Showing posts with label kata. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kata. Show all posts

Monday, September 29, 2014

The Simple Genius Of Kata

I was contemplating the Tao Te Ching recently. It’s an incredibly insightful collection of short poems from China of 2500 years ago.  81 brief poems that encapsulate a huge amount of wisdom. The wisdom of ancient people from a culture as different from mine as can be imagined. Yet each time I read from it I learn things. Koryu budo kata are much the same.

The Tao Te Ching has been looked to for wisdom and insight and understanding ever since it was written, and it’s value hasn’t diminished even after 25 centuries. People still look to it for wisdom and insight and understanding. It’s only 81 short verses totalling about 5,000 characters.  Not much for a text that many feel encompasses great truth about the universe. How can something so brief, so compact have such deep wisdom that continues to resonate with people after so many centuries?

Kata are a lot like the Tao Te Ching in that sense. They are short. I can’t think of any system, modern or classical, that tries to be encyclopedic in its collection and treatment of kata. Many systems have well under a hundred kata. Systems that have more are usually teaching offense and defense for a variety of weapons so they have to have a least a few for each weapon so students can become comfortable with each weapon in the curriculum. Of course this adds to the system’s collection of kata. The number of kata added for each new weapon though is comparatively small, just enough for the student to become familiar with the weapon. No system gets too large. Yet with these relatively small sets of kata, a huge amount of information can be transmitted.

What do budo kata and the Tao Te Ching have in common in their brevity that makes them so worthwhile that the Tao Te Ching endures and is popular after 2500 years, and budo systems like Katori Shinto Ryu and Yagyu Shinkage Ryu and Eishin Ryu continue to thrive 400, 500 and more years after they were founded? People still find wisdom and understanding about the world in the Tao Te Ching, brief as it is, and they still find classical fighting systems effective for learning about combat.

What gives both the Tao Te Ching and budo kata their continued usefulness and effectiveness is precisely their brevity.  They don’t try to lay out all their answers and insights to every potential scenario. They give you the rough framework and you have to do the work of building the understanding. You can’t just memorize the Tao Te Ching and understand it. You can’t just memorize the movement patterns of a set of budo kata and be good at budo.

To make them work, you have to work at them. The Tao Te Ching is deceptively simple.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth;
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Therefore let there always be non-being so we may see their subtlety,
And let there always be being so we may see their outcome.
The two are the same, but after they are produced, they have different names.
They both may be called deep and profound.
Deeper and more profound,
The door of all subtleties!

The more time you spend thinking about this, the greater and deeper the implications and ideas. The entire collection is like that. Brief, simple, deep and profound. What makes it profound?  Much of that secret, and the secret to the incredible usefulness of kata is in plain site in this verse, number 11 in the Tao Te Ching.

Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore benefit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.

The Tao Te Ching does not lay out every detail of its philosophy and ideas for the reader.  In just 81 verses totaling about 5000 characters, there is now way it could.  Instead it lays out a few ideas and principles while pointing to more. It is this lack of detail that makes the Tao Te Ching useful and relevant across 25 centuries and changes in culture that were unimaginable when it was first written. If the Tao Te Ching had laid out too many details, in particular relating it to the culture within which it was written it would have long ago lost relevance as the world changed and the cultural touchstones it referred to were forgotten. Part of its genius is that it gives a rough, bare framework to the ideas within it, forcing each person who encounters it to complete the picture with their own details.

    Because it lacks specific details, it is like a clay pot that is useful precisely because it has a hole in the middle which will hold other things. The Tao Te Ching gives shape to the details of life in any age by providing a frame which can hold the details and information of any age, any culture. Good budo kata do much the same. It’s amazing how much information can be encoded in just a few good kata. It would be foolish and impossible to train for every possible permutation of combative scenario. Kata are the solution.

Kata are those stiff things you see karateka do. They are also the judo kata often seen demonstrated at glacial speeds. There are iai kata and kenjutsu kata and kata for pretty much every weapon imagined in Japanese history. Most systems don’t have a lot of kata though.  Eishin Ryu has around 45 iai kata depending on which line you follow.  Very few systems have more than this for any single weapon, though some systems have accumulated a large number of kata because they teach a variety of weapons.  None of them try to teach by having students practice every possible situation with a particular weapon.

I am always amazed at how much the group of sword masters who created the Kendo No Kata were able to pack into the 10 kata that make up the set.  They figured out how to teach the fundamentals of Japanese swordsmanship in 10 simple kata.


These kata aren’t definitive. They don’t make any attempt to show everything that could happen. They do provide a platform for students of Japanese swordsmanship to explore and learn.  In any good kata based system, the kata are really only a rough framework. The students have to fill that framework themselves. The kata become most relevant when the students start to fill them. As the movements become more complicated, the students have to explore the kata and discover things.

Pick a kata and take it apart. Figure out what makes it work. Don’t bother your teacher with a million “What if” questions. You won’t learn much from her answers. Grab a partner and work through the kata slowly. If you have a question about why the kata is done a particular why and not another way, try it with your variation, slowly.  See what will make sense for your partner to do in response. Look at 50 different ways to do the kata.

When you start taking the kata apart like this, you’ll understand why the kata is taught in precisely one way. Everytime I take apart a kata I discover that bad things happen more suddenly and much faster than I would have guessed. When I try doing this with a kata too quickly, I usually end up with bruises because I get hit with something I wasn’t expecting. Look at the first Kendo No Kata. It’s ridiculous in its simplicity. Uchitachi attacks, shitachi evades and counterattacks.

Now play with it.  Enter a little too deep too soon and your partner will nail you with a quick thrust.  There’s lesson 1: how close is too close. Don’t enter deeply enough and you can’t hit your target. Lesson 2: how close is close enough. Shitachi is sliding back and forth. Don’t retreat far enough and you get cut. Retreat too far and you can’t recover and enter to counter attack before your partner recovers from her attack. There’s lesson 3: How are far is too far. Play with the kata and really learn just how close is close enough, and how far is too far.

These aren’t lessons you learn from thousands of mindless repetitions of the same kata. These are lessons learned from exploring dozens of variations of the spacing and distancing used in this kata. Once learned, these lessons can be applied to every kata you ever encounter. If you just repeat the kata the same way every time though, you’ll never understand this.  

Great kata systems are not comprehensive. They don’t make any attempt to be comprehensive. A system that was comprehensive would be too large to learn in any useful sort of timeframe. A comprehensive system would have to have a kata for every one of those variations you might discover on your own while exploring the kata. Such a system would be too large to be of use.

A comprehensive system also wouldn’t teach students to take apart and understand situations. A comprehensive system would have all the answers. It would have all the answers for the scenarios its creators imagined. It wouldn’t have answers for anything else. As soon as the situations started to change, new ideas or scenarios are introduced, it would be obsolete.

A good kata system is spare and simple rather than bloated. There are lots of opportunities for students to ask themselves (not the teacher!) “what if?”. A system where there is plenty of room for the students to explore is flexible, because students can explore new ideas and new strategies, try out the same kata with different weapons and different ideas and different partners. A system that doesn’t claim to be comprehensive has room for students to explore and expand their understanding. A comprehensive system doesn’t leave room for that kind of development.

The Tao Te Ching remains relevant 2500 years later because it doesn’t attempt to have all the answers. It gives the reader an abundance to consider and reflect upon. The principles it points to are endlessly applicable. They are endlessly applicable because they aren’t locked into any particular time or culture.

Good budo kata remain relevant hundreds of years after they were conceived because they don’t attempt to answer every imaginable scenario of the period in which they were born. The present situations that are rich with opportunities for students to learn. The lessons continue to be of use because they don’t attempt to be comprehensive for any particular age or place. Each generation of students must explore and understand the kata within their particular world. Just because the kata seem simple, don’t think they aren’t deep.


Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore benefit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.


Thursday, December 5, 2013

What Kata Isn't

Let’s get this straight.  Classical martial arts kata are not practice fighting.  They are not what fighting is or was. Martial arts kata do not simulate combat conditions.  They do not recreate actual combat scenarios.  If kata aren’t any of these things, then what are they, and why bother with them?
Kata are pre-arranged training sequences.  Kata are training scenarios for learning about essential elements of conflict.  I train in both classical and modern Japanese martial arts, and both use a lot of kata.  Classical arts tend to focus almost entirely on kata training.  Gendai arts like Judo use a combination of formal kata training, randori/sparring, and informal kata.
Kata are not for mimicking combat . Kata are for getting better at combat. They are a training tool for learning the skills necessary for dealing with combat.  They are an exceptional tool that has survived hundreds of years of testing and application. As a training tool, they provide a framework for practicing various aspects of combat, not just repeating techniques or practicing in a sparring situation where much of what is effective is not acceptable because of the risk of injury.  
Kata is not sparring, and with good reason.  All sparring assumes a dueling scenario.  2 people faced off and fighting.  Any equipment is equal.  There are no surprises, no unexpected changes. There is an assumption of fairness.  Kata is not handicapped by any of these of these assumptions.  Kata allows a much broader investigation of conflict conditions.
Classical martial arts kata generally start out simple, but they rarely assume anything is fair or equal.  Araki Ryu Kogusoku is famous for one of the first kata taught to its students.  It assumes asymmetrical armament (tori has a tray, uke has a tanto), and applies surprise to defeat the better armed opponent.  There is nothing fair about this situation.  It is unfair and tricky and applies deception.  Just like a lot of conflict in real life.  Sparring is worthless for learning these lessons.
The kata of Kodokan Judo, unlike the games of Olympic Judo, rarely assume anything is fair or balanced.  The Kime No Kata is a great example.  It is a set of kata of encounters between two people.  One person, always unarmed, is attacked in sequence in a variety of scenarios.  First the two are kneeling facing each other, as if talking, and one, uke, attacks the other in a variety of unprovoked and basically surprise attacks.  Then uke attacks from the rear.  After that a succession of attacks with a knife from the front and side.  Then both stand up and there are unarmed attacks from the front, side and rear, followed by attacks with knife, stick and sword.
Sparring is extremely limited in so many ways that kata is not.  In all of these jujutsu kata, the only thing the person being attacked, nage in Judo terminology, know is what attack is coming.  They don’t know when, or how fast, or from what range, or how strong the attacks will be.  Uke has complete control over these.  
One complaint sparring enthusiasts often make about kata is that you always know what attacks are being made, so it’s never a surprise.  The same is true in sparring.  In sparring a very small set of techniques and attacks are allowed, and the vast majority of possible attacks are excluded under the rules.  On top of that, in sparring the attacks are always coming from the front, eliminating 75% of the directions attacks come from.  With it representing such a tiny fraction of possible encounters, sparring seems quite overrated as a training method for anything except sports encounters.
Another thing kata isn’t is completely prearranged.  Kata leave a lot of room for changes in range, timing and rhythm. In koryu bugei systems, the uke is always supposed to be the senior, more experienced person.  It’s uke’s job to control the speed of the kata so their partner is always learning and being pushed into new territory.  In addition, just because know exactly which attack is coming doesn’t mean handling the attack is easy.  No one tells uke when he has to attack.  Uke gets to decide the exact moment of the attack, its speed and intensity.  I have had uke’s drive me completely helpless just by drawing out the attack a little bit and then drawing me into responding at a different rhythm and speed than they attack with.  This left me wide open with a big stick incoming at speed and completely unable to do anything about it.
Kata isn’t locked into one interpretation.  Uke’s job is to adapt the kata’s speed, intensity and range to the student’s level so they learn as much as possible from the training.  Kata also isn’t locked into just one uke.  If you train with many different uke, each will bring different things to the training, things that make each practice of the kata unique.  Different sizes, heights, strengths, speeds and levels of experience in each uke  all combine to change the kata every time you do it.
Kata doesn't have to work every time you do it.  In fact, when you are learning, it shouldn't work a lot of the time.  You should be making mistakes and your partner should be stopping to show you why that particular way of doing it won't work.  There is abundant room in kata training for failing.   Are you getting bored?  Then uke should ramp up the speed so you are having difficulty doing the kata.  Or get a more powerful uke. Or one who is difficult for your to read. Boredom banished.  If you are practicing kata in such a way that you can always make it work, you're doing it wrong.
Kata isn’t some dead, fossilized thing that you trot out to see how things were done at some time in the past.  Kata are vital and alive and being changed and adapted all the time.  No one says you and your partner can’t decide to try the kata differently and see what an appropriate response would be if you change one element.  For advanced students, that’s a great thing to try.  The creation of kata isn’t over either.  People are creating new kata all the time.  Most new kata don’t end up being preserved and passed on, but sometimes the kata have enough value that they are added to their system.  The history of styles like Eishin Ryu and Shinto Muso Ryu show how things were added to these systems down through the centuries.  Gendai budo do the same.  Kodokan Judo didn’t create the Kodokan Goshin Jutsu until the 1950s.  Over time, kata get tested, and the worthwhile ones are kept and passed on, while the others are dropped and forgotten.
Kata are a teaching method for practicing the most fundamental and important aspects of conflict.  They are a time tested method that allows you to practice all sorts of dangerous attacks and defenses in a controlled manner.  Kata allow attacks from every angle at all sorts of speeds and force levels, and they allow that practice in all sorts of asymmetrical match-ups. Kata give practitioners the opportunity to practice these match-ups at a variety of speeds, strengths and intensities, so they can grow and their skills progress. 





Thursday, November 21, 2013

Kata Is Too Rigid And Mechanical

Kata are mechanical and rigid.  They teach petrified patterns and leave the person vulnerable if their partner does something different from the prescribed techniques.  People who learn kata don’t learn how to adjust spontaneously to new and different attacks.  They become rigid in their responses and thus are easily beaten by anyone who is familiar with their preprogrammed responses and can use them as a trap.  Kata don’t teach you how to deal with anything other than the exact form of the kata.

People in Japan have been making charges against kata training since at least the 1700s, and probably longer than that.  These are the basic accusations made against kata practice.  Then there are these stories.

Kim Taylor recently reminded me a of story that I heard many years ago.  As the story goes, two lines of an koryu art met at a big embu and decided to get together and train a little.  Even though the lines had not trained together in something like 200 years and they had developed different interpretations of the kata, it didn’t take long at all for them to start doing the kata fast and hard.

Another friend recently recounted an instance when training with a senior partner who seemed to forget the kata, so he just went on with what seemed appropriate.  My friend just adjusted to the new attacks and continued on.  After a few spontaneous attacks and responses the senior found his footing in the kata and they wrapped things up.

So what’s up? If kata practice is so rigid and promotes all the bad habits that it is charged with, why has it survived so long, and how could people adapt to scenarios like those above?  Maybe, just maybe, the people criticizing kata practice don’t do it very well, and really don’t how to use kata as a training tool.  In particular, practitioners of modern sports styles that emphasize sparring and grappling competitions don’t seem to understand what a kata is or how to use it.

The first thing to realize is that nearly all kata in Japanese systems (as opposed to Okinawan systems, which have an entirely different history) are paired practice.  The primary exception to this is iai kata for drawing and handling a live sword.  The problem there is that accidents from mistakes tend to be so severe it is difficult to recruit new training partners.  Pretty much everything else, including practice with stand-in swords for kenjutsu, is practiced in pairs, with an attacker and responder.


Kata critics get one basic fact correct.  That fact is that kata are prescribed patterns of attack and response.  From this basic starting point, they then proceed down a path that has little resemblance to what happens during actual kata practice.  Critics of kata assume that because the basics of the kata, which attack(s) and which response(s) are prescribed, that everything else in the kata is also prescribed.  They assume that because one part is clearly defined, that all parts of the kata are clearly defined, and that is where they get it all wrong.

Kata are not rigid constructions where every movement is written in stone.  The first thing that is open to variation is the timing.  Uchi, the striker or attacker, is by traditional convention, the senior.  This is because uchi controls the timing of each major attack against shitachi, the person learning the weapon or empty hand skills.  There is no set timing for the attacks.  Uchi doesn’t have to do the attacks all in the same timing and rhythm.  If you happen to watch a relatively junior student doing the shitachi role, then uchi’s attacks are likely to be clearly visible and easy to see coming.  On top of that, the rhythm and timing of the attacks will be very straightforward.  This is because the person is learning the basics of attack and response.

Once a student is past that basic level, which doesn’t take long at all, things quickly get complicated and interesting.  The first thing uchi can do play with the timing.  Just because uchi is within range for an attack doesn’t mean they have to immediately attack.  They can stand there and wait as long as they want, forcing shitachi to really watch for the attack, maintaining focus and awareness the whole time.  If uchi notices shitachi’s focus slipping, that’s the moment to attack for maximum learning.  Or uchi can do something to draw shitachi into acting before uchi is committed to an attack, leaving shitachi wide open for uchi (I’ve had several uncomfortable meetings with wooden swords and other weapons because I fell for these sorts of things).  These are prime teaching experiences.

The attack and response of the kata are prescribed.  Nothing says that uchi can’t adjust when she attacks, or what movement she does before attacking.  Learning to only respond to a real attack is a significant lesson, and one that students learn in kata practice. If shitachii is drawn into responding before she’s attacked, that’s something you have to learn. It takes a while to really learn to read someone’s movement and intent, but that’s one of the things you learn in good kata practice.

Uchi can also mess with the rhythm.  As you get comfortable with the kata, there is a tendency for people to fall into a consistent rhythm.  One of uchi’s responsibilities is to change up the rhythm of the attacks so shitachi stays alert and doesn’t fall into the habit of thinking that the attack will always be at one speed and one timing. It’s amazing how slipping a half or whole second pause into a kata can transform the rhythm, upend shitachi’s grasp of the kata and self-control, and cause shitachi to make a grave mistake that leaves them wide open to an attack from uchi.

Which leads to another misconception.  Just because a kata’s attacks and response are prescribed, that doesn’t preclude uchi from stepping in to demonstrate a mistake shitachi has made or a juicy opening they have left.  Uchi isn’t going to bash shitachi in the head (I hope), but uchi is likely to gently attack through the inviting gap shitachi has left.  How else would shitachi learn to not make a particular mistake?   I know I’ve moved only to discover a weapon tip an inch from my nose because as shitachi I didn’t control uchi properly, leaving a nice hole in my defense that my partner was more than happy to demonstrate for me.

There is a core technique in Shinto Muso Ryu called hiko otoshi uchi.  It involves striking your partner’s sword so it is swept down, around and behind them, pulling them slightly off balance for an instant.  At least, that’s what happens if you do it right.  I can’t count the number of times I have done hiki otoshi uchi expecting to flow into the opening left by the missing sword, only to find the sword had somehow gotten to a spot where it was about to run up my nose!  There is nothing in kata practice that says your partner has to let you get away with weak technique.  If your partner is allowing you to use weak technique, he is doing it wrong.  Kata is the perfect place to find out you are doing something wrong.

In addition, kata practice is perfect for the endless “what if” questions students ask.  If a student asks “What if I do this?” or “what if uchi is stronger/bigger/dumber/etc?” kata provides a great, controlled environment for students to explore these options.  Of course, if they ask about something completely different, it’s always reasonable to say “We’re working on this kata right now.  What you’re asking is completely different.  We’ll get to a kata that deals with that another time.”  

There are lots of moments in the kata of the systems I study where it’s quite reasonable to wonder why uchi or shitachi doesn’t do something different.  I’ve asked these questions, and usually Sensei doesn’t bother explaining.  He just says “Ok, do it.”  We do the kata with my variation, and I discover a sword in my ribs, a fist in my nose, the floor smacking me between the shoulder blades or some other equally unpleasant result.  Then Sensei will go on to show me what he did.  Later, I usually grab a fellow student and we play with it until we can make Sensei’s response work for us too.  

Koryu bugei kata are a framework for learning that people have been working with, tweaking and testing for hundreds of years.  They can certainly stand the pressure of students pushing and pulling on them to see if they are sturdy.  If students have questions, they should be playing with and testing the kata.  They will find the answers.  I know I’ve seen my teachers play with kata and technique when someone asks a really interesting question.  

Then of course there is the recurring problem of beginners mixing kata and doing something other than what is in the kata.  Seniors don’t seem to have any problem adjusting to these impromptu changes to the kata.  It happens quite frequently.  It even happens that senior people will do something other than the kata from time to time, and if their partner can’t respond, they may get hurt.  

The most amusing complaint about kata from many people is that they are an old-fashioned, out-of-day training method.  Yet the same people will talk endlessly about their great training drills. What’s funny about modern sports stylists criticizing kata training is that the bulk of their training is kata style training, they just don’t realize it because they call it by different names.  Guess what the word for “training drill” is in Japanese?  “Kata.”  Look at the “kata” in these training drill videos.  Or in this one below:


Those nice, controlled practice of a prescribed attack against a specific defense are kata.  Depending on the skill of the people involved, the practice will be faster or slower.  Just like in martial arts kata.  People in modern martial arts are constantly refining their training drills to improve their training.  Koryu martial artists have been refining their kata for centuries.  It’s no surprise they’ve got them down to a solid set.

Kata are teaching and learning tools.  There is room in them for playing with speed, timing, distance, and even different responses. If all you do is numbly repeat a set pattern at the same speed, rhythm and intensity, you aren’t doing kata training.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Is it still Aikido (Iaido/Jodo?whatever) if you take away the Japanese clothes, the bowing and the etiquette?

Someone asked on a discussion board “How important (or unimportant) do folks here feel Japanese customs are important to learning Aikido?  It stuck me recently that a lot of the behaviours carried out during training have nothing to do with learning Aikido, but more to do with Japanese culture.  Bowing on entering the hall, learning the names of the techniques in Japanese, folding a hakama in specific way, bowing when picking up a bokken, I'd even add shiko/knee walking to this list or even wearing a gi for practice.  None of these, to my mind have anything to do with learning aikido, its like thinking you have to wear a beret to learn how to speak French properly.  Most of us don't train in Japan and are not Japanese, so I don't know why we do these things any more. “


My short answer is, “If you strip all that away from Aikido, it’s not Aikido anymore.”
A Way, an artform, is more than just the discrete techniques that are taught.  If Aikido is reduced to just the techniques, and the expressions of etiquette and tradition are removed, you’re making something else.  A Way is all the parts that come together to make it a whole system.  The aspects of Japanese culture inform the techniques and the values of the system.   They are as important to learning Aikido as learning ikkyo is.  This is true not only of Aikido, but of all of the Japanese ways.  

A Way, a DO 道、is so much more than just the individual techniques. The etiquette teaches us how what we study relates to other people, and how we should treat them when we interact with them.  I’ll stick with Aikido because that’s the example I started with.  Aikido is about complex interactions between people.  The etiquette that permeates training is all about how we interact with people.  The techniques of Aikido are not Aikido.  They are a means for learning the path and the way of thinking and acting that express Aikido.  To paraphrase the old Taoist saying yet again, the techniques of Aikido are like the finger pointing at the moon. They aren’t the moon, we look where they point to be able to see the moon.  If we get stuck on the techniques of Aikido, we will never learn Aikido.  This is true of any budo, of any Way.  The techniques are tools for learning the Way, but the Way is far more than the techniques.

In the dojo, pretty much everything is a lesson about the Way you are studying.  The etiquette teaches lessons, the techniques teach lessons, the kata teach lessons, learning the names in their original language teaches lessons.  If a person wants to jettison all of these parts of an art, they should really ask themselves if that Way is appropriate for them.  Why should the etiquette be removed from Aikido?  The etiquette regulates action in the dojo and makes it a safer place to train.  It teaches respect and a different way of thinking about human interactions.  The bowing and respect are critical to the ideas of Aikido and the way they are expressed during training is essential to the Way of Aikido.

Aikido comes out of Japanese culture, and the concept of DO 道 that has developed in Japan for more than 1000 years.  To summarily remove all these aspects of Japanese culture would be to create a very different art, a different way that leads somewhere other than where Aikido leads.  There’s nothing wrong with creating a new martial art, but you should be aware that’s what you are doing.  The learning atmosphere, and the higher lessons about life, the universe and everything that are pointed to and taught by practicing a Way are very different when you change the etiquette and the clothing and the language.   

All that bowing and using Japanese to describe what you are doing set a frame for your practice and establish a particular set of expectations about what you are doing, what the goals are, and how you will do it.  Aikido, and other budo, are not ultimately about learning to use a particular set of techniques or how to do a particular kata.  The techniques and the kata are tools for teaching students about principles of the art.  The etiquette, language and clothes are also part of that.  

Mastering the techniques of Aikido, or any Way (Do 道), no matter how good one is at them, does not mean that you have mastered the Way.  The techniques are some of the tools by which you learn the way, but they are not the Way.  It is quite common to mistake mastery of technique for mastery of a Way, regardless of whether it is a martial way or a flower arranging way or a calligraphic way or any of the other ways that abound in Japan.  

The Ways teach lessons about the world and how to live in it, using ordinary activities as their foundation.   Each Way is a complete package, with it’s own etiquette and language and often even clothes that are worn for various activities.  Given the thought and consideration that has gone into these Ways, I would be very hesitant to monkey with one without decades of experience in that particular Way, even if it is one as young as Aikido.

Those funny clothes and funny words and weird behaviors have a lot more to them then just adding another layer of useless stuff to learn that gets in the way of learning the important stuff.
If all you want from something like Aikido is the techniques, you are missing the real treasures of what you are studying.  The techniques of any Way have only very limited application in daily life, but the Way of thinking, of moving, of being, that is something that can be used every moment of every day. 

Monday, September 6, 2010

Mindful practice

Kata practice in koryu is tough. Even knowing exactly what your partner will do doesn’t make it easy. Unfortunately, you don’t know precisely when or how fast or how hard or how committed your partner will be when they do the next technique in the kata. Working with a good partner who controls and varies their speed, timing strength and commitment are what bring the two-man kata of koryu bugei alive. A great deal is said about mushin, or “no-mind” as a goal in the martial arts. In order to bring kata alive as above, I think mindful training is critical.

Mushin has been described well by better martial artists and writers then I. It’s a mental state that is a goal of training. What I don’t think I’ve seen enough of is a discussion of the mental state during training. It’s good to know that the goal of training is to achieve the lofty state of mushin, but with what sort of mental state, with what mind-set should we approach training? Most of us, myself included, need more mind in our training, not less.

We need more mindfulness in our training. By this I don’t mean we need to be thinking about all the nuances and possibilities of what we are doing while we are doing it. That’s what the beer session after keiko is for. What I’m talking about is more like the zanshin that one is supposed to show at the end of kata, after the action is concluded but before the kata is officially over. In iaido, we’re always watching to make sure students don’t drop their focus after the last cut, and just saunter through the chiburi, noto, and return to the starting point. This remaining focused on the situation at hand, without letting outside thoughts or distractions move your focus is the mindfulness I’m looking for throughout practice.

It’s a lot easier to grab a students attention in jodo practice and keep them mindful through a whole kata than it is in iaido. All you have to do is change up the timing a little bit when their attention wanders and nearly hit them. Some students, like me, are stubborn about being stupid, and we actually get hit. That surprise when the senior partner comes through your defenses because you were giving him less than 100% of your attention is usually enough to keep you focused until the end of practice. The trick is to have this focus from the start of practice and to not lose it.

When I think of mindfulness, it’s not that one is full of their own mind, but rather one’s mind is full of one thing. That one thing is whatever you’re doing. In koryu bugei training, that one thing is almost always a kata. Focusing on a kata, filling your mind only with the immediate action of the kata is a lot tougher than you would think. Especially considering that the sadistic old men I train with seem to like nothing better than whacking you if your attention wanders and leaves an opening for them. With that kind of motivation, it should be easy to practice mindfully. For some reason, even with the threat of yet another whacking, it’s still difficult to stay focused on just the immediate instant.

One of the dangers of kata practice is that it can become rote. After all, everybody involved knows what’s going to happen next, and after that, and after that until the end of the kata. How much attention does it require to dance through the steps of the kata when everyone knows what those steps are? It doesn’t take much attention at all to dance through the steps of a kata. It can be done while planning dinner and a corporate takeover. To do it right though requires nothing less than your whole mind.

If your partner is good, you can’t have even one corner of your mind off thinking about dinner plans. There is a reason that in koryu bugei the senior partner is always on the losing side. That’s the teaching side. The senior’s job is to control the speed, timing, intensity and other variables of the kata so junior can learn as much as possible and stretch themselves to new levels. When the senior is good, they don’t leave any room for the junior to be anything but mindful.

Mindfulness is another one of those things in any way that can be carried out of practice and into life. The tea ceremony folks are probably the best at bringing mindfulness to ordinary life, because their training is focused on an ordinary activity. They have to learn mindfulness without the threat of getting hit with a big wooden stick. In budo practice, if we are lucky, we have the advantage and disadvantage of training with someone who will hit us if we aren’t mindful. This is useful because it can teach good focus very quickly. I’ve noticed though, that this focus can be very particular, showing up only when someone is liable to be hit, and absent the rest of the time.

Mindfulness shouldn’t require the threat of getting hit to achieve. One of the goals of training is to be able to discipline the mind to mindfulness at any time, regardless of the activity, the location, or the presence of a partner with a big stick. Watch any good budoka, and they show mindfulness from the moment they start in the dojo, not from the moment kata starts. Being mindful throughout practice at the dojo should be practice for being mindful all the time. Great budoka exude this focus all the time, inside and outside the dojo.

Mindfulness is not something that is just for the dojo. It is a skill, a way of approaching things and focusing on one activity that should extend from the dojo into everything we do. Mindfulness is one of the practices, one of the benefits of any way that should permeate our lives. My cooking is better when I’m mindful of what I’m doing in the kitchen. And I know it’s useful in the dojo when that little, old man with the stick tries to whack me.

Mushin, well, that’s a goal I’m still aiming at. Mindfulness is something I can work on right now.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

I fear I'm getting old. I went to judo last night, and was disappointed that all we did were techniques and randori, but no kata practice. Lately I find kata practice more interesting even than randori. Randori is still fun, but I'm getting a lot more out of the careful exploration of attack and counter-attack, spacing and defense that make up the kata in Kodokan Judo. It may just be me, but I find that when I do a lot of randori, I have fun, but I don't progress. When I do kata, whether they are the official kata of Kodokan Judo, or unofficial kata presented as training exercises, I learn something and my judo grows.

Lately I've been working on Nage No Kata and the Kodokan Goshinjutsu. Both are fun, and both teach me something about working at various distances that I can't get from randori. It's especially good when my partner progresses to the level of being able to really attack. Then I have to stretch my skills to keep up with the strength and speed that he can put into the kata.

It's in the kata that I can see and really feel the sense of yawara and the seiryoku zenyo. Too often in randori I find myself substituting muscle for technique. In the kata I feel more like I am focused on the essence of Judo.