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The Way of Kenpo, the Spirit of the Warrior
by
Will Tracy
1/13/98
The Way of Kenpo is that state of being where the mind/spirit and body
are united as a single element in what we call the "Spirit of
Kenpo." It is rooted in the Five Rings, or Spheres, of the great
kendo (sword) master, Miyamoto Musashi.
Musashi wrote Go Rin No Sho (The Five Rings)in 1645. Nobuto
Yoshida was a follower of Musashi, found the Way of the Kenpo could be
attained by the same process as the Way of the Sword. Thus, the way of
kenpo was handed down through the traditions of Yoshida's kenpo.
For over a thousand years the sword was the spirit of the Japanese
Samurai. When the sanctify of human life was affirmed in Japan in
Nineteenth Century, the sword was taken from the Samurai, and kenpo was
made illegal. The sword may have been illegal, but the "Spirit of
the Sword" lived on.
One gets a glimpse of sword as the spirit of the Samurai in Musashi's
concept of the 5 elements, which in Japan are wood, fire, water, earth
and metal. The sword is metal and the extension of the Samurai's body,
and Musashi replaced metal with Void, making it the spirit of the
Samurai; and the spirit of the Samurai is the Way. Yet there are many
Ways, each with its own path, and the Yoshida Clan adopted the Void as
the 5th element of kenpo, for as with the sword, so with the fist, it
too is the Way. This was fitting as Musashi lived on the grounds of the
Yoshida castle for several years, and the Yoshida Clan was among the
earliest followers of Musashi's teachings.
Kenpo, which had been brought to Japan by the Yoshida and Kamatsu
Clans in the 13th century, emerged from its Chinese roots as a pure
Chinese art with a Japanese culture, traditions and a Japanese soul.
This unarmed form of fighting became so much a part of the War Arts of
the Yoshida and Kamatsu clans that it was distinguished only by weapon,
and not by movement or philosophy.
The Seventeenth Century Tokugawa Shogunate brought peace to the
country, and with that peace came the gradual decline of the Samurai. It
was in the early years of these Shoguns that Miyamoto Musashi wrote
"The Thirty-five Articles on the Art of Swordsmanship" and
"A Book of Five Rings"; a generation later the Kamatsu Clan
adapted the Five Spheres or Rings to Kosho. This was a natural process,
for the Kamatsu Clan. They had long before abandoned ceremony and
teaching for the personal experience of Zen. The traditions of the Court
were, however, the traditions of the Clan, and finding the Way did not
change this behavior. Indeed, it could not, as to change would be to
deviate from the Way. So to, the closely related Yoshida Clan adopted
the Zen principles of Musashi into their Shinto practice.
To the Kosho-Kenpo master, the end is the beginning, and simplicity
is the greatest virtue one can possess. Musashi's sword and kenpo were
centered around single combat, but when mastered they could be adapted
to hundred sided combat. Like kendo, the first move (of hundreds) of
Kosho moves was to strike the deadly blow, just as the opponent strikes
you. This of course is impossible for the beginning student, but it is
the heart of kenpo, where knowledge is a full circle and the master
cannot be distinguished from the student.
The teaching of kenpo is like the learning of Zen where the mind is
inundated with mental stimulation that eventually numbs the mind and
senses. Doubt gives way to fear, and reason gives way to the twilight of
sanity. The mind and spirit are driven to despair, and it is the master
who leads the student from the incomprehensible to understanding and
then to realization of the spirit, where the teacher is the needle, the
student the thread. Unlike some Japanese systems that required the
perfection of a single movement before learning another, the Kosho Kenpo
student practiced hundreds of movements hundreds of times every day
until his hand were no longer weapons; nor were they any longer his
body. His purpose was no longer to defend or attack, but to neither
defend nor attack; and his intention was to have no intention, because
he had developed a instinctive knowledge of every circumstance. He had
gone full circle, and his primitive teaching became his highest
intelligence. He was without sword, and his arms became the long sword
and his hands the short sword. They existed in the Void; it was his spirit.
Before one begins the study of kenpo a kick is a kick, a punch is
a punch, and a block is a block. As one progresses, a kick is no longer
a kick, a punch is punch a no longer a punch, and a block is no longer a
block. But when one masters the system, one realizes a kick is a kick, a
punch is a punch and a block is a block. Yet the master never throws a
kick, or punch, or a block. Unlike Tai Chi where each movement is done
with intention, The kenpo master's moves flow from him without thought
in perfect harmony with the Void.
To reach this state, Kosho Kenpo could not be grounded in the
movements of animals as the Chinese had done in originating the system.
That was the Chinese Way. It was not the way of kenpo. Kenpo was formed
of five elements; the Five Rings, or Spheres of Earth, Water, Fire, Air
and Void or Nothingness. These Five Spheres combined the body of
knowledge with the spirit of Kosho.
Earth is the grounding of the individual, just as Center is the
grounding of the Tai Chi master. It is this grounding that gives
strength and makes one rooted. As with the Tao, so in Kosho Kenpo, one
has to know the smallest and the largest things, the shallowest and the
deepest, as though they are an undeviating path laid out on the ground.
The spirit, like water, takes both the shape and the inverse shape
of that which contained it. It will sometimes be still; sometimes a
trickle; and other times a raging torrent, or violent sea. In kenpo, as
with sword, when you truly defeat one man, you are capable of defeating
a thousand; for the theory is to have one thing and to know ten thousand.
The spirit of fire is the spirit of fighting. It is intense and the
same whether it is a small flame or a raging inferno. It is the same
with fighting, and fighting one person is the same as fighting a
thousand, because the spirit can be either big or large. Musashi taught,
that which is big is easy to see, but that which is small is not. That
which is big cannot easily change. An army takes time to maneuver, while
the individual can change in an instant, making him more unpredictable.
The element of fire requires one to train day and night in order to
become intuitively decisive.
Wind is defined as traditions; the traditions of the system, but
mostly the traditions of other styles and methods of fighting. It is not
easy to know yourself if you do not know others, as Musashi explained,
and there are diversities to all Ways. If you practice a Way each day
and stray from it, you may imagine that you are adhering to a proper
Way, but it is neither the correct nor right Way; and if you follow the
correct way and stray even slightly, this will eventually lead you in
the wrong direction
The final sphere is the Void or nothingness. It can also be termed
the eternal round, for it has no beginning and no end. Reaching this
point means that you have not reached the point. This is the Way of
nature. When you comprehend the force of nature and know the harmony of
all circumstances, you can then hit the opponent naturally and strike
naturally.
How this is accomplished is realized in the Way. It is something
that is learned, but which cannot be taught; yet it must be taught in
order to be learned. The first move the student learns is the last move
the student learns. Everything in between is relearned through the five
Rings or Spheres. As with kendo, which has its fencing schools that are
quite different from schools that show the Way, so too with kenpo. There
are the schools that teach techniques, theories and principles. They
teach what can best be termed the kenpo dance. They cannot show the Way
because they are far from it, and would not recognize it even if they
saw it.
The Way begins with the Nine Principles. And by these principles, one will find that kenpo is
honest; it is grounded; it has Spirit; it has fire; it has tradition; it
has Soul.
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