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Long history and complex traditions of the Japanese martial arts are based on a great variety of forms, methods and weapons which create all different specializations.
The Japanese martial arts specializations reached their perfection in the feudal era of Japanese history. This period extends for 9 centuries, with the end of the 9th century, to the Meiji Restoration in 1868 when the feudal era was officially over.
Jutsu, made by the idiograms Bu and Jutsu literally means “military technique or military method”. This is the feudal warrior known as the Samurai or Bushi who was always the reference character to always dominate the combat or military aspects, in-turn, Bujutsu was implied to denote “practice and art of the Japanese martiality”. Bujutsu was then the strategy or the functionality of the techniques of war and how these should manage to reach their objectives. Bugei, has the union of Bu which means military and Gei which means art, when put together is the “Art of War”.
Its purpose is not for war these days, even though its ideology is closely related to the traditions of its art, since Bujutsu refers to the real form of war. For this reason, Bugei includes disciplines not only related to Bujutsu for reality and efficacy, but also for the formation of a warrior.
The Bugei or “military art” had its origins in feudal Japan and was studied at that time simply to wage war. It was in theTokugawa Period that Bugei began to be studied as a way of life, turning itself to education, discipline and ethics. It has been preserved to this day as one of the richest arts being respected because of its philosophy and high level of spiritual evolution of its adepts.
Each specialization of the Japanese martial arts is known by the word jutsu which can be translated as methods, arts or even techniques. Jutsu indicates that there is a standard or characteristic way of executing a proposed action. Usually a jutsu is made of common techniques which were incorporated from other arts, and placed in its own techniques. In the Japanese martial arts the techniques consist of a methodic, symbolic and particular way of handling a weapon.
A very common way of identifying the combat art is through the name of the weapon being used. For example, Kenjutsu means the “the art Jutsu of the sword Ken”. But some arts have the name of its meaning or objective like, Aikijujutsu which means “the art jutsu of the harmony ai of the energy ki. In Aikijujutsu, smoothness is the way of conducting the enemy’s energy while applying the defense of an attack while being firm.
Frequently the combat arts have two specializations, which doing these technical refinements may noticeably vary from the original art, thus creating new arts detaching from the original one.
Inside Bugei, more precisely in the Kaze no Ryu lineage, this detachment does not exist, since technique modifications are not permitted. All of the combat arts from this linage must remain faithful to the war traditions.
This explains why all students fall in great regimenting, not being allowed to be reproved in any discipline. Failing in maintaining this exact conduct will result in the student being expelled from the school, and forbidden to practice the art in any schools of the lineage, anywhere around the world.
It is true that while some classic arts like Kenjutsu,”sword art”, has had some detachments that were accepted like Iaijutsu, has turned into a new art of the same nobility and complexity.
Finally it is possible to identify arts through the name of its master or through the name of its school.
Kaze no Ryu Bugei
Kaze no Ryu Bugei is the "wind style military art". It was developed by the people of Shizen village, who inhabited Hokkaido’s forests, in the northern part of Japan (Kamakura Period 1192 A.D. - 1333 A.D.). During that time, the art was called "Uchiu Shizen" which means "domain of the nature and space". Shizen’s origin is linked to the Ainu people,Japan’s true natives, who during centuries had been banished to Japan's North.
Historical records indicate that in 801 A.D. Ainu tribes were defeated in the north by Tamuramaro Sakanoue. The repressed Ainu joined with others who were discontented with the feudal regime, such as Ronin, healers and farmers, who all took refuge in hidden villages in the forest. In direct contact with nature, these people developed their own culture and traditions. There were four villages that formed the Shizen people: Kawa, Yabu, Tayo and Yama.
They developed their own language - "Shizen-go" - and religion - the "O-Chikara" - based on the belief of natures energy, called Tengus.
The Kaze no Ryu Bugei was brought to Brazil by the Ogawa family, descendants of the Kawa village located at Hokkaido, northern Japan.
They disembarked at Portos de Santos, Brazil in 1935 and moved to Paraná (state) in southern Brazil to live as farmers and began to teach members of that colony the art of Kenjutsu.
There are records that refer to the techniques developed by Hiroshi Ogawa Sensei. So, until the seventies, in Brazil, this lineage was also called Ogawa Ryu. This term was developed because of its efficiency due to the Soke. It is possible then to notice differences between Bujutsu which means the real form of war and the Brazilian Kaze no Ryu.
Ogawa Sensei taught the Koryu Seitegata, but his true passion was the real form of war. Ogawa Sensei had many personal problems with his original country which failed to recognize his competence and intelligence for 15 years. After his recognition, the Brazilian colony reached the golden age with many unique opportunities with meetings and festivals which provided the exchange of knowledge for the Kaze no Ryu Bugei instruction. The Kaze no Ryu Bugei instruction added studies like Philosophy, Meditation, Ki, Banting and also studies related to religion like mythology, sermons and traditional hymns, which is included in the total number of disciplines of the school. At once 18 disciplines of Bugei Bugei Juhappan (武芸十八) were introduced into many cultural aspects weaving into the intellectual knowledge.
The Ogawa family that brought the Bugei to Brazil was formed by Hiroshi Ogawa; Kazuo Ogawa; Nabuaki Ogawa; and Kibashi Hirayama. Akamini, Aeishi was the first to speak of the form of Bugei practiced in Brazil. History tells us that he touched the colonists by using the occult sciences, helping the people who were in moments of despair. He lived in Brazil until 1940’s when he returned back to Japan.
With the end of the second world war, Japanese Emperor Hirohito had to accept being defeated by the military occupation over the country. Meanwhile in Brazil, the Japanese colony of the state of Sao Paulo refused to accept that Japan had lost the war. And imposed that Japan had won the conflict. A fanatic organization called the Shindo Renmei decided then to purify the colony by assassinating all of the colonists who accepted the fact that Japan had lost the war, charging them with treason.
With the rising of this fanaticism, Hiroshi Ogawa oriented the immigrants in practice of fast techniques of self defense, planting the seeds of Bugei in Brazil in silo. After many events involving the Ogawa family in Brazil 1952, Hiroshi Ogawa accepted a small group who would study the tradition of its family. This group consisted of but not limited to, Hoberatu Conioaraki, Asau Mitsunaga, Abe Hideshi Idioshi, Minuru Nagatami, Oshimitsu Muramoto, Inishi Izawa, Isau Horibi, Ioshi Masuda, Sodau Ibihara. Shidoshi Jordan Augusto would start learning Bugei afterwards with Kazuo Ogawa and Kibashi Hirayama in the state of Goias and received from the hands of Hiroshi Ogawa his Master graduation.
It is very common that each Ryu belonging to the Koryu specializing in some arts or even a particular characteristic can be seen in many lineages, which is a reason of pride amongst its apprentices. In this way, Kaze no Ryu Bugei specializes in the Art of Strategy being used as the characteristic of all the arts of this lineage. Moves are executed with great speed and violence based on strategies that provide victory in case of combat. Each art has its way of applying the strategies according to each technique.
In Kempo for example, the strategy is applied with a great amount of false moves in order to deceive the opponent and respond violently causing severe wounds or death.
Principles of Unarmed Combat
Like many weapons that were developed to provide methods of combat, the human body has also improved the ways of using structural competence like the head and various parts of the body for attack and defense.
In Japan for instance, as a nation connected to war, unarmed combat techniques became so efficient, that they began to be studied and applied against any kind of opponent…armed or not.
The study of angles, tractions, impacts and levers, that could be achieved with your own body and the damage that could be caused at any place on the body, was exhaustingly perfected into the unarmed arts, and could bring the same advantages against the opponent who is handling the most dangerous weapon.
It is possible to notice, for example, the unarmed techniques applied against opponents with a knife, tantodori or with a sword.
Taijutsu is the Japanese term that designates body martial arts or “Body Arts”. Tai means “Body” and jutsu means “art”. Taijutsu is a very old fighting form that sought to perfect techniques for all kinds of situations in which weapons or any other type of protection was unavailable, only being able to utilize your own body. Taijutsu like many of the ancient arts was defined in a simple way in terms of its forms, however, its wealth and secrets were passed through much time of training, restricted to people that were considered worthy of discovering the true essence of Taijutsu.
Taijutsu is basically divided into 3 arts of corporal contact. The part that studies the form of grasping, immobilization and strangulation is Jujutsu, a very old art that stems from Kumiuchi, which ends up taking adversaries to the floor.
The traditional Jujutsu is strong and violent, whose objective is to carry on its own classical plot as a strong and sustainable war weapon. To practice the techniques related to classical Jujutsu came about by its rustic form of functional characteristics of the daily situations in the middle ages.
Yoroi Kumiuchi or Kumiuchi practiced without armor. The Jujutsu techniques were developed for when the Samurai was attacked while wearing his common daily clothes. This way, for many people, Jujutsu was associated uniquely to self defense. The only thing that remained was the development of unbalancing an attack; and these were divided by Nage, Taosu, Oroshi, Kumi and others. Therefore as Japanese armor allows for arms to have the flexibility or desired mobility, it was developed as a series of hits based on twists, articulation and strangulation, forms of bone removal and a series of techniques that aim to efficiently destroy the opponent.
The knowledge of locking and breaking techniques and articulations, have always been present in unarmed combat. Many historical versions explain the reasons of Somen techniques, dedicated to articulations. The most used versions pertain to the origin of the armor, made to be flexible, giving only articulations as the attack target. This leads to the study of the all forms of destruction that are evoked at the opponent, leaving the bone part that has been specifically named Koppojutsu. We can’t forget to mention the strangulation techniques related to blood interruption and breath interruption. When these techniques are applied, it stops arterial blood flow to the brain, as well as, airflow which causes hypoxia, leading to the loss of unconsciousness.
Another part of Taijutsu is Kenpo. Kenpo is a very aggressive art form that drives its style from the observation of animal movements which made this form a natural aggressive fighting art. It is possible to imagine the natural essence of a Tiger that is searching for its food. It was truly inspirational that ancient masters would look at training and developing their bodies as preparation for war. The Kenpo philosophy is to see the body naturally in union with its aggressiveness. According to a teaching, a Kenpo practitioner should perform more than 1,000 movements before a sparrow hits the ground. This violent corporal fighting form was developed for war, and for this reason has been prohibited later in Japan restricted only for villages who have the purposes of martial practicing as a way of war art.
Completing Taijutsu we have Aikijujutsu, very old fighting based on harmony and the use of internal energy known as KI. The function, in terms of the postures and movements, require the muscular groups to work harmoniously with contractions and lunges that provide traction. A good corporal performance needs factors such as physical practice, resonance, preparation and good health. Then we have to consider always searching for balance so we can enjoy the efficiency created by good condition, resonance, speed, contraction, and flexibility.
Kobujutsu (Armed Combat)
Literally, Kobujutsu means “Old Art of War”. The word has been applied to define the practice with weapons. Some arts, of the Gendai Budo or even some classic styles of Jujutsu, usually define the practice with weapons as Kobojutsu. However, without considering weapons like Sai, Tonfa, Kama among others. Though some Koryu refer only to classic weapons like Jō, Bokutoand Tanto. However, when analyzing the word, every art that uses weapons can be involved in Kobojutsu. The most famous arts of Kobojutsu can be found in many Ryu. Kyojutsu, Kenjutsu, Iaijutsu, Battojutsu, Tantojutsu, Naginatajutsu, Yarijutsu, Bojutsu, Kusarijutsu, Tessenjutsu and many others are kept alive thanks to traditional teachings from all around the world.