Oisin Ninin dori
Muden Aiki in Europe part one: Portugal Training 2024
This was more an intensive training for our branch in Porto and technical training for branch instructors. The branch and study groups in Portugal are slowly growing and I wanted to visit Porto to concentrate on their own practice of the instructors and branch heads.
In particular, after a review, one of the features identified for development is what is generally referred to in Japanese as ‘lowering one’s ki’. In aiki training, in order for the body successfully execute techniques with aiki instead of relying on conventional muscular power (known in Japanese as chikara), one must develop subtle connections along the entire body.
Almost always, martial artists concentrate too much on their upper body as they equate this tense strength from their shoulders and arms as “power”. In reality, this kind of power causes you to clash with an opponent and leaves you unable to negate an attacker’s power- which is a hallmark of aiki. It also stops you developing a body that is soft yet powerfully connected, which in turn allows you to develop the ability to have an attacker ‘stick’ to you if they make contact. This another hallmark of aiki. Upper body tension also prevents you from destabilising the opponent’s balance which can make them light and easy to throw.
By lowering your ki, you can also enjoy health benefits as it calms your overall system, improves breathing and circulation throughout your body and relaxes the muscles and tissues of the body.
This lowering of the ki is a feature of one of the three basic principles of our practice, known as muden no hei soku, or stance. If your stance is good and your toes and ankles etc are engaged correctly, this can also strengthen the other two princples: breathing (muden no soku) and use of the hands (muden no kai).
There are a number of techniques in daito ryu that help in lowering the ki. The basic technique is aiki sage- which literally translates as ‘sinking aiki’. In muden juku this is one of our fundamental techniques and we often practice form a standing position. When you are grabbed you unbalance the attacker, then take a step and drop your intention downwards as you do so. This is similar in the way you cut downward with a sword. You do not use upper body power to swing downward.
This helps connect your feet and legs in movement. A variation of this technique is one where you cross your hands and the attacker’s hands stick together with aiki. You can only stick the attacker’s hands together if you have connected your feet legs and hips in a certain manner.
We also practice standing meditation (ritsuzen) to check that our bodies were connected from head to toe.
Finally, the way we practice also helps lower the ki. We focused on line practice where people do not talk so much rather they watch the person doing the technique and check their own standing connection while they wait their turn. The difference in energy in the dojo when we trained that way was palpable. Everybody grew more calm and focussed which allowed them to become more connected and “grounded”.
Molotov aiki
One interesting aspect of this was noted by one of our group heads, for younger people and women, it was more challenging to do techniques on them. Conversely, they found it easier to do aiki techniques as their bodies had the quality of ‘molotov’. A Molotov is a light Portuguese dessert. It’s delicious and it looks and feels solid when you take a spoonful, but when you try to eat it, it dissolves like a cloud. This ‘molotov’ softness is a little like the ‘mochi’ cake in Japanese and this sort of softness is important to develop for aiki.
Our branch instructors focus on these methods for developing and lowering one’s ki. It is a hallmark of muden juku that we do not just practice techniques or mention concepts like ki or aiki as vague concepts. Rather, these are manifestations of real ways of developing the body and mind connections and can be authenticated by feeling their effectiveness through receiving techniques. They must be physically felt and transmitted in order to be understood. There are many people claiming to do things like aiki etc, but this cannot be learned online and if you have physically understood these principles, it becomes clear when you see videos of practitioners that they are actually not well connected and their ‘ki’ is stuck in their upper bodies. This is rampant in martial arts I think.
Not only can we do high level aiki. We also have a method through which anyone can learn and develop these thigs through our system.
大東流無傳塾ヨーロッパ総轄支部長
アイルランド支部長オシンバーク
2024年秋の無傳塾デモンストレーションのレポート
2024年10月、アイルランドの無傳塾グループは、ウォーターフォード州トラモアにある、ラフカディオ・ハーン日本庭園で演武を行いました。私たちの他には、英信流居合道(刀剣術)、神道夢想流杖術、二天一流(剣術)などのグループがいました。
私たちは、御式内（おしきうち）と呼ばれる殿中護身武術の一端を披露しました。 これらのテクニックには、強くて柔軟な足のつま先と、足首を備えた統一された正しい座り姿勢が必要です。ですから、正座で正しく座ることができれば、「自然に」立つこともできます。
私は、奥義三段を目指して稽古をしている生徒たちに、そしてグループで他の人を練習し、説教しているときに、「無傳の足」「無傳の息」「無傳の開」これらの側面について教えるようにしています。
大東流無傳塾ヨーロッパ総轄支部長
アイルランド支部長オシンバーク
Oisin Aiki suwari 御式内（殿中護身武術）