The Dôjô

SHINSEIKON DÔJÔ, LIVINGSTON

Our dôjô, which is located in the small town of Livingston in West Lothian (approximately 18 miles from Edinburgh), was officially founded during May of 2023 by Lenny Pedersen, through the encouragement of one of his senior students, Raffaele Paglietti, who was in search of a local dôjô teaching Bujinkan Budô Taijutsu and therefore considered acquiring permission to, at least, establish a study group/training group if nothing else was available.

As fate would have it, Raffaele and Lenny lived in the same town and quickly got together for a training session and began discussing the establishing of a dôjô as Lenny was a licenced instructor, having received his official menkyo in Japan. At present, the dôjô only teaches Bujinkan Budô Taijutsu, but as Lenny is also a student of other ryûha of kobujutsu and shinobi no jutsu (ninjutsu), he is planning on adding these to the roster of warrior arts available to study & train in Shinseikon Dôjô in the future.

As the dôjô is still rather new, it does not have its own private building, but rents a fantastic training space from local martial arts studio, G-Mac Martial Arts.

Currently, classes are only once a week, but as the dôjô grows in membership number, we will increase this to multiple weekly training sessions.

THE NAME

The name, Shinseikon Dôjô (真精魂道場), which literally translated means “The True Spirit Dôjô” (“dôjô” literally meaning “Place of the Way” and is a Japanese term for a training place for warrior arts), was carefully chosen by Lenny due to it conveying a very important philosophy in which he places tremendous emphasis.

In martial arts today, there are far too many people who do not know or understand the shinseikon, or true spirit/true soul of things, whether these be techniques, principles, ideas or philosophies, and unfortunately train with this lack of knowledge or understanding—and worse, teach it unto others.

One cannot study, learn, train and comprehend things in the correct way if one is oblivious to this true spirit, or this true soul of the matter at hand; and one will develop bad habits, wrong ideas, misconceptions and delusions about what one is doing if this true spirit of things is not at the core of everything one does.

Because of Lenny’s sincere belief in this idea, this philosophy, and strict adherence thereto in his own studies and his own training, he is adamant about conveying the same to his students and thus making the very heart of his dôjô this concept of True Spirit/True Soul.

Thus, he dubbed it Shinseikon Dôjô.

THE KAMON OF SHINSEIKON DÔJÔ

The kamon, or Japanese family crest, of the dôjô was designed by Lenny and embodies his sincere beliefs in core values and principles of the old Japanese warrior traditions. It is heavy with symbolism with each and every bit—from the central three rings, their being interlinked, surrounded by three sakura (Japanese cherry blossoms), to that of all being surrounded still by 9 divisions, and this within a closed circle or ring—carrying significant meaning and thus having been designed intentionally. Nothing in the kamon is there for pure aesthetic appeal and students of the dôjô are taught the meaning of the kamon with the instruction that they use this, as well as the name of the dôjô, to guide them as practitioners of classical Japanese warrior arts.

ADMINISTRATION

Bujinkan Budô Taijutsu: The training is headed by the dôjô founder, Lenny Pedersen, who is a licenced shidôshi (teacher/instructor) in the Bujinkan Dôjô organisation. In accordance with the current administrational system of the various dôjô around the world needing to be affiliated with a daishihan, Shinseikon Dôjô is affiliated with daishihan Tezuka Wataru-sensei, who is Lenny’s teacher of Bujinkan Budô Taijutsu.

Asayama Ichiden-ryû Hyôhô: – Not yet applicable –

Nindô: – Not yet applicable –