A year of Aunkai, what did that bring me ?

After 2 week-ends of training course with Miyakawa, Akuzawa’s one of the longest time student, in Paris then in Montpellier, two intensively rich courses with their teaching and questionings, getting to experience through the difference of ambiances, people, newcomers, long-time residents, all that each of them brings to a course, their knowledge, their expectations but also their personnality, their friendships and privacies because Aunkai is not a Bujutsu that we practice like a hobby, not for me at least, we only ever talk good about ourvelves don’t we, it implies to be whole, after those week-ends, here I am deep into another universe, far the « modern world, in the corsican mountains, where the car stops , where the mobile phone doesn’t even work.

I came out of these courses, of this path, which for me, is brought by the Aunkai, to meet again with people who invest in helping eachother, in this project that I accompany dearly, the « Po’oz » project, which is meant to help young people at loss not to leave the road, I went from an inside to an outside look, from personal questioning to table exchange, always intending to make things progress forward.

It’s around this table that I met a young adult who came to share his point of view, and as the discussion went on, asked me the following question :

« I’m looking for a softer martial art (of course I will not mention the one he’s practicing at the moment), this martial art, the Aunkai, what would you say it brought you after a year ? »

It was a very good question and I’ve been wanting to share the answer.

In november, it will be a year since I got started with Aunkai. After 15 years of martial art practice through other arts, mainly Aikido, always looking for a way that came closer to my personnal experience, close in thought to the path of Ueshiba, something attracted me in Aunkai. Something inside me resonated at my first course and the echo of this resonance only kept growing with time.

I took a break from Aikido so I could dwelve deeper into this Bujutsu which Kyoshi and practionners talked about with such a glimmer in their eyes.

I had the chance within a small year to meet the two hanshi of the school, Manabu Watanabe and Mayakawa Kazuhisa. The way they teach, very close to the practionner, always ready to explain over, rectify, encourage, but also what comes off their personnalities really appealed to me, a simplicity and sharing emanates from them, things that became too rare in our days and our dojos.

Miyakawa’s pedagogy of the images especially talked to me because apart from the place and the importance that this element can occupy in practice, this is something that talks to me a lot, I use it myself when explaning my work as an energetician or when I teach in my own specialization.

This made me even more eager to meet Akuzawa sensei, even if the idea of meeting someone of his grade is always impressing. During my first intensive training, the encounter was not that of a practioner meeting a Bujutsu Master, Founder of his own school moroever, but more the encounter of a practioner meeting a man who talks with his heart and developped a language that is the Aunkai.

This week of training was part of what we call « true encounters », those that we know quickly they will have an influence on the years to come. The language of the Aunkai talked to me in a very deep way, a language from one soul to another, if I had to put an image on it.

It has not been easy for me to talk to the « master ». But I wanted to try to understand better by getting a feeling at the energetic level in order to understand how things could be happening within him and also what I had felt and perceived during practice. I had to come over the language barrier, my english is not very good so imagine my japanese ! Akuzawa sensei is a very open person and I could do it. By going on like this I told myself maybe I was going to find a way to have a dialogue with him with simple words. 

Today I don’t regret doing that. I could, outside of the days spent on the tatami and after the training course, with other practioners, discover in Akuzawa sensei a very sensible man, close to people and especially curious about everything.

But it is when I had the opportunity to heal him that my exchange with Akuzawa sensei took another turn. In the beggining of the week it was the encounter of a Master and the practioner, at the end of it was more that of a researcher who has met another, me in my domain and him in his.

Then I started writing about Aunkai, to share my feedback, probably different because of my route in the energy, while trying to translate, in this language that is mine, what Akuzawa was saying.

Even if I write a lot, writing is not my easiest way of expression. But I had found in Aunkai a language which, still for me, allowed to access something way greater than Bujutsu itself, to something way deeper than the practice. And then being able to, once again, exchange again with Akuzawa Sensei verbally (thanks to David for his direct translation), could only reinforce me in what I was feeling.

So to this young adult who was aking me the question, me who is still a new practionner in this art, I answered :

« The Aunkai can take you to an encounter with yourself if you take the time to listen. For me that’s what the Aunkai brings and this essentiel in our path. Because of my « job », I am often left alone with myself because alone with the pain, of the other,  with the expection of the other, the question of why, of how I do it and how I can dig deeper to do it even better. The Aunkai makes me dwelve inside myself throuhg another path and it is very beneficial, the more we dig in ourselves the more we become at peace and the farther we go.

It isn’t the years of practice  that make this inside encounter but the intensity you give to the practice, an essential element reminded by Miyakawa on the subject of the Tanren when he came. 

What is so strong in Aunkai is that we can apply it in our everyday lives to advance when we are lost and I’m not talking techniques, I’m talking human here. This is the state of mind the Aunkai asks of you to dwelve deeper in it that brings you to that point. »

This answer I will give again if presented with another occasion.

Today, my next step will be that of another meeting in flesh and bones with Akuzawa sensei in Japan. I don’t know yet what will result of this moment because every new moment is a new universe to explore, with its hazards, its human elements, its discoveries, but the important thing is to stay focus to reach destination.

There are encounters that can transform you, the Aunkai has that effect on the soul I think and what has an effect on the soul has an effect on life.