my personal photo collection to find some images that reflected Jesse’s time as my friend. But I can’t get everything he meant to me from those images or into these words.
Nagato Sensei is posed on the ground as a chair. Soke knocks the “patient” down across Nagato’s back and says, “Then the chair picks him up and takes him away.”Nagato stands up with the guy slung across his back and walks away. Hatsumi Sensei says, “he might be a very strong nurse!”
For example, for the kata 飛鳥 Hichō, Hatsumi Sensei added the parenthetical note (飛蝶). It is also pronounced Hichō, but has a different meaning. It means flying butterfly, but more specifically the citrus swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus.
Nagato had some really interesting variations on catching the opponent’s rhythm as you walk past. Some had kamae like a helicopter, picking up the uke’s collar. Another henka had you reverse to walk backwards to catch his hand in a really subtle way.
I was surprised when he asked me to now show another technique. I had no clue what to do, so I just motioned for Peter to grab my lapel. Again, didn’t wait for an attack, I just used Peter’s elbow on the grabbing hand to affect his balance, Then covered his opposite side, before picking that arm up for an omote.
I will be updating with detailed training notes and videos for members of Rojodojo. If you haven’t discovered everything there yet, now is a great time to help me out and sign up! Maybe then I can buy a dust mask, or at least go to more classes.
I refused to teach someone today. He made one of the fatal errors that I discuss below. This happens infrequently, but often enough that it makes me wonder about people. It also gets me thinking about my own standards as a student and teacher in the Bujinkan.
There have been a lot of 無理心中 murishinjuu (murder-suicides) in the U.S. and around the world recently. I think about how the person who commits these acts has cornered himself. The trap he is in is lonely and all in his own head.
