The term is formed by combining two characters:
- 體 (tai): traditional form —kyujitai— of the kanji 体, meaning “body”, with reference to the white tissues and the structure of the body itself.
- 術 (jutsu): “technique”, “art”, “skill”.
The kanji we use for taijutsu is 體術, where 體 (tai, “body”) is the old form of 体 and is no longer used in modern publications in Japan.
Its literal translation is “body technique” or “art of the body”: the way of using the body.
It is a concept found in the Japanese martial arts.
In the context of our teaching, taijutsu does not refer at all to how to manipulate the tied person's body; we interpret it as “the technique of body mechanics”, a good example of how we westernize the Japanese side of shibari.
It means understanding how the human body works: how it moves, how the forces acting on it are distributed, and how we can use all of this in a shibari session, using both bodies with intention and efficiency.
At Shibari Dojo we start from biomechanics and adapt it to make it easier to understand for students with no prior training or experience.
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