The perception of time is an elastic thing. When the UK went into lockdown on the 16th March 2020 and households were instructed to stay home to slow the spread of Covid-19, the prime minister confidently predicted that ‘the tide would be turned’ within 12 weeks.
Writing this now on a dark January evening at the desk I have worked at since mid-March, just a few feet from where I sleep, the country is once again in the grip of a huge surge of Covid cases and in the midst of a third national lockdown. Apart from what now seems but a brief, if partial, reprieve in late Summer and Autumn, we have endured this disruption to the normal rhythms and flows of life for what seems an age. We are told that we should be ‘turning the tide’ once again by around Easter. Another 12-week horizon. We will see. I suspect life will take much longer to return to normal, if it ever does.
When the fabric of one’s life is interrupted in such a way, there are fewer punctuation points with which to mark the passage of time. Less opportunities to gauge progress, fewer definite pauses to enjoy between episodes of activity. Time blurs, friendships drift. Days roll into weeks, the mind tends to lose its sharpness and malaise can begin to creep in.
In such circumstances of duress and uncertainty, a touchstone of some sort is required; a ritual to ensure that mind and body continue to function correctly, around which the rest of one’s life can flow.
For about 15 months prior to the start of the pandemic, the weekly schedule of attending Fudokan Dojo had become an increasingly important aspect of life. It started with attending just one class a week but it soon became clear to me that if any real progress was to be made, the amount of time I spent in the dojo would need to increase, which it did. It became more obvious still that the training had two interrelated and equally important elements – the sword work itself and the exercises collectively known as ‘tanren’.
Tanren translates as ‘forging’, which implies that the exercises strengthen and temper the body to build the balanced power and flexibility required for the correct wielding of the sword.
All movement of the body must be centred on a point known as the ‘tanden’, generally acknowledged to reside within the body at a point roughly level to three finger widths below the navel.
The tanden, as a ‘field of elixir’, is conceived as a sphere of subtle energy that permeates and influences the entire physical body.
In western cultures there is a tendency to over-emphasise the primacy of the head and brain, thereby promoting an over-reliance on thought and intellect. Yet we nevertheless refer to ‘gut instincts’, or ‘gut feelings’ as though we acknowledge, even if unconsciously, that the gut plays a larger role in the regulation of emotion and instinct than we tend to give it credit for. Conversely the traditional Japanese view is that the true seat of one’s being resides in the belly area or hara, centred in the tanden. This centre is said to store sei energy, which translates in English to ‘vigour’ or ‘vitality’.
From a purely biological point of view, the abdomen and gut area is home to what is known as the Enteric Nervous System (ENS). The ENS contains over 100 million nerve cells, or neurons, also found in the brain and spinal cord, that communicate through connections called synapses.
Accordingly, many animals, including humans, have effectively two brains. The ‘gut brain’ has a certain amount of autonomous control over digestion, ‘fight or flight’ and other emotional responses, with a direct path of communication with the ‘head brain’ via the vagus nerve. These two neural centres work together to regulate both the conscious and unconscious processes of the body. This being the case it is important to ensure both are working correctly and in balance with each other.
This is the reason for the systematic cultivation of the tanden, and is of particular importance to western students who, from a cultural standpoint, will tend to view the body as a kind of robot that is animated by a ‘controller’ who sits behind the eyes, as opposed to being a unified whole with centres of command and feedback distributed throughout the entire organism.
Isolation training
As the initial wave of Covid swept the country, venue closures forced an abrupt halt to the regular dojo schedule. Given that a switch to sword training at home was not a viable option for those of us living in relatively small apartments in London, our teacher, John Evans, devised an ‘isolation training’ programme focused on certain tanren practices that could be performed with the minimum of space or equipment.
Participating students were grouped according to experience and ability and given a set of practices to perform daily. Each student would video themselves on a weekly basis running through their respective sequences. These videos would then be sent to John for marking and feedback on individual progress. He also wrote regular updates with feedback and advice when certain sticking points arose or clarification on particular points were required.
Since training in a group was no longer an option, I chose to engage with the programme in order to provide myself with a ritual that would start each day on the right footing.
The living room in my one-bedroom apartment is just spacious enough for the purpose of tanren practice, so each morning, before showering and returning to my bedroom which doubled (and still doubles) as an office, I rose, cleared the furniture out of the way, laid out my yoga mat and began.
As a relative novice I was placed in group 1 and given the following preliminary exercise sequence to work with:
Warm ups
(including two extra exercises for increasing shoulder flexibility)
Vajra prostrations
Fire cleansing
Swimming legs
Reverse cycling
Resting lunge
Sitting in seiza for five minutes to adjust/
relax posture and breathing.
Each daily round of exercises would take about 45 minutes to complete, although this increased over time with the addition of extra exercises. I supplemented these with ‘suburi’, by practising a set number of straight cuts with a tanrenbo in the usual stances and also seated in seiza.
To go into great detail as to how each exercise is performed would take up too much space here, so instead I will focus on one particular exercise, with observations and lessons learned during the entire process.
In my current understanding, the basic purpose of tanren training is two-fold: to condition the core muscles in the abdomen, which in turn strengthens and supports other parts of the body, and to aid the development of ‘abdominal breathing’. Students of yoga will be well aware that we tend to rely too heavily on the upper chest when breathing, instead of utilising the diaphragm to allow full use of the lungs. Abdominal breathing is instinctive in infants, but as one gets older, one tends to forget this and the breathing becomes overly shallow. This has a negative effect on a number of physical and emotional processes, so it is important to re-train the body to use the breath correctly and weakens the body’s ability to generate integrated power
There is a strong mental and emotional aspect to the tanren exercises, which often require a complete exhalation of breath and for the lungs to be kept completely empty for some time during performance. This can be a challenge, as the body tends to go into ‘panic mode’ and the overwhelming urge to gasp for breath needs to be overridden.
The term ‘omoni-kokkyu’ translates to ‘breath of heavy burden’. The technique it describes is utilised in some form in many of the exercises worked on during the isolation training and is fundamental to the tanren practice. John Evans has described how he was taught this technique as part of the training he received from the Yamabushi (mountain practitioner) who taught him the ascetic practices of shugendo and the Kurikara System of swordsmanship which we practice alongside Nakamura Ryu Battodo.
This (omoni-kokkyu) utilized the hollowing of the abdomen after full exhalation (termed uddiyana in hatha yoga). This is created by decreasing the pressure in the lungs and mimicking the movement of inhalation while keeping the airway closed and lungs empty. This creates a deep hollow in the abdomen that extends up under the ribs and also deep into the groin area….Performed correctly, the downward pressure of the subsequent inhalation is increased. This maximizes the pressure from the hara into the legs and then into the spine.
(p.42. Kurikara - The Sword and the Serpent. Blue Snake Books 2010)
The most powerful of the isolation training exercises for me personally is known as ‘fire cleansing’. This is performed in the ‘cat’ pose, with the head down and the back arched upwards. Having exhaled fully, with the tongue out, one inhales through the nose and then proceeds to perform the ‘bellows-breath’, whereby the air in the lungs is forcibly expelled via the nostrils through swift contractions of the abdominal muscles. The lungs refill as the abdomen temporarily relaxes before the next contraction. This is repeated to a count of 30 repetitions, at a rate of roughly one per second. Next, staying in that position, one takes a few relaxed breaths and then again, exhales completely through the mouth, with the tongue extended. Once the lungs are entirely emptied, one (slowly at first) draws the belly up towards the spine, to create a hollow in the abdomen that should extend up under the ribcage (this is known as the uddiyana bandha in yoga practice), before relaxing and allowing the belly to return to its original position. This action should be repeated for as long as one is able before drawing breath. The in-breath should be controlled and not a desperate ‘gasp’ for air.
Gradually, the drawing up and relaxing of the belly becomes quicker, so that it ‘flips’ on each repetition. John set us the goal of reaching 60 ‘flips’ before inhaling. At first I could barely manage 15 flips before the need to inhale became unbearable, but slowly the number I was able to perform crept up. About four months in, doing three rounds of bellows breaths and belly flips a day, I finally hit the count of 60 flips, so eventually I was doing 180 flips in total, in three rounds of 60.
For me, this was the pivot around which all the other exercises revolved. I found that at about 30 ‘flips’, if I swallowed, that would extend the amount of reps I could perform until I managed to hit the required 60. The exercise can make you feel quite strange. It becomes obvious that the exercise forces a huge amount of blood to flood around the body, as the visceral organs are repeatedly massaged by the swift muscular contractions and relaxations. I am convinced that my circulation, especially in the extremities of the hands and feet, benefited greatly during the lockdown as a result of this practice.
One also has to overcome certain mental barriers, mostly stemming from the ‘fear response’ when it comes to delaying the intake of breath until the set number of repetitions is complete.
Having undertaken the sequence for a period of several months on a daily basis, by the time we were finally able to return to group training, it was obvious to me that the focus on the tanren practice had paid many dividends. I had lost about a stone in weight, my abdomen had never been so intensively worked in my whole life, and while there was still an amount of stubborn, middle-age fat around my waist, the underlying musculature was toned and providing a far greater level of support. I found that my emotional energy was more regulated and less likely to ‘flare up’ during training. I had come to a greater understanding that all parts of the body are interconnected; that a slight alteration in one area, such as lowering the gaze with the eyes, or ensuring the chin stays level, could have surprising effects on seemingly unconnected areas in the body.
Even small things when moving around in daily life had changed. For instance when reaching down to pull something from a kitchen cupboard, I would instinctively squat, pulling the belly in, rather than leaning over. Getting up from a chair would involve the contraction of the belly and the use of the leg muscles, rather than pushing myself up with my arms. These might seem banal examples, but the protracted period of focus on the abdomen had permeated at a deep level and begun to influence how I moved, not only in the dojo, but in everyday life as well.
The isolation training had provided me with the ritual I needed to allow for continued daily advancement in tanren and to keep the negative effects of prolonged periods of isolation from the rest of society at bay. My thanks must go to John, for devising and overseeing the programme and for keeping the pressure on. Also sincere thanks must go to Suzuki Sensei, for taking the time to create 32 pieces of Shodo calligraphy that were subsequently presented to all participating Fudokan students who made progress during the isolation training months. My own piece, which reads ‘Ken Go Mu So Mu Shin’ (‘The glorious unequalled sword empty mind’) is now framed and on the wall above my desk, to serve as a continual reminder to keep going, whatever the next few months of this third lockdown may bring.