Kiai is not a sound

One insight I would like to share regarding practicing classical internal martial arts and Japanese swordsmanship is that if I am to fully embody internal martial arts principles, I cannot simply practice the parts of Japanese arts I have learned that are compatible with higher-level Taoist ideas, or improve their content with my understanding of xingyi, bagua, or taiji. I also have to eventually cease practicing what is incompatible.

Portions of my practice of Jikishinkage-ryū, if taken to its logical conclusion, I now feel falls into that category. I have been working for the last several years on strengthening my constitution, and continuing my dedication to internal martial arts, as my own teacher was encouraged to do by his sempai. In later conversations with the inheritor of one line of Jikishinkage-ryū that is close to what I had learned, it was stressed to me that each level of practice in Jikishinkage-ryū requires specific purifications (misogi). Failing to do so, he maintained, can lead to the practice becoming dangerous.

That resonated with my own experience. One of the strongest admonitions from my internal martial arts teacher stands out clearly in my mind. He was speaking in terms of Chinese martial arts (e.g., hard qigong) when he said very clearly:

If your practice makes you sick, you must stop.

I take that as an admonition to not try to cultivate hard or external qigong to extremes while training in internal martial arts. In my case, this means it might not be enough simply for me to add internal martial arts ideas to Jikishinkage-ryū practice to perform it as best I am able. Instead, I also have to examine my practice more closely and restrict myself to a practice of Jikishinkage-ryū that is not in opposition to internal martial arts principles.

But, if I:

1. Constrain my expression of kiai to be more akin to the vocalisations found in internal martial arts: flowing from, or aligned with, a movement, rather than driving a movement...
2. No longer forcefully coordinate breathing with each movement, but instead keep my breathing relaxed, steady, and even...
3. Utilize sophisticated reverse breathing methods from Taijiquan, and abandon the ibuki style breathing typical of Jikishinkage-ryū (called a un kokyu)...

am I still practicing Jikishinkage-ryū?

While the changes above work for me, at this point in my development, making changes to the fundamental practice of an art has impacts and effects (even if no art actually stays entirely unchanged, despite what their practitioners might think). In my case, having made changes to my own practice, I can't now easily work with beginners in the way I myself was first trained. That does not mean the introductory practice was wrong in some way, or needs to be changed, but instead simply that I am at a different place than they are right now, and benefit from different activities.

Now when I visit class held by my students, I do so as a guest. I visit from time to time to explore kuzushi and engage in pressure testing called tameshi ai, but they are the ones who hold the space for Jikishinkage-ryū katageiko as it was passed on to me. I think of this as a healthy passing of the guard and it is one reason why I provided them the name Tōsha Dōjō to use, referencing the lion dog statues that are often found guarding Buddhist temples in Japan.

I have chosen to embrace taiji principles as my realization of marobashi, as taiji is the most advanced approach to martial arts I know. Others, in more formal lineages of Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū will have their own paths and their own answers. While I think I still attempt to cultivate the spirit of Shinkage-ryū in my practice, I cannot claim what I am doing is the true or correct. In cultivating a more withdrawn approach to my study, I am reminded that the final level of practice of Jikishinkage-ryū, called marobashi or marubashi ( 丸橋 ), is silent.

It is time for me to now take that silence as the path.