Shin-Zen (Zhen Shahn in Chinese) has two primary meanings:
The first character, Shin, means truth and reality. Real, genuine and true. Faith; fidelity; sincerity; trust; confidence; reliance and devotion. The Taoist understanding is that of the original unspoiled character of humankind.
The second character, Zen, represents goodness, right and virtue in the sense of those inherent traits within all human beings.
There are many meanings for the words 'Shin' and 'Zen'. However, the kanji (ideographs) are different. As an example, Shin Zen (or Shinden) also means 'temple' or 'sacred place'. In Shinseido this sense applies not just to the dojo (way place) in the physical sense, as the centre in which everyone practises our art, but also to the kata (form) themselves as the vehicle through which we express our art.
Courtesy and respect are virtues that represent the very essence of Shinseido. These virtues apply both to the dojo itself and to all those who practise within it. The traditional and symbolic gesture that underpins this is the rei (bow). This acts as the external manifestation of courtesy and respect and is why every member always bows on entering and leaving the dojo. The Shinzen is the symbolic centre of the dojo's essence to which we direct this gesture of respect and appreciation.
Basic martial topics within Kata Shinzen
Kata Shinzen, like all such sequential methods within our system, is a form of kinetic meditation that has many facets. Each facet reveals a different aspect of understanding. The essence of our science-art lies within the form that embodies a number of major topics:
Martial Arts and Religion
Martial arts have been viewed with suspicion in recent decades, and little wonder judging by some contemporary systems. Yes the reality is that true martial arts are the very antithesis of violence. It is little wonder therefore, that they go hand in hand with practically all the religions of the world. The dojo precept "Do not fight" and the religious precept "Love thy neighbour" make perfect partners as do the two components that make up the term Shinzen - goodness and truth. Martial arts are not a substitute for religious belief they compliment it as evidenced by the many Okinawan martial masters who have pursued their various religious faiths hand in hand with their classical training. Every aspect of Kata Shinzen compliments and reinforces religious belief.
Mudra within Kata Shinzen
The most important practical aspect embodied within Kata Shinzen is that of gesture. In practical everyday terms, Kata Shinzen may be the most useful of all the forms that you ever learn. Each gesture is fully described in the descriptions of the successive movements.
The hands are of course the most symbolically important parts of the entire human body. The hands are 'the tool of tools' thus saith Aristotle. We know that the hands are so expressive that they have the ability to convey more information than the spoken word.
The hands are used to greet, question, encourage, promise, comfort, calm, summon, dismiss, supplicate, emphasise, express aversion or fear, deny, warn off, demand and threaten. They are used to express joy, happiness, sorrow, hesitation, confession, penitence, measure, quantity, number and time. They excite and prohibit, express approval, wonder and shame.
Kata Shinzen is designed as an introduction to gesture and its use in conflict situations.
Tactile communication
Every gesture has the potential to be used in a tactile manner. This is the essence of a martial art, how to use the hands (and feet) in contact with another person in a self-defensive manner. Shinseido extends this thinking back down into everyday terms, where the hands can be used in a tactile way to denote care, empathy, love and understanding. Basic explanations of the tactile communicative aspects are provided under each technique description following.
The art of hands
In Kata Shinzen, more than any other form, we are drawn to reflect upon the 'art of hands'. The old term used by the Ryukyu people for their self-defence art was 'Te' meaning simply 'hands'. The allusion in this case was to 'boxing' or a method of using the hands in a particular way as a personal protection. From Te were derived the terms 'Karate' (T'ang hands - Chinese boxing or 'T'ang shou') and 'karate' (empty hands). I like the way the Orientals make use of descriptive terms to describe the action of the hands. Words such as shuto (sword hand); haito (ridge hand); teisho (palm hand); and nukite (piercing hand); etc led me to coin additional terms such as greeting hands, eliciting hands, and calming hands for the Shinseido (Project 5) system.
A major premise within Shinseido is that physical integration with another represents tactile communication. This premise is carried down into the realms of non-verbal communication and the art of using gestures.
The manner in which the hands are positioned can be categorised thus:
Note: Do not forget the Shinseido principle that everything lies on a continuum from one state to another - do not see these categories as fixed points. Between active hand open and active hands closed and between active and relaxed hands are all gradations from one extreme to the other.
Relaxed hands
Relaxed hands are resting hands with no muscular tension in them. Allow your arms to hang down by your sides and deliberately let go of all tension in the shoulders, down through the upper arms, forearms and hands themselves. Lightly shake the hands and arms. Go back to completely letting go and relaxing. Now look down at the hand positions. The hands will be neither open nor closed. They will have assumed a half-open position. Retaining completely relaxed hands, raise the forearms into a horizontal position and again look at the hands. Still they assume the half-closed, half-open position. Turn the forearms over and see how the hands always assume this half-open position when they are in a relaxed state.
Now suppose that I want to use the hands to carry out a task. This could be any hand activity at all, whether it is to wave to someone across the street, to pick up something and put it in one's pocket or to create sign language. Whatever task the hands are set to perform, muscular tension is involved. Muscular tension is required to fully open the hands just as it is required to close them into a fist. Muscular tension is also required to maintain the half-open hand position when it is applying physical force.
Active hands are performing hands, they are practical, effecting hands. The hands, because they are to be employed in a work like manner, are tensed accordingly, often open and more or less flat. Active hands are used to create gestures, palm displays and to control situations. An action of the hands, expressive of sentiment or passion or intended to show inclination or disposition.
Passivity in touch
In terms of tactile communication, when muscular tension exists in the hands and arms, depending upon the level or degree of tension, that sense of tension can be transmitted to the other person.
Suppose you want to convey a sense of calm or comfort to another person. How would you do that in a tactile way? Find out; discover what you do with your hands in order to impart a sense of calm to another person.
The manner in which you do this will be dependent upon how you are within yourself, your personality, your physiological make up, and your emotional state at the time. Certainly, your attitude and intent will have a profound effect upon how you integrate with others. For example, some people are very hard and unyielding in their attitude and manner of touch; others have a touch that is light, almost imperceptible. Neither form of touch is necessarily wrong for both extremes have their uses. What is important is that we are sensitive enough to know when we are being hard or soft, yielding or unyielding.
In terms of reaching another person on a meaningful level beyond the merely ordinary and mundane, one has to have a spark of enthusiasm and want. It may be that fear of reaction, retaliation or even rejection holds one back. These feelings can get in the way and block otherwise appropriate communication. It may be difficult to empathise with someone if you do not know him or her.
This has very much to do with how we feel about ourselves, our levels of self-confidence, self-esteem, self-awareness and self-assertiveness. It also has to do with the way we feel about the other person in a conflict situation, for we all feel prejudice to one degree or another. None of us are obliged to like every other person on the planet. For one reason or another we many just not like someone. This can clearly have a profound effect on the outcome of a conflict situation. There has to be a want and need to avoid conflict in the first place.
There is a significant difference between hands that use a lot of tension and those that do not. Both forms can be regarded as 'active' in the sense that they may be doing work. However, excessively active hands become 'hard' and therefore reactive in nature. Hands that are too soft become 'passive' and 'sustaining' rather than 'performing' hands. Indeed, they can become ineffective, rather like the wet fish handshake. In a communicative sense, the hands should be relaxed, naturally cupped and somewhat yielding. This hand position is used for holding, supporting, comforting and guiding. The back of the hand and arm can be used defensively in a soft and yielding manner by the introduction of the recoil or absorption principle. Passive cupped hands are also used to create gestures such as to turn the fingertips towards one as if to say, "I think…" or to turn palm up as if to say, "In my opinion…"
When holding a person with the passive hand the entire palm side of the hand is employed with equal pressure and contact thus reducing specific pressure points that can occur in the case of the active hand where the fingers and particularly fingertips are used to grip. Possible fingertip bruising is prevented by the use of the passive hand. The passive hand acts more in the nature of a comforting hold, pat, hug or stroke.
Passive hand use can be very yielding; the sticking hand principle described following is considerably enhanced by the use of this hand position.
The manner of using the hands in the passive mode should be by way of yielding, going with the flow, not pushing in a reactionary manner or with rigid or locked arms. Imagine the arms as kind of shock absorbers. They are flexed, not too much, but sufficiently to absorb the force of a person thrashing his or her arms. When the hand is used in this way, it feels comforting or calming.
The hand wedge
In the event of an invasion of space by an antagonistic person, I teach to create a 'defensive' wedge with the hands in front of the torso. This wedge will invariably intercept a 'normal' type assault. I call this technique engaging or bridging hands. Both passive and active hand positions can be used in this context.
The hand wedge is that position adopted by the hands when they are raised in front of the torso and retained within body limits.
The hand wedge can be categorised thus:
Closed wedge: Where the hands are raised in front of the torso and brought together in some way.
Open wedge: Where the hands are raised in front of the torso, but are allowed to remain separated, sometimes giving independent but complimentary messages. An open wedge remains a wedge only providing that the hands remain within body limits. The further apart the hand move the less the quality of wedging and the closer to funnelling the hand position becomes.
Neutral wedge: When the hand position forms a surreptitious defensive wedge but carries no specific meaning beyond that.
Active wedge: When the hands form a surreptitious wedge and carry a specific message.
The definitive active wedge is formed when both open hands are raised to a central point on front of the torso with one hand a little in advance of the other and the middle finger tip of the trailing hand lightly touching the wrist of the lead hand. Both hands are turned at forty-five degrees so that they face partly downward and partly inward. The hands are raised to approximately throat height with the arms extended out into a comfortable nearly straight attitude. This is the neutral position or defensive wedge of Shinseido the martial art, however there are many variants.
It is as well to recognise the opposite counterpart of the wedge, that is, the funnel. When the hands are raised to torso height but are allowed to do so outside body limits, they create not a wedge but a funnel which has the general effect of drawing or inviting an attack onto the centre line of the body. To extend the arms outwards in a wide funnel like gesture is like saying, "Come to me, come here, I accept you" This is a very valuable gesture, however in defensive terms it creates an opening not a defence. Often martial artists deliberately contrive to create an opening that acts as a deliberate feint.
Hand wedge variants
Shinseido teaches that when an angry person approaches your tactile zone, you should elevate your hands to a comfortable wedge position in front of the torso. Clearly, it would probably be inappropriate to raise the hands into the definitive defensive wedge if you are intending to de-escalate a situation. It would be seen as too reactive and would almost certainly harm your chances of talking the other person down. So the problem might be what to do with the raised hands. Instead of working the hands separately, they may be conjoined to work in unison in some way. This is representative of the most extreme wedge.
Having adopted a hands holding position, most people would then enjoy a subliminal comforting sensation while continuing to talk. This self-intimacy often clashes with the urge to emphasise a point, and speakers can be observed in a state of conflict, with their linked hands rebelling against their conjoined repose. Without pulling apart, they jerk and jump with the shift of spoken thoughts. These muted emphasis gestures are common among individuals made anxious and insecure by the tension of the social situation in which they find themselves, but who have a strong urge to communicate to their companions. The movements made when adopting one of these positions should be careful, relaxed, and gentle. Any wringing of the hands or agitation will give the message that you are unhappy with the situation.
In Shinseido defensive terms we recognise that there are several ways of bringing the hands together in order to disguise our ultimate intent, that of defending ourselves against physical assault. This of course is not the only reason we elevate the hands. More importantly, having removed our hands as it were, from the 'toolbox' down by our thighs where the inactive hands normally reside, we can use them to enhance what we are going to say by way of de-escalating the impending situation.
The commonest ways of bringing the hands together are:
If a potentially violent person encroaches on the tactile zone, we must understand that we will not be able to prevent a spontaneous assault from finding its mark. The response delay in effecting a defensive movement is some seven tenths of a second. This is far too slow to intercept an attack from someone inside the tactile zone. Therefore, contrive to make some sort of contact with the other person's hands or arms. For the most part this may well be almost imperceptible yet it will enable you to determine the moment of assault should anything go wrong with your verbal de-escalation skills. Remember that in street situations, so called mugging, rape and the like, verbal de-escalation strategies are regarded as largely futile. However, that is not to say that we should discount such a response if a situation suggest that its use would be beneficial.
Orientation of the hands when creating the wedge
The hands may simply be extended in front of the torso and held there in a rather neutral posture, fingers together and relatively flat. The importance of any gesture is the position in which the hands are placed.
There are six principal hand positions that may be adopted by one or both hands.
| 1. | Palms held diagonally | Neutral hands |
| 2. | Palms upward | Eliciting hands |
| 3. | Palms downward | Calming hands |
| 4. | Palms away from you | Stopping hands |
| 5. | Palms towards you | Embracing hands |
Description of the sticking hands principle
In conjunction with the 'engaging hand' principle there is also the 'sticking hands' and 'hooking hands' procedures.
These strategies become important if you are trapped or have opted to manage the situation because you cannot escape immediately. This especially when you cannot break out to the back of the assailant's arms because he or she is flailing wildly.
The 'sticking hands' and 'hooking hands' principles are are part of the engaging, guiding and holding process. Both however, are neither specifically guiding or holding by definition but rather a little of one and a little of the other.
The most simple exercise that provides an initial understanding of this principle is to place one's hands an the backs of a partner's hands. The partner now moves his or her hands in a random way, gently and flowing hither and thither. Your job is to 'stick' to the backs of the hands at all times. This is not a competetive exercise and both partners work one with the other in order to increase the sticking skill.
With practise and the addition of other exercises that expand this theme it is possible to become expert at guiding an assailant's hands and arms without getting into a power stuggle. This by way of creating the opportunity to escape or to conter control the violent person.
Thoughts upon the opposable thumb
In a self-defensive situation, it is very easy to become reactive. Yet, most self-defence situations occur in the home, or in the company of people one knows. While hard, fast reactive style techniques may be a sound option in a street self-defence situation, they may be counter productive in the case of incidents that may better be dealt with on a communicative level. When we use the thumb as an opposable digit, it is, for the most part by way of gripping and holding something. When we grip the arm of someone we are trying to protect in a violent situation, it is likely that we will bruise the person's arm.
Bruising is normally the result of finger and thumb tip pressure. However, in the 'sticking hands' and 'hooking hands' procedures the balls of the fingers and thumbs are not used, neither are the thumbs used in an opposable manner. Rather, the entire flats of the hands (including fingers and thumbs working in unison) are used. This spreads pressure over a large area, and is more comfortable and responsive, provided of course that this strategy can be successfully employed.
Another, and perhaps better way to achieve the same thing is to use the opposable thumb but in a 'sticking hands' manner, without actually applying force to the grip.
The expert can effect considerable control without actually making use of the thumb which is laid beside the index finger and acts in harmony with the fingers rather than as an opposable grasping digit. This is called 'Crane hand' in the Ryukyu martial art called Shorin Ryu. The wrist is flexed presenting 'koken' or the back of the wrist for bridging and counter active strikes. The well-defined hook formed by the flexed hand and wrist acts as a holding and guiding agent. For example, the antagonist may be approached from the rear and his or her arms engaged using the hooking action of the passive hands but in a 'sticking hand' mode. Considerable guiding and redirectional facility can be gained by using the hands in this way.
Basic martial arts techniques within Kata Shinzen
It should be remembered that the basic techniques listed following are the least important aspects of this form. These interpretations are imposed upon the original meaning of the movements in order to demonstrate the relationship between martial arts practised as a life-skill and self-defence. This is far from an exhaustive list and the student will discover more techniques as time passes. The real applications of each movement are described in the descriptions of the successive movements.
Symbolism in Kata Shinzen
Of all the basic methods, Kata Shinzen is for me, by far the most fundamental and profound. It conceals many important lessons for the beginner and advanced practitioner alike.
I am concerned that in teaching a martial art I instil the right mind set from the first lesson. Martial arts are not about hurting others or about fighting. Indeed one of our most profound dojo kun (oaths) is "Do not fight". This gives the lie to the generally accepted understanding of martial arts and reveals the truth that Shinseido is the antithesis of aggression and violence.
Kata Shinzen acknowledges that greatest and most profound of all truths, the inherent need by every person to love and be loved. Since the beginning of recorded history, we have heard this single message of love from all the great teachers of religion and morality. Kata Shinzen provides some important keys for understanding and expressing unconditional love for others. This love transcends mere fondness, affection, charity and benevolence. It is the most difficult form of love to give; it is one that is absolute and infinite. The true warrior, taught Chogyam Trunpa, is one who has the courage it takes to be open and gentle. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the 'strength to love' and inspired a change in attitude with the power of forgiveness for those who had done his people grave injustice. Loving is the basis not only of our own personal happiness but also of a society that could truly be called enlightened.
Kata Shinzen expresses in symbolic terms an understanding of the interconnectedness between all human beings. It can be used to generate very powerful vibrations of love, caring or healing for other people.
This process involves the development of a good ability to visualise, to create clear and precise mental images, to generate the strongest form of emotion, and the sincere belief that you can project those feelings to other people.
Always remember that whatever emotion you generate, it will permeate your own being more than those to whom you are projecting it. You must only generate very positive emotions of warmth, love, empathy, and understanding. If you were to generate negative emotions, those of anger, hatred and fear, they would ultimately destroy you.
This form of meditation combines both Eastern and Western approaches. According to the practice, you have to really sense that network of humankind with whom you are connecting. You have to make the human family very real in your mind's eye, not just pretending for the sake of appearances, but breathing consciously and connecting with all your body, spirit, and heart. This meditation is a practice of mindfulness. "Breathing in, you know you are connected into the network of mankind in reality. Breathing out, everyone is so precious to me." If you breathe deeply like that, sensing the human family to which you belong, the energy of care, love, and mindfulness will permeate from you through the network as far as the power of your visualisation allows.
On a more personal level, your emotions can be directed towards someone who is close to you or someone you want to help. During the exercise when breathing in, you must hold your loved one in your mind and on breathing out you must feel how precious he or she is to you. When practising in this mode, in order to project positive vibrations to other person, turn to face the direction in which the intended recipient is believed to be. If you do not know, your efforts will still have a degree of effectiveness.
Given time and practice, you will learn to project feelings of well being and love to everyone all the time through thought and attitude alone. You will become completely at home giving people a mental 'hug' at will.