There Are No Advanced Techniques

There are no advanced techniques.  Really.  Early in my budo career, I was looking for the secret techniques and mysterious skills that would make me able to do the things my teachers did that seemed like magic. But what looks like magic is really just the basics done phenomenally well. It was hard to convince myself that Kano Jigoro's famous answer to the question of “What is the secret of Judo?” was entirely truthful. When asked about the secret of Judo, Kano replied simply “Practice, practice, practice.” This is not an inspiring answer for a kid who wants to be able to effortlessly throw people across the room.  

Sadly for all of us who are seeking the magic, it seems to be true. Whether I'm working on Judo or kenjutsu or iai or jo or my current nemesis kusarigama, careful, considered, focused and aware practice seems to be the real secret. More and more often, my own students look at something I've done with them like it's impossible, which is something I fondly remember thinking about my own teachers. It's a reaction I never have anymore though. Even when I can't begin to do what my teachers are doing, I can see how they are doing it and I can see the path to being able to do it myself.

Last week I was working on some taijutsu with an Aikido teacher and friend. Jim can do incredible things to your balance and make you fall down with the subtlest of movements. It's a very different technique than what I do in Judo, but I can feel what he's doing. The principle of what he does is clear. He is taking my balance (in Judo we call this kuzushi) and then drawing me in a direction where I can't support myself. I have to fall down. What makes it magic is that Jim does this with the least amount of movement possible. My Judo techniques have long been built on very large movements, but the principle is the same. Now I'm working on bringing a little bit of Jim's magic into my Judo.

It won't happen with mindless repetitions of techniques though. You can repeat a technique as often as you like, and you won't learn anything from the repetitions or get any better. You have to be fully engaged in your practice, and mentally looking for slight differences in your technique that will make you better. That's practice. Just doing something a hundred or a thousand times won't make you better. It will make whatever you are doing more solidly anchored in your body. If you are repeating poor technique, it will make it that much more difficult to change and improve your technique.

To get better at Jim's throws from a wrist grab, I didn't repeat what I already knew. I didn't repeat the big movement Judo techniques that I have been doing. I slowed down and focused on exactly what was happening to my partner when I moved just a little bit. I focused on feeling exactly when my partner's balance shifted from being supported by his frame to relying on me to keep from falling over. It was just a tiny bit of weight that was transferred to me, so little that I doubt my partner even realized he was using me to stay up. Once that happened though, all I had to do was turn my wrist over and he fell down, because I was withdrawing my support of his body. Jim can do this at full speed. It takes me several slow seconds to do it. By being aware of what is going on and practicing it slowly, I can develop the sensitivity to do this faster and faster over time.

One of the keys to making this work is to know what I'm looking for, and then focusing on developing that skill and sensitivity. If we just go to the dojo and quickly repeat the techniques we already know, we won't improve much. We have to be willing to slow down enough that we can focus on making changes to our technique. That's when practice really begins.

Up until last February, I had what is a fairly strong Hiki Otoshi Uchi strike in Shinto Muso Ryu. Then I had the chance to train with one of the senior teachers in our group. I was lucky enough to watch him correcting a junior and demonstrate his technique over and over for my fellow student. What a fantastic opportunity for me! As I watched, I could see small differences between how he was swinging the jo and meeting the sword and they way I was doing the technique.

The technique is the same one I’ve been working on for years.  There is no magic here, just a more subtle, smoother use of the jo that results in a powerful, inexorable technique requiring far less effort than what I’ve been doing.  It’s up to me to increase my understanding of this fundamental technique that I started learning on my first day of practice.  It’s not magic.  It’s not a special, advanced technique taught only to senior students.  It’s simply a fundamental technique done really, really well.

This is true of everything I have done in budo.  When I wrote about Hikkoshiso Sensei tossing me around the Judo mat by waving his hands, I wasn’t referring to any special, advanced technique.  What he does is an extremely effective application of the basic principle of kuzushi.   What Hikkoshiso Sensei did to me is very similar to what I’m beginning to understand in my friend Jim’s technique, and both are extensions of the first principle of technique in Judo, which has been referenced in every Judo practice I’ve ever attended in any of many different countries.  It’s not a secret.  Hikkoshiso Sensei and Jim are just applying a basic principle extremely well.  The same goes for that Shinto Muso Ryu teacher.  He wasn’t doing anything secret or arcane.  He was doing the third technique taught in Shinto Muso Ryu amazingly well.  

None of these people have any secrets.  In truth, they are doing exactly the opposite of keeping secrets.  They put what they have learned through practice out there for students and fellow budoka to see and learn from.  One of the first steps is to stop thinking of it as secret magics, and start thinking of it as an attainable skill.  Then it’s really all about the quality and quantity of your practice.  It’s easy to wish that Kano Sensei’s secret had been something beside “Practice, practice, practice.”  

There aren’t any special techniques only taught to advanced students.  We keep practicing and step by step the advanced techniques appear.  Except that they aren’t advanced techniques.  They are the basics done so well they seem advanced.

The Spirit Of Learning

We study martial arts.  That should mean we’re here to learn.  How we approach learning, the attitude we carry with us in the dojo is critical to what we learn.  Sadly, all too often when we get advice the thought barging through our heads is not “Thank you. I will work on that.”  Instead we’re thinking “I know that. Don’t bother me with stuff I already know.”

It’s easy for me to write that we should always receive advice with gratitude, but what does that really mean?  It seems pretty obvious we should appreciate and be grateful whenever someone helps us.  That’s a lot harder to do than it is to write.  So often people, especially peers, or people who think they are our peers, will give us advice that seems pretty worthless.  

Advice and instruction can be broken down into 3 categories.  The first, and best of course, comes from our teachers.  They are giving us advice from their deep experience and knowledge.  This is usually easy to receive with gratitude and an open mind.  After all, we go to our teachers for instruction on how to do the techniques right, so whenever they share their knowledge and experience, we are happy to receive it.  Except sometimes.

Sometimes teachers are telling us something we already know.  Do we really know this stuff though?  If we really knew it, would our teachers feel the need to tell us again?  For me, the most common direction I get is to relax.  After nearly 30 years in the dojo, you might think I know I should be relaxed and that my shoulders shouldn’t be pulled up tight next to my ears.  In one, limited, sense I do know this, and it’s the correction I most often make with my own students.  In a deeper sense though, I don’t know it.  If and when I truly know how to maintain a relaxed state, it will manifest itself in my movement all the time. Kiyama Sensei won’t feel the need to remind me because I won’t be tensing my shoulders and tugging them towards my ears.

Another direction I get frequently from Sensei is to use my hips better.  Well, what he actually says is “Koshi ha yowai.”  “Your hips are weak.”   Sensei has been telling me this for years.  I’m working on it.  I have made major improvements.  I can see it in video of me training in years past compared with now.  Sensei still pushes this.  It’s something I know quite well.  Sensei reminds me often though.  Should I feel annoyed with him for always harping on this one thing?  Should I be frustrated and resentful that he never lets me forget this?  

Annoyance and frustration aren’t a part of this.  Koshi 腰　(really the whole region of the lower back and hips) are fundamental to everything we do in budo.  They are what ties together the foundation provided by our feet and legs with the floating mass of our upper body and head.  If this connection isn’t solid, my balance with be weak and I won’t be able to transfer the power of my legs to my upper body.  It’s absolutely critical.  I’ve made a huge amount of progress in this area, so why does Sensei keep coming back to it?  I’m working on it after all.   Then I watch guys like this, and wonder why Sensei doesn’t spend more time pushing on this point.

I approach anything Sensei has to say with gratitude and a desire to figure out how to apply what he is telling me.  Sometimes this is pretty tough.  I don’t always make the connections immediately, so I spend a lot of time wandering around trying to figure out what I’m missing.  I learn a lot this way.  It makes me think about things from different perspectives trying to understand what Sensei is getting at, and why it’s important at that moment.

It’s tougher to take the same advice from someone of equal or lesser skill.  Having one of my training buddies tell me to relax or to use my koshi could really annoy me. Sometimes this  annoyed me badly enough that I got busy being annoyed and I completely lost the point of my training that day.  These guys have no right to be telling me what I need to work on!  Especially someone who’s only been training that long!

Then one day a thought walked over and smacked me in the temple.  If someone with that little experience can see how much I need to improve something, maybe I should be paying attention to it.  It really doesn’t matter how skilled they are.  I can take what they say with openness and appreciation and gratitude.  If they can see it, then there may be a very obvious weakness that I need to work on.  The one thing I am 100% sure about my budo is that it’s not perfect.

I also understand that not all advice offered by juniors is good.  Sometimes I have to explore it.  I’ll ask “What do you mean?” or “Why do you see that as a problem?”  Then we can talk and explore their concern together, and if it’s a valid point, I’ve got another item to add to my already long list of things to fix, or they learn why their understanding may not be as strong as they thought.  Either way, we learn something.

If we are honest with ourselves, our budo becomes a search for improvement and not an ego building exercise related to how much more we know than someone else.  I’ve reached the point where I’ll take help improving myself from anywhere I can get it.  I’m a slow learner, so if I’m going to accomplish much of anything before I die, I’ve got to take all the help and assistance I can get.  Even if it’s from my own students.

Recently, I’ve started doing something new..  I ask my students to sit down. Then I demonstrate something.  Their job is not to look at it and think about how they can emulate what their teacher is doing.  Their job is to look at what a fellow traveler on the budo path is doing, and help him. I ask them to tell me about anything they see that I should correct.  It’s a lot of fun and we all learn something from it.  The more senior students are quite capable of telling me in detail about a lot of things I should work on.  Often these are the same points I’ve just finished bringing to their attention in their own practice.   At first it’s embarrassing to have a student call you out for the same problem you were helping them with 15 minutes before. I had to work at not being embarrassed by this and just accepting their help.  If I’ve just pointed something out to them, they are hyper-aware of it, so if I’m off by one degree they see it.  

After a few run throughs though, I’ve gotten past most of my ego issues (if I ever transcend them all, you’re invited to my investiture as a living Buddha).  At first my goal was to take advantage of my senior student’s ability and knowledge to help improve my practice.  Now I’ve begun to see some other benefits.   All my students gain from this.  They really focus on trying to see more clearly in my practice what I have been asking them to do in theirs.  Even the beginning students begin to see better because they are looking for things at higher levels and advancing their understanding based on what other students are saying and what I am doing.

Once I fold up my ego, put it in a bag, stomp it thoroughly flat, and kick it to the back of the closet, we all win.  I get progressively better and more subtle critique from my own students.  In turn, they become more discriminating about their own practice.  They begin to understand what they are trying to achieve, and they can see where they want to go.  Then we can work together to get there.  We all advance.

That’s the spirit of learning that I love to see in the dojo.  We are all there trying to improve. Ultimately, there is no perfect in budo.  There is only progress.  Once I put aside my ego, I know I can learn from everyone.  Now I’m teaching my students how to critique me so I can improve at the same time they are learning to see with clearer understanding what some of the goals of practice are.  Enter the dojo in the spirit of learning, and you can learn from anyone, not just they people you address as “Sensei.”

Budo Training Is Exhilarating!

Budo practice is exhilarating.  I’ve been searching for the right word to describe how I feel about practice and how it makes me feel for years.  Obviously I’m kind of slow if I’m just now figuring this out, but hey, after more than 25 years of exhilarating budo practice being thrown around, choked unconscious and beaten with sticks, maybe there’s a reason it’s taken me so long to figure it out.

People always ask if budo is fun, as if it is a game or a sport.  Some bits of it are fun, but they are an awfully small portion of my budo practice.  It’s difficult to call long practice sessions trying to master the proper swing of a sword, or the best way to unbalance someone, or the proper technique for sweeping someone’s weapon out of the way “fun.”  They are challenging and intriguing and full of learning, but fun is not the word to describe them.  That feeling when the sword flashes through the air and feels like it is doing the cutting itself and you’re just along for the ride?  Exhilarating.  The moment when you touch someone so their balance vanishes and they don’t even know you’ve done it and the throw happens as if they had jumped for you?  Exhilarating.  When you get the sweep just right and your partner’s weapon effortlessly whips around and behind them and maybe right out of their fingers?  Definitely exhilarating.

Even when I don’t make those great leaps in understanding or technical ability though, budo is exhilarating.  The focus it requires and teaches is wonderful.  Getting every part of my body and mind to act as one, coordinated whole just feels fantastically exhilarating.  Iai is certainly one of the least exciting forms of budo to watch.  When done properly it is every bit as intense as any of the paired practice forms such as kenjutsu or jujutsu.  Everything comes together and drives forward with an intensity and force that blocks out the rest of the world and leaves me panting with exhaustion in minutes.   The ability to focus like that on something, even for a short while, is an amazing feeling.    It’s certainly not fun, and it’s definitely not relaxing, although it does seem to drive the tension and stress out of my body and mind.  It’s exhilarating.

Then there is paired practice like kenjutsu or jodo or any of the other delightful weapons we train with.  You and a partner are actively trying to bash each other with big sticks, and getting hit is a real possibility if either of you makes a mistake.  There’s just no way to call this “fun.”  What it is, is fabulously focusing and energizing.  The rest of the world vanishes as you focus on your partner’s intent and your own.  There is no room for your mind to hold onto anything else.  If you try to, you’re going home with big, beautiful bruises.  All you have room for is the awareness or your partner, her weapon, the range at which that weapon is dangerous and where yours is, and how she is moving.  She attacks filled with the intent of smashing you into the ground and yet your movement is just enough to avoid being struck while your counterattack steals her space and leaves her dangerously off-balance and unable to move, all in a single heartbeat of action.  Absolutely exhilarating.

The free practices, known as randori in judo and aikido (though they are quite different) and ji-geiko in kendo, are deeply intense, energetic, powerful practices with you and your partner both giving everything to the training, whether you are focusing on developing and refining specific techniques in an unstructured situation, or going at it full-on to dominate and master your partner.  It’s not “fun” in any sense of the word that I’m familiar with, but it is wonderful.  Often it’s quite uncomfortable, especially when then bruises are tender.  Still, the feeling, from the moment someone says “Hajime!” until well after the randori has ended, is one of exhilaration.  I’m out there working with my whole body, and trust me, when those small muscles all over your body ache they next day you know you were using the whole thing.  You’re also using your whole mind trying to figure out the puzzle your partner is offering you.  Some days you figure out the puzzle in front of you, and some days you are the puzzle that is being figured out.  Either way though, it’s exhilarating.  When I take a really big fall, thrown by that 275 lb (125 kg) guy who sends me flying half way across the dojo and then lands on me, and I get up without any pain or problem because the ukemi was good, it is exhilarating knowing I can survive something like that.  It’s even more exhilarating than when I throw him, although that is a different kind of exhilaration, the exhilaration of achieving something I really wasn’t sure I could do.  When it’s all over and someone yells “Yame!” and we all bow and thank each other, the feeling of exhilaration continues.  It lasts out the door, all the way home and often well into the next day.  That feeling of doing things that are truly difficult, both throwing and being thrown, succeeding and failing, is exhilarating.  

               Budo is not fun.  Fun is too small a word for what I feel when I train.  Fun is a game of euchre at lunch, watching a baseball game with friends.  Fun is pick-up basketball or a tea party with your kids.  These are worth doing.  They are fun.  But they aren’t exhilarating.  They don’t leave your body and mind flushed with the intensity of focusing completely on one thing and directing all your energy to one target.  They don’t leave you exhausted, wrung out and relaxed from the work of gathering all your energy into one focused mass and throwing it at your target through the budo.

That’s the feeling I get from budo practice, exhilaration.  At the end of practice I’m wrung out and exhausted, with my brain dribbling out my ears from the effort to do everything well, to analyze what I’m doing to and try to improve it a smidge every time I do it.  How else can you describe the feeling of someone genuinely trying to beat you with a stick while you block and dodge and control his attacks without getting hit?  The feeling of getting that 275 lbs guy up in the air and flying, or the joy when someone makes you fly and go slamming into the ground and it doesn’t hurt is just amazing.  It’s exhilarating.  Now I know what to say to all those people who ask if budo is fun.  I tell them “No, it’s exhilarating.”

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.

One Thing At A Time

A while back I wrote that you should never practice anything more than once.  There is a corollary to this, that you should never do more than one thing at a time.  We live in world that bombards us with stimuli and urges us to try to do everything, and do it all at the same time.  Society seems to frown on being quiet and focused.  Multitasking is praised and held up as some kind of ideal form of functioning, when the reality is that far different.  We are all likely to fall victim to it though.  It’s just too easy in modern society, when we can be talking on the phone, working on the computer, eating lunch and texting with our kids all that same time, and I’m as guilty of falling into this trap as anyone is.

The truth is though, we’re at our best when we do one thing at a time.  I was reminded of this while reading a very nice piece about giving things 100%.  One of the great things we work on in the dojo is just doing one thing at a time.  Trust me on this, if you try to do Judo randori and even think about anything else at the same time, you will quickly find yourself flying through the air and the floor leaping up to smack you between the shoulder blades.  You just can’t do more than one important thing at a time.

We work on developing this focus and our abilities every time we’re in the dojo, and hopefully we are applying this and developing it even more when we are not in the dojo.  In the dojo we are trying to learn very complex skills that require coordinating our entire bodies and getting all the parts working together.  The first part we have to train is our mind.  We have to learn to just be in the dojo doing the technique or kata that we are practicing.  We can’t be making a shopping list or planning dinner or figuring out tomorrow’s work schedule or deciding what to watch on TV tonight.  We have to in the dojo practicing.  

We want to let go of all the other things we could be doing, and do this one thing we have chosen to be doing.  Initially, the one thing we are focusing on my be how we walk, or how we hold our head or how we swing the sword.  Over time, with focus (!) we can integrate these things so holding our head in the appropriate position and how we walk become one thing.  Then we get better at swinging the sword so we are holding our head and bodies in good posture while walking and swinging the sword in one action that we are focusing on.  Or it is drawing our partner slightly off her base as we interpose our foot between her foot and its next targeted step while maintaining our own balance, posture and proper movement.

No matter how far I progress, if I try to do more than one thing at a time, even if it is just thinking about something other than my physical activity, my physical activity suffers.  In the dojo, this means I get thrown during Judo or hit with a stick during Jodo or whacked with a sword during kenjutsu.  I’m better at focusing and just doing one thing than I used to be, but I still have a long way to go until I’m satisfied.

The surprising thing is that the more we work on focusing on just doing one thing, the better we get at everything.  With practice our ability to focus and concentrate improves, and it gets easier to let distractions float by without giving them our attention.  As we get better at this, we get better at mastering whatever it is that we are actually doing.  The time in the dojo is concentrated focusing time, whether we are doing judo or kenjutsu or iaido or whatever.  As we get better at focusing that plugs into better training results.  We get closer to achieving the goal of flow, or mushin, where we are just there, doing what we are doing without overthinking it and without being bothered by outside thoughts.

I really recommend “The Art Of Learning” by Josh Waitzkin.  He does a phenomenal job of describing the real work that goes into getting to a state of mushin or flow.  In addition, he is a great story teller who is just plain enjoyable to read.  Getting to a state of flow or mushin is  not an easy process, but he does a nice job of showing how to get there.  If we try to do more than one thing at a time though, it’s an unattainable goal.  Multitasking just takes us down a road that leads further and further from the goal.

Don’t be lured into trying to multitask.  We know it’s a siren song that will wreck learning in the dojo and our ability to get things done outside the dojo.  Multitasking doesn’t work.  Just do one thing at a time, and then you can do it well. 

Trust In The Dojo

Trust is a wonderful thing.  Real trust is something that is earned over time.  In budo practice, trust is absolutely essential.  What we do in the dojo can’t happen without it.  We are practicing dangerous, potentially crippling or even fatal techniques.  We have to practice them on our partners, and we have to turn our body over to them so they can practice.  We have to expose ourselves to incredible physical vulnerability so our partners can practice.  In a very real sense we are loaning them our bodies so they can learn.  In turn, they do the same for us.  Without fuss, without complaint, seemingly without concern, they turn their body over to us to practice throws, strikes, joint locks, weapons attacks and all sorts of things which at are simply dangerous and could get them seriously injured.   When we’re in the dojo, it seems perfectly natural.

When I think about the amount of trust I give to my partners, and how little I even think about it at this point in my training, it’s really amazing.  I don’t think twice about letting someone throw me, twist my wrists so the bones in my forearm cross, turn my arm so my elbow is taken in an unnatural direction, or assault me with large sticks.  It’s what I do now.  I can’t believe I trusted training partners so much or so easily back when I started out on this path.

Trust, real trust, the deep down kind, the “here’s my body, go ahead and throw it around a room” kind, the “hit me with that stick” kind, isn’t something you you give naturally.   I have to remember back a long way to when I started Kodokan Judo, and letting people throw me and armbar me and choke me.  I was stiff for a while.  Absolute trust in my partners did not come right away.  I had to work at it with them.  The first people I trusted were my teachers.  They could pick me up and put me down and it felt even safer than diving into my own bed.

Trusting my peers, especially my fellow beginners was different, and took a lot longer.  We had to work hard together, and go through more than a few bumps and bangs as we learned to throw and to be thrown.   It’s scary when someone who knows as much as you do, which is nothing at all, picks you up and then hurls you at the ground.  No wonder beginners are stiff.  They are trusting some stranger to not break break them horribly.  Over time students learn to trust their partners not to hurt them, and they learn to trust their own skills to receive the techniques safely.  

I know that I trust the people I train with regularly a lot.  A lot more than I trust people that I spend significantly more time with.  Based on the amount of time we spend together, and that fact that we do what we do as much for the enjoyment it gives us as anything else, it’s surprising how much I trust these people.  I freely hand them my body to do with pretty much as they please, without any worry at all.  In many ways, I trust them vastly more than I trust most of the people in my life.

This level of trust has been earned.  I train with these people often, and the training environment is one where people’s fundamental nature becomes remarkably clear remarkably quickly.  As I train with people, the vast majority of them are fundamentally good. You quickly realize who is a little careless or a bit thoughtless when they are training, because these people hurt their partners more often and don’t realize that they are doing it.  There are all sorts of personality quirks that show up quickly when you’re handling people and doing dangerous things with them.  The ones who are careless or thoughtless get extra instruction about that in the dojo, and they are genuinely upset and apologetic when they do something wrong.

There are some real diamonds in the dojo too, people who go out of their way to be helpful and willingly absorb extra pain while you work on a technique that is giving you problems.  They are also the folks who are quick to work with beginners who have no control, which makes beginners dangerous regardless of how wonderful a person they are.  They are also wonderful to let work on you because of their care and the honesty of their technique. They aren’t hiding anything, there is no hidden agenda and no secret desires.

The folks who aren’t nice but usually cover themselves with at least a civilized veneer in conversation and outside the dojo though don’t seem to be able to hide anything in the dojo.  The guys who get a kick out of hurting people or who like to prove how powerful they are show their true colors when training and they get a reputation pretty quickly.  There are the guys who always crank an armbar harder than it needs to be, and they always seem to hold the technique for a while even after their partner has tapped to signify that the technique is effective.  Nobody likes these people, and nobody trusts them.  They show who they are very quickly.  They muscle their techniques and they throw extra hard so their partners hurt when they get up. 

This is why I trust the people I train with so much.  We are operating at such a raw level that peoples true natures are nearly impossible to hide. We give our training partners immense power over ourselves.  We routinely give them the power to hurt and injure us.   We know who will be petty and mean enough to hurt us more than absolutely necessary, who might be basically good but a little careless, and who is a truly wonderful human being.   In the dojo, we play with raw power to harm people, and the ones who enjoy hurting others can’t hide this from us.  And they lose the trust that everyone else in the dojo has for each other.

I’ve seen a few of these guys over the years, and they happily trade the trust and community of the dojo for the feeling of power they get when they abuse a partner or when people are afraid to work with them.  They seem to think this makes them strong and powerful.  They are always on the outside of the dojo community because no one really trusts them, regardless of how good their technique becomes.

I trust the people I train with so much because it is so easy to spot the rotten apples and avoid them.  Better yet, the best dojos I’ve been in simply don’t tolerate their behavior.  They either shape up and play nice, or they are encouraged to leave.  I just don’t tolerate them in my dojo.  I love the people I train with because time and time again they have proven that I can give them my body to do with as they please and they will give it back to me whole and healthy.  In fact, I often have to tell them to be a little bit stronger, to hit me a little bit harder because they really don’t want to hurt anyone, and they do the technique less than completely because they don’t want to cause me the little bit of pain that goes with it.  We trust each other because know each other at the fundamental level where we have the power to harm and we know what the others heart looks like there.

It’s amazing how true this is even when you visit a new dojo.  After working with a person for just a few minutes you will know more about their personality than you would in days of working with them outside the dojo.  There are so many opportunities for someone of ill will to take advantage of during budo training that in under 15 minutes I can tell if someone should be avoided. 

What is wonderful about going to a new dojo to visit is that the vast majority of people are very good, and they show it clearly when we train.  After an evening of training with a group of people at a new dojo, I have a new group of trusted friends, because we have shared ourselves with each other, and shown that we care about each other’s well being.  Training means operating at a fundamental level where we offer ourselves to our partners and they show who they really are by how they treat us while they train.  It’s hard to find an activity outside the dojo where you do something with such a powerful exchange on a regular basis.

The trust that this builds is a wonderful thing.

Practice Easy and Hard

There are lots of things about practice I don’t like.  I don’t like cleaning up afterward.  I don’t like all the little nit picky preparations.  I don’t like getting up earlier than would be otherwise necessary.  I used to hate practicing the boring old fundamentals.  I still hate practicing the parts that I’m not good at.  Those are the parts that I need to be practicing though.  

As with everything, we like to do the parts that we are good at, and we tend to avoid the parts that we aren’t so proficient at.  I do train in budo in large part because I enjoy it, I like how it makes me feel, and because I like what it teaches me.  I don’t always enjoy the lessons though.  I hate discovering that I’m really bad as some aspect of practice.  I hate learning that my ego is bigger, more involved in what I’m doing, and has more influence on me (I love to tell myself that I’m beyond that, but practice keeps teaching me a different lesson).

It’s easy when we start.  We’re lousy at everything, so all aspects of training are tough.  As we progress though, we don’t progress at all things at equal speeds.  Of the various style of budo that I practice, I’ve been doing Kodokan Judo the longest.  I’ve gotten reasonably good at certain aspects of it, such as groundwork, especially chokes and arm bars, while my standing techniques have not improved nearly as fast.  This creates situations that my ego is all too happy to exploit, but when I let that happen, I don’t learn anything.  

My groundwork is much better than my standing techniques, so in Judo randori (grappling sparring), I can “win” much more often and more quickly by taking things to the ground. Unfortunately, if I do this, I’m not practicing and improving my standing skills, and those need the most work.  This is one of the traps of ego.  It’s more fun to do stuff we’re already good at.  I’ve been doing judo for a while now, so it takes a little bit of courage for me to say, “Hey, there’s this whole section of judo that I really need to work on.  Will you help me?”    I’m used to being the sensei, the guy in front with all the answers, and climbing down off that pedestal can take some work.

I learn a lot more when I work on the parts that I’m not good at though.  Lately, my personal focus at Judo has been Uki Otoshi.  It’s probably the most difficult and least used throw in the entire Kodokan Judo curriculum.  It requires perfect balance taking, timing and execution. That might make it the best throw to practice.  I also noticed that Kano Shihan and the other greats who created the Nage No Kata put right there are the front of the kata, so you can’t miss it.  My theory is that I will learn much more from studying something that is extremely difficult, than I will from practicing the more popular, and frankly, easier throws.

To do uki otoshi, you have to do everything correctly, so when I practice it, I become more aware of my partner’s balance and of the timing and space connecting us.　　I’m forcing myself to extend my abilities and my understanding and my awareness.  And as these skills expand with practice at something I’m still really bad at, I find that my awareness and understanding of balance taking, spacing and timing are better when I’m doing other things where I’m not as inept as when I’m doing uki otoshi.  That’s improving my Judo as whole.

This practice is just about anything but fun though.  I can’t begin to count the ways of not doing uki otoshi that I have discovered so far.  Every one of these inept variations teaches me something.  I’m slowly dialing in on my target, a smooth, clean uki otoshi.

As I’m writing this, I had a small epiphany.  This is the throw my teach Hikkoshiso Sensei used to toss me around with the first few years I was in Japan.  He would wave his arms a little and I would go flying.  I’ve always felt that I started to get good at a Judo when he couldn’t throw me with that technique anymore (it didn’t stop him from throwing me around like a rag doll, it just meant that he wasn’t doing it with uki otoshi).  I still can’t execute a decent uki otoshi, but I can see already I’ve learned something, because suddenly I understand what he was throwing me with all those years ago.  Of course, if I had focused on the tough stuff sooner, I would have understood this that much sooner..

I’m never going to be a great judoka, I know that.  But if I only ever do the parts I’m already proficient at, I’ll never get any better than I am now.  If I just want to have some fun at practice a couple times a week at practice, I guess that’s ok.  Judo offers so much more than just a some fun exercise, that if I don’t work at learning something every practice I feel I’m wasting a great opportunity for learning, improvement and growth.

Practicing the hard stuff is frustrating, tiring, annoying and sometimes disappointing because I don’t achieve the results I think I should.  It is also far more gratifying over time.  Doing what I’m good at is a reliable bit of fun, but that feeling doesn’t last. Practicing hard things isn’t fun, but it is so much more satisfying every time I figure out something new or discover that I can do something I couldn’t do at the last practice.

It really doesn’t matter what art you are studying, it’s always easier and more fun to do the bits that you are best at.  If you can set your ego aside though, and give up on the fun of being good at something for a while, you’ll learn far more, and make more progress by working at the bits you don’t understand yet.  Unfortunately, we rarely make huge improvements by repeating things we already know how to do.  The leaps in understanding and skill come when we work on something we can’t do yet.