Kiai is Not a Sound

Introduction

I practiced Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu maintained at the Hōbyōkan in Maryland for eight years before I moved to Seattle. I had first trained to an intermediate level at Capital Katori and eventually decided to only practice Jikishinkage-ryū, instead of continuing to train in both arts side by side. Once in the Pacific Northwest, I made the decision to stay on that path, despite having no one initially to work with, even though there are orthodox representatives of Katori Shintō-ryū near Seattle.

This essay is about where I wound up.

For ease of reference, in the essay below I compare and contrast my understanding of both arts and why I came to such a positive impression of Jikishinkage-ryū compared to my earlier practice:

Gogyō Exegesis, 2020

Much of my writing on Inner Dharma has been about kobudō but the primary focus of my martial arts practice has been in Chinese internal martial arts. Jikishinkage-ryū to me felt compatible enough with internal martial arts principles and possessing a small enough curriculum that its practice, unlike a sogo bujutsu such as Katori Shintō-ryū, is not in principle as overwhelming to maintain. I felt as though I could practice both internal martial arts and Jikishinkage-ryū without doing injustice to either.

More recently, I am prioritizing more and more internal martial arts principles in my kenpō.

In a recent essay I compare and contrast Jikishinkage-ryū as I understand it with other surviving lines of Shinkage-ryū. I also discuss the evolution of Japanese martial practices from being field combat focused, to dueling focused, to an activity primarily concerned with personal development. For those not as familiar with Jikishinkage-ryū I hope it might also be a useful resource:

Divergence and Unification in Shinkage-ryū, 2024

Foundations of Practice

I have long felt as though I could practice both internal martial arts and Jikishinkage-ryū without doing injustice to either, especially as my kenjutsu instructor was encouraged to maintain his own practice of Taijiquan by his Jikishinkage-ryū sempai.

I have been working for the last several years on strengthening my constitution and further refining my understanding of internal martial arts principles. Because Jikishinkage-ryū is influenced by Taoist ideas but winds up being a very hard practice at times, I find utility in and embrace the idea of balancing its practice with elements drawn from the classical internal martial arts, including Bagua, Xingyi and Taiji.

Originally, this was an influence, or an adjunct, something my peers could notice in my kenjutsu, but not something that would interfere with us working together. Now, having trained in Shinkage-ryū on my own longer than I was under direct instruction, I feel more clearly the need to restrict myself to a practice that is not in opposition to internal martial arts principles.

Kata

Yamada Jirokichi's 1927 book on Jikishinkage-ryū has some poetry from densho in it that survive even machine translation, which I will paraphrase here to maybe explain why my interest in internal martial arts may not be in conflict with the essence of what I have learned:

Hold swords and wooden swords on both sides and use the sword to fight. Among them, the two standing, is the place where the chaos was not divided before the heaven and earth were opened. Before the heaven and earth were opened, there was chaos and no separation. The shape is the same as the Taiji cloud, the Wuji is the cloud, the cloud is the cloud of the infinite and the cloud is the cloud of no self. If you dare to go to a place where there is nothing, you will be able to take it and you will be able to wield the sword.

In starting to evolve my practice of kenpō, some examples of changes that are emerging in my practice include:

1. Constraining my expression of kiai to be more akin to the vocalizations found in internal martial arts: flowing from, or aligned with, a movement, rather than driving a movement.
2. No longer forcefully coordinating breathing with each movement, but instead keep my breathing relaxed, steady.
3. Concentrating on the use of sophisticated reverse breathing methods from Tàijíquán instead of the ibuki style breathing often used during aun kokyu.

In doing so, am I now practicing the same kenpō but at a higher level than I once did or am I now doing something different altogether? This is the challenge given the role of gokui and kuden in classical Japanese martial arts. An incorrect understanding can take an advanced practitioner off into a very bad direction. I saw this, I believe, in some of the heterodox Katori Shintō-ryū I first learned.

The changes above work for me, but in making them I cannot now as easily work with beginners in the way I was first trained. That does not mean the introductory practice was wrong in some way, or needs to be changed. It is that my own practice has evolved into something unique. I can put back on the mask of formal kata from time to time to demonstrate or teach, but my focus is increasingly on these solo explorations of what it means to practice kenpō as shugyō. To keep myself from distracting from others' progress while doing so, I passed my introductory Jikishinkage-ryū class on to my two senior students to maintain. I am eager to see how far they take their training moving forward.

When I visit their practice, I now do so as a guest. I explore kuzushi with them and help conduct tameshi ai, but they are the ones who hold the space for traditional katageiko. I feel I can best help them by providing feedback on their expression of posture, stability, balance, and power generation as well as helping them cultivate the proper mindset to conduct their own training as a form of shugyō.

The skill level of the Lonin Jikishinkage-ryū seniors has progressed to the point where they are closer and closer to the ideal we strive for where I first trained, and there is now ample video online of lineages practicing in Japan.

Kuzushi

What then of the Jikishinkage-ryū kata? How does their practice relate to or diverge from my current goals?

The formal curriculum of Jikishinkage-ryū are full of riddles or koan. In hōjō, movements are often symmetric, where both participants move and cut and nothing happens at all or both participants mirror each other directly, moving towards each other, throwing their lives away. These actions develop a particular mindset important for the art, and are not meant to be introductory tactics. To no kata in contrast is supposed to contain tactics. Its first ideogram means to wrap or surround and today is often glossed as referring to the implement used (a bamboo shinai wrapped fully in leather). But an older meaning is form of tactics, as it common in combative engagements to seek to envelop, surround, control, and eliminate an adversary.

One puzzle in to no kata is that despite that explicit reference to enveloping, shidachi does not win at the end of each kata. He or she loses, again and again. This departs from most classical traditions, where uchi is teaching shi how to win and in stark contrast to one of Jikishinkage-ryū's goals: developing a dominant spirit in the practitioner. At the end of each of the 14 sections, uchi performs an large upward cut and then flows with nagashi into an angled cut to the neck, chasing shi away. There are several kuzushi associated to how shidachi would actually address the upward cut and not have to retreat.

In the basic or omote way the kata is performed, shidachi cuts down to stop the cut in place and uses the momentum of the cut and its rebound to aid themselves in springing back and away. This stiff-legged jump is quite unique to Jikishinkage-ryū kata practice and does not seem to have a combative rationale other than to retreat quickly from an engagement, and possibly was developed as part of point sparring in the Meiji and Taisho era. Retreating repeatedly breaks the dominant spirit that the art is trying to develop in the student and yet it is a difficult movement that repeats in most kata of the set. Maintaining a dominant spirit even while retreating might be one explanation for the emphasis placed on the movement, when so little instruction is placed in Jikishinkage-ryū on what to actually do when at disadvantage when maneuvering or in retreat.

I for one am attempting to purge that leaping movement from my practice of the art. It is all well and fine to say there is some ura (hidden) version of the kata, but if all one practices by default is omote, what then exactly are we doing? This question applies to all arts practiced today by people who often are not willing to devote the time similar to how they were cultivated in the past, measured in hours per day instead of hours per month.

Tameshi-ai

Some additional Jikishinkage-ryū riddles to parse out and harmonize with my internal martial arts training over time, besides excising the to no kata leap from my nervous system, include:

1. Removing the repeated kirikomi that loses combative presence of mind.
2. Maintaining hip posture in gedan no kurai to enable proper unpō.
3. Training to no kata with bokuto and shinken to correct the feeling acquired from and dependent on shinai (modulating power, preserving blade angle called hasuji).
4. Exploring applications in kodachi: from the initial contact, to the large cut, to grappling.
5. Developing proper hip posture and stability when cutting while balancing in habiki.

This list goes on. These koan are in addition to general qualities of movement, some of which are already quite compatible with internal ideas (e.g., unpō, cutting actions) while others (e.g., a-un kokyu, ya-ei kiai) are more divergent and would quite possibly be criticized by experienced internal martial arts teachers.

All this narrative is about an art I continue to find interesting and worthy of admiration and deep study. I am grateful for the chance to have worked with several people as my understanding has evolved and for my conversations with experts in the field. I am better for those interactions even as I have come to realize I do not count myself an expert when it comes to classical Japanese martial arts. Practicing independently can devolve into a form of egoism (starting with a desire to keep training in the manner one learned, then in a spirit of sharing what one knows with others, but can turn into not being able to listen to or learn from one's betters).

I want to cut through that.

Gokui

Kashima-shinden

Maybe for me it is time to focus more on Kashima-shinden and less on worrying about the true or correct Shinkage-ryū. I have taken to speaking of what I do simply as Shinkage-ryū and not Jikishinkage-ryū and writing Shinkage-ryū with the alternate characters 神 for spirit and 陰 for shadow. The first speaks more to Kashima-shinden than Jikishin as well as referring to my earlier study of Katori Shintō-ryū, which has helped in my analytical process of kuzushi. The second speaks directly to my practice of internal martial arts, based on Taoist theory.

I think this slight shortening of name from the slightly cumbersome Gassankan Jikishinkage-ryū to Gassan Shinkage-ryū (月山神陰流 ) is important as it calls out that I am on a unique path and distances me from others who are more conservative in their approach. Please know the shortened name is chosen with humility and not the creation of some kind of new martial art. I hope I can continue to practice humbly and simply and continue to develop my skill, perhaps more slowly than those who have access to regular instruction.

Hyakuren jitoku

The phrase hyakuren jitoku ( 百錬自得 ) means that through a great deal of practice you can better understand yourself. My focus has shifted over time more towards this kind of self-reflection than being primarily concerned with self-preservation. I am grateful for the opportunity to know myself a little better for having trained. I would not have been able to do so without the generosity, patience and trust of my teachers. Even while I chart a unique direction, it is important to remain in connection where I am able with colleagues who walk similar paths. I benefit from seeing their own progress as that helps my process of self-reflection on how far I still need to go.

So, to sum up, giving thanks is important:

    お礼申し上げます.

Marobashi

While I think I still attempt to cultivate the spirit of Shinkage-ryū in my practice, if the narrative above conveys anything at all, it is that I cannot claim what I am doing is 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 ), one meaning of which is to express the ability to move smoothly and unimpeded by an adversary, is silent.

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

I want to thank those who have read my blog, exchanged ideas and provided feedback over these last twenty years. I hope some have enjoyed my essays and martial arts photography. I am grateful for both my teachers and those who chose to walk with me a bit along the way.