AUDIENCE AT THE GENERAL COMMAND OF THE MILITARY POLICE
The Niten Cultural Institute, through its master Jorge Kishikawa, visited the premises of the General Command of the Military Police of Sao Paulo on August,10th. The visit, in a hearing form, was the invitation extended by the Military Police Command to the Institute, due to the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Niten Cultural Institute. Topics such as the Japanese police and their relationship with Kobudo techniques were discussed, as well as aspects of the history of Japanese culture. Master Kishikawa has been transmitting Kenjutsu and Goshinjutsu (self-defense used by the samurais) techniques for more than 10 years to the police forces. General Commander of the Military Police, Colonel Marcelo Vieira Salles received Master Kishikawa and his entourage, when matters related to Samurais and the Japanese police were approached. Next month, a Tribute from the General Command to the Niten Cultural Institute will be handed over for the services rendered to the community of Sao Paulo since its foundation. Also in Manaus, student Amorim, an army colonel, has transmitted to his battalion Samurai techniques for emotional control and survival in the jungle, which he said has proved very useful. According to Master Kishikawa, Japanese kendo practitioners seek the Niten Cultural Institute because, according to them, "In Japan, it is not possible to practice Kenjutsu in combat." The grace of this success lies in the fact that Master Kishikawa is the only one in the world who has assimilated ancient techniques and adapted them to combat where he has proven proficiency. His training as a sports physician allowed the traditional techniques, considered lethal, to be adjusted to combat with extreme safety. In celebration of its 25th anniversary, the 1st World Kenjutsu Tournament will be on October 20th and 21st, with representatives from the United States, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, and Portugal. In programming, there´ll be unprecedented demonstrations where, according to Master Kishikawa, declaring his determination: - "It´ll be an event never seen in the world."
Subtitles: Master Kishikawa shows the Samurai Sword to Commander Salles" "The entourage of the Niten Institute in the Command of the Military Police."
Our Golden Moment yesterday was about patience. It reminded me of something I`ve meant to do for a few months now.
When Senpai Thomas first recommended that we write a "letter from the heart", I resisted. As a severe introvert with a few months of training, what could I say that would be meaningful?
I was impressed by Senpai Kenzo of course. He was strong and graceful, confident and direct.
Sensei, when you came to visit I was even more impressed. The students who came with you were many, capable, and confident. The training was (just the right level of) challenging and helpful. The demonstrations of keiko and weapons skills were exciting, wonderful, enlightening, and inspirational. I was grateful for your time and attention.
Honestly though, having studied with some exceptional humans in my life, I expected no less. Your leadership, skill, and grace were remarkable, but a few hours is not enough time to really get to know someone. Still, this experience confirmed that I was in the right place. I want to learn as much from you as I can.
The second time Senpai Thomas requested feedback, I was slightly embarrassed that I had not responded the first time. But still, I struggled to find the words to express myself and my commitment. What could I possibly say that you haven`t heard before?
When Senpai Wenzel visited, I was impressed by his grace, fluidity, confidence, and intelligence. During class with Wenzel, I remembered a quote that I like: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood" (Steven Covey, “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”).
After class I remembered an excellent definition of intelligence: Intelligence is the ability to receive, organize, and transmit knowledge and understanding. Senpai Wenzel demonstrated his intelligence by creating a new exercise during class. The "falling sword" demonstrated relaxation and tension with remarkable clarity.
Now finally, after reading the first volume of Shin Hagakure, I feel that it’s important to share my appreciation for the skills and lessons we learn with the Niten Institute.
At 42 years old, I`m relying now on the ki developed during childhood, as I now work on technique and endurance with interest and intension. But there’s something more available here. Obviously the benefits of martial arts in general are many, and have been transmitted through many schools, in many different ways over the centuries. For me personally the spiritual and philosophical teachings known as the Golden Moments and the Shin Hagakure stand out in our training. I have studied with Jesuits and with Shao-lin masters for years, and today I appreciate the values, morals, and ethics that we learn with Niten.
I appreciate how simple and accessible these ideas are at first, and how deeply they can shape our lives when we listen and apply them. In addition to the technique and physical training we learn with Niten, the philosophy and spirit we receive is In the Shin Hagakure you say: "Westerners don`t understand Bushido". Thank you for your persistence and patience in teaching us. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to begin to understand what Bushido truly means.
Sincerely," - Zac Vohs - Niten Denver
People say that to get to know Mount Fuji, you have to climb it.
Niten, tall as Mount Fuji, has its own climbing and with each passing moment, you are faced with a new landscape.
These landscapes are unique in the world, and there´s a reason because it brings together all the best views of Japan, views I brought during my decades of pilgrimages.
Niten is so high that a "heart" is not big enough to describe it...
On the left, Vohs toasting with Denver students
Hokusai engraving, from the collection "100 views of Mount Fuji", early 18th century
"On August 21st, 2018, the Niten Institute held a valuable seminar with a Master of our Sensei. Shimamura Sensei, 6th Soke of Nito Shinkage Ryu Kusarigama Jutsu, also has extensive knowledge in Tameshigiri, he is Japanese champion´s master of Tameshigiri, and provided us with, along with Sensei Jorge Kishikawa, a seminar loaded of treasures not only about cutting but also about the importance of the feeling and respect behind each cut.
In every attentive gaze, the curiosity and determination to lose no detail were tangible: the correct inclination of the blade, the exact distance to make the cut, the positioning of the arms, how to use Koshi ... The Masters are like compasses in the search for perfection.
Shimamura Soke, firm in each cut, patient and attentive to each student, conveys tranquility throughout the seminar.
During the event, concentration and energy jumped to the eyes.
It was possible to feel in the air during each correction, each cut, and each Rei, something much more important than the excitement of being face to face with the Masters, it was possible to feel the will to give its best. Feeling that emanated from each student.
This feeling, motivated both by being able to represent the Niten Institute to Shimamura Soke, or by the will to do the right, by the will to put the courage to the test and to overcome the challenge, or even (and probably) by a combination of all these factors, concomitantly to all the valuable teachings, it´s an indescribable importance for the formation not only of the Samurai of the Niten, but of the human beings that compose it.
Not only would Niten not exist if it were not for Sensei Jorge Kishikawa, as surely would not be the same without his constant effort and dedication in learning and transmitting Bushido.
Bringing to a perfect end, this dedication was recognized again. Sensei is, once again, Menkyo Kaiden! Being able to be present at this moment of recognition, Sensei Jorge Kishikawa receiving the highest degree of the style Nito Shinkage Ryu Kusarigama Jutsu, in our Dojo in Sao Paulo, certainly brings a lot of joy!
There are many achievements to celebrate this year that marks the 25 years of the Niten Institute, too much history to consider, and hard work ahead. How nice!
On this Friday, August 10, Sensei Jorge Kisihikawa, with a delegation from Niten, proudly and honorably visited the General Commander of the Military Police of the State of Sao Paulo, Colonel Marcelo Viera Salles, for a private audience. The invitation of the meeting was brokered by Mr. Massaki Shimada, of the Sao Paulo State Heritage Council and former president of CEAGESP. This event has a special character since it´s part of the celebrations of the 25 years of Niten and 110 years of Japanese immigration to Brazil.
At first, Sensei Jorge Kishikawa told Commander Salles that Niten practices various non-lethal intervention modalities used in Japan by police forces, such as Jojutsu (wooden bat art), Goshinjutsu (samurai self- defense), and Jitte. He then specified the expressive interaction of the Niten Institute in training and workshops with various federal agencies and with the Military Police itself. In that sense, a Niten´s student, Lieutenant Colonel Amorim, who heads the CIGS (Warfare Training Center in the Jungle) in the Amazon, mentioned the various soldiers practicing at the Niten.
Military Police Commander, Colonel Salles, emphasized that training in martial arts promotes discernment and action in a conflict situation in the field. He also expressed interest in the expansion of courses of the Military Police with Niten and therefore, are already being scheduled for the next month presentations of training and samurai weapons for officers of the Barro Branco´s Military Police Academy.
Sensei Kishikawa then presented Colonel Salles with a Jitte, the traditional Japanese police weapon, and on that occasion, the Colonel was very interested and honored by the invitation received for the 25th-anniversary celebrations of the Niten Institute and the First World Tournament of Kenjutsu, the biggest samurai fight of recent times, in October. Colonel Salles promptly confirmed his presence and his staff, which will give the institution great pride.
Then the delegation was invited for a walk in the beautiful Japanese hidden garden that exists at the entrance of the Military Command. The garden, built by the appointment of the first nissei* of the Military Police from Sao Paulo´s State, Colonel Reizo Nishi, attracted the attention of everyone for the beauty and delicacy of its composition. It symbolizes the presence and assimilation of Japanese culture in our country. The details of the garden, like the rocks properly laid out in order, the greater one flanked by the smaller ones, representing the General Commander and his Major State, are of great pride for the Military Police. *nissei - 2nd generation from Japanese immigrants.
To conclude this honorable visit, Colonel Salles presented Sensei Jorge Kishikawa with a significant and beautiful commemorative plaque where it is proven that both institutions, Niten and the Military Police, have a noble purpose in common, that is, to develop military art in balance with the culture and samurai´s.
August 9th, 1945. Precisely this same time I transcribe these
lines, at 11:02 AM, exploded the Fat Man bomb on the port city
of Nagasaki.
A few days later, Japan surrendered to the Allied forces, and thus ended one of the most extended pages of suffering in the history of the Japanese people.
Since then, discussions about the guilt of Japanese war generals, discussions about rearmament, whether or not to remember the victims of war, and whether or not to sing the National Anthem in schools, come up from time to time.
But the truth is that after 73 years, only those who had their house cruelly bombed know the real dimension of the pain and tragedy of war.
The samurai already said that we must prepare ourselves to avoid war...
Let`s do a minute of silence.
- Mokuto...
*Mokuto = silent reflection in memory of the victims of a catastrophe
"The destruction of multiple lives
I write this text now at night. It has been a few hours since the terror that occurred in 1945 in Japan in Hiroshima. It`s been hard to write, my hands are trembling in the face of so much horror that I remember from the Atomic Bomb Museum in Hiroshima. I remember the dress, the bicycle, the police, and even the girl who was born after the incident and died a few years after due to leukemia caused by the radiation. All of them, animals, plants, and all signs of life that disappeared, deserve to be remembered, I will now remind as a meditation on behalf of all this.
There was a woman who was living her day by taking care of her house, probably thinking: When will this war end? Where is my beloved husband? In Manchuria, in China, nobody knows…
Suddenly there was a light ripping up the sky. The sun was covered by the light. And that light burned all over the girl`s skin. How could that be possible? Did God punish me for thinking of my husband? And then a hot, strong wind spreads destroying huge windows and walls as if it were the Hell´s gate breaking wide open, shards of glass fell and stick on her like whips or rains of fire. Or is it a demon thing that came out to ruin us?
Today, the only thing left of her was her dress she was wearing on that tragic day. There were blood spots on the side and back.
She died a few days after the bomb dropped.
“Was it God or the Devil who took me? Was it the light of the divine, or the devilish wind that knocked me over?”
Not far away, there was a boy who won a gift from his father. It was a bicycle, it was a gift to show a father`s love for his three-years little boy. The father was inside the house, the boy was appreciating the toy, lovely given by his father. Even with the war, there is still a father-son relationship, how sweet... Maybe that`s what the father thought.
An airplane flies over, and a few seconds later an intense light happens. What´s that?!
Soon after, the hot and devastating wind throws the boy and kills him.
The father survived but the boy died, and the only thing left that day was the bicycle, the father took the bike and kept it as every parent keeps the toys of their babies before taking them to bed, but this time there was no more love between them, there was only a love that was brutally separated by a light and a wind, just as an autumn leaf is torn from the tree and taken away.
In service, alert, under pressure and of course, living a war in a city where he knew very well, a watchful policeman ready for anything. He heard speeches about the power of his nation ruled by an emperor who was a God himself, who commanded them with all divine wisdom and that therefore there would be no chance to rest because they were serving a God.
As if it were a surprise mission the bomb dropped.
A light!
A wind….
Destruction…
Was his emperor a God who did this to him?
And his wife, what could happen to her?
Later, he would know that she died.
Without understanding perfectly, he saw people looking for relatives and neighbors, gathered some of them to help him in counting the dead bodies, the missing and alive people. Is this the right thing to do? After so much suffering without knowing the destiny of his wife and all wounded himself, he looked around and saw that many people went through the same or worse, then decided to help them.
In his task, he had to write down the names of the disappeared and the dead, write down the names of his friends he would never see, and note the names of the neighbors who died.
After all that confusion, sprouts of hope are born, a girl was born after the tragedy, bringing hope for a prosperous future.
All her childhood was wonderful, she was beautiful, dear, a good family, she was a flower!
And then, leukemia made her sick, the cause of leukemia: radiation. All that joy that the little girl brought became the memory of the dark past of a few years ago. Death was certain. And it happened when she was only nine years old.
What is more terrible?
An immediate thing that suddenly takes everything away?
Or a hope that has turned into tragedy causing slow suffering?
It`s night now, seventy-three years ago that this happened, I imagine myself in one night from that date. The stars are dark, the trees are haunted, where there were objects that disappeared, and only their shadow remained.
I see each character, a wounded woman, a father burying his son, a persistent agent almost dead thinking of the other ones and a child who tried to bring hope but could not survive.
What I hope, is that everyone recognizes that what occurred seventy-three years ago can still happen today.
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