Post by Administrator on Mar 16, 2023 10:57:41 GMT 10
"If you will let go of strength and you will let go of speed, you will start to be able to use Kûkan 空間 (the space)."
- Masaaki Hatsumi
The translation of Kuukan is simply space but it is much more complex than that. Hatsumi Sensei has spoken about this and there are much more subtle nuances involved. It does refer to space but it is also time. It being at the correct distance, the correct angle and at the correct time. That is a very simplistic description of it.
Dale Seago wrote this about Kuukan some years back
I view it, at the most basic level, as "The totality, in all dimensions, of all aspects of the interactive space between combatants". (You could also expand this to include the "immediately influential" space around them as well.) You also have to consider it in terms of the 4th dimension, Time, because in an encounter the "shape of the space" is not a static thing -- so I consider "using kukan" as "manipulating the shape of space through time".
It has to do both with "elemental energies", and also with positional arrangements and shapes which allow the focusing and/or harmonising of energies for a desired outcome. The last time Gyokko ryu (which originally was a Chinese temple art) was a major focus in Sensei's teaching (2001), he was presenting everything at a very high level and expressing what he was doing and teaching in terms of "tactical Feng shui". . .in fact, the video from Quest from that year's Daikomyosai training in Japan is titled "Budo no Fusui".
- Masaaki Hatsumi
The translation of Kuukan is simply space but it is much more complex than that. Hatsumi Sensei has spoken about this and there are much more subtle nuances involved. It does refer to space but it is also time. It being at the correct distance, the correct angle and at the correct time. That is a very simplistic description of it.
Dale Seago wrote this about Kuukan some years back
I view it, at the most basic level, as "The totality, in all dimensions, of all aspects of the interactive space between combatants". (You could also expand this to include the "immediately influential" space around them as well.) You also have to consider it in terms of the 4th dimension, Time, because in an encounter the "shape of the space" is not a static thing -- so I consider "using kukan" as "manipulating the shape of space through time".
It has to do both with "elemental energies", and also with positional arrangements and shapes which allow the focusing and/or harmonising of energies for a desired outcome. The last time Gyokko ryu (which originally was a Chinese temple art) was a major focus in Sensei's teaching (2001), he was presenting everything at a very high level and expressing what he was doing and teaching in terms of "tactical Feng shui". . .in fact, the video from Quest from that year's Daikomyosai training in Japan is titled "Budo no Fusui".