“One day, many decades ago, I was at my teacher’s home, sitting in his room, when he said, ‘Please close your eyes and wait, and whatever happens, make sure not to open them.’ Then perceiving that my teacher went down the stairs I let my guard down a little to the sign that he had disappeared. After several hours, some sort of heavy, pressing force approached diagonally behind, and seeing an image of a body split in two, I went into sideways-rolling body movement. Then I had a feeling pressing right from the side of the head, and I executed a forward breakfall. As I slowly sat down into a natural ‘fudoza’ posture I heard my teachers voice, saying ‘Well done. You made it. You may open your eyes now.’ And when I opened my eyes, there stood Takamatsu-sensei, lowering an unsheathed sword in his right hand.
I, level headed and thinking this strange, had asked about this before, ‘kijutsu (energy techniques) through a sixth sense, or one may say ‘shinden no jutsu’. Such is the ‘gokui’: ‘If one thinks is it there, it is not. If one thinks it is not, it is.’ For the first time the profound words of this teaching sank into my body will all their weight. I was deeply impressed by the nature of the words’ spirit. Together with the joy of my eyes opening, I received from my teacher that sword. I was later told by my teacher that this was a ‘juji-kiri mumyo no itto’, and that no-one had gone this far. Those words, joyfully spoken, I remember as if they were said yesterday.” – DR. MASAAKI HATSUMI
SEISHIN NINPO DOJO 