The Session of Katsugen Undô #6

In this sixth part, Régis Soavi describes a session of Katsugen undō (translated as Regenerative Movement).

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Some additional information

Seitai was developed by Haruchika Noguchi (1911-1976) in Japan. Katsugen Undo (or Regenerating Movement) is an exercise of the extrapyramidal motor system that is part of Seitai. Itsuo Tsuda (1914-1984), who introduced Katsugen Undo in Europe in the 70s, would write about it: ‘The human body is endowed with a natural ability to readjust its condition […]. This ability[…] is the responsibility of the extrapyramidal motor system.’ 1Itsuo Tsuda, One, Chap. VI, 2016, Yume Editions, p. 46 (1st ed. in French: 1978, Le Courrier du Livre (Paris)

Excerpts from the video on Yuki

It’s simplicity itself. We always want to add lots of things because when it’s too simple, we feel like it’s not working.

We’ll invite people to do two or three exercises. One exercise will relax the solar plexus area. Here, we exhale deeply. It’s like a kind of artificial yawn. So it’s a voluntary exercise. A kind of artificial yawn. We relax the solar plexus area.

One of the second exercises we do, for example to trigger individual movement, would be “spinal rotation.” Well, here it’s about regaining a little flexibility. I see people today with aging bodies, their spine is completely blocked, they can no longer turn around. They have to turn their whole body to look behind them. Whereas all they need to do is rotate their spine. But very often, even in people in their thirties, the spine is blocked. So this is an exercise that relaxes the body. That’s the second exercise.

And the third exercise, which is a little more complicated, involves putting your thumbs inside your closed fists and pulling everything back. Okay. It’s difficult to show you like this, you really need someone to show you more precisely. That’s why there are organized workshops. That’s for individual movement.

And then what do we do? Nothing! We do nothing. We let the body trigger the movement. If we do the individual movement, it’s very simple. You can do it anywhere. It can be very discreet. It’s not about starting to scream… It’s not something that’s very visible. It’s extremely discreet. There is no noise during a movement session. Sometimes there are slight noises, almost nothing. So that’s the individual movement.

And then in the dojos, during the week, that is, two or three times a week, depending on the dojo, we practice the mutual movement. So there we simply do the plexus exercise and add a few concentration exercises, such as breathing through the hands, Yuki, the activation chain, all of which allow the bodies to be ready to let the movement be triggered. However, the triggering itself will be done by activating the second points of the head. I can’t demonstrate it like that. By activating the second points of the head, in a way, the voluntary system will go into rest mode. And it is the involuntary system that will take over, that will lead.

So what does that mean? It doesn’t mean that suddenly we’re brainless and don’t understand anything anymore. When we eat, for example, it’s the digestive system that suddenly, when it was quiet and doing nothing, suddenly starts to activate. All kinds of gastric juices are produced, the stomach starts working, the intestines work harder, etc. That doesn’t mean we stop thinking. At most, we feel a little drowsy. The drowsiness that comes with digestion, or when we’ve eaten well, we feel a little… ah, there it is. Because the involuntary digestive system has been activated. It’s not because this digestive system has been activated that there is nothing else. Here too, when we do the regenerative movement, the voluntary movement is at rest, we don’t think about it anymore, we close our eyes, we let the body move according to its needs.

And then, because the body is in an involuntary state, it can do things that it doesn’t usually do, or that it has somewhat neglected. And so it starts to move. That’s why we do it in a dojo, because it does things that can sometimes seem incongruous. For example, if you do movements like this on the subway, people might think, “Oh dear, that guy’s a bit weird…” But in the dojo, we’re relaxed, our eyes are closed, no one is watching us, it’s a bit like being at home. The movement we practise in the dojo is a training. We often say it’s training for the extrapyramidal motor system, but it’s not just that. It’s training because our bodies have weakened, because we have trouble reacting, so we retrain ourselves. It’s a bit like someone who can no longer walk. At a certain point, even the smallest step is difficult: going from the kitchen to the bathroom is difficult for them. So from the moment they start walking again, their body will start to function better. It’s the same thing with involuntary movement.

And at some point, of course, since this is training, it’s within a given time frame. We also have to stop that time at some point. That is to say, during the session, we did the training, we let the movement be triggered, then we stop the movement. Here again, there is an exercise very similar to the first one to stop the individual movement. We stop the movement. Then we lie down for a few minutes. And we come back, we resume the voluntary system, which will act again.

So we let the individual movement act completely as it needed to, on its own, for a certain amount of time, and then we return to our normal daily life. And so, the body will now regain its involuntary abilities. We will allow the involuntary to work more than before in everyday life. Because the body will say, “Hey, I need this,” and it will trigger another type of work. So again, there are exercises that allow the involuntary system to be trained, and then there is everyday life. We are not in the involuntary state all the time. We work, we do a lot of things with the voluntary system. But since the involuntary system works underneath, the body remains normal.

Notes

  • 1
    Itsuo Tsuda, One, Chap. VI, 2016, Yume Editions, p. 46 (1st ed. in French: 1978, Le Courrier du Livre (Paris)