Budo: The Way of Change

 

Great day of training. It must have been 95F (35C) in the dojo, though.

I
talk a lot about the benefits of budo. We go to the dojo and we
sweat.  We work at improving some aspect of our skills every
time we enter the dojo. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been
training or how old we are.  My iaido teacher, Kiyama Hiroshi,
was still training in his 90’s. A friend of mine pushed himself to
improve his jodo to challenge for 8th dan when he was 90.He didn’t
make it to 8th dan, but he was pushing himself to improve until the
day he died.

Budo,
much like other Japanese arts such as chano yu
and
shodo,
makes three assumptions about practice and us. First, that perfect
technique can be imagined. Second, that we can always work to come
closer to perfection. Third, that we’ll never achieve perfection,
but that’s no excuse for not continuing to grow and improve.

All
of the streams of thought that come together to form budo assume that
human technique and character can, and should, continue to develop
throughout one’s life. Confucius, Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi, Siddhartha
Gautama (Buddha), all provided strands of thought and ideas to the
cultural stew of China and Japan. All of them assumed that people
could change, grow and improve at every stage of life.

The
Zhuangzi is filled with stories that emphasize taking your time and
learning things. The idea that learning and development never end is
intrinsic to the all of the lines of thought in ancient China that
used “way” 道
as
a metaphor for their school of thought. There
were a lot of them.

On
the other hand, there is a common idea in Western thinking that we
each have some sort of unchanging, immutable core or essence. I’ve
heard many people say “I can’t change. That’s just the way I
am.” or “I don’t like it, but that’s who I am.”  Once
they finish high school or college, many people seem to think that
they are done growing, changing and evolving as a person. Thankfully,
there is no evidence to support any of this.

A curated selection of the best of the the Budo Bum

 

Everyone
changes, every day. Whatever we experience changes us. Little things
change us in little ways, and big things can be, as the saying goes,
“life changing.” Life never stops working on us, changing us,
molding us. We are not stone. We are soft flesh that changes and
adapts to the stresses it experiences. An essential question is
whether we are going to be active participants choosing how we change
and what we become, or are we going to be passive recipients of
whatever life does to us..

A
central concept of the idea of a Way, michi
or
do
道
is
that there is always another step to take, another bit of ourselves
we can polish, a bit of our personality that we can improve, and that
we can direct that change. This is true whether we are talking about
Daoist thought or Confucian thought or something in between. The idea
of a finished, unchanging human really doesn’t come up. 

Budo
constantly reminds us that we aren’t finished growing, developing,
improving. Rather than declaring that we can’t change, budo is a
claxon calling out that we change whether we want to or not, and that
we can direct that change if we choose.  Budo is about choosing
to direct how we change instead of just letting the circumstances of
life change us.

We
are making the choice to take part in how life shapes us from the
moment we enter the dojo, although I doubt many realize how much budo
can influence who we become when we make the decision to start
training. Good budo training should, and does, change us. Physically
we get stronger, more flexible, improve our stamina and develop the
ability to endure fierce training and even injuries. That’s the
obvious stuff. More importantly, budo changes who we are. It should
make us mentally tougher and intellectually more flexible. It should
help us to be more open to new experiences and ideas. It should teach
us that we can transform ourselves. It’s a cliche that budo
training makes people more confident, but it’s also true of good
budo training. You go to the dojo and you get used to people
literally attacking you, and as time goes on, you’re not only okay
with that, but you look forward to it. I don’t know anyone who
started budo training because they enjoyed being attacked, but it
doesn’t take very long before that sort of training, whether it is
done through kata
geiko
or
some sort of randori
or
free sparring, becomes something you look forward to with a smile.

Keiko,
the
formal term for budo practice in Japanese, is the highlight of my
week. The time I spend in the dojo practicing and doing budo never
tires my spirit. It exhausts my body, but my spirit always comes away
refreshed, recharged, and ready to deal with all the stresses of life
outside the dojo. Budo practice isn’t something we “play”. In
Japanese you never use the verbs associated with play when talking
about budo, and even judoka avoid words that emphasize the
competitive and focus on terms like tanren
鍛錬,
forging. Budo is about change; conscious, self-directed change.

The
wonderful thing is that once we learn how to change ourselves in the
dojo, we know how to do it outside the dojo as well. The discomfort
we get used to while pushing ourselves in the dojo teaches us how to
deal with discomfort outside the dojo. That’s one thing budo
doesn’t eliminate – the discomfort of changing. Self-directed
change is difficult and pushes us into places and situations that are
anything but comfortable. I can remember being a pugnacious jerk, and
dealing with disagreement and conflict as a win-lose scenario that I
had to win. It took a lot of time in and out of the dojo to learn
that just because there is conflict there doesn’t have to be a
winner and loser.  There are lots of other ways to deal with
conflict, and I’m grateful to my budo teachers that I learned
something about conflict as something other than a zero-sum game.

Budo
has a lot to teach us about life, how we can change and adapt to the
world instead of letting the world change us. All the effort that we
put into learning the techniques and skills of budo also teaches us
how to direct an equal amount of effort into changing any aspect of
ourselves that we wish to confront. The budo path has no end
destination. We just keep working at it.

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman, PhD. for her editorial support and advice.

 

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Budo’s Principle Lesson

 

Photo Credit Patricia Anderson Copyright 2023

Koryu
budo schools teach many things: strikes, throwing techniques, joint
locks, strangles, weapons, defenses, counterattacks, proper
breathing, proper walking, techniques for receiving attacks, ukemi.
However, the one thing every koryu budo school that I have
encountered spends the most time teaching and practicing isn’t any
of these techniques. It’s awareness; self-awareness, spatial
awareness, temporal awareness, and awareness of others.

I’m
purposely limiting this to koryu budo because gendai budo spend most
of their practice time drilling competition techniques and sparring.
Koryu budo schools spend most of their practice time on mental focus
and awareness. If you give it a little consideration, it is clear
that the amount of time spent on technical skills is second to what
is spent on awareness and mental development.

The
bulk of koryu budo training is kata. Pick any koryu budo ryuha and
watch some of their kata. A kata might take anywhere from 10 to 30
seconds from the start to finish of one repetition. The technique
practice in the kata will generally last from 1 second to around 10
seconds. The rest of the time is spent practicing awareness and
focus. This is true whether it is iai or kenjutsu or jojutsu or
naginata or jujutsu or anything else.

If
we look at the first iaido kata in Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu and Muso
Shinden Ryu, the kata starts while the practitioner is standing. She
takes the time to sit in seiza carefully and attentively. Once she is
sitting, she does not rush into drawing her sword. She stays calm and
focused. She begins moving carefully, being fully aware of what she
is doing and what her kaso
teki
(imagined
opponent) is supposed to be doing. She begins drawing her sword
slowly, completely focused on the situation, and does not rush
anything. When everything is right, she finishes her draw and cuts
quickly across kaso teki. She pushes forward and raises the sword
over her head, then cuts quickly down through kaso teki. She pauses.
Focusing and extending awareness, she considers if kaso teki is still
a threat. She shifts her blade and pushes it slowly out to her right,
then brings it in close to her head and drops it across her front for
the chiburi and rises to her feet, all the while remaining focused on
kaso teki, just in case the threat has not been completely
eliminated. She pushes her right foot back into a relatively deep
stance. Maintaining her focus on kaso teki, she brings her left hand
to the koi guchi, and the tsuba close to her left hand. She pulls the
back of the sword along her left hand until the tip drops into the
opening in her hand and then slowly brings the saya over the sword
tip and begins sheathing the sword, still staying focused on kaso
teki. As she sheathes the sword, she slowly lowers herself to her
left knee. Once the sword is sheathed there is a pause while she
continues to focus on kaso teki. She rises, still focusing on kaso
teki. Only after all of this, does she lift her eyes from kaso teki.
Maintaining her mental focus, she expands her awareness to the whole
space around her, and then she returns to her starting place with
deliberate care and focus.

That’s
a lot of time and effort to practice two cuts. The most important
lesson isn’t the draw or the cuts. It’s the focus and awareness.
Awareness combined with the ability to focus on what is critical are
the most important skills in koryu budo. That’s why we spend more
time practicing them then everything else combined. Awareness will
keep you out of more fights than any technique can win, and focus
will prevent distractions that cause losses. 

 

 

Paired
koryu kata spend just as much time on awareness and focus as iai kata
do. Take the omote kata Monomi from Shinto Muso Ryu. The partners
start facing each other separated by around five to seven steps. The
kata starts when tachi raises their bokuto to chudan. Jo carefully
moves their weapon so that they are holding it by one end with the
right hand and the other end is touching the ground on their left
side, all while maintaining perfect focus on tachi. Tachi raises the
sword to hasso
and
steps forward with their left foot, keeping their eyes and mind
focused on jo. Tachi advances carefully into cutting range without
breaking their focus on jo. When they are one step away from being
able to cut jo, tachi swiftly raises the bokuto, steps forward and
cuts jo’s head.

Jo
has spent all of this time focused on tachi, ready to act the moment
tachi begins any sort of attack. The instant tachi begins to raise
their bokuto, jo moves just enough to the left to be out from under
the bokuto’s cut and simultaneously brings their weapon up. As the
sword is cutting through the space where jo’s head was, jo steps
back with their right foot and brings their weapon down on tachi’s
wrist. Tachi and jo are each focused on the other, minutely aware of
each other. Tachi pulls their bokuto out from under the jo and steps
back into jodan. As tachi is stepping back, jo whips their weapon
around and points the end directly at tachi’s eyes, preventing
tachi from stepping forward to attack. Then jo steps forward and
thrusts the stick into tachi’s solar plexus. Jo carefully raises
their weapon to tachi’s eyes, and tachi carefully slides back and
lowers their bokuto. Jo and tachi are focused on each other, watching
for the least sign that the other will try another attack. Jo moves
their hands to the ends of their weapon and places their right hand
on their thigh without letting their focus on tachi waver. Jo shifts
their hands on the ends of the weapon and tachi deliberately pulls
their left foot back to their right foot. Jo brings their left hand
to their front and slides their weapon through their right hand to
its middle and brings their left foot forward next to their right
foot. Tachi begins to carefully retreat back to their starting point,
remaining focused on jo the entire time. After tachi has taken their
first step back, jo begins carefully backing towards their starting
point, never letting their eyes leave tachi or their focus waver. 

That’s
a lot of time spent focusing on each other to practice one cut, one
strike, and one thrust. The action takes about a second, maybe two.
The rest of the kata is spent developing focus and awareness. When
will tachi attack? Jo doesn’t move until tachi begins their attack.
Move too soon and the opening is lost. Move too late and you’re hit
in the head. Tachi has to be aware of everything that jo is doing and
not doing. Jo has to be just as focused on tachi. If jo’s focus
wavers for the smallest instant, tachi can cut them before they can
act. After the cut and counter strike there is a brief impasse, with
the partners focusing to sense the smallest intention to do
something. If tachi tries to do anything other than step back, jo has
to sense it and ram their weapon into tachi’s solar plexus. If
tachi detects jo’s focus slipping they will instantly launch an
attack. 

After
the final thrust, jo and tachi are still focused on each other, each
without an iota of trust for the other, until they are finally back
to their starting points and the kata is over. The ability to
maintain that sort of focus without letting it break for the
slightest instant takes time to develop. Jo often learns to not trust
tachi the hard way. I let my focus waver towards the end of a kata
once and tachi hit me, seemingly without warning. As my sense of
awareness improved, I began to sense when tachi was going to try to
“cut” me and I could move to stop it. When I got better, I could
sense tachi’s intention and shut it down by sharpening my focus,
without making any movement. As tachi, I’ve learned to watch for
breaks in my partner’s focus and attack into them. Jo learns to
never trust tachi for an instant.

The
principle lesson in koryu budo is mental. It’s the one that we
devote most of our practice time to, and it’s the one that is most
applicable to every moment of every day. Stay aware and focused.
Don’t let your attention be diverted from what is important. 

Our
society doesn’t encourage focus or awareness. We are surrounded by
distractions. TV, radio, internet, cell phones. Advertising works
best when it can distract your mind, interrupt your focus and make
you think about what the advertiser wants you to think about.
Distracted driving is such a menace that it injures more people than
drunk driving does, and the number of deaths attributed to it is
climbing fast. We have trouble staying focused in classrooms and in
offices. Distractions on worksites are as much of a danger as
distracted driving. 

 

Learning
to focus and be aware was never easy though, even without our modern
distraction machines. If it had been, the people who crafted the
koryu budo that we train in would not have devoted so much of their
pedagogy to practicing staying focused and being aware. All the other
things we do in the dojo feed back into this principle lesson. If
your breathing and posture are bad, you can’t focus nearly as well
as when you are upright and breathing properly. If you are tense, you
will focus on the wrong things, and you’re liable to react to the
wrong stimuli. Proper posture and breathing help you to stay relaxed
so you remain focused on what is critical. 

The
essential mental state in koryu budo is known as heijoshin
平常心
in
Japanese. One reading of heijoshin is “normal mind”. When I was
first learning this I thought it was strange, because the focused and
aware mind that koryu budo teaches is anything but normal in the
world I live in. I don’t meet many people outside koryu budo who
can combine focus and awareness like the experienced koryu budoka I
have known. This kind of mind is special, and requires a great deal
of specialized training to achieve. The goal of all this time spent
practicing focus and awareness in the dojo is to transform that
special state of mind into our “everyday mind”. 

Being
focused and aware is more complicated than just paying attention. You
have to learn how to mentally acknowledge things beyond you and your
training partner without losing your focus on your partner. I’ve
seen people who didn’t understand what was happening (or whose
awareness was atrocious) walk right up to people who are swinging
weapons about. I’ve also trained in a lot of places that weren’t
exactly perfect for what I was practicing. Places where the walls
were a little too close to be able to move as you want to in the
kata, or where there is a pole or other object in an inconvenient
spot in the dojo, or outdoors on uneven footing. If you are so
focused on your partner that you don’t know what else is going on
around you, or where the walls and obstructions are, or what is under
foot, you need more awareness practice.

As
your understanding of budo grows deeper, you begin to be aware of
critical details that you couldn’t have noticed in the past, things
like what your partner can and cannot do from a particular stance or
position. In that Shinto Muso Ryu kata above, if tachi is so focused
on jo that they don’t notice where jo’s weapon is targeting, they
are likely to try an attack that will end with them (hopefully) on
the ground because down was the best direction to go to avoid the
counter-thrust to their eyes. If they are too slow or overcommitted,
they may end up taking the stick in their eye. Awareness includes
being aware of which options are open, and which are closed. When can
your opponent attack? Which potential attacks are viable, and which
can be ignored? Where is your opponent likely to attack you? Where is
your opponent open to your attack? This kind of awareness takes a lot
of time to develop, and you don’t develop it by doing reps. You
develop it by taking time to see your opponent and by taking the
opponent’s role. Slowly you become more aware of not just your
opponent, but of everything around you. 

In
koryu budo, we spend more time practicing being focused and aware
than everything else we do combined. It’s that important. None of
the cool techniques will work if you aren’t aware of a threat or
aren’t able to stay focused on a threat. Awareness and focus are
critical at every step in training, and they are just as critical, if
not moreso, outside the dojo. Anyone who has driven on Detroit
freeways knows how important awareness and focus are to getting home
in one piece. There are accidents all over the freeways caused by
people who aren’t focused on driving and lack awareness of what is
going on around them. Detroit commuter traffic is the perfect
application for the focus and awareness that all of my koryu budo
training is developing.

 

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman PhD. for editorial support.

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Ki Ken Tai Ichi

 

気剣体一致

Ki
ken tai ichi. A student recently asked me about the relationship of
ki ken tai ichi to seitei iai and jo. It’s a fundamental concept in
Japanese budo but it’s not difficult to be confused by it. It
breaks down as:

• Ki
  気:
  Yes, that ki. The one that folks argue about endlessly. In this case
  it is will, intent and energy.

• Ken
  剣:
  This ken is read tsurugi when it stands alone. It’s the same ken
  found in “kendo”, and it traditionally refers to a straight,
  double-edged sword common in Japan from about 450 to 950 c.e. that
  was superseded by the curved tachi. In this usage it represents any
  weapon you might use. 

• Tai
  体:
  This character is read karada when it stands alone, and it means
  body.

• Ichi
  一致:
  Ichi is the difficult bit in this little 5 character phrase. It
  means “to agree, to conform, to be congruent, to be in concert, to
  be united, to cooperate, to be in accord”.

Intent,
sword and body as one. Ki ken tai ichi.

Will,
sword and body in accord. Ki ken tai ichi.

Intent,
sword and body in agreement. Ki ken tai ichi.

Because
the English and Japanese words only overlap as very poor Venn
diagrams, there are  numerous translations. None of them are
100% right, but each captures some of the spirit of the Japanese.
There is no fragmentation;here can be no divisions. Your kokoro
(heart/mind), your body and your weapon must be combined into a
single unit. 

When
you move, do you do it with hesitation or doubt? Is the sword a tool
in your hand, or is it an extension of your body? Can you feel what
is going on in your partner’s body when you cross swords? Does your
body move as a coordinated whole? Does your will and intent express
itself instantly in your body and the sword?

If you like the blog, consider the book!

 

My
student is quite familiar with ki ken tai ichi from his deep
experience with koryu. However the Kendo Federation has ki ken tai
ichi broken down almost to a science. There are particular markers to
look for when someone does seitei iai or jo that indicate whether or
not the will, the body and the sword are in accord. 

Does
the whole unit reach the conclusion of the movement together without
any separation? This is the central clue. Teaching this concept to
students starts with the mechanics of how to swing the sword. From
there teachers have to backward engineer the timing from the point
where mind, body and sword all arrive at the completion of the
movement together and become as one.

Moving
backwards, the student has to consider that the hands are faster than
the body, but for a sword cut the hands and sword have further to
travel than the body. If the body and the hands begin their movement
together, the body will finish its movement and come to rest followed
by the sword. If the body and the sword are united, the full power of
the body will be transmitted through the sword. If they are not
united then the sword has only the power of the hands when it makes
contact. For the full power of the body to be transmitted through the
sword, the sword tip has to begin moving first and the body begins
moving next so they will complete their action together, united in
power and timing. 

Breaking
down the timing of a sword cut into fine segments makes it a little
easier to explain and teach the outer aspects of ki ken tai ichi. A
little. Students can start work on training their hands and body to
move in accordance with the timing of the sword to transmit the
maximum power through the blade. However, just because a student has
mastered the timing of their movements doesn’t mean they’ve
achieved ki ken tai ichi. This is much harder than simply copying the
timing. 

One
thing you may have noticed that is missing in the above description
is the intent, the will, the ki. Even after you train yourself to
move hands first, then body when cutting,, you still haven’t
achieved ki ken tai ichi. You’ve got the sword and the body, but
the intent, the heart/mind is much more difficult. This is a lot more
like achieving mushin.
You can’t be thinking about anything else if you want to achieve ki
ken tai ichi. Your mind has to be quiet and still so that your intent
comes naturally in the situation and your body moves as the intention
occurs in the heart/mind, so there is no separation such as thinking
and acting. Intention and action become one as body and sword are
one.

Combining
intention and action into one is much more difficult than bringing
body and sword into accord. After you’ve got your body and weapon
acting as one, it takes a great deal of additional, focused practice
to unite the mind with the body. This is an ongoing effort. Any
little thing can disrupt the unity of will, sword and body. A bad day
at work. A fight with a friend. Worry over someone’s health. All of
these and an endless list of other things can knock your mind out of
sync with your body. Mental stillness is difficult to achieve, and
that much more difficult to maintain.

気検体一致
Ki
ken tai ichi. Intent,
sword and body in accord. First practice until the sword is an
extension of your body. Then teach your body to move so the power of
body and sword are united at the instant of contact and they finish
moving together at the bottom of the cut. At that point  you
have the outer form. Now learn to still your mind so that nothing
separates intention and action. When intent, body and sword are
united, that’s ki
ken tai ichi.

 

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman for editing.

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Why I Still Train

A guest post by  

Richard Riehle, PhD 

Judo Godan

Judo — Why I still Train

 

People are sometimes surprised that, at 85 years old, I am still in my judogi in the dojo, still enjoying Judo. Of course, my competition days are in the past. My last tournament was a little over ten years ago at 74 competing with guys my own age.

 

I was never a star competitor. Starting my life in Judo at age 16, I lost far more matches than I ever won, mostly to newaza. I was never an athlete, but I loved learning and participating in Judo.

When I was still a nidan, during one of my many annual visits to the Kodokan, I said to one of the high-dan instructors, “I have been in Judo for many years, but I have never been a champion.” He replied, “I have never been a champion either. That is not the purpose of Judo.”

 

And there we have it! 

 

I have learned that Judo, at its fundamental level, is not about defeating another person. It is not about scoring an ippon against another person. I also enjoy chess, but have been put in checkmate hundreds of times during my lifetime, just a few weeks ago by one of my three sons.

 

True, that there is some ego gratification in scoring a win in a Judo, but as we grow older, we score fewer and fewer ippons in competition. With Judo we eventually learn that our training is not about ego gratification. It is more about learning about ourselves in a unique way, even as we learn more about Judo.

 

Chess is much the same. There is never an end to our learning in either activity

.

Too many of those I knew when I was younger have “retired” from Judo because they believed they were too old to be good competitors, too old to even have a chance to become champions.

“Why bother to continue now that I can longer have a shot at winning a medal or trophy?” or “My best days are behind me!” or “I’m too out-of-shape.” In reality, it’s usually about ego: “I will look ridiculous because I can’t do what I used to be able to do!”

 

And with that, they acknowledge that they never learned the real lessons of Judo. They have learned only about victory and defeat. There is so much more to learn.

 

Jigoro Kano once remarked that it was not important that you are better than someone else. It is more important that you are better today than you were yesterday.

 

This raises the question, “Better in what way?” We each will have our own answer to that question.

For me, “better” means many things. One of them is good physical feeling. Sometimes, better is because I have learned something new. Better might even be because I have been able to help someone else overcome a difficulty of their own. Better will different for each of us.

 

As an older Judo practitioner, I can work at imposing waza that were not my best during my long ago, and brief, competition days. I am working on sumi-otoshi and some other difficult techniques I could never execute successfully in a shiai. I have experimented with Mifune’s tama-guruma. I know of no one who has ever attempted tama-guruma in a contest.

 

We can all learn the deeper lessons from the kata. There are a lot of techniques we would not have attempted in a shiai that we can improve when we no longer need to focus on winning.

 

There is also the fellowship with other “old timers” and the opportunity to share experiences with the youngsters. In the dojo, there is no politics, no religion, no ethnic biases — nothing but improving ourselves through good Judo training. Training, even light randori, after 40, after 50, or even into the 80’s, can be satisfying — even rewarding — when we are no longer worried about earning trinkets for the trophy shelf at home or in the dojo.

 

Finally, I still train because I can. There are things I cannot do: no kata-guruma, no sitting in seiza, no hard falls. Our lifetime of occasional health issues such as weaker bones, injured knees, slower reflexes are all part of that training, but while we can still don a judogi and still train, there will still be benefits in that training.

 

Why do I still train? A life in Judo has enriched my life in so many ways, and my continued training continues to enrich my life. I cannot, at my age, defeat anyone, but there is still the chance to be better tomorrow than I am today using my own ideas of what it means to be “better.”

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Growth And Change In Budo

 

I
was talking with a student and teacher of classical Japanese martial
arts, and the all too-common myth – that the teachers and students of
these centuries-old ryuha practice exactly as their creators taught
them in the first generation – came up.  We both laughed. It’s
a compelling story, but it’s a myth – one that is dangerous for the
students, and for the arts themselves. Whether you do something
called a way ( “do” 道).
An art (“jutsu” 術),
or a style or school (“ryu” 流)、the
story is the same.

These
are all arts that have survived centuries of use and application. The
thought that hundreds of years ago someone discovered a principle and
created techniques for applying it that were perfectly formed and are
still perfectly suited to the world they are in credits the founders
with a level of genius that I cannot imagine. I can imagine them
realizing principles that can be applied to an ever-changing
environment, but I can’t stretch that to the founders also creating
techniques that perfectly apply that principle no matter how the
world has changed.

Principles
don’t change. That’s the nature of principles. They are
fundamental ways of understanding the world and how it operates. In
budo, sometimes principles are expressed and learned through physical
practice, such as that discovered by following the Shinto Muso Ryu
directive “maruki wo motte suigetsu wo shire “丸木を持って水月を知れ””holding
a round stick, know the solar plexus”. Others are clearly expressed
philosophical concepts, such as Kano Jigoro Shihan’s “seiryoku
zen’yo” 精力善用
(often
translated as “maximum efficiency, minimum effort”), which is the
short form for “seiryoku saizen katsuyo” 精力最善活用
“best
use of energy”.Jigoro Kano, Mind Over Muscle, Kodansha, 2005).
Usually shortened to “maximum efficiency minimum effort,” Kano’s
maxim  refers to  a broader principle than just the
physical technique. It’s about the best use and application of
energy, mental and physical. These core principles of different arts
haven’t changed since they were first expressed.

Principles,
by their nature, are universal. If they can’t be applied
universally, they aren’t principles. I can apply the principle
implied by the jodo maxim maruki
wo motte shigetsu wo shire
in
a variety of ways and situations. I can even apply this principle
without a stick in judo randori, to pick an example outside of Shinto
Muso Ryu. Kano Jigoro was an evangelist for the idea of seiryoku
saizen katsuyo
and
its usefulness outside the constrained world of the dojo. He wrote
extensively about the principle and why everyone should apply it,
whether they practice judo or not. These principles haven’t changed
since they were first understood.

 

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How
they are applied and expressed changes all the time however. 
Not because the principles change at all, but because the environment
in which they are being applied changes. Judo is nearly 140 years
old. Shinto Muso Ryu has been around for more than 400 years. For all
of these arts, the world has changed dramatically since they were
founded. The world of combat in Japan slowly changed as weapons and
tactics evolved, and then was transformed by the introduction of
firearms in the 1500’s, followed by the enforcement of peace by the
Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603. Shinto Muso Ryu, essentially military
police tactics, was born into the first years of unsteady peace
during the Tokugawa Era. The samurai class was still on a war
footing, with the Tokugawa victory only a few years earlier. Weapons
of war and people skilled with them were everywhere.

A
little over 250 years later the wearing of swords in public was
banned. Clothing styles in Japan changed from traditional kimono and
hakama to European dress. The tools of combat increased in number and
power. People still study Kodokan Judo and Shinto Muso Ryu and other
koryu arts. The arts are still seen as relevant to this age that
would have been unimaginable when they were created. 

The
people who study Kodokan Judo still practice many things that Kano
Jigoro laid down as part of his art. They do a lot of things that he
didn’t include in his pedagogy for the art. I find Kodokan Judo
principles being applied not just in competitive matches with people
wearing traditional dogi, but in no-gi matches and even professional
MMA fights. More interesting to me is the way Kodokan Judo’s
principles continue to be applied in and out of the dojo. It’s
still seen as an effective form of physical education, and the
principle of seiryoku
zen’yo,
along with the principle of yawara
柔
(softness,
pliancy, flexibility, suppleness), is taught as having far more than
just martial applications. The whole of Kodokan Judo manages to offer
a very complete set of principles for interacting with the world
physically and intellectually nearly 140 years after its founding. It
hasn’t stopped growing and adapting. In addition to the official
kata of Kodokan Judo, many practitioners develop their own,
unofficial, kata to practice and explore the principles in situations
that are not focused on in the official curriculum.

The
proportion of waza practice versus randori practice versu kata
practice is something judoka never stop arguing about, and every judo
dojo has a different answer to what the proportions should be. I see
people working out new techniques based on the classical principles,
and practicing in new ways. It’s not uncommon now to see judoka
train without dogi so they can prepare for no-gi tournaments. Do they
stop doing judo because they take off their dogi and fight in
competitions that aren’t using IJF rules? If you’re applying judo
principles it’s still judo, regardless of what you’re wearing or
what you’re doing. Judo is, after all, yawara.
It’s
soft and pliant. It can change its shape to fit the situation.

Shinto
Muso Ryu reaches further back for its origin, another 270 odd years
past Judo. The relevance of a stick that was intended to be used to
subdue people with swords in a world of guns and IEDs is difficult to
imagine, especially when you see the people studying it wearing
clothes that have been out of date for centuries and practicing
against people armed with swords. Relevant in the 21st century? It
looks more like Live Action Role-Playing to most people. However, the
principles haven’t changed, even if the practical applications have
had to evolve. 

Throughout
its history Shinto Muso Ryu’s students haven’t been afraid to add
new lessons to the art. Kata were added steadily over the centuries,
and tools were added to the practitioner’s kit. An art that started
out with just a stick and a sword now teaches students to apply the
principles to sticks of nearly any length, as well as chains (and in
some lines even bayonet length blades!). The real principles about
movement, timing, spacing and rhythm are still useful not just in
combat situations, but everywhere in life. I’ve only been doing
Shinto Muso Ryu for 28 years, but in that time I’ve watched
teachers tweak kata and change what they emphasize. Looking back
before my time, to the films that survive from the last 90 years or
so, it’s clear that people have been tweaking and playing with the
kata since long before I showed up. Considering all the recorded
changes that have been made to Shinto Muso Ryu over the centuries, no
one can seriously claim that they do Shinto Muso Ryu just like Muso
Gonosuke Katsuyoshi did it.  It’s been changing and adapting
from the day he started figuring it out for himself.

[that
sentence undercuts your argument that such a practice is even
possible] Budo practices are paths to follow, not fossils.  You
have to adapt to the terrain. If you never change anything, and never
learn anything beyond where the founder began, you would be
preserving an artifact that has no relationship to the age you live
in. I fully expect the arts I practice and teach to grow and change.
The principles will still be there, but I sincerely hope my students
learn new ways to train, new ways to teach the principles, and new
ways to express the principles. Anything less than that is a
discredit to everyone who has gone before us.

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Nin 忍

Nin 忍　Calligraphy by Kiyama Hiroshi, Copyright 2019

 

Nin
(忍)
is a Japanese term that is not often heard standing alone. Outside
Japan it is most commonly encountered in the term ninja
(忍者). 
Nin
has
nothing that directly ties it to spies and assassins though. Nin is a
character trait that may be the most important generic lesson in
classical budo. Every ryuha has its own essential character that
makes it truly unique: they all teach nin.  

In
dictionaries nin
is
usually translated as “patience”. Patience nails a piece of the
character nin (忍).
As with so many things though, to simply say “nin (忍)
equals patience” is to miss a great deal. Nin is not regular
patience, but the patience that quietly endures suffering and trials.

There
are the obvious trials in budo, like how much your knees and feet
ache from doing the first iai kata for an hour, continuing even after
you’ve worn the skin off your knees.  Or the never-ending
torture that is the posture known as tatehiza.
Learning to endure physical discomfort with quiet stoicism is the
beginning of nin (忍).
Anyone who sticks with budo for any length of time learns to do this.
It’s just part of the physical territory. Everyone in the dojo
hurts and no one is interested in hearing you whine about it.
Everyone went through the pain of learning to take good ukemi, even
if taking ukemi for Sensei can knock the wind out of you. 
That’s the physical side.

The
other side begins when Sensei says “Shut up and train.”  In
that moment it becomes time to patiently endure not just the
discomfort and stress of training, but also your own curiosity and
desire for answers. This is the time when your questions will only be
answered by your endurance of training with doubt and
misunderstanding and ignorance that gnaws at your heart. I come from
a background where I was taught to always ask a question if I didn’t
understand something. Ask a question and get an answer. In budo
though, most often the best answer to a question is not an
explanation, but more training.

It
took me years to understand that my teachers were trying to tell me
that the answers to most of my budo questions were to be found in
training, study and contemplation. I asked Hikoso Sensei about foot
sweeps in judo one evening, and I can’t imagine a more rudimentary
answer. I was looking for a deep explanation of the timing and how to
understand it. He showed me the proper way to move my foot when
sweeping.  That’s it. The answer was that I needed to train
more to understand the timing.  No amount of explanation would
ever give me that. I had to put up with not understanding the timing
until I did understand it, and I had to to do it knowing there was no
guarantee that I would ever get it. 

Nin
is about patience where you hold your tongue even though the most
satisfying thing in the world would be to respond to someone’s
unkind, callous or outright mean comment with a righteous comeback.
Wisdom, discretion or simple maturity demand that you let it go.
Without escalation, there will be no conflict.  Without nin no
one would have been able to abide by the rules laid out in so many
keppan
(training
oaths) not to engage in fights and duels until you mastered the art.
If you wanted to keep training with Sensei, you had to master your
emotions and learn to forebear not just the little slights, but the
big insults as well. Once you joined a ryuha, everything you did
reflected on the ryuha. If you got into trouble because you couldn’t
hold your tongue or control your anger, it could bring the wrath of
the government down on everyone in the dojo.

Nin
continues to be an important component of what makes a good person in
Japan. From the salarimen trudging through their endless days or the
school kids spending their days in regular school and their evenings
in cram schools dedicated to getting them into even more rigorous
high schools and colleges. Nin can be seen in today’s dojo in Japan
in the near complete absence of talking during keiko.
Everyone is focused on the training. Talking is something for
elsewhere. In kendo dojo it may seem like there is too much yelling
going on for conversation, and in an iai dojo the quiet can be
complete except for the swish of
a sword through the air.

Nin
is sitting in seiza with a smile while sensei forgets that everyone
is in seiza and launches into a long story. Nin is sitting in
tatehiza with the appearance of relaxed comfort. Nin is mastering
present desires for long term ends without letting anyone know about
the desires or the ends. Nin is the quiet patience and endurance of
the mature martial artist.

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman, Ph.D. for editorial support.

 If you enjoy the blog, get the book!

 

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Practice Makes Permanent

 

 

Wayne Boylan,  1938-2019

Dedicated to my Father, Wayne Boylan 1938-2019

I
was talking about doing some suburi
(repetitive
sword cut practice) with a friend and he mentioned that one of his
teachers says you shouldn’t do 100 suburi.  You should do one
good cut.I have to agree. Mindless repetition doesn’t make for good
practice. If you’re just cranking out repetitions to hit a number,
you’re not paying attention to the quality of what you are doing.
You’ll be sloppy and rushed.

“Practice
doesn’t make perfect.  Practice makes permanent.” My Dad was
a teacher – music – not budo, but he knew more about how to teach and
learn skills than I ever will.  And it’s true. You’re only
as good as your practice.  Doing thousands of suburi will only
ingrain your mistakes if you’re not consciously trying to make each
one better than the last. Real practice is as mentally hard as it is
physically tough. When you’re practicing effectively you engage
your mind as much as your muscles. You’re aware of what you’re
doing and always looking for flaws.

I’ve
had the same satisfaction with my budo for the last 30+ years. I’m
consistently satisfied with less than 10% of everything I do. Whether
I do 100 kirioroshi
(sword
cuts) or 100
hikiotoshi
uchi
(jo
strikes) or 100 harai
goshi
(a
judo throw), if I’m happy with 10 of them it’s an unusually good
day.  I use too much right hand or not enough left. I tense my
shoulders (that one really ticks me off about myself). I don’t
engage my koshi enough. My stance is too narrow. Weak te
no uchi.
I muscle the cut, My angle is off, my tip bounces. I’m off target.
I do a chicken neck. My movement is small. There are days I could
write an entire essay just chronicling the different mistakes I make.

One
of my goals is to never make the same mistake twice in a row. If I do
that I’m not being aware and correcting myself. In practice I have
to be aware of what I’m doing so I can consistently correct
mistakes. Practice is about fixing, correcting and improving.　It’s
not about repeating what you’ve already learned. Suck, yes, but as
my friend Janet says, “Suck at a higher level.”  Be aware of
what you’re doing and make it a little better every time. I know
flaws won’t go away with one correction, but at least make sure
that you’re not repeating them.  

The
hardest thing to fix is a flaw that you’ve practiced. My iai has a
flaw where my stance is too shallow. At some point I decided that
what I was doing was good enough, and then I did thousands of
repetitions with that shallow stance. Now that is my body’s default
stance. Any time I’m not consciously extending my stance, it
shortens up.  Practice makes permanent. Whatever you practice is
what you’ll do. I practiced with a shallow stance and now it will
take even longer to correct because the mistake has been drilled into
my body.

Enjoy the blog?  Get the book!

I
have to build a whole new set of neural pathways and polish this
deeper stance until I’ve overwritten the old training. That’s
going to take time. I’m going to have to be sharp and watch my
stance whenever I’m training. I will have to do more repetitions
with a correct, deep stance than I’ve done with the flawed, shallow
stance. That’s no fun, but it’s what I get for practicing a
flaw. 

The
good news is that good practice isn’t difficult to do, and it’s
more interesting than bad practice. With good practice you’re
constantly aware and tuned in to what you’re doing so you can fix any
flaws you spot. This is much more interesting than doing a hundred or
two hundred mindless reps just to get in some reps. As in so much
else, it’s the quality, not the quantity. 

Just
as in music, it doesn’t do any good to rush through things just to
say you’ve done it. Maybe do the whole kata once. Pay attention to
what’s weak, then go back and just work on the parts that are weak.

Good
practice makes for good budo. Poor quality practice makes for poor
quality budo. Pay attention to what you’re doing, and to what you’re
not doing. Practice the stuff you’re good at, and practice the
things you’re bad at even more. If you don’t practice, things won’t
improve; but if you practice badly then things will stay bad.

 

 Thanks Dad.

 

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman, Ph.D for her editorial support.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3jupdQk

Practice Makes Permanent

 

 

Wayne Boylan,  1938-2019

Dedicated to my Father, Wayne Boylan 1938-2019

I
was talking about doing some suburi
(repetitive
sword cut practice) with a friend and he mentioned that one of his
teachers says you shouldn’t do 100 suburi.  You should do one
good cut.I have to agree. Mindless repetition doesn’t make for good
practice. If you’re just cranking out repetitions to hit a number,
you’re not paying attention to the quality of what you are doing.
You’ll be sloppy and rushed.

“Practice
doesn’t make perfect.  Practice makes permanent.” My Dad was
a teacher – music – not budo, but he knew more about how to teach and
learn skills than I ever will.  And it’s true. You’re only
as good as your practice.  Doing thousands of suburi will only
ingrain your mistakes if you’re not consciously trying to make each
one better than the last. Real practice is as mentally hard as it is
physically tough. When you’re practicing effectively you engage
your mind as much as your muscles. You’re aware of what you’re
doing and always looking for flaws.

I’ve
had the same satisfaction with my budo for the last 30+ years. I’m
consistently satisfied with less than 10% of everything I do. Whether
I do 100 kirioroshi
(sword
cuts) or 100
hikiotoshi
uchi
(jo
strikes) or 100 harai
goshi
(a
judo throw), if I’m happy with 10 of them it’s an unusually good
day.  I use too much right hand or not enough left. I tense my
shoulders (that one really ticks me off about myself). I don’t
engage my koshi enough. My stance is too narrow. Weak te
no uchi.
I muscle the cut, My angle is off, my tip bounces. I’m off target.
I do a chicken neck. My movement is small. There are days I could
write an entire essay just chronicling the different mistakes I make.

One
of my goals is to never make the same mistake twice in a row. If I do
that I’m not being aware and correcting myself. In practice I have
to be aware of what I’m doing so I can consistently correct
mistakes. Practice is about fixing, correcting and improving.　It’s
not about repeating what you’ve already learned. Suck, yes, but as
my friend Janet says, “Suck at a higher level.”  Be aware of
what you’re doing and make it a little better every time. I know
flaws won’t go away with one correction, but at least make sure
that you’re not repeating them.  

The
hardest thing to fix is a flaw that you’ve practiced. My iai has a
flaw where my stance is too shallow. At some point I decided that
what I was doing was good enough, and then I did thousands of
repetitions with that shallow stance. Now that is my body’s default
stance. Any time I’m not consciously extending my stance, it
shortens up.  Practice makes permanent. Whatever you practice is
what you’ll do. I practiced with a shallow stance and now it will
take even longer to correct because the mistake has been drilled into
my body.

Enjoy the blog?  Get the book!

I
have to build a whole new set of neural pathways and polish this
deeper stance until I’ve overwritten the old training. That’s
going to take time. I’m going to have to be sharp and watch my
stance whenever I’m training. I will have to do more repetitions
with a correct, deep stance than I’ve done with the flawed, shallow
stance. That’s no fun, but it’s what I get for practicing a
flaw. 

The
good news is that good practice isn’t difficult to do, and it’s
more interesting than bad practice. With good practice you’re
constantly aware and tuned in to what you’re doing so you can fix any
flaws you spot. This is much more interesting than doing a hundred or
two hundred mindless reps just to get in some reps. As in so much
else, it’s the quality, not the quantity. 

Just
as in music, it doesn’t do any good to rush through things just to
say you’ve done it. Maybe do the whole kata once. Pay attention to
what’s weak, then go back and just work on the parts that are weak.

Good
practice makes for good budo. Poor quality practice makes for poor
quality budo. Pay attention to what you’re doing, and to what you’re
not doing. Practice the stuff you’re good at, and practice the
things you’re bad at even more. If you don’t practice, things won’t
improve; but if you practice badly then things will stay bad.

 

 Thanks Dad.

 

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman, Ph.D for her editorial support.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3jupdQk

Yes Virginia, There Is Sexism In Budo

Deborah Klens-Bigman, Ph.D. doing Shinto Hatakage Ryu. (Photo copyright 2018 Deborah Klens-Bigman)

 

This is a guest post by Deborah Klens-Bigman, PhD. and Jun
Shihan in Shinto Hatakage Ryu. A martial arts practitioner and
teacher for more than thirty years, she has seen a great deal of the
budo world, and experienced its good and bad. We as budoka are not
perfect, and this seems like a good time to consider one area where
the budo world could improve. Budo has never been a male-only
practice, as can be seen most clearly in the number of women led, and
lead, martial ryuha in Japan. Klens-Bigman Sensei is addressing an
issue that should be of concern to everyone in budo.

First,
I would like to point out that most of my teachers in my 30-plus
years of training have been men – good, talented men.  And the
vast, vast majority of my colleagues in budo are also men – honorable
people I am pleased to associate with. But sexism in budo needs to be
addressed; and I feel the need to address it very specifically, and
right now.

The
public discourse of the past two years has allowed for what pundits
refer to as “tribalism” to come out into the light.  I
think it is too early to know yet whether this is a good thing (what
comes into the light can be confronted, and refuted), or a bad thing
(normalizing behavior that many of us had hoped no longer existed).
 All the while there have been some voices all-too-quietly
pointing out that misogyny is ever present for all to see, regardless
of “tribe.” Perhaps it is its perpetual “there-ness”
that allows misogyny to be continuously overlooked, or disregarded.
 Or, just perhaps, no one is very comfortable discussing it, so
no one does.

Since
I was a little kid sneaking out of the children’s library into the
grownup sections for further adventure, I was interested in hand
weapons.  Not guns, but swords, knives, glaives, spears, battle
axes, bows, maces – if you could hold it in your hand and wield it at
someone, I was ON IT – at least in the bookly sense.  I lugged
home books on arms & armor that were almost as big as I was. When
I was traveling with my parents, nothing thrilled me more than
climbing around castle ruins or forts, or (the best) going to a real
medieval armory.  

My
parents thought I might become a historian.  

Through
all of this fascination, it never occurred to me for a single moment
that my interest was weird or should be circumscribed in any way.
 That is, until I decided to actually do something about it.

I
tried fencing, which I enjoyed, but I was not happy with the
competitive aspect of it (there was no historical fencing available
like you can find now).  Likewise, I was not happy with the
theatrical fencing I encountered in college; not just because it was
fake, but because there really was no opportunity to take part in
fight scenes featuring women.  I decided fight choreography was
a waste of time.

When
I first encountered iaido, I was very fortunate that my teacher, an
Osaka native, had three daughters.  He had no problem whatsoever
with training me. There have been few times in my life when I felt
that I really found something important.  This was one of them.

Deborah Klens-Bigman, Jun Shihan, Shinto Hatakage Ryu (photo copyright 2018 Deborah Klens-Bigman)

Unfortunately,
my sempai did not agree.  My first few months of practice, one
of them told me that it was “not proper” for women to study
Japanese swordsmanship.  I decided that was silly. My Japanese
teacher was perfectly happy with me being in the dojo. However, this
sempai arranged for me to miss a demo that my teacher wanted me to
take part in.  Everyone else was there. The experience was
mortifying. It was designed to make me quit. That was the first time
I realized that not everyone had the same attitude when it came to
women training in budo.

I
should point out that most of the resistance to my practicing
swordsmanship came from a number of my American sempai.  During
my many training trips to Japan, I rarely encountered the feeling of
being excluded. But more about that later.

I
didn’t quit.  I was stubborn. I kept going to okeiko.  I
volunteered to organize demos (a job no one wanted) partly so I could
not be left out again.  I trained hard. I watched. I listened. I
learned. And I put up with a lot.

Budo
training for women involves more than just wanting to improve your
skills and develop your personality.  It involves enduring.
 Enduring sempai who, instead of being willing to help you, try
to hinder you, because something about being an onnakenshi
just
doesn’t feel right to them.  It’s walking into a seminar where
you are the only woman (hint: You have to walk in like you own the
place).  If no one knows you, it’s getting the puzzled look as
the guys try to figure out whose wife/girlfriend or (after awhile)
mom you are.  It’s also enduring looks at the inevitable banquet
when wives and girlfriends eye you with suspicion because you are
there by yourself.  It’s being told you are “gender
non-conforming,” and that’s supposed to be a compliment. 

 I’d
like to say the situation improves for women who teach, but it does
not.  I’ve had men walk into my okeiko and immediately look to
one of my male students as the teacher, because it’s not possible
that could be me.  I’ve taught seminars and offered correction
to a male student who ignored me while taking the same correction
from another man. I’ve encountered fellow budo teachers who implied I
should be teaching women, or children, but not men.
 Sadly, I gave a demo once and had a woman in the audience ask
if there are “any restrictions for women” in learning budo.
 Because she assumed that there are.

Klens-Bigman Sensei leading class (photo copyright 2018 Deborah Klens-Bigman)

 And
it’s rare, but it happens – someone being just a little too rough as
a training partner, landing a tsuki in jodo with the intention of
knocking you down, or knocking the wind out of you, at least.  Or,
as a senior student, having a sempai publicly humiliate you in front
of the whole dojo, because you “just don’t know your place”
(and having the kohai silently agree with him). The fact that I was
correct in that situation was meaningless.  

One
wonders why we bother.  Indeed, I have wondered, from time to
time, why I
bother.

There
are a lot of reasons for persisting.  For one thing, not all
budoka behave in the ways I have mentioned (though more of them do
than I’d like).  Just like the guys, there is the fun of
learning new things and gaining new skill and confidence. And I have
been to seminars in Japan where I am not
the
only woman; indeed, where several of the women have menkyo and
everyone treats me as though I have the same potential.  As I
said, while I can’t say that I never encountered male hostility in
Japan, I can say that, generally speaking, when it comes to okeiko,
people have treated me like any other student.  And most of the
groups I have trained with are at least 1/3 female.

And
that is all women want.  We want to be just like everyone else.
 We want to be taught. We want to learn.  We don’t want to
be hit on. We aren’t looking for dates.  We want to be taken
seriously. And we want our expertise to be recognized.

Now
and then, a young woman comes to the dojo, with a look in her eyes
like I had so long ago.  It’s my job (and my pleasure) to make
her feel welcome. To help her understand that yes,
you can do this.  I will help you.

And
there are good memories, like the time my teacher gave me a bear hug
after a class (in front of the sempai!) and said, “You’re doing
VERY WELL.”  

I
do this to keep my teacher’s faith in me.  I do it for myself.
And yeah, I do it for women.

Deborah Klens-Bigman doing Shinto Muso Ryu. (photo copyright 2018 Deborah Klens-Bigman)

 

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Dojo

 

Old Butokuden in Kyoto. Photo copyright Peter Boylan 2015

I started training in
the university judo dojo in Western Michigan University’s Oakland Gymnasium.
 But I was really looking for tai chi. Now don’t laugh too hard, but from
what I could find in Kalamazoo Michigan at that time, I thought judo was the
most similar to tai chi. Back then there was no internet and no YouTube, so
most of the information I was relying on was bad martial arts movies and descriptions
from books. I didn’t have the first glimmer of understanding what I was getting
into.

Judo was offered as a
physical education course at the university. I showed up for the first class
not really knowing what to expect. The classes were taught by Earl Bland and
Robert Noble. It was a university physical education class, so it was filled
with young, healthy students, most of whom didn’t know any more about what they
were getting into than I did. I don’t remember much of that first day except that
I bought a judogi and after class talked my friend Frank into coming to class
because the teacher said everyone was welcome, whether they were paying for the
class or not (I’m pretty sure the university administration would have had a
stroke if they’d found out the teacher was inviting people to attend without
paying for the class!).

I was more comfortable
in the dojo than anywhere else on campus. It had been a dance room decades
before and had mirrors along one wall. The mats were ethafoam sheets with a
green canvas cover stretched over the top, with two competition areas marked
out on it. You could always spot our people at tournaments because our dogi had
a green tint from doing groundwork on the green mat cover. I took my first
steps on the budo path there and I am still friends with many of the people I
trained with at that time.

The atmosphere was
relaxed and light. We learned how to fall down safely, and learned to call the
act ukemi. We learned how to throw each other, how to do the arm locks, strangles
and pins of judo. We had a great time, and we kept showing up for the classes
for years after that first semester. That dojo was my favorite place on campus
and I spent more time there than anywhere else except perhaps the cafeteria.
Every semester a new crop of beginners would show up for the first class, and
Frank, Sam, and other friends that I made stuck around.  We became the
seniors in the university club. I hadn’t taken up judo looking for a
competitive sport, but for the first time in my life I found one I enjoyed
immensely, even if I was no better than average.

When I moved Japan a few
years later, I discovered a lot more of the variety that dojo can come in. I
trained with the local high school judo club in the high school dojo, and I
joined a nearby adult dojo that trained in an old gymnasium. The high school
dojo is pretty typical for Japan. When I was introduced, the entryway had a
bunch of faucets and under each one was pot of barley tea, chilling for after
keiko. The dojo was a lot larger than the one in college was, but only half of
it was covered in tatami, the traditional style mats for judo. The other half
of the room was a smooth, wooden floor filled with people in kendo armor
swinging bamboo swords and screaming. There were at least four kendoka on the
floor for every judoka on the mats. The judo club was small, about eight kids,
but they trained five or six times a week, and most had been doing judo longer
than my four years. I learned a lot from them.

The old gymnasium, where
the adult group met, was all that remained of an old elementary school.
The school was long gone, but the gymnasium was serving as a community gym.
People used it for kendo and volleyball and other things.  On Sunday
evenings a group used it for judo. This was a few train stops from my apartment
and the closest group of adults doing judo. That the gym was an old elementary
school gym meant that it wasn’t heated in the winter or air conditioned in the
brutally hot, humid Japanese summers. The mats were old-style tatami with
canvas over it. Over time, the tatami had become compressed and compacted until
it had only slightly more give than the wooden gym floor we put it out on each
week. It was remarkable how fast my ukemi improved when I started getting
thrown on this. At the end of practice, we didn’t do a cool down.
 Instead, we picked up all the mats and stacked them behind the stage at
one end of the gym.

It was the antithesis of
a modern dojo, and was totally lacking in comforts and conveniences. No
showers, no locker rooms, no changing spaces. Even the toilets were in a
separate building. It was a great place to train though. Everyone was there for
the judo. When I first moved to Japan it was the only place I felt truly, 100%
comfortable. I spoke very little Japanese, but my judo was pretty fluent, and I
knew most of the cultural cues around the dojo. I was certainly lowest-ranked
student in the room, but I was welcome and comfortable and they worked me over
hard every week.

Sunday night practice
started with a class for the kids, and was followed by an adult practice for
all of us who had made it to adulthood and still wanted to get thrown around.
After bowing in and warming up, all the adults would line up on one side of the
dojo, and the senior high students who stuck around to train with the adults
would line up facing us.  We lined up by rank, so I started out on the far
end of the mat. Every week we would start with uchikomi practice (throwing
practice without actually throwing) and the junior side would rotate around the
mat so they trained with many different partners. After a break we lined up
again for randori. This time both lines rotated so we ended up training with
both junior and senior people. After that, it was open randori time.
 Anyone could ask anyone else to do some light fighting. Of course, the
younger guys idea of “light” was different enough from what the seniors in the
dojo thought of as light to make some of the practice interesting indeed.

Eventually that old gym
lost its roof in a typhoon and had to be torn down.  We moved to training
in an old dojo attached to a Hachiman shrine for a few months before we settled
in the very new, very lovely community center. I still practice there when I go
to Japan.  It’s a beautiful new building, and a pleasure to practice in,
but it just doesn’t have the atmosphere of the old school gymnasium. The people
are the same though, so the feeling on the mat during practice is much the
same, with the added bonus that my feet don’t go numb in the winter during
keiko.

Dojo can be anywhere,
literally. I’ve trained in parking lots and backyards and on the grounds of
shrines and temples and churches. Maybe the most interesting location for dojo
is Hotani Sensei’s jodo dojo in Osaka. It’s on top of an office building. Not
the top floor, but a separate building that sits on the roof of the office
building and is strapped down to prevent it blowing away in a typhoon.

There are a few dojo
that stand out as iconic. There is a wonderful dojo attached to Kashima Shrine
that I have had the honor and pleasure to visit on a number of occasions.

Then there is the
grandfather of dojo, the Butokuden in Kyoto. It was built in 1895, and the
builders seem to have wanted to create the most impressive dojo possible.
 They succeeded. The columns supporting the roof are massive, and the
whole building has been polished and worn with use to a lovely patina that
feels neither old nor tired, but alive with the energy of the people who have
trained there.

That is the essence of a
dojo. It’s not the place. It’s the people training and studying there. For me,
dojo space is sacred. A dojo is a place for putting aside my ego and everything
I think I know so that I can learn and grow and polish what I am. It’s often
said that “you should leave your ego with your shoes” when you enter a dojo,
and in good dojo, everyone does. A dojo is a place to study the Way. Whether
the Way is Buddhist, Neo-Confucian, Taoist, a mixture of all of these, or
something else is up to the students who study there. The important thing is
that we are all there to learn and grow.

I have fond memories of
many dojo. There was the one above a fish monger’s warehouse. Another in an old
side building. Hotani Sensei’s on that roof in Osaka, and Iseki Sensei’s on the
ground floor of his home. I can’t count the number of school dojos I’ve trained
in, nor the number of gymnasiums I’ve been in for tournaments. The Kodokan in
Tokyo has a gorgeous and thoroughly modern dojo on the 7th story of its massive building. Then
there was the parking lot in back of Hashimoto Sensei’s house where we would
practice and try to avoid sliding too much on the loose gravel scattered across
the asphalt.

What I remember most
about all of these dojo is training with the other students. At every dojo I’ve
been to I’ve been welcomed warmly. It is the people who make each dojo special.
Each has honored me by letting me join them and train with them. We’re all there
to learn and grow, and we’re all there because we want to be. This makes any
dojo a wonderful place to be. The physical location is a distant second to the
gathering of people who are there to train and grow. That always makes space
sacred. Even old gymnasiums and parking lots.

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