Nishi Kaigan Iaidō Dojō

May taikai at the nishi kaigan dojo

PAGE 2 — Chapter 1: Overview (continued)

Section 3: House Precepts of the Orthodox Sōke of Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū

Japanese:

当流の居合を学ばんとする者は、古来より伝承せられ以って今日に及ぶ当流の形に
聊かも私見を加うることなく、先師の遺された形を毫末も改変することなく、
正しく後人に伝うるの強き信念を以って錬磨せられんことを切望する。

心正しければ剣正し。心正しからざれば剣又正しからず。
剣を学ばんとするものは、技の末を追わずその根元を糾し、
技により己が心を治め、以って心の円成を期すべきである。

居合道は修正不退、全霊傾注の心術たるを心せよ。

以　上

林崎甚助源重信公　御詠　(永録四年)

千早振る神の勲我うけて
萬代までも伝え残さん

English:

Those who would learn the iai of this school: it is fervently desired that you
train and refine yourselves with the strong conviction of correctly transmitting
to those who come after — without adding the least personal opinion of your own
to the kata of this school as they have been handed down from ancient times to
the present day, and without altering by so much as a hair's breadth the kata
that the former masters have left to us.

If the heart is correct, the sword is correct. If the heart is not correct,
then neither is the sword correct. Those who would learn the sword must not
chase after the tips of technique but must investigate its very root; through
technique they must govern their own heart, and through this aim at the
perfection (en-jō) of the heart.

Bear this in mind: Iaidō is the heart-art (shinjutsu) of constant correction
without retreat, of pouring in the whole spirit.

The above.

By Lord Hayashizaki Jinsuke Minamoto no Shigenobu — gyoei (honorable composition)
— Eiroku 4 (1561)

Receiving the august deeds of the chihayafuru gods,
I shall transmit them down to ten thousand generations.

Notes:

Eiroku 4 corresponds to 1561 — the height of the Sengoku period, Japan's age of
warring states. By the same calendar, this is roughly fourteen years before Oda
Nobunaga seized Kyoto, and seven years before the Ashikaga shogunate fell. The
date matters: this kakun is not later teaching projected backward onto the
founder. It is the founder's own statement of intent, written within the world
of constant warfare for which iai was conceived.

The phrase "do not chase the tips of technique; examine the root"
(技の末を追わずその根元を糾し) appears here in the founder's own words, and the
same phrase — with one variant character — opens the founding statement of
Esaka Sensei's dōjō on Page 1. Esaka Sensei placed Hayashizaki's kakun as the
foundation of his own dōjō's purpose. The continuity is intentional.

"Gyoei" (御詠) is an honorific term for a poem composed by a revered person.
To use it for one's teacher's verses is to mark them as worthy of reverence.

"En-jō" (円成) — literally "round-completion" — is the perfection or
fulfillment of something so that it becomes whole, like a circle closing.
Used here for the heart, it means the heart brought to completeness through
the discipline of the sword.

"Shinjutsu" (心術) — the "heart-art" — places iaidō with the inner disciplines
rather than the outer techniques. The kakun ends by reminding the practitioner
that what looks like a sword art is in fact a discipline of the heart.

Notes on translation:

A few places in the text required a judgment between defensible alternatives.
They are surfaced here so the reader can see the workshop, and think the
choices through.

The waka — chihayafuru (千早振る) preserved in romaji. This is a classical
pillow-word (makurakotoba) that conventionally precedes "kami" (the gods). It
can be rendered as "the mighty gods," "the gods that shake heaven and earth,"
"the awe-shaking gods." But each of those reads as ordinary description, when
the function of the word in the original is to mark the verse as moving in
the register of sacred poetry, the language of Shintō ritual going back over
a thousand years. Leaving it in romaji preserves the signal. The cost is that
an English reader may not catch the weight of the word; this note is the
compensation.

The waka — isaoshi (勲) rendered "deeds." Could equally be "merits," "great
works," or "valor." Each shading places the gods in a slightly different
role: "deeds" emphasizes what they did, "merits" their honor, "great works"
their generative force, "valor" their warrior aspect. I went with "deeds" for
plainness; the line is plain in the Japanese, and plain English seemed the
honest match.

The prose kakun — source-language layer. The prose is presented in the
school's tradition as Hayashizaki's own words from 1561. From the page alone
it cannot be verified whether the text printed in Esaka Sensei's shiori is
in the original Sengoku-era classical form, or a later sōke's rendering of
the founder's intent in the established voice of the school. The teaching is
the school's; the precise wording, in this edition, is what reached us
through the lineage.

The historicity of Hayashizaki. The figure of Hayashizaki Jinsuke and the
1561 dating are matters of scholarly debate outside the school. The
biographical details — born around 1542 in Dewa, training at the Hayashizaki
Myōjin shrine — come from school tradition and from accounts written down
significantly later. None of this changes the standing of the kakun within
MJER; it is the founding document. But a reader should know that "traditional
account" is the right frame, not "documented historical fact."

Send a message to learn more

Saturday... a dojo is alive when you have multiple generations and genders all in one picture. A group that demonstrates what being together means

PAGE 1 — Chapter 1: Overview

Section 1: The Purpose for Founding This Dōjō

Japanese:

居合術は、後述する如く我が国独特の刀法であり、創案された自己防衛の術、自己究明の道であります。爾来、時代の変遷と共に先人の努力、研究により武道として伝承され今日に至って居るものであり、技の末を追わずその根元を糺し、技により己の心を治める道とされて居ります。この居合道こそ日本人の歴史的遺産の一つであり、霊器日本刀の威徳によって守り伝えられた日本人の心であります。

当道場は、無雙直傳英信流居合道の正統正流の技を習得し、伝統の継承に裨益せんとするものでありますが、この修行を通じて心身の鍛錬を期することも勿論であります。幸いにも、昭和五十年九月十二日、由緒深い金王八幡神社・豊栄稲荷神社宮司比留間先生の御好意により、研修道場「蔵脩館」に於て居合道研鑽の場を与えて戴きましたので、之を機に有志の賛助を得て当道場の開設の運びとなった次第であります。また、松戸市武道館に於ても同趣旨のもとに研鑽を行なって居ります。

English:

Iaijutsu, as will be described later, is a sword-method (tōhō) unique to our country. It was conceived as both an art of self-defense and a Way of self-investigation (jiko kyūmei no michi).

Since its founding, through the changes of the ages, by the effort and study of those who came before us, it has been transmitted as a budō down to the present day. It is held to be a Way that does not chase after the surface of technique (waza no sue) but examines its very root (kongen), and that — by means of technique — governs one's own heart (kokoro wo osameru michi).

This Iaidō is, precisely, one of the historical inheritances of the Japanese people; it is the Japanese spirit (kokoro) that has been guarded and transmitted down through the august virtue (itoku) of the Nihontō — that sacred instrument (reiki).

The aim of this dōjō is to acquire the techniques of the orthodox mainline (seitō seiryū) of Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū Iaidō and to be of service to the continuation of that tradition; through this shugyō, the discipline of mind and body (shinjin no tanren) is, of course, equally our intent.

By good fortune, on the 12th day of the 9th month of Shōwa 50 (12 September 1975), through the kind goodwill of Hiruma-sensei, gūji (chief priest) of the historically venerable Konnō Hachiman Shrine and Toyosaka Inari Shrine, we were granted a place to refine our iaidō practice (iaidō kensan no ba) at the training dōjō Zōshūkan (蔵脩館). Taking that as our occasion, with the support of like-minded volunteers, we proceeded to the founding of this dōjō. We also conduct kensan (diligent training) in the same spirit at the Matsudo City Budōkan.

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Section 2: Dōjō-kun (Dōjō Precepts)

一　真剣　Shinken — Earnestness (the live-blade spirit)
二　謙虚　Kenkyo — Humility
三　誠実　Seijitsu — Sincerity

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Notes:

The original Esaka Dōjō, called Zōshūkan ("Hall of Storage and Cultivation" — a classical name from the Liji, the Book of Rites), was founded on 12 September 1975 inside the precinct of Konnō Hachiman Shrine in Shibuya, Tokyo. Konnō Hachiman is one of the oldest shrines in central Tokyo, founded in the late Heian period and tied to the Minamoto warrior lineage. The Matsudo City Budōkan was a second training location.

The phrase "do not chase the tips of technique; examine the root" (技の末を追わずその根元を糺す) is one of the most important sentences on this page. It is a warning against the pursuit of form for its own sake — against impressive surface waza divorced from the kongen, the root from which true technique arises.

"Reiki Nihontō" — the Japanese sword as sacred instrument — is not poetry. It is the koryū understanding of the katana: the sword carries itoku (august, awe-bearing virtue), and the practitioner inherits the kokoro of the Japanese people through it.

A note on language: "august" here is used in its older formal English sense — worthy of deep respect, majestic, awe-inspiring, venerable. It has nothing to do with the month of August (different etymology). It translates the Japanese 威 (i — dignity, awe-inspiring presence) within the compound 威徳 (itoku) — the awe-bearing moral power that the sword carries.

The dōjō-kun places shinken — the live-blade spirit — first. Humility and sincerity follow from how one stands before a real sword. Earnestness is not one virtue among three; it is the gravity from which the other two descend. This is deliberate, and worth pausing on.

Many years ago my teacher Esaka Sensei gave me a small green bock, - i will endeavor to present its content and its meaning for me, and make it available , - at the time i was not realizing what indeed he had given me, - but i think that i have honestly tried to follow his teachings and recognize much of that in the pages i now discover.

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TITLE PAGE

Japanese:
教育資料
居合道の栞
無雙直傳英信流居合兵法
平成三年五月一日
江坂道場

English:
Educational Material
A Guide to the Way of Iai
Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū Iai Heihō
1 May, Heisei 3 (1991)
Esaka Dōjō

Notes:
The word "shiori" (栞) literally means a paper bookmark — a slim guidebook or primer placed in a reader's hand to lead them through a longer body of material. Calling the book a shiori is itself a humility: the ryū is the great work; this is only the bookmark.

"Iai heihō" — iai as method-of-arms, or strategy — is the full classical name of the school. It indicates that iai here is not merely the technique of drawing the sword, but a complete heihō: a martial discipline that includes mind, body, sword, and conduct.

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INSIDE COVER

Japanese:
居合道の栞
[signature: 江坂 弘 — Esaka Hiroshi, with personal kaō]

English:
A Guide to the Way of Iai
[signed: Esaka Hiroshi, with personal kaō]

Notes:
The kaō (花押) is the personal signature-seal in flowing cursive script, a tradition reaching back to medieval Japanese practice. Its presence on this page makes this copy a personally-inscribed transmission from teacher to student — not a generic copy off a shelf.

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This is the first in a series. Subsequent posts will work through the book page by page.

A week in the dojo

Studio 12 community getting ready for a new chapter

November 4 ! the nishi kaigan iaido dojo will arrive in tokyo, our first dojo trip to japan in more then a decade, - dedication to our art, and a big building block to strengthen our dojo's future! alone you go fast, together you go further!

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Berkely dojo members, its a pleasure to see you!

visit for a wedding, getting to teach a impromptu seminar, i brough my blade just in cate ;) - the dedication and the will was tested, and they passed. - its not the quantity, its the quality of technique, and giving one selve permission to take the time it takes. challenge yourself, and have fun doing it, such a happy arival in davao.