Evening with Ikuhiro Kubota Sensei & miracle

Ikuhiro Kubota Sensei shared with us his personal story about his battle with liver cancer last year. He was pronounced healed 3 months after diagnosis. Miracle isn't it?

Initially when Kubota Sensei was warded and awaiting diagnosis, Tada Sensei (his Sensei) would call him everyday. Their conversation would inevitably start with Tada Sensei making known it was him, followed by the question “Have you done your Kokyu Ho today?” For the first two days, Kubota Sensei did practice Kokyu Ho. However on the third day after he was told of his diagnosis, Kubota Sensei shared with us frankly that he did let the fear of dying take over him, thus he did not practice Kokyu Ho. Not until he received his daily call from Tada Sensei did he start practicing Kokyu Ho. After thirty minutes or so of practicing, he felt the feeling of fear dissipate. He revealed that he accepted death. Not simply just by looking at it head-on, but like an aikido attack – recognizing the attack and then side-stepping it. (I try to say it like how he was trying to express it, but it’s difficult as we heard the story from translation).

Kubota Sensei also mentioned that we must practice aikido truly as a martial art (budo) and not like a game. Martial art is serious. This led him to speak about Tai, Kokoro & Ki. When practicing aikido, the first level is to learn the technique and movements. Followed by kokoro (your heart), you must practice with your heart. Shomenuchi chop as it should be – a blow. Your heart will extend you physical movement to beyond, no boundaries. Almost like training your heart to overcome fear of anything – fear of physical strength, weapons (the 2 things I heard). Ki is about blending and unity with your partner, giving and receiving spirit & with spirit.

1. Tai (kanji body) – technique, getting the movements right

2. Kokoro (Heart) – Combine your technique with your heart, with intent, blending. E.g. when you do shomenuchi, chop with full intention

3. Ki – Unity

Other pointers that he gave technically were:

When you practice Kokyu Ho you have to shut your butt hole that was taught by his Sensei (Tada Sensei). A true & good aikidoka will have his butt hole shut and he can feel if there are other aikidokas with their butt holes shut. This means you are centered; your Ki is not flowing out of your body. Many years of practice will be required in order to achieve this.

When you do Taiso (exercises before class e.g tenkan, irimi tenkan) it is to learn the movements and to let help your body make it a naturalized movement. When doing tenkan & irimi tenkan Taiso, it is easy to get a grasp of the movements; however perfecting it is not. The challenge is to getting a perfect 90 or 180 degree turn is to use your line of sight. Focus on the horizon in front while you move; your body will follow your heart (physically: line of sight).

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It was amazing + inspiring to see for myself a real japanese sensei perform aikido moves with such energy, spirit & speed (considering he's 67 years old). I have been motivated enough to go for morning sessions at hombu dojo at the ungodly hour of 7am. As such the lag in blogging because I've simply been too exhausted, albeit a happy sortof exhaustion ;)