a blackbelt, but it is not so simple as that.
Actually, the repetition of this polishes the pupils' powers of concentration and observation to the utmost.
In that sense it is an extremely rational method of practice, and an extremely useful skill development.
Since they were beginners, the blackbelt students have, from the necessity of wanting to internalize Soke's demonstrations which are only shown a few times, begun to internalize the skills just mentioned.
The key word they have thus obtained is none other than"obedience" (sunao).

UP TO THREE DRINKS

After training, Hatsumi-Soke invited me to eat.
At the place where we dined, he said to me, "Please, ask me anything." But with the contents of the training and the things that he had told me churning in my head like a cement mixer, I didn't know what was what.
It was all I could do to say, "thank you very much." Hatsumi-Soke can also handle his liquor.
Slowly sipping the sake poured for me by Hatsumi-Soke, I put my head in order. Soke quickly emptied his cup as if he were drinking water. "You seem to be a strong drinker,"
I said.
"Because I will only drink three glasses."
After finishing three glasses, he said to the wait staff, "That's enough for me."
That's really splendid self-control.
Without this thorough self-control, he would not be a true budoka (martial artist).
And he couldn't go to other countries.
With different countries, all of the customs are different.
With in those, if you can't always create the best conditions, then you can't adjust easily.
That is not something that can be accomplished in a day.
It stretches the imagination how many problems have been 'imposed on' Hatsumi-Soke up to today.
Hatsumi-Soke captures the whole of daily life as the martial path (budo).
Each of Hatsumi-Soke's cells is bud�.
In the few hours that I spent with him, he didn't show a moment's weakness.
Etiquette, words, bearing, consideration: if any of these is lacking, it makes one a second-rate human being, and disqualifies one from being a budoka.
The martial arts which were received from the late Takamatsu--they were passed down unbroken to Hatsumi-Soke.
When we parted and I asked, "Would you kindly allow me to write about today's events?" he replied playfully, "just make me sound cool." Hatsumi-Soke's warmth and greatness as a human being

surrounded me. . .

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