Kagami Biraki: Nippon Budokan, 10th January 2011

Peter Here;

As 2011 woke up from the winter holidays (Fuyu no Oyasumi), the annual ceremony of Kagami Biraki marked the Nippon Budokan's celebration of the new year on January 10, and the beginning of training. Takagi Sensei had again been asked to represent Karatedo by the Nippon Budokan with Arakawa Sensei since they are the official karate instructor's at the Nippon Budokan's Budo-Gakuen, and once again the Shiramizu group attended to take part in the group budo training session.

Everyone arrived at the Nippon Budokan for 11:30; well, everyone except yours truly- a horrendous misunderstanding about the pronunciation of 10:15 and 10:50 meant I arrived at Tobudobutsukoen station a tad later than I was supposed to (note to self: double check all times in writing in the future). However, the ceremony started at 12:30 and everyone including myself managed to be seated comfortably by the time it started.

The mochi breaking ceremony has been well covered by past interns, but a good further explaination to the mochi and embellishments can be found here: http://blog.alientimes.org/2010/01/opening-the-mirrors-kagami-biraki-a-more-comprehensive-look-at-kagami-mochi-revisited/



The round rice cakes were shaped to resemble mirrors because mirrors have been revered in Japan since ancient times and are believed to be receptacles of the gods. You might have seen mirrors set up inside the main halls of a Shinto Shrine. For the New Year, a smaller mochi is usually placed on top of a larger one (sometimes there are 3 mochi cakes in a stack). Sometimes the Kagami-Mochi are further embellished with significant decorations such as a citrus called a daidai (which is a homophone for generation after generation), a spread open folding fan (to symbolize the spreading of your seed), kelp (konbu), which is a near homophone to YOROKOBU (to enjoy). There might also be other plants (all with symbolic meanings) and folded red and white paper (to keep out impurities) used to decorate the mochi.

The reason the hard mochi is broken and not cut is that the SAMURAI avoided using the word CUT, as well as the symbolic action of cutting, especially around New Year’s. Thus a knife is not used, And, even though the Kagami-Mochi is BROKEN, the word WARU (割る), to break, was also avoided (the SAMURAI did their best to avoid being cut or broken!). Instead, an IMI KOTOBA (忌み言葉), a euphemism, is used: hiraku (開く) to open. And thus this custom came to be known as KAGAMI-BIRAKI (鏡開き) the OPENING OF MIRRORS, which sounds very auspicious.




After the mochi breaking ceremony, we assembled outside for a photo shoot. It was pretty cold and windy, so we made it as quick as possible, and then headed inside for the budo demonstrations, or Embu. As was last year, 9 budo was represented at the ceremony: Shorinji Kempo, Aikido, Kyudo, Kendo, Naginata, Judo, Jukendo, Sumo and of course Karate. Each demonstration lasted about 15 minutes and boasted the best aspects of each art: Kempo showed it's Chinese origin with its circular attacks, Aikido demonstrated the use of your opponent's power and the elegance of technique, Kendo was graceful and spiritual, Kyudo displayed incredible focus... each demonstration had superb and enviable qualities.





Karate's demonstration came courtesy of the JKF women's kata team, and the Japan University Championships male team kata champions, with a wonderful performance and bunkai of Kururunfa and Unsu.



The group training followed, with participants from each of the 9 budo styles taking part on the floor. The massive Taiko sounded the beginning and end of the practice, and the twenty minutes between was filled with shouts and enthusiasm, the biggest coming from the Karate area! There aren't the words to describe the feeling of the training- motivation and determination permeated the hall, driving everyone on. Sadly, the taiko signalled the end of the training just as everyone was getting into the swing of it; 20 minutes wasn't enough, even for the kids!



After the training, the 'opened' mochi from the Samurai ceremony was offered in Oshiruko - sweet red bean soup - along with an offering of Sake for the adults. Sake is potent stuff, so after Okano san kindly refilled my glass with his sake offering I could only sip a couple of times before leaving it!

On the journey home Arakawa sensei and I talked about the new year's plans, about the new dojo in Satte, my Shodan test, practising English and Japanese, and where I should start training from next April. We also admired the setting sun, nestling behind Fuji-san in a picture-postcard scene. Inspiring Stuff.

鏡開き式・武道始め (KAGAMI BIRAKI)

Erica here!

Earlier this month, on the 11th, Louise and I attended the Kagami Biraki Festival at the Nippon Budokan. What is Kagami Biraki? I will explain by quoting from the program because its description is far more elegant than mine.

“Kagami Biraki is a festival which literally means ‘unveiling of a round-shaped mirror” has its origin in a ceremony that was widely practiced by the samurai in the 15th century. Every New Year’s day, the warrior would honour and purify their personal armour and weapons by offering two layers of small round-shaped mochi cakes made from glutinous rice to the gods. Later, at the end of the holiday season, sometime between then 11 and 20 of January, they would share these mochi cakes with their families and with members of their clans.

Beyond its spiritual significance, their festival helped strengthen family ties and friendship among warriors of the same clan.”

The first half of this festival at the Budokan was very interesting. There was a sort of play where many people dressed as ancient samurai warriors were seated in formation, food and wine was brought to the leader and a huge double layered mochi cake was broken after. Following the skit, there were demonstrations of 9 Budo arts including kyodo, aikido, kendo, judo, shorinji kempo, jukendo, karatedo, naginata and sumo.

After the demonstrations, everyone from these forms of Budo went down onto the floor for Budo Hajime (we all trained simultaneously for about 30min). Other than having a difficult time hearing Sensei’s instruction because everyone else was kiai-ing, it was a fantastic experience!!

When this finished, we all got a bowl of Shiruko (sweet red bean soup with a piece of mochi). Some of the kids from Shiramizu loved it so much that they went back for seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths and the most I heard one of the kids had was six helpings!! That’s when the Sensei’s told them they weren’t allowed to have anymore =p

At the end, we all got to take home an ema (a wooden plaque with a drawing of the year's zodiac). On the back, you're supposed to write something equivalent to a New Year's resolution.

The Budo Hajime can be viewed here (that's Kempo closest to the camera, with the karate group being beyond it in the center).

The leader of this samurai clan being served wine.


Mochi being broken.

Kyodo demonstration.

Louise and I with Samurai san!!

Nippon Budokan - Kagami Biraki

Carl here...

Monday 12th January was the Nippon Budokan Kagami Biraki event.

The explanation...
This ceremony which can be literally translated into ‘unveiling of a round shaped mirror’ was originally performed by in the 15th Century by the 4th Tokugawa Shogun before going into battle, The Tokugawa’s won the battle and the ceremony has been popular ever since.


The official program
The ceremony involves an offering of two layers of small glutinous rice cakes to the gods on New Year’s Day to honour and purify a Samurai’s personal armour and weapons. The second part of the ceremony is cracking open a casket of Sake and sharing the contents.

Shiramizu has had these cakes on display in front of the small Shinto Shrine in the dojo for the last few weeks though I haven’t seen any Sake!

On January 11th or a short time after this, these mochi cakes are broken up by hand or hammer (knives aren’t used because they could signify cutting ties with people), and shared with the family or in samurai times, the clan.

This festival is believed to help strengthen family ties and friendship among warriors of the same clan.

Shiramizu
The Shiramizu dojo was invited along to take part in ceremony representing the JKF-Wadokai. In true form, Arakawa sensei took 50 students to the Nippon Budokan.


Kudanshita station
We met at Tobu-dobutsu-koen station on the morning and took the train straight to Kudanshita subway station. After a short walk through the grounds of the Imperial Palace, we arrived at the Budokan.

The ceremony was already underway, with lots of people lined up inside the main hall.


What followed after the bow and opening speeches was a large demonstration of traditional Samurai, in full armour. It was a very ceremonial affair where the chief was presented with a feast by his minions.


After this, the giant mochi cakes and the casket of Sake were wheeled into the middle of the hall.



The chief then proceeded to ‘unveil’ the cakes and casket with the help of a huge hammer.


The samurai clan then marched around the Budokan hall and left.

Demonstrations
What followed were demonstrations from 9 modern martial arts, I caught the Kyuudo (Archery) and Karate demonstrations which were good and a little of the bayonet demo.

Pose!
All the Shiramizu people met the rest of the Karate students from some other dojo (sorry, I don’t know which ones) for a photo outside the Budokan. At this point it started to snow which made us all even colder.


Photo taken from the blog of Arakawa sensei

Arakawa Sensei was quite funny, after the photo was taken it started snowing pretty hard but Sensei still wanted to quickly speak to everyone. I don’t know exactly what he said but I think it was something like ‘why are you complaining about the cold? You’re all supposed to be tough karate students!’ with his trademark grin, everyone started laughing and stopped shivering immediately!

Training in the Budokan
After posing for a customary photo with the rest of the Shiramizu and Hideo Takagi Sensei, we had a short wait until we were allowed into the main hall for training.

This was quite a good experience, there was eight different martial arts practising at the same time in the Budokan. The martial arts were: Karatedo; Kendo; Iaido(?); Aikido; Judo; Naginata; Kenpo(?); and Sumo.


Lawrence in front, that's me just behind him...

Karate was in the middle of the hall, with approximately 80 students training in basics, kata and kumite for about 45 minutes. It was a challenge to keep focused on my kata, especially when I was more interested in the Kendo people whacking each other and the Judo people throwing each other around!

Ikimasho – let’s go...!
As soon as the training was over, and everyone bowed out, the Budokan offered everyone Miso soup. Shiramizu was on a tight schedule though and couldn’t partake in the rest of the event. Everyone had to get back to Sugito for the ‘official’ Shiramizu start of year training session that was taking place on the evening. Arakawa Sensei and I were the last to leave the Budokan, so we had to jog to the station to catch up to everyone.

...just another busy day at the office!

Kagami Biraki or... Opening the Mirror

The demonstrators. From L to R- kendo, judo, sumo, juukendo, karate, and the samurai demonstrators.

Translated literally, it means the "unveiling of a round-shaped mirror". But it's also the name of a traditional New Year's ceremony. It starts before the New Year with the making of a two layer mochi (glutinous rice) cake offering to the gods. After the New Year (between the 11th and 20th of January), the mochi is shared with their family and clan members, and the event that contains spiritual meanings as well as a simpler communal bonding symbolism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagami_biraki



I learned all this through the pamphlet handed out at the Nippon Budokan this past January 14th. The Nippon Budokan has, for the past 40 years, held a "kagami biraki" at the start of the year and this year they invited 9 different martial arts to provide a demonstration and then one hour practice session where all these martial arts practiced at the same time. I went with Shiramizu which was itself one of three dojos attending on behalf of Takagi Sensei and his Guseikai karate group to represent all of Japanese karate (!) during the practice session.


(ed. This is the 4th year Takagi Sensei has been asked by the umbrella JKF body to repesent all of Japanese karate, and Shiramizu had attended each year with our interns. Previously the honor was rotated annually between the style groups. I am not sure why it has stayed with Takagi Sensei recently, but two reasons could be because it is he who runs the regular karate classes at the Nippon Budokan's training hall and he is also a member of the umbrella JKF technical committee.)



Starting at around 12pm, the ceremony started with the ritual where the shogun (samurai general) is fed a few items of food. Then the mochi and a barrel of sake is rolled out and he uses a large hammer and hits the mochi, breaking it into pieces (see above) which would usually be shared with the clan and family. Others (perhaps his second in command), breaks the round wood cover on top of the sake barrel.

(photo courtesy of Arakawa Sensei's blog)

(photo courtesy of Arakawa Sensei's blog. Arakawa Sensei leading the karate practice.)

Following this were demonstrations by the various martial arts seen in the first picture. However, we all got changed and went outside to run through our practice routine which was some standing kihon, all the ido kihon, some simple yakusoku kumite, then all five pinan katas as well as seishan and chinto (time permitting). By the time we returned, the sumo demonstrators were taking their turn.



(ed. there are ten main Japanese martial arts represented at kagami biraki - karate, judo, kendo, sumo, aikido, kyudo, kempo, jujitsu, jukendo and naginata).

The practice started at about 2:15 and went quite smoothly. Well, smoothly but loudly. We were in about the middle of the budokan arena. To our left were the naginata practitioners, behind us was shorinji kempo, and on the right was the juukendo group. Ahead of us was the kendo group which meant it was quite hard work to make our kiai's heard, much to the soreness of our throats. But the hour flew by rather quickly amidst the explosion of martial arts in the budokan ring.

When it was finished, small bowls of mochi in a red bean soup of sorts (if you've had the red bean desserts from Chinese restaurants, it's the same thing) were given to all the people who practiced on the floor. And we all sat around and laughed and talked before leaving at around 3:30.

(photo courtesy of Arakawa Sensei's blog. Lawrence is kneeling far left. Takagi Sensei is in the center with the (new) beard. Everyone has Guseikai badges on just for today.)

For me personally, it was a great experience, not the least because it was the first time I took part it in. I really enjoyed being in the middle (literally, in our case) of so many different martial arts. I watched some of them practice beforehand and out of the corner of my eye while I was on the floor, and it's really interesting to see what each style's take on martial arts is.

I was particularly intrigued by the juukendo group simply because of propect of a martial art based upon wooden shaped bayonette-fitted rifles.

But what I think was more important was, just as the program where I got the translation of the "kagami biraki" ceremony from, the concept of budo. The short article about the charter of budo discusses "a recent trend towards infatuation just with technical ability compounded by an excessive concern with winning". It went on about the principles of budo, yet simply by being on the budokan floor practicing, there was a sense that budo was there. Everyone was there practicing to the best of their ability and afterwards, we shared mochi and bonded. "Kagami biraki" indeed.

Lawrence