Over the ages, suburi training has been incorporated as an integral part of the study of most Japanese sword arts. Other arts, and even sports, have also discovered the benefits of suburi training, for they "go deep," affecting mind, body and spirit in positive ways.

This article is reprinted with kind permission of the author and the editors of Shobukan News, the newsletter of Aikido Shobukan Dojo, Washington, DC.

Suburi Training - Satsujinken
Contributed by Chas Poor*

Early this year I started coming to the dojo in the morning and doing sword cuts before class. Years ago, I remember, we used to do this regularly, practicing one- and two-person suburi and cutting on the makiwara. I didn't notice it the same way then, but I remember how our weapons practice benefited from this training. I remember how all the suburi we did helped us feel comfortable holding and using the weapon, until the weapon was almost like a part of ourselves. It was then that we began to make progress on the lessons of the kumitachi.

To perfect a motion, one must find a time and a place to work on it, studying and then repeating the motions over and over again. I felt that making a routine time for us to practice suburi would create an opportunity to do this. There is now a suburi class before 7:00 a.m. class Wednesday mornings.

The class has been going on for more than two months now, and I have noticed that besides students' open hand and weapons work getting better, we [instructors] have to spend less time instructing and correcting their basic movement, both in the suburi class and in weapons class.

Discover efficient movement
Suburi is a great method for people themselves to discover inefficiencies in their movement, and to find the naturalness of efficient movement as it relates specifically to their bodies. Each participant has found the class time becoming both a meditative and personal experience, a time to perfect the motion of cutting with the sword and develop power.

A suburito by any other name
We began by discussing tradition and the background of Japanese sword work. In Japanese, both "ken" and "to" mean sword. So we have kenjitsu, the art of the sword, kendo, the way of the sword, and aikiken-training with the sword to perfect aiki perception. Daito, chuto, and shoto all refer to different size swords. Dai means great or the larger sword, and shoto is the small sword. Bokken and bokuto literally mean the same thing: a wooden sword. The suburito is a sword used for suburi. It is generally heavier than a bokken. One may hear other names, such as kaisuburito, hakusuburito, or jigen suburito. Kai and haku refer to the exact shape and size of the bokken. Jigen refers to a particular kind of bokken used by students of the Jigen School, a kendo/kenjitsu style of fencing from Kyushu, in southern Japan.

There are many varieties of suburitos. A suburito is typically distinguished in that it is much thicker at the blade portion of the weapon than it is at the handle. The funagata is common and comes in two lengths, 3.5 and 3.8 shaku (one shaku equals 11.93"), and has about the same width down its entire length. The datsukaku is octagonal, the daen is oval shaped, the kaigata is oar shaped, and the musashi, shaped after the wooden sword Musashi fashioned out of an oar in the famous battle of Ganryujima, is 4.2 shaku long. The katate is for use with one hand. Some people even use sand filled pipes. Most of us use a heavy bokken, but one that is not so heavy it will cause injury. Why? A heavy weight magnifies the problems of misalignment, excessive use of force, tight shoulders, uncoordinated breathing, improper grip, poor posture, balance of weight, improper hanmi, and jerky movement. The heavier weight amplifies all our senses.

Unifying mind, body and spirit
We begin each class by addressing questions, going through a checklist of the basics of suburi technique, and mentally focusing. Then the process of unifying mind, body, and spirit begins.

Doing a large quantity of sword cuts doesn't help unless each cut is done mindfully, and with a contemplative attitude, while listening to our bodies and making adjustments. Practice doesn't make perfect‹it makes permanent. So we are very careful that we don't develop bad habits. Our checkpoints are the basics (kihon) of kamai, hanmi, metsuke, footwork (ashi sabaki), sword mechanics (ken sabaki). We practice holding the sword, tenouchi, edge alignment, the use of the control and the guide hand, and the body mechanics of the motion (tai sabaki) while keeping in mind kokyu, extension, posture, focus, weighting and balance, orientation and employment of the hips, breathing, continuity of movement, and opening the chest. Every class we get a little better and the mechanics of the suburi are a little easier as we train muscle memory and recollect feelings and images. We try to do the sword cuts with complete extension of energy, intent, and focus without forcing or using muscle, weighting the cut at the monouchi (the last few inches of the blade).

Maintaining an image or concept is important. But what does one think about? What is the focus? Some say to imagine cutting down a person, your enemy. This is the difference between satsujinken and katsujinken. The first is the killing sword, the second, the life-giving sword. We adopt the second attitude. We imagine cutting down our own impurities, like aggression, anger, pride, and ego.

As we do our sword cuts together, we face stress in our muscles, in our grip, arms, shoulders, wrists, in our back, legs, knees. As we readjust and change, we are seeking to create a nonresistant, completely aware state‹reflection, a state of no mind. Are we using too much force? Are we cutting from the center? Energy follows thought. Cutting with the center, moving from the center, center initiating the action, developing center.

So far this practice has been an amazing thing. We have learned so much. We have been casting and extending beyond ourselves, beyond the dojo walls, yet simultaneously focusing in our center, losing consciousness, finding our origin. We end each practice calm and close to the Source, ready for the 7:00 a.m. class that follows.