List of posts

June 8, 2023

Martial Arts demonstration? – Be Uke, not Tori

One thing that all martial artists would have experienced in their training lives is having people ask them to show “something” of what they train or have learnt. This, if I am not wrong, is more often in the early part of one’s training life when you are an oddball, for being a part of…
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May 25, 2023

Yudishtira, Dharma, Awareness/Mindfulness – A case study through Budo

Early in the Mahabharata, there is an incident that occurs at the ashrama of Guru Dronacharya. He sets up a test for all his students, essentially all the Kuru princes. He has a model of a bird set up on a tree and tests the ability of the students to shoot an arrow at the…
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May 11, 2023

MIGHT IS RIGHT, ALWAYS

Image created by Adarsh Jadhav In the Bujinkan system of martial arts, one concept that we are taught every so often is “Kyojaku jyugo arubekarazu”. This roughly refers to how there is no hard or soft, and no strong or weak; in other words, it means that there is no duality to explicitly discern. This…
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April 27, 2023

Bhakti and Budo

Image generated with Jasper AI There is a term that is used every now and then in the Bujinkan, called “Kami Waza”. Typically, this is something that is trained, and an understanding attempted, after many years of training in the Bujinkan system of martial arts. Kami Waza is something I had referred to in my…
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April 13, 2023

Vaali’s boon – A perspective through Budo

Image 1 – Vaali defeats Raavana Clarification – In this article I am referring to the great Vaanara king Vaali, who is the brother of Sugreeva. It is the Vaali who is seen in the Ramayana and is killed by Rama. I am not referring to Bali, who can also be called Bali Chakravarthy, who…
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March 30, 2023

Jibun No Kesu – An Exploration

There is one concept that is oft mentioned in a Budo class over the last few years. This is perhaps since focus on the essence of Muto Dori was started by Hatsumi Sensei, some seven or eight years ago. This is “Jibun no Kesu”. From what I understand, it means “throw yourself away” or “kill…
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March 16, 2023

The Gojo – A personal understanding

In the Bujinkan, we learn of the Gojo. Gojo, as I understand it, means “five treasures”. Here the word “treasure” could mean what we call, “pearls of wisdom”. So, the Gojo are five precepts of wisdom. In other words, they could be guiding principles of life. The five Gojo, in the order I have learnt…
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March 2, 2023

An Ode to the IBF (Indian Badminton Federation)

India won the bronze medal last week at the Asian Mixed Team Badminton Championship. Also, India won the Thomas Cup for the first time in 2022. Both of these are moments of hair-raising exhilaration! And as we rejoice in these fantastic achievements of the athletes and the women and men in their support ecosystems, I…
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February 16, 2023

Paapada Koda Tumba Beku

The other day my dad and I were watching news on TV. It was bombastic bordering on self-righteous like it is quite a lot of times. But as always it did trigger a conversation about politicians in our country. One thing that is true of us Indians is that almost always people living in one…
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February 2, 2023

Vyuha and Taijutsu

Chakravyuha (Moving spiral formation) carved on the Hoysaleshwara temple wall, Halebidu, Karnataka Vyuha is generally identified as a formation for battle. This is something most of us learn from our reading of Amar Chitra Katha comics as kids. We all know that the Chakravyuha was deadly from the Kurukshetra war. We have also heard the…
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