Inside the circle of awareness

Christopher Matthews demonstrating the straight-forward strategy of Bushi Kempo

Become one with the surroundings and make circumstances your allies. This is the basis of the strategy of the Ninja, referring to times of war not simply confronting adversaries.

To take a look at the modern day scene let us examine submission wrestling for example. A fine art, in which one is to go for having control over the opponent in order to put him in a submission hold at some point. This on the other hand makes it a form of sport rather than combat; what I mean is the tendecy to prefer a certain kind of layout. In catch-as-catch-can the idea is to place the opponent under a non-stop attack, in other words use every single situation to bring trouble. In sports it is always a competition between two athletes or teams, whereas when waging war one cannot afford competing in the first place. Just “catch a hold” as you can.

Sharpening one’s awareness should be practised everywhere and all the time. By simply having your eyes, ears and mind open the four-dimensional perception eventually becomes an automatic process of calculation: the person will start envisaging the possibilities at hand. Let us say you are trapped within a triangle of three opponents; you decide to make the first move and take the one behind you off balance to gain a couple of extra seconds. The guy on the left sees an opportunity there and throws a punch – you could block it, but realize that by doing so you would make yourself most vulnerable to the third guy’s attack. So you choose to move away from the punch and simultaneously knock down the guy on the right. Then you go on with the flow, rearrange if need be and do what you must. The training of such situations is to make one’s movements an ever-flowing lemniscate-like pattern in which some parts of the body are always ready for defence and others just as ready for counter-attacking.

The more there is tension, the easier the target. Struggling in this context would mean that you submit yourself to a contest of who’s better, stronger, faster and so on, which you may just as well lose. Fighting (efficiently) is nothing but reacting with so little effort that the opponent won’t know what hit him - never give the enemy a chance and you might have one yourself.

The manners of warfare and business can be compared in the sense that both are tightly bound to the phenomena around, you make your moves and get results depending on all else that takes place. This could be described as "slavery of action," yet art - such as poetry, painting etc. - is fundamentally different as it has the power to change the world instead, thus it bears no chain. To succeed in pursuing one’s ambitions is certainly worth respecting, then again artistic essence is a story completely distinct. Therefore it is the very art of war we seek.

By explaining matters from this point of view I am not saying that anyone should alter the teachings of their original discipline, I am encouraging them to dig deep. Embrace every technique, find the aspects and utilize them. Perception itself does not change reality, but it does work as a guidebook. People commonly see the world as a picture they try to fit themselves in; insight helps them understand that it is really a puzzle. Among the pieces you may go as you will.

Simon Latimer lecturing on the razor-like philosophy of his Daishin Ryu