Nine Cuts – Nine Powers!

Festival 31 is a celebration of over three decades of making an impact for good in our world, and a warm gathering of the warriors who have carried the vows for all these years. We train in effective intelligent martial arts to create more peace, security, and joy for everyone. Our power is backed by our noble ethics. 

Our SKH Quest seminar and 31st Festival theme for 2011 is “Nine Cuts – Nine Powers”. This title is a reference to the ninja’s legendary kuji-kiri “nine-letter cut” – a grid of horizontal and vertical slashes that project our power out into the world to give a boost to our intentions to create good and diminish negative, to accel advancement and banish obstacles. Sometimes, just feeling strong and positive is not enough; you need to give your power a sound and a form to project it into action.

The nine powers are deep and cannot be quickly or simply explained, but an attempt at describing these nine aspects of full self-actualization might be:

RIN Physical, mental, and spiritual strength – To be strong and vital, unhindered in body, mind, and spirit

PYO Nervous and energetic systems at full power – To activate and actualize the bright potential in all my body energy centers. “Activated energy centers, multiple intelligence systems” – feeling your way towards winning a fight from intellect, emotion, reading the process, regulating tension, holding values, remembering past lessons. The idea is to be in a fight with your mind, feelings, perceptions, memories, senses, nerve energies, and intentions all providing subjective guidance for move-to-move progress towards winning. Sometimes we study and train so hard to learn a technique in a “this for that” sort of technical application that we lose touch with all the input coming our way that would help us make better tactical decisions in a fight. This is a series of processes aimed at waking up all the inner generators and receptors for fully energized presence in a conflict and in life itself.

TOH Riding ki power through all moments – To follow my true path with authentic ease, and avoid extreme diversions born from seeds of depression, frivolity, and dullness

SHA Healing and wellness – To be whole and happy and radiantly healthy, and to be free from illness, injury, and incapacitation

KAI Perceiving danger, finding sanctuary – To be safe and secure, and to evade effortlessly the damaging effects of distress, misfortune, obstruction, and dark influence

JIN Hearing the truth of the universe – To follow the directives of the bright way, rather than the tempting whispers of divisive passions; to receive guidance from the divine scheme of totality

RETS Remote viewing of distant places and times – To reach through the vastness of endless time and infinite space to access highest wisdom

ZAI Manifesting what is needed – To attain enlightenment as to the major questions of my life, generating the diamond legacy of exploring highest truth, and the lotus legacy of assisting all beings to realize truth

ZEN Eliminating the influence of enemies – To vanish from the sight of all that is divisive and diminishing, and rise from the dark and teeming confusion of birth and death to realize the direct experience of unified oneness with all

Yes, such goals can seem daunting in their loftiness, and many martial artists have been so scared of even thinking of such potentials that they nervously scoff and mock such training as impossible or pointless. But I have found a way to present exercises in these grander powers of the warrior that allow even a beginner to make valid progress. I urge you to break ranks with those who celebrate powerlessness. Make a vow to be where the most authentic advancement can be yours.