PART OF SHINDENKAN'S GENUINE MULTI-TRANS MARTIAL SPORTS SYSTEM

The long-awaited Shakuasei (Chinese Sha Guozheng) course – the essence of Chinese martial arts, was finally completed in March and April 2019, an SB course spread over 3 teaching days with a total of 16 hours of teaching by Yamana-Itotani Sensei – and a course which I had personally been very much looking forward to. Actually a competence course took place over 4 months, combined nationally and locally between 30-40 hours of essence immersion training, ending with a competence course test during the summer convention 2019. So after a fantastic course I am writing this article to share with everyone in Shindenkan.

In all of Yamana-Itotani Sensei's courses there is always built-in training of honbus instructors, and this was no exception. So he had told Søren Renshi and I in advance that we had to practice a lot on the content of part 1 and part 2, because we each had to demonstrate the content of the 2 previous course days on the third part - we just didn't want to know which share.

After all, Yamana-Itotani Sensei had, in both part 1 and part 2, illustrated the essence of Chinese martial arts by striking the back of his clenched right hand into his left open hand so that it simultaneously formed a funnel towards the sky – beyond Danchu and then turned the hands downwards so that the hands and arms form a funnel towards the ground - in front of the tooth.

I know that I speak for both Søren Renshi and I when I say that it would definitely be exciting and we were both under maximum positive pressure - because it was a challenge that could be felt - right?

First part of seminar 3

Now we had reached the third day of classes and Yamana-Itotani Sensei had already said before the day that it would be both a collection and an expansion of the first 2 course days and Yamana-Itotani Sensei's opportunity to really raise the level and he did 🙂 Because as he said: "What is knowledge worth if you don't apply it" - and then we got down to business.

We started with the very simple, how to tie hands and how it might not be quite that simple. Where Yamana-Itotani Sensei explained in detail how the flow in the order of the fingers together with the breathing stimulates and activates the brain. Yamana-Itotani Sensei went out of his way to tell the whole context from start to finish in all the techniques and it soon became clear that we were challenged when the level increased - but we probably also expected that 🙂

But Yamana-Itotani Sensei patiently led us through the entire flow, detail by detail – from the very basics of our breathing, the flow we make when either clenching or opening our hands, our posture from the floor up through the body as alignment that confirms our entitlement in the world, across the Chinese ki exercises that lie in Chi gong and our internal energy engine, to the standing and walking base in Hsingi with the spiral energy over the spiral of life expressed through Baqua with the constant changes of direction and distance, to the merging of energy through the inward and outward spirals that occur with Tai Chi push hands. This was real Koryu training and delivery from a real grandmaster - and honestly, it couldn't get any better and more developing.

Then it was a short lunch break - which was well deserved after 5 hours of training 🙂

Second part of seminar 3

The second part of the course was a presentation where Yamana-Itotani Sensei took us through different historical perspectives around the development of martial arts and martial arts.

The history of the film.

We started with the history of the film, because it is through this that most of us know Chinese martial arts. So we watched a clip from the 1970s with the popular Chinese martial artist of the 70s Bruce Lee and how he beats up the "evil Japanese", a classic dilemma with a lot of posing. Then saw the popular Chinese martial artist of the 80s, Jackie Chan, where there are equal parts acrobatics and martial arts. Finally, we saw a clip from the Chinese film Hero – A visually incredibly beautifully made film, focusing on the fact that the battle is fought spiritually and mentally before it even starts and is already decided before it unfolds physically.

Why was the film's development included, it was because it in fact emphasizes that while the film has developed in a positive direction from fairly bad films to films with essence, depth and very beautiful footage, martial arts has developed in a directly opposite direction from essence and depth to a bottle without content.

Chinese martial arts as a competitive sport

We then watched clips from various competitions in Chinese martial arts and saw here How the martial art has changed over time - from the struggle to survive in war to competitive sports today that are unrecognizable compared to the original. Where the execution of tai-chi forms looks like posing exercises and where push hands look like wrestling - wrestling!!

History of Wars in Asia.

Yamana-Itotani Sensei led us through the historical battles in Asia where the Japanese had played a role - and history shows that they have actually won almost everything they have participated in. From the two Mongol invasion attempts, to wars against China, Korea, Taiwan and not least Okinawa.

But what was really the difference when you compare the wars and the soldiers across Asia. What made the Japanese samurai better than the other soldiers - it was very much their training and of course their attitude.