Feeding The Budo Mind

“Budo is more than just techniques.”  We hear things like this all the time. Then we go back to practicing techniques and kata. If budo is more than the techniques and kata, when do we get to the other stuff? All that other stuff about strategy, tactics, ethics and all the rest? For me the answer is to read.

People were writing about budo for a couple thousand years before anyone started calling it “budo.”  Some great ideas from powerful thinkers and writers have paved the path we call budo, and it’s more than worth the time to read some of what I would call the foundational texts, and what people are thinking and talking about now.

One of my favorites is also among the shortest. The Tao Te Ching. Said to have been written by a legendary record-keeper of the Zhou Dynasty in China in the 6th century BC, it is the foundational text for Taoist thought. Why is this important? Even though it only runs to about 2,500 Chinese characters (it’s shorter than most of my blog posts!), it carries the essential ideas about strategy, power, value, ethics, responsibility and leadership. The idea of the Way heavily influence Confucian and Buddhist thought in China, both as something worth considering and as something to reject. It has been translated more than any book except the Christian Bible. There is no definitive translation because the nature of the work allows for many subtle interpretations, none of which are wrong.  My current favorite English translation is Gai-Fu Feng’s. Unfortunately, it seems to be out of print again.  A fabulous introduction in manga form that is fun to read and manages to explain some of the ancient culture that goes into it without being boring is “The Tao Speaks”. It’s out of print, but used copies can be found around the internet. Free translations of it abound on the internet.

A hundred years or so after the Tao Te Ching was put together, Sun Tsu wrote his guide to warfare, strategy and tactics.  Known at “The Art Of War”, it has influenced military thought for 2500 years.  Compact, with only 13 brief chapters, even when many commentaries are included, as in the Griffith translation, it is not long. The Art Of War should be considered the fundamental text on warfare and combat. The discussions of strategy and tactics inform everything from the relatively uncomplicated scenarios of one-on-one classical budo training all the way to modern warfare combining infantry, tanks, artillery and airpower. A lot less has been said with a lot more words many times (yes, I’m guilty as charged).

Donn Draeger was an incredible pioneer for non-Japanese entering into the world of Japanese budo. His 3 volume set “Classical Bujutsu” “Classical Budo” and “Modern Bujutsu and Budo” have been gateways into Japanese budo for people since their publication in the 1970s.  He makes mistakes, and some of his theories are wrong (I have argued against the artificial division of budo and bujutsu in other places), but he was the first! He was trying to figure out this budo stuff and go where no non-Japanese had gone.  Of course he made mistakes! Explorers go out and track down blind dead ends and get lost and found and lost again any number of times. The incredible thing is not the mistakes he made, but how much he was able to figure out and decipher so those of us who came after don’t have to work at those pieces of the puzzle.

Ellis Amdur has written two books that I consider essential reading for anyone who wants to understand where this budo stuff is coming from and where it it sits in the modern world. The first, Old School sets the stage for budo practice in the 21st century. Amdur writes with authority on  the history and culture that produced the budo we practice today, particularly the koryu or “old school” styles the predate modern Japan.  Through detailed essays about particular ryuha, Amdur illuminates much of the common culture and history in which all koryu were born and developed. The chapter about Katori Shinto Ryu alone is worth the price of admission, and the other chapters are all nearly as good.

His other book “Dueling With O-sensei” I consider essential reading for anyone who wants to get a better understanding of the ethics and reality of the martial arts they are practicing. There are lots of noble words about katsujinken and arts of peace, about self-development and enlightenment through the martial arts. After 13 years of training in Japan, and decades dealing with conflict, violence and de-escalation professionally have given him a perspective into the true ethics of martial arts and a practical understanding of their genuine limits that few possess.  This is something everyone who thinks about budo should read. Sadly, it’s out of print now.  A revised second edition is due out later this year though. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Karl Friday is unique among the people writing about budo today. He is both a classically trained martial artist with a menkyo in the art of Kashima Shinryu, one of the oldest budo traditions in Japan, and a Ph.D. in Japanese military history. With an insider’s access as a senior member of Kashima Shinryu, and the critical eye of a trained historian, Dr. Friday brings a unique perspective to the hunt for understanding the history and traditions of budo.  His book “Legacies Of The Sword” written with Seki Humitake, the current shihanke of Kashima Shinryu, is an amazing resource digging into the history and development of Kashima Shinryu from its founding to the present day.  This is a wonderful counter to all the folks who think Zen Buddhism is the essence of budo. What about all the wonderful esoteric traditions of Japan? Read this and discover some.  His other books on Japanese military history are wonderful as well, and all are antidotes to the popular myths about the samurai and Japanese history.

But what about budo in the present? These are living traditions after all. What is there about budo, martial arts, combat and violence in the 21st century? One of my favorite writers on budo and martial arts in the modern world is Rory Miller. With a background that includes classical jujutsu, Kodokan Judo, and a career as a corrections officer, he brings a fascinating and practical perspective to questions about budo, conflict and violence. His Meditations On Violence is one of the most thought provoking books I’ve read in a long time. Miller’s years spent living and dealing with violence on a near daily basis means he brings a clear eye to many of the myths and legends that have grown up around budo over the centuries. In addition his depth of experience gives him insight into the depths of seemingly esoteric budo teachings.

These are just some of the budo writers and thinkers that get my mind going. Budo has been developing for centuries, which makes putting my place along the path in perspective challenging. The more I understand of the history and development of the ideas and ideals, the better I can understand how they relate to me. Reading the experiences and thoughts of writers who have more practical experience than I would ever want to accumulate helps me to understand the limits of some ideas, and avoid the pitfall of romanticizing what I practice. I am amazed every time I pick up the Tao Te Ching or the Art Of War that books written 2,500 years ago can have so much relevance to the present. Many of the questions and principles Lao Tzu and Sun Tzu  were grappling with are the same ones writers in medieval Japan and modern America continue to contemplate and wrestle with.

This is in no way meant to be anything like a definitive list.  These are just some of the books and writers that I find important and engaging.  I’m sure I’ll talk about some of the many others that I think are important in another blog one of these days.  What works or thinkers do you find engaging and challenging? They don’t have to be books. Intriguing ideas can come from movies, TV, great discussions, and sometimes from the least expected corners.  How do you feed your budo mind?

Demonstration Budo Vs. Training Budo Vs. Doing Budo

 

Michi - the character for way, path or road.

Budo demonstrations are great fun. I love watching them, going to them and occasionally even doing them. If you go to some of the big enbu in Japan, you can see legendary arts demonstrated by some of the top people practicing them.  The Shimogamo Jinja Enbu on May 4 and the Meiji Jingu Enbu on November 3 each year offer the chance to see rare and great budo demonstrated. And the Kyoto Enbu Taikai every May 2nd at the old Butokuden in Kyoto is an endurance test for the spectators that can run for 10 hours of nonstop budo.

I was going to say “But they aren't real budo.  They're demonstrations.  They are for showing about budo.”  After putting in the time to think about it enough to develop the idea into a post, I realized I was wrong. Those demonstrations are real budo, especially when done with good spirit. They aren’t nearly all of budo, but they are some aspects of it.

Often we think of demonstrations as being scripted set pieces for showing off our art in the best light possible. Not really the time to go out on a limb and do things we’re not completely comfortable and familiar with. Most budo practice is scripted too though.

We do kata, scripted exercises, with a variety of purposes and goals. Granted, in practice we never approach an exercise with the goal of making the audience go “Wow!” but that’s just one more thing we try for in a demonstration.

What else might be going on in a demonstration?  Beside the obvious goal of trying to impress the audience, there are lots of other possible goals. When we demonstrate modern arts such as judo, aikido or karate one goal is often to show the fundamental principles principles of the art, such as kuzushi or blending or power generation. Being able to manifest the fundamental principles of your art at any moment is clearly part of doing budo. If you can’t manifest the principles, there is no way you can do the art, regardless of whether it is practice, a demonstration or in the midst of a conflict.

When demonstrating an art, you want to show it at its strongest and most powerful. Except when you don’t. Koryu budo systems from Japan, arts founded before 1868, have a tendency to be profoundly suspicious and untrusting. Historically, practitioners of many arts wanted to keep the essence of their art secret because facing someone who had seen one of your demonstrations was a real possibility. For these folks, deception was an essential part of any demonstration.  Do a distinctive kata, but in such a way as to lead anyone watching to an incorrect understanding of how your art handles timing or spacing or other essential elements of the ryuha. Deceiving your opponent into unwise action is found throughout budo training. Using a demonstration to do this is just an extension of training into a practical application.

We also conceal our weaknesses during demonstrations. Just as the classical ryuha might change their kata slightly to deceive potential opponents who are watching the demonstration, they wouldn’t have students demonstrate things they aren’t fully competent at either. It makes no more sense to reveal your weaknesses than it does to show all of your strengths. Demonstrations are scripted in part to avoid displaying weaknesses that could be exploited. Students demonstrating things they do well and with confidence shows their strengths without exposing their weakness at aspects of the art they are still learning.

Modern artists don’t generally worry about the potential of facing members of the audience in a fight. For us, often the concern is presenting an interesting and impressive demonstration that might attract a new student or two. It’s also a chance for students to display what they have learned, regardless of their level. The world has changed, and in this case I have to believe it’s for the better. Where once a major concern was not revealing too much about the strength of the art and the weaknesses of the students, modern arts can show nearly everything. Judoka can demonstrate their most impressive and powerful throws. Aikidoka can show off their most subtle and sophisticated blending techniques. Karateka can demonstrate not just their kata, but also the bunkai of the kata, as I saw at an Cherry Blossom Festival a couple of weeks ago. 150 years ago these would have been closely held secrets. Now those secrets are the very things we put on display. I’m thrilled the world I live in is peaceful enough for this to be.

I’ve often seen people distinguish between “budo training” and “doing budo” as if what we do outside the dojo is somehow more real than what goes on in the dojo. Budo training is practicing all the elements budo, not just the ones that we are confident enough to put on display.  We learn the techniques and the kata. Really learn them. Soaking them into our skin and absorbing them into our muscles. In the dojo I am always working at, as my friend Janet Rosen so eloquently puts it “sucking at a higher level.” I can’t think of a day in the dojo where I didn’t work on things that I’m not good at. No matter how long I’ve been on this path, there are still parts of it that are rough going for me. Certain techniques I need to learn (anyone want to help me with my uki otoshi?). Principles I still have trouble expressing on a consistent basis.

Changing ourselves and moving us along the path of budo is what practice and training is all about.. This is where we grow our understanding of budo and develop ourselves as budoka. We learn about spacing and timing and good structure. We practice how we move and learn that we can choose how we respond to a particular situation  instead of just reacting. It’s not “doing budo” in that the practice may not be spontaneous application of budo techniques and principles to life. It is “doing budo” because we are working on changing and improving ourselves, becoming better grounded in the lessons and more fully internalizing the principles of our art.  That certainly seems like “doing budo” to me.

Doing budo is all these things. We don’t practice or demonstrate every aspect of budo at the same time. Budo practice involves choosing what aspects of budo you want to work on polishing on any given day.  Budo isn’t something that only happens in the midst of violent conflict. Budo is a path, a Way, and the principles of that Way should be applicable to anything. Talk to me about cooking, and we’ll be discussing timing. Talk to me about work and perhaps we’ll be talking about using breathing to control our mind and maintain calm under pressure and threats. Talk about play and I’ll surely be talking about a recent round of randori at judo practice.

Budo is the whole path, every place and every footstep along the journey is “doing budo.”  Practicing budo technique and kata is doing budo. What else could it be? Each time you do a technique or a kata you are working on manifesting the fundamental principles of your art. When you do an enbu, a budo demonstration, you are are doing budo. Whether you are showing the highest expressions of your art, or purposely deceiving your audience as to the true nature of what you do, you’re doing budo.

Artificially limiting what budo is becomes an easy trap to fall prey to.  We think “Budo is martial arts, so it’s only budo when I’m fighting” or something similar. But budo training involves the optimal ways to stand and walk and breath, so when we are doing any of those things according to the principles of budo, we’re doing budo.  It’s not just when we’re in a fight. It’s all the other time too.  If budo was only about fighting, it wouldn’t be near to worthy of the devotion and time we invest in it. Budo is about how we do everything. It’s all budo.

Budo Isn't About Technique

Budo is about traveling a path.  It’s not about being stuck in one place.  The road is always there, time is always moving and the world is always changing, even when we are still.  Budo is about maintaining balance and integrity (physical, mental and emotional) whether we are in movement or stillness, and having a calm, imperturbable center whatever is happening around us and however we are moving.

The world is dynamic, so attempts to remain perfectly still are doomed, rather like trying to stand perfectly still on a sailboat in a storm.  You can be stable, quiet and calm, but these must be within a dynamic world where you are constantly making adjustments, and sometimes your overall and ongoing stability is only maintained through large, dynamic movements on your part.

Budo is not static. A lot of people seem to think that great budo has already achieved perfection in some previous age. Whether it’s classical judo, or Ueshiba’s aikido, a great koryu like Takenouchi Ryu or Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, or one of the famous iai styles like Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu or Muso Shinden Ryu, people craft an image of a budo that was perfect when the founder or great teacher lived, and that they are trying to recreate the perfection that is contained in the kata and teachings.

I’ve run into aikido practitioners who look back on Ueshiba or Shioda or Tomiki as having achieved budo perfection. For many years of my judo practice I felt that way about Mifune’s judo.  Among koryu budo people, the idea that the founder of their ryuha was the paragon of ideal budo is common.  The thought that there was one, perfect budo that we are trying to emulate or recreate is an attractive one.

It’s also a trap. Budo is a way, a path. In Japanese, the styles are called “ryu” 流. It comes from the word 流れる meaning “to flow, to stream, to run (as a river)”. The road we travel is always changing. Every step we take along the way takes us to a different place. Rivers and streams flow through space and time and are even more dynamic, transforming the world as they move through it.  Even if Ueshiba or Shioda or Tomiki or Mifune or Yagyu or Hayashizaki achieved budo perfection, it was perfect for that point in time and space.

Budo isn’t a technique or even a collection of techniques.  It’s a Way. As we travel the path, as the world moves through the ages, budo has to adapt to new times and places in which it is practiced.  What was great budo in one situation may be completely unsuited to another. The thing about any great budoka is that their budo is always fresh.  They don’t try to force the same response, the same solution, onto different situations. They apply the principles of their budo afresh to each situation.

Budo can only ever be perfect for the moment it’s expressed in. What made the great founders and teachers of budo truly great was not only their ability to manifest budo that perfectly suited the situations they found themselves in.  What made them great was that they could also pass along a way to learn the same principles that they applied.

Budo is something that is practiced without end. It’s a path that doesn’t stop. If we’re doing it right, we’re not really learning techniques. We’re learning the fundamental principles that make the myriad techniques work.  Great budoka reach up and find a way to manifest those principles in training, in conflict, and in life. The greatest figure out a way for others to learn to manifest those principles.

The ideal is that anyone can reach up and touch perfect budo. With practice, I’m convinced we can. That thing about budo being a path and a stream is important though. I think I may have touched perfect budo a few times over the decades I’ve been training. These are times when I somehow manage to perfectly express the principles of budo that I study and practice spontaneously in life.

It happens and then it’s past. It never lasts. For a moment you manage to express your budo perfectly. It’s not a continuous condition though. We reach that peak moment, and it passes. As we get better, so does the chance that we will touch that perfect budo. For judoka, the first time we come close to perfect judo is that day we’re standing there, staring down at some poor uke as we demand “Why did you jump! Don’t jump for me! I want to earn my throws!” The poor uke looks up at us and says something along the lines of “Jump? You buried me with that throw. There was no way I was stopping it!”  When we did that throw, the universe aligned in our favor. The timing and kuzushi were perfect. Uke had no choice and no chance to do anything but fly, and because the timing and kuzushi were perfect, it felt like we didn’t do anything. For a moment we touched perfect judo.

Unfortunately, those moments don’t last. As soon as the moment happens it’s over. Uke stands up, randori continues and uke feels like a boulder every time we try a technique. Nothing seems to work. Touching perfection is momentary, but those moments are wonderful and inspire everything else we do. Once we’ve touched perfection we want it again. Then we try to force it, and the more we try to force the further away perfection becomes.

Those moments of perfection feel incredible, but they are moments. We’re not perfect. We can’t maintain a state of perfection. Any time we touch perfection it’s wonderful and incredible and momentary. It doesn’t last. It can’t.

It is perfect in that instant, under those precise conditions. We express the principles of our art in a way that suits that moment. If we try to cling to it, whatever it was we were doing will cease to be appropriate as the moment passes and the situation changes. The goal of training is to become better and better at expressing the principles of what we study in a way that suits the moment.

The journey of life never ceases. Every step is new. The real lessons in budo are not static techniques, but the principles that animate the techniques. It’s ironic that the main way we learn budo is through repetition of prescribed exercises when the goal is to be able to spontaneously express the principles in any situation.

We practice a limited set of techniques and kata that are like the finger pointing at the moon in the story from Chuang Tzu. The finger points to the moon, but if you remain fixed upon the finger you’ll never see the moon. The techniques and kata are the finger pointing to the fundamental principles. If you cling tightly to exactly the way a past teacher did the kata, you’ll never get to the principles beyond the kata. If you insist there there is only one way to do a technique, you’ll miss the million other ways and situations that technique can be used to express the principle.  I have books of judo technique in which the entire book examines just one technique, but looks for as many ways to express that technique as possible. Each technique is animated by underlying principles. Our job is to figure out what the principles are and learn to apply them.

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If we only study the technique, it becomes a matter of chance that we will pick a technique that is perfectly appropriate for the moment. If we follow the direction of the techniques we study, we begin to understand principles, and when we follow the principles, the technique will develop naturally out of the action of the principles. No two techniques will ever be exactly the same when they flow from the principles, but they will be appropriate to the moment. It’s like the judoka in randori who does a beautiful throw, then comes off the mat and asks the spectators “What technique did I do?” The judoka was working with the flow of energy from her partner and worked something that smoothly flowed with that energy. Working with their partner’s energy and letting the principles guide her, she ends up with a technique based on the principle.

That’s the ideal. It doesn’t happen as often as any of us would like. If we cling to techniques it will never happen. Go into a situation with the intent to do a particular technique and you have to force the moment to fit the technique. Go in with principles of movement, balance and flow, and the moment will guide you to the appropriate technique.

The more we practice, the more we internalize the principles, the easier it is to touch perfection. We can never hold on to it, but we can learn to get out of our own way and let perfect budo happen more and more often. We progress along the Way one step at a time. We learn to breath and to walk. Then we start learning some techniques. It’s only when we begin to understand what animates the techniques and makes them effective that we get close enough to touch perfection from time to time.

Perfect budo is a constantly moving target though. What worked yesterday won’t work at all tomorrow. Each step along the Way takes us to a different place. Each morning we awake and the world has changed a little. We can’t force the world to stay still any more than we can force the sun to stop in the sky. If we cling to things as they were our budo cannot advance.

Each day we have to find new ways to apply the lessons of the Way that we learn from studying the kata. The better we get at it, the easier it is to adapt to the whirling of the world around us. A novice sailor leaps and tumbles and is thrown around the deck of the boat by the gyrations of the waves. A seasoned sailor calmly walks the same deck, adjusting to each shift and jump of the boat calmly and smoothly. A master can sit calmly meditating on the deck while the ship pitches wildly, adjusting with muscle changes so small no can see them. The master is calm when the seas are calm, and when the seas seem to be enraged.

The world keeps changing, but the principles don’t. Budo gives us a Way to continually adapt. Classical iaido ryuha would be worthless relics if their techniques were what they are really teaching. No one has carried swords like that in 150 years. The principles that classical ryuha teach haven’t changed though, and learning to express those principles in life is what gives classical ryuha their value.

Photo Copyright 2013 Peter Boylan

We don’t study techniques and kata in order to learn techniques and kata. We study techniques and kata to learn the principles that animate them. The conditions under which a judoka can do uchimata are limited. The conditions under which they can apply the principles of kuzushi, timing and movement that they learn from studying uchimata are endless.

When teachers talk about forgetting technique, this what they are getting at. The Way is infinite and no one can learn a separate technique for every set of conditions. Each place along the way, every new morning, presents new conditions. We have to learn to see beyond the techniques we study to the principles. Then we can apply the principles in ways that work with the conditions we have rather than try to find conditions that suit the technique we want to do.

Through great effort you might be able to hold your place in the world still and unchanging, but that won’t help. The world will continue changing around you. Even to stay still takes continuous adjustment, just like the master meditating on the deck of the ship. Walk the path. Learn the techniques. Transcend the techniques and learn the principles. Apply the principles and let the principles create new techniques to suit moment.

Budo Thoughts During Jet Lag

 

Teacher, Friends And Peers
Photo copyright Kumiko Yamada 2015

I wrote most of this while recovering from my most recent trip to Japan.

I’ve got jet lag. I was lucky enough to spend the last two weeks in Japan visiting friends and teachers, but now I’m home and until my body adjusts to the different solar schedule, I’ve got a few hours in the middle of the night where I’ll be awake.

Jet lag gives me some time to think about things.It’s always great to visit everyone in Japan, and these past two weeks were no exception. I have been going to Japan to train for 25 years. I still see myself as the young guy who just started. All around me in Japan I can see how everyone there has aged and changed. I’m not the young guy without a clue anymore. Kiyama Sensei turned 90 this year, but he still has the most powerful koshi I know of.  Inoue Sensei hasn’t changed much. He was a 7th dan with smooth, strong iai when I started, and his technique has gotten smoother with time. There are a number of folks around who hadn’t even started iai when I moved back to the US from Japan, and they are already 5th dans.

Budo is a path that goes on and on. It’s not just a solo path. We travel the road with our teachers and the other students around us, and the journey will continue even after we no longer can. For ourselves, we journey along the road seeking skill and maturity. For our students, we are part of the road itself. My teachers have formed the bed of the road I’m journeying on. Particularly early on in my journey, they were the road. If they branched left, so did I. If they turned right, I followed. Their direction was fundamental to how I saw budo and what parts of it I was able to explore.

As I’ve gained in experience and understanding, I have more ability and freedom to explore the path of budo and all the side roads that branch from on my own.  There are exciting and flashy trends that turn out to be little more than swamp gas. You can get completely lost trying to chase them down. Of more value are the simple things. Just going to the dojo and training.  Having a partner who trusts you and herself enough to attack so that you do get hit if you don’t move properly.

These are important parts of the journey.  There are many Ways that don’t require another person. Shodo and kado (calligraphy and flower arranging) leap to the front of my mind. No on is required to make shodo or kado practice complete.  The practitioner need never share her work with another person.  The calligraphy and the flower arrangement are complete even if no one else sees it.

Budo isn't a solo path though. All budo, even iai, is about interacting with the world. Our teachers and partners are important parts of the world, often providing immediate feedback on the quality of work. Our greatest adversary is always ourselves, but it is through practice with our partners and teachers that we find the flaws within ourselves to be addressed. That’s one of the tough things about having good teachers and peers on the path. They won’t lets us ignore our own faults. They point us towards faults we would happily ignore, and help us improve beyond them. This is never fun, but it is one of the great things about good budo practice with good teachers, good partners.

Not all budo training and learning happens in the dojo. Photo copyright 2015

Learning to fight without learning anything else is a fool’s path. Along the Way of budo training, there is a lot of learning beyond just the techniques. We won’t get that without our teachers, without our training partners. One of my students, an accomplished teacher in his own field, has been critical in helping me recognize and start dealing with some of my own weaknesses. He can sense when I don’t take some aspect of training as absolutely seriously as I need to. He also happens to have a brilliant eye for spotting issues with an individual’s structure. He is a wonderful companion for all of us traveling on this particular path.

I wouldn’t have made any progress in budo without my teachers and partners. They’ve taught me, gently and sometimes not so gently, about timing and spacing and ukemi and so many other things. Budo is an endless path, but I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without my teachers and partners. Thank you.

A Modern Musha Shugyo Part 3: Dinner With Sensei

Who is your teacher? Not just the person you see when she’s standing in front of the dojo leading practice, but the whole person. Where did she come from? What experiences shaped and transformed her? How and where and when did she start training?  Who is she really?

Do you ever talk with your teacher about  the experiences that shaped and formed her (or him)? Your teacher is so much more than just the person standing at the front of the room telling you which kata to do, reminding you to relax, stop muscling the technique, move from your koshi/hips/center, yelling at you to “Breathe!” and all the other standard lines that teachers have to repeat endlessly because we endlessly don’t do what they ask us to do.

Not everything we did on our Musha Shugyo was physical training. We had to leave the dojo sometimes. Budo is the martial way, but you are supposed to take what you learn along the Way and thread it throughout your life.  You shouldn’t leave the lessons learned behind when you bow and leave the dojo at the end of practice. The lessons and learning don’t stop when you leave the dojo either. If the dojo is best used for  physical training, there is still ample room for talk after you leave. Many lessons, traditions and histories can only be passed down through talk, so spending time on that when you’re not in the dojo can be wonderful.

After we bowed out of practice, we were supposed to go out to dinner with Kiyama Sensei. We went back to his house first, and sat down in the formal guest room.  Japanese homes are quite small, so traditionally people don’t entertain at home. If you get together with friends, you do it at a restaurant or coffee shop. The traditional home just doesn’t have the space for entertaining. I’ve known people who had homes big enough to entertain in, but they don’t usually entertain at home because they feel like it would be bragging and rubbing their good fortune in other people’s faces. Most homes have a small room that is kept particularly neat and clean ,where a guest or two can be received politely.

Deborah, Adam and I got our bags with our swords and clothes arranged and started to sit down, when  we discovered that Sensei had a surprise for us.  We were expecting to head out to a restaurant where everyone could relax together. Instead, Mrs. Kiyama opened up the shoji to the next room and invited us to come in. Mrs. Kiyama and her daughter Yamada Sensei (she’s a college professor) had prepared an absolute feast for us. They had set up their formal tatami room with a traditional, low table so that Kiyama Sensei, Deborah, Adam and I could sit around it on the floor in the traditional manner. while Mrs. Kiyama and Yamada Sensei served. This is the room with the family tokonoma next to the family butsudan where their ancestors are enshrined and venerated.  While we sat and ate, Mrs. Kiyama and Yamada Sensei served, which is a pretty traditional way of celebrating, but there was also the issue that the room wouldn’t hold any more than the 4 of us comfortably. 

The table was sumptuous. They had gotten some lovely sushi, but the homemade tempura was incredible. I’m a sucker for kabocha tempura, and there were piles of it. We did our best to show our appreciation for the wonderful feast, but we couldn’t do much more than put a dent in the mountain of food. It was wonderful. It’s traditional in Japan to say “Gochisosama deshita” after a meal. It roughly means “That was a feast.” In this case, it was absolutely true. 

After dinner we moved back into the usual room for receiving guests. We watched some  of Sensei’s budo videos and talked about important budo points. We also had a chance to talk to Sensei about his history. Sensei has been studying budo for 85 years so there is a lot of history to talk about.  He even got out some picture albums with photos going back to the 1930s.

Sensei showed us some pictures of himself from junior high doing iaido. In school at that time, during the Pacific War, all students studied budo. Kiyama Sensei seems to have been an overachiever in this area. He practiced judo and kendo and iaido and jukendo. He even had a couple of pictures of himself in keikogi and hakama with his sword. It was something to look at the fresh face of the 13 year old junior high student in the picture, and then look up, knowing that the same person was sitting across from me 77 years later. Just so you don’t think Sensei is monomaniacally obsessed with budo, he also showed us a great picture of himself dressed in his uniform for the school baseball team. He’s loved baseball for as long as I’ve known him, and now I know just how far back that love goes.

Like all able bodied men of his generation, Kiyama Sensei served in the Pacific War.  He showed us a picture of his unit, the only picture he has. After the war he continued  budo training, even in the years when Japan was rebuilding itself, when time and resources were scarce. The people who trained during these years showed extraordinary dedication.

Sensei has some wonderful photos that show him training in the 1950s with his teachers. The atmosphere in the dojo is clear. People are training hard but there are also many smiles. Sensei is still powerful, but his movements, as captured in the photos, are even more dynamic.

There are pictures of kagami-baraki parties with everyone pounding mochi and having a good time. Some of the teachers had huge, full beards that strongly reminded me of Oe Masamichi.  It’s fascinating to see them wearing hakama and montsuki in one picture, and suits and ties in the next.

Sensei’s pictures and the stories that go with them make him even more interesting, and his achievements as a budoka more impressive. Sensei has dan ranks in at least 6 martial arts that we know of. In 3 of them he holds 7th dan, including iaido. He also has a tremendous amount of experience in koryu budo ryuha like Shinto Hatakage Ryu, Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu and Shinto Muso Ryu, none of which use dan ranks.

Kiyama Sensei sat with us, sipping tea and flipping the pages in the photo albums like someone’s sweet grandfather, which he is. Sometimes he was quite wistful looking at pictures of budoka and friends who have died, and telling us about what kind of people they were. The budo world in Japan is surprisingly small, and Sensei has been a active member of it for so long that he has met, and has a story about, nearly everyone of influence in modern budo in the last 60 years. 

Being able to see Sensei in different periods throughout his life and in different aspects of his life was a rare treat. It was fascinating to see pictures of Sensei’s teachers, fellow students and the other great budoka he has encountered in over 8 decades of training.

Hearing Kiyama Sensei talk about these people and his experiences deepened our understanding of Sensei and his art in ways we didn’t expect, and often still don’t understand fully yet. Sensei is much more of a complete person, and not just the imposing figure at the front of the dojo.  This was as meaningful and important for us as the intensive training we completed just a few hours earlier. Budo is a path, and here we were, gifted with a rare view of the route our teacher had taken to get to his current place on the Way.

Who is your teacher?  Is she just the rank certificates on the wall or the trophies in the window? Not everything we learn about budo happens in the dojo. Budo is a Way, and that way impacts and influences every aspect of our lives. Being able to have dinner with Sensei, to sit and talk while slowly sipping coffee and talking about some of the places in his journey along the Way of Bu was a rare and wonderful experience. We saw another side of Sensei, and another side of budo.

Nin: Perseverance

忍　（にん, Romanized “nin,” pronounced “neen”）

This is character for patience, endurance and perseverance.  I was going through some calligraphy my iaido teacher, Kiyama Sensei, had done and given me and came across one piece that was just this character. It’s a popular subject for calligraphy in budo circles, and Kiyama Sensei seems to have a special fondness for it.  He does it often, and he frequently includes at least one copy of it when he gives me batches of his calligraphy.

We’ve never talked about it, but I’m starting to get the message Sensei is sending me. There is a lot of talk about the important characteristics of a good martial artist.  This is certainly one of them. Good budoka all have 忍 by the bucket. They don’t expect to master the art in a week.  They keep at it whether they feel like they are progressing or not. These are the students who show up week after week whether the weather is beautiful and practice is comfortable and pleasant, or it’s summer and the only way we survive practice is to drink a gallon of water along the way, or it’s winter and the dojo is so cold that everyone is eager to start just so they can stay warm.  It’s not a flashy characteristic.  This is a quiet characteristic. It’s boring and doesn’t call attention to itself. It can be invisible because others become so accustomed to seeing those with it show up for practice week in and week out that they stop thinking about them.

Most people with nin don’t think they will ever master the essence of their art, but they still come to practice and work at it.  They are patient with themselves and their progress. They keep working at it, grinding away at their technique and polishing their basics. They aren’t inhuman machines that never feel frustrated because they are still working on the same movement they first learned 10 or 20 years ago. They’re quite human, and will often be heard moaning into a post-practice beer “I’ll never get that strike/throw/lock/technique right. It’s impossible.”  They show up next week anyway.

These students aren’t always the most talented. Often they are remarkable for being so very average in their talent. Occasionally they are remarkable for their lack of talent. What they do have is perseverance. They come to practice and they work hard. They go home and work hard there too. They don’t let the little things in life get in the way of training.  In the words of Nike, they “just do it.”   Training happens like the hands of the clock going around and around.  It’s just what they do.

They collect bumps and bruises and sore joints, but the keep coming.  Like everyone, life gets in the way sometimes.  This doesn’t stop the student with 忍 from training. They may not train as much as they like but they train when they can. Other aspects of life definitely can be more important than training. Family and friends are critical. Without family and friends, budo is just play, so when the need presents itself good students delay their training or rearrange their schedule so they can train in the spaces in between other obligations.

When these students find themselves traveling down a bumpy stretch of training where progress is elusive and difficult to see, they don’t trade budo for something easier or shinier or newer. They slog away at it, plodding down the path no matter how difficult it seems to be to make progress. There is no final destination on the Way that is budo, so they take satisfaction simply in being on the path.

I have met people who exemplify the spirit of 忍。One of my students stands out. She has had any number of medical issues that would have stopped most people. Each has been a hurdle that she found a way to pull herself over rather than a roadblock that stopped her from moving forward. The most recent is a badly damaged shoulder. Instead of giving up and stopping training, she has turned around and made training her physical therapy. She couldn’t raise her arm. Her range of motion was severely limited. The shoulder was too weak to support her sword. To top it off, the dojo is very difficult for her to get to.

She still shows up every chance she gets. When she couldn’t use a sword, she still worked on the kata.  Then she found a bokken light enough for the weak shoulder to handle. Where the shoulder’s range of motion was limited, she used the training to stretch and slowly extend the range of motion. The doctor said that she was healed. She said “No, I still can’t do my martial arts.” and it was back to PT. This didn’t take weeks. It didn’t take months. It’s been. Now she’s been cleared for all training. It took a couple of years, but she was patient and dedicated and embodied 忍.

Looking at my teachers, I see the same spirit exemplified over and over.  They are the generation in Japan that maintained the budo traditions even during the difficult years after the war when Japan was rebuilding and renewing itself. This was a time when most of Japan didn’t have any use for budo. Kiyama Sensei and many other people worked patiently and persisted in their practice. Today every town in village has at least one public dojo, many have more than one.  60 years ago there were almost none, and there were no funds to support such luxuries. People trained wherever they could. Even 25 years ago when I first went to Japan, there were lots of places without nice facilities. We trained judo in an aging gymnasium left behind when the elementary school attached to it was torn down. No air conditioning in the summer and no heat in the winter. There were a few leaks too. No showers, no changing rooms and no toilets. You better have gone before you arrived. That was where we trained every week. The mats were real tatami with canvas covering. Can you say “hard?”

People trained. It wasn’t comfortable, but if you wanted to train, you put up with the uncomfortable facilities and did your best. The people who maintained the many budo styles and ryuha persevered in their training when any kind of facilities were difficult to find, and training time was even more difficult to come by. They were literally rebuilding their country, and free time for personal activities like budo had to be fought for with care and delicacy so it didn’t interfere with more critical activity. My teachers and their peers had to work hard just to have the chance and time to train. Summer and winter, they trained regardless of the fact that the temperature inside the dojo matched the temperature outside.

Now, more than 60 years later, Kiyama Sensei is still training. He had knee surgery. They kicked him out of rehab after he was caught walking up and down the stairs for extra exercise. Just being able to use stairs was the doctors’ goal. Here he was doing laps of the stairs in the building.

For all of us, training takes that combination of patience and perseverance that is 忍. There are good days when it’s easy to get up and go train. There are other days when it seems to take almost everything I’ve got just to get to the dojo. Those are the days when I’m really training, because I’m battling myself to get there. What happens in the dojo is secondary. The battle with myself to get out of that soft, comfortable and seductive La-Z-Boy chair, put on a dogi and go is the real training. It’s in doing this that I realized that patience and perseverance are not necessarily qualities Kiyama Sensei and my student were born with. They are qualities I can develop and strengthen within myself.

Instead of just giving in to the seductive call of my La-Z-Boy recliner, the more often I fight with myself over going, the more often I have a chance of winning the fight. The more I struggle with myself, the more I win, and the more likely winning becomes.  Now I win the fight with my chair with ease most days, though this wasn’t always so. I’ve learned tricks and techniques for defeating the part of me that longs to lay back in my chair and lounge away the evening. Tricks like this one for just showing up.

We show up and we train. If we don’t show up, we generally don’t do anything. The seduction of my recliner is dangerous. It calls me to sit back, relax, take the evening off and watch some TV. If I do that though, I don’t gain much. I have days in my schedule when I can relax, so I don’t need to add an extra one. As for the TV, this isn’t 1978. We’ve got DVR and Netflix and Hulu. We can watch the box any time we want to. Perseverance, like patience, is it’s own reward. I can’t remember an occasion when I didn’t feel much better after practice than I did before before.

I follow the examples of those around me, my teachers and students. I show up for practice and do as much as I can. It feels good. Even when I’m not quite getting it, when the technique isn’t quite there, it feels good. I feel like I’ve done something worth doing. That’s a feeling I’ve never gotten from watching TV. At best I make a little progress. At worst I have good training and polish my self.. Either way I go home feeling better than when I arrived. If I had to fight with myself to get there, I have the satisfaction of winning another round against myself.

忍is a quiet trait. It's not flashy like strength or speed, incredibly flexibility or great dexterity. It's only noticeable because people with it are there, doing what they need to, without anything from anyone else. Patience, endurance and perseverance don't shout about themselves and don't call attention to person who has them. The seem to plod quietly down the road. The special thing about them though is that they keep plodding down the road. The progress may be slow, but it continues to happen.

That’s the big secret of budo and 忍. Perseverance makes good budo happen. It keeps your feet going into the dojo, which is the only way you get better. If you don’t get into the dojo, you’re never going to make any progress. Patience helps keep you there on the days you don’t improve as much as you’d like. The good news is that these traits aren’t static qualities you are born with. Just like your throws and strikes and joint locks are polished with practice, perseverance and patience can be improved with practice. Any improvements you make with them, will be reflected in the quality of the rest of your budo.

忍