The Dojo

The name KenYuShinKan draws on the expression ken yu shin sangai aiki no michi (the visible, the invisible and the spiritual are the three worlds of the way of Aiki), taken here as a reference to three dimensions of practice: what is visible, what remains hidden, and the spiritual dimension.

In this sense, KenYuShinKan is understood as the school in which practice is cultivated on several levels. There is first of all the visible dimension: the form of the movement, the posture, the biomechanics — the physics, dynamics and geometry of motion — and technical precision.
Beyond it lie less immediate aspects, ones that are not grasped at first glance but that sustain the effectiveness of the technique from within: rhythm, breathing, the relationship with the opponent (aite), intention, the strategic and tactical aspects, the quality of presence.

To these is added a third, inner dimension. In the martial arts the care given to form does not remain confined to the movement: the continual refinement of what one performs acts upon the one performing it. Correct form, continually sought, in turn shapes the kokoro — the mind and heart of the practitioner — just as inner disposition translates into the quality of the technical movement. Outer and inner are not separate worlds but condition one another: in this sense the practice of the Way leads to a joint refinement of body and mind.

The Dojo’s mon is a stylised iceberg, and it alludes to this principle: the visible part of practice is only what surfaces, while what remains beneath the surface is larger and more essential.

In the Dojo, practice is conceived as the continuation and reworking of a martial tradition — born and developed for the sake of effectiveness — whose roots reach back to the Japanese Middle Ages and which has been refined across the generations. It is in this direction that the Dojo intends to carry it forward: not as a spiritual path, in keeping with a reading widespread today, but as the rigorous study of a technique that asks to be understood in its foundations and carried on without losing its original intent.

Seen in this light, Ken Yu Shin points to the striving toward inner perfection as the result of constant, reasoned work on technique.

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