While cleaning my papers I found a notebook relating my japan trip of April 2007.
A lot of time has passed and my students of 2007 are all 15th dan now and live their own lives.

During the year 2006 we had been studying the Shinden fudô ryû, and even though we were now studying the concepts and techniques of the kukishin ryû the concept of Ikken Hassô 一剣八双 (one weapon, all weapons/directions) was totally in harmony with the feeling sensei was teaching.

Ikken Hassô can have different interpretations but what sensei said that night of Friday 13th, April 2007 is interesting.

Here are my notes from what he said during that class:

• You have to train all the weapons but not only in the use they were designed for. This is the essence of Ikken Hassô 一剣八双.
• Train slowly even if Uke is fast, use small (light) controls.
• When uke is down…

During a recent class,  while we were still in seiza after the opening rei, Hatsumi sensei began to speak. He said that: « when you are under the age of thirty it is important to develop your strength and your muscular power. Only when you get older can you train the more subtle movements ».

I don’t know what triggered his opening speech, but it is a fact that too many young practitioners lack power in their techniques.
The next day, I was in the train to Atago with my friend Marco from the Nederland, and we spoke about what sensei has said the day before.

Marco has been training for a long time in jûdô, jûjutsu and the bujinkan. And he is still training jûjutsu. I did jûdô for seventeen years and a lot of other things and I was defeated quite often.

But many newcomers in the new Bujinkan generation…

My last class with Nagato sensei was full of interesting details. Once again, for those that didn’t read my blog recently, Hatsumi sensei has asked Nagato sensei to teach exclusively from the densho. And this is like rediscovering how good he is.

Obviously like every Japanese Shihan his personal style is visible but it gives even more insight on these techniques. Since we list two of the Shi Tennō, it is nice now to have Nagato sensei showing an alternative to Noguchi sensei’s vision of the ryûha. I have to admit that I really enjoyed all the classes I had with him during this trip.

Today it was even better as Hiromi San was reading the densho while Nagato sensei was teaching it. And this was new to many of the students present today. For years I have been repeating that the densho were simple and not very precise in…