| Do not concentrate On striking your opponent Deport yourself naturally Like moonbeams flooding Into a leaky cottage |
| The penetrating brilliance of a sword wielded by one of the Way strikes at the enemy lurking deep within one's own body and mind |
| Bokuju (Mu-chou) was once asked by a monk, 'What is the doctrine that goes beyond the Buddhas and Fathers?' The master, immediately holding up his staff, said to the congregation, 'I call this a staff... what would you call it?' No answer was forthcoming, whereupon the master, again holding forth the staff, asked the monk, 'Did you not ask me about the doctrine that goes beyond the Buddhas and Fathers?' |
| What is Aikibojitsu? |
| The Aikibojitsu Short Forms The heart of Aikibojitsu is found in concentrated study of what are called Short Forms. Short Forms are formal staff patterns of precisely defined rhythm, timing, transition, and line. They comprise a focus for technical study similar in approach to Iaido, the art of drawing the sword. Each Short Form is a significant, graspable piece of an immense and mysterious complexity, designed to highlight a particular aspect of that complexity, to give physical expression to something that otherwise would have remained invisible. Short Forms are descriptions of the infinity of the Absolute, taking defined form not according to the whim of the practitioner, but through tracing of the hard surfaces of determinative shapes and structures that define and precede matter. Asymptotic determinants are forever shifting, ethereal, yet with respect to physical manifestation, they are immutable. Each Short Form is an exercise in grounding, of transition and intensity, containing subtle complexities of rhythm, timing and line far beyond that which one at first sees. Some forms focus on how to run power through a complexity, while others focus on a martially applicable explosively intense focus of power. Still others focus on perfection of energy from its birth in the depths of silent stillness, to its finality as fully realized form. All forms concentrate on development of coordination and alignment and a strengthening of personal base deep within the Origin of decontracted ground. The Katas of the Daiki Taiyu Aikibojitsu also has a defined set of katas, called the Daiki Taiyu. The Daiki Taiyu (translated as ‘Great Spirit Manifested-Nonmanifested’) is a foundational series of katas, a kata being a defined sequence of Short Forms that embody Aikibojitsu's unique philosophy and technique. An Aikibojitsu Kata is a relatively long sequence of Short Forms chosen to express a deeper aesthetic content, meant to be performed in awareness of subtle rhythms and in alignment with the presence of guiding upstream principles. Beginning practitioners are pleasantly surprised to find that the basic form of an Aikibojitsu kata is relatively easy to learn. Aikibojitsu is benign at first, allowing beginning practitioners to quickly gain a moderate level of fluency and effectiveness with the staff, both on the level of kata and as a weapon of self-defense. It is only as skill is attained that Aikibojitsu's deeper challenge begins to reveal itself. Elimination of error and the increased level of energy thrown into moves, narrows the asymptotic channel enough to reveal to the practitioner the presence of an optimal line of movement, the movement’s implicit line, the result of the interweaving of upstream determinative principle with the practitioner’s intent. As the asymptotic channel narrows, it becomes ever more evident that the Short Form ultimately has one and only one perfect line. That may be difficult to accept or understand at first, but as more and more energy is thrown into a given form, it becomes an unavoidable fact. Both Short Forms and Katas have precisely one optimal line, and it is toward performance of that line that the practitioner aims. |
| Aikibojitsu - The Art of the Staff |