This weekend just gone I had the pleasure of training with Sven Eric Bogsater – this individual is one of the ‘Four Kings of Europe’ as called by Soke. He has a huge amount of experience in training within the Bujinkan and can offer people attending his seminars a wealth of information.
I was able to attend the Sunday session of the two day event and we looked at a range of material, but for about half the day we examined a form from Shinden Fudo Ryu. Sven explained that the way it is taught and shown within the original school is a little different than the way he has been shown it as it appears within the Ten Chi Jin – which is a Bujinkan construct, not a creation of the original school. Sven pointed out that Soke has laid out the Ten Chi Jin for people in the Bujinkan to practice and develop their understanding in Soke’s way of doing things, but also to practice the original form as shown from the school, as Soke’s movement has developed from this. Sven explained that within Shinden Fudo Ryu the idea is to strip oneself back to one’s natural essence and be in an extreme form of naturalness – i.e. Look into oneself and drop your ego and the mask that people put on to others. From there you can enter this idea of being ‘zero’.
Sven demonstrated the waza and the different ways he has been shown it from different sources and then looked at using weapons and how this impacted upon the range and space. This included looking at using the sword, the jo and the naginata. Sven emphasised the need to put some ‘feeling’ into what you do and to work on the reactions of the person receiving the technique.
As the day progressed Sven started to look at different taijutsu options and how to use the Kihon as the lynch pin to this work, including how to deal with multiples. The multiple work I found particularly tricky, as demonstrated by Sven as he was using minimal contact.
This mis-direction and using his timing and distancing to unsettle the structure of the person will give me plenty to train on in the coming months.
One point made by Sven was that people clearly need to keep training in their foundation and not to get carried away with trying too much clever stuff – I.e. Learn to walk before you can run. Therefore I will continue to have a strong emphasis on this within my own training, working on body posture, hitting, receiving, angling and the points within the Kihon.
Sven mentioned that when he spoke with Soke in September, it was detailed how people in the Bujinkan need to increase their knowledge to be better informed in what they do – as people have been up until now have been relying upon their abilities. Combine greater knowledge with one’s own ability then someone’s capabilities and scope for improvement can grow.
This certainly gives food for thought and I would recommend people to attend these types of events.
