Better for what?

A friend of mine asked about swords.  He was wondering which was a better investment for iaido practice, a sword made of high quality modern steel or one made in the traditional fashion. I think he may have been surprised at my answer.

"Best for what?" For iai practice, you don't even need a sword made of steel. A well-balanced, well constructed iaito made of zinc-aluminium alloy will do just fine. The problem with many modern “samurai swords” is that they have the balance of crow bar. For classical Japanese sword training like iaido, the most important thing is the construction and balance of the sword. Bad balance or poor construction makes it impossible to learn good technique and can actually injure your arms. Poorly balanced swords put stress on your arms in ways that can damage them..

The best Japanese swords are still the ones made by classically trained smiths. This is because the classically trained smiths understand sword design, geometry and balance in depth. They've studied hundred of great blades and know what shapes are good for different applications and uses. Western made "samurai swords" look vaguely like a Japanese sword, but they generally lack the real character and traits that make a sword of a particular style or era that was designed for real use.

It's less about the particular steel than the geometry and balance. Modern steels are great. They are strong, resilient, inexpensive and rust resistant. Classically made, folded steel is expensive, strong, resilient and rusts if you look at it wrong. The real difference for practice is what the smith does with it. For that, the classically trained smith is hands down the best.  Good iaito are made to mimic the weight, geometry and balance blades made by traditionally trained Japanese smiths, which is why they make the best investment for immediate practice.

This sword discussion reminds me a lot of my thoughts whenever someone asks me what the best martial art is. “Best for what?”  What you want to do with the martial art will determine where the answer goes. Martial arts have as many differences as they do similarities. What’s best is going to depend on what you want out of it. Unfortunately, becoming an unbeatable super warrior isn’t something any art can give. Give some realistic thought to what you want. Is it unarmed or armed skills? Primarily physical or more mental? Do you want to sweat heavily, or only moderately (not sweating is not an option when learning martial arts)?  Lots of contact or not?

While I am an unabashed fan classical Japanese koryu budo, they aren’t best for everyone. One reason is related to why my friend was asking about the difference between swords made with modern steel and those made by classically trained smiths: the cost to acquire one!

Genuine koryu budo are rare, even in Japan. In the USA where I live, they are exceptionally rare.  I can count the number dojo teaching real koryu within a 2 hour drive of my home on my fingers. There are a couple of iai dojo, a jujutsu and kenjutsu ryuha, and my dojo with iai and jo.  That’s it, and in a lot of places there aren’t even this many dojo. What this scarcity means is that learning real koryu budo is expensive.  It means investing a lot of time and money just to get to someplace where you can learn one.  Even then, there’s a good chance that what’s available isn’t exactly what you’re looking for.

Iai is great, but if you’re looking for kenjutsu or bojutsu or jujutsu, it’s not going to do you much good if the only things around are iai dojo. To really study something, you are probably going to have to travel a lot further than 2 hours.  I teach Shinto Muso Ryu and Shinto Hatakage Ryu, but if I want to get instruction for myself, I have to go to where my teachers are. Japan. That’s the only real solution, and it’s not cheap.  I’m lucky enough to be able to do it once or twice a year.

What happens if you can’t afford to travel an hour or more each way to practice, or worse, have to fly somewhere to receive hands on instruction? Koryu budo doesn’t look like a great option. On the other hand, the faux koryu stuff floating around is kind of like the faux “samurai swords.” It may look vaguely like the real thing, but under close examination it will lack many of the characteristics of a genuine koryu budo, and when you try to pick it up and use it, you may discover that it has the balance of a crow bar.

I love koryu budo, but good quality gendai (modern) budo is great too. The metaphor above breaks down a little here, because gendai budo isn’t an attempt to mimic koryu budo the way an iaito mimics a shinken. Gendai budo were created to suit the ages of their founding, and have evolved since then.  They aren’t koryu budo. Good gendai budo don’t try to be.  Good gendai budo are honest about their age and qualities and history.  Judo or aikido or kendo will teach a lot of the same things that you learn in a koryu budo. You’ll learn good structure, breathing, movement, spacing and timing. It won’t have the history or breadth of koryu budo, but it still has a huge amount to teach you.

If you want to learn good budo, do something that will teach you good fundamentals.  I’m fond of saying there are no advanced techniques. There aren’t, and anything that is too specialized, too focused on a particular precise application, won’t be broadly applicable in new situations. A good foundation of understanding your body, structure, breathing, spacing and timing can be quickly adapted and applied to any new situation or study.

Koryu budo are still rare. If you aren’t lucky enough to live near where one is taught, then it’s probably not the best budo for you. I love koryu budo, but if nothing is available, then the best budo for you is probably something that is. I’ve found old Japanese swords in antique shops in the middle of nowhere, but they usually aren’t very good and often have fatal flaws such as deep rust or, worst of all, cracks that make the blade useless. Good judo or karate or aikido or kendo, whatever you can find, go in with eyes open. Just because someone has high rank or a teaching license, there is no guarantee that they are good teachers.

It’s better to learn good quality basics from a relatively low ranked and effective teacher than it is to learn poor quality advanced technique from a highly ranked person who has no teaching skills. It’s better to learn good fundamentals from a good, local, budo teacher than it is to bemoan the fact that you can’t afford to travel to where the art you dream of is taught. Start with an iaito and learn the fundamentals while you save to buy a shinken. Learn good budo fundamentals in a local dojo while you can. When you finally save enough for that beautiful shinken, all the training with the iaito will mean that you can handle it with confidence and safety. All that training in the fundamentals of structure and spacing and timing in the local budo dojo will mean that when it becomes possible to start studying the art you’ve been dreaming of, you’ll already have a solid foundation to build on, instead of having to start completely from scratch.

Budo And Who We Are

Kiyama Sensei emboides budo for me. Photo Copyright Peter Boylan 2006

We start budo for a lot of reasons. Some people want to learn how to fight better. Others are looking for a form of exercise that’s more interesting than the treadmill or aerobics class. Some are looking for a challenge. Some are looking for an active form of philosophy (don’t laugh, a few of us really did start because we wanted an active philosophical practice).  Once we’re in the dojo though, we get all of budo, not just the bit that brought us through the door.  The tough guy who wanted to learn to fight better gets doses of budo philosophy. The lady looking for an exercise class more interesting than what was happening at aerobics learns to fight better. That geeky guy who was looking for arcane Asian philosophy? He learns how to exercise and to fight.

Whatever our motivation for starting, we all get the same things when we start, a heavy dose of kihon. We practice improving our structure and posture.  We do endless paired exercises to develop mastery of spacing and sense for timing.

Once we understand some basics, we’re attacked with hands, sticks, chains and other weapons, thrown across the room and choked unconscious. We become accustomed to being attacked.  We know where our center is, and it’s a lot harder to knock us off it. As our understanding and mastery of spacing and timing increases, we learn the difference between when someone is posturing, and when they are actually in a position to attack.

If we are doing our budo right, we are also learning about ourselves. It’s fine to learn physical techniques and how to control spacing, but if we don’t learn to master ourselves, our minds and emotions as well, we are still weak.  It does no good to have incredible physical balance if someone can destroy our mental balance with a word or two.

Practicing technique is great, but we cannot forget to practice being the person we want to become as well.  Budo is more than just physical technique because it has to be. The mind directs and controls the technique. If the mind isn’t trained to have a good structure and balance, any opponent who can off-balance you mentally can defeat you, regardless of the quality of their physical technique.

In Japanese budo circles, you’ll often hear about seishin tanren 精神鍛錬, or “spirit forging”. The goal is to develop mental strength and balance. Scenes of martial artists standing under waterfalls in winter, calmly chanting in the freezing cold are a staple of samurai movies in Japan. This is an obvious form of seishin tanren. Buddhist monks, Shugendo ascetics and budoka all use this as a means of learning to transcend physical limitations through mental and development

Over time, budo has to go deeper than just something we play with. If it’s going to be budo, it has to be more than just a sport or game we play. It has to soak into our core and change us. The physical changes are usually visible to everyone. Those lessons about structure and movement change how you move outside the dojo. You get annoyed when you find yourself slouching forward or leaning back on your heels. People can see the effect, even when they aren’t sure what it is.

As we practice budo, the mental effects sink deeper and deeper into us as well. One day it stops being enough that you can hold your temper and ignore your frustration during sparring so you don’t make an emotional mistake. You start letting go of the pride and things that opponents in the dojo use to off-balance you and create frustration and anger. You’re sparring gets better as your mental state remains calmer and smoother. You let things come and go without clinging to them. You start to touch fudoshin from time to time.

As you travel along the budo path, the lessons sink deeper and deeper into your being. You start noticing things outside the dojo. That’s when your training starts happening all the time. What your mental state is at home, at work, on the freeway and everywhere becomes important to you. The quality of your mental state becomes important, and you start letting go of things that hurt it. Letting other people’s actions influence your mental state become increasingly unacceptable.

The clear focus and imperturbable, fudoshin, mind of the dojo is your goal all the time. My daily commute provides one of the finest venues for practicing this I can imagine. Detroit freeways are filled with people who are grumpy, grouchy and angry, and take out their unhappiness at having to go to work like everyone else on the road.  Being tailgated and cut off by aggressive drivers and then being blockaded by oblivious drivers in the fast lanes is great mental training. It’s easy to get angry at people who are rude, dangerous drivers, or at people who toddle along without paying attention to the effect they’re having on the world around them.

It’s easy to get hung up on the bad behavior around us, especially on the freeway where that bad behavior is dangerous. We learn to let go of the stupid, aggressive, foolish things our partners do in the dojo rather than holding on to them and the emotions they engender. When the guy in the black sedan roars up on our bumper, then swerves around us on the left and forces us to brake as he cuts across three lanes of traffic to get to the exit, getting angry and focusing on the other guys idiocy is all too easy.

Good budo is hard to learn. Remaining calm and present and focused on the action at hand isn’t just something nice in the dojo when you’re sparring. If you don’t let go of the idiot that nearly wrecked your car cutting across three lanes of traffic you might miss the fact that the guy in front of you just swerved to miss debris in the road and run straight over it.　Or miss the guy braking suddenly just ahead of you and plow into him.

The more our budo practice seeps out of the dojo into the rest of our world, the better we get at not holding onto the things that upset and off-balance  us. Really successful, old, budoka have calmness about them that seems impossible. Nothing seems able to upset their mental stability. They’ve learned the lessons in the dojo and practiced applying them everywhere. They don’t hold onto things that hold them back. They don’t lose their temper and they aren’t impressed or upset by people who do.

When we are open to the lessons of our training, they seep out the door of the dojo and show up all over our daily lives. That’s really the point. Budo isn’t like basketball, where the practice stays on the court. Budo is supposed to change how you perceive and interact with the world. Getting accustomed to people trying to hit, choke and throw you should change you. Especially when your friends succeed from time to time in hitting, choking and throwing you.

After some time practicing budo, socially aggressive folks shouldn’t seem like much of a problem. The pushy ones don’t seem as pushy anymore. The more you practice, the more those special, strong postures for the dojo show up at the office or in the mall. Turns out good, solid budo posture is useful for turning down the enthusiasm of pushy salesmen and obnoxious coworkers. It’s downright amazing what a zanshin filled stare will do.

The longer you train, the more natural and unconscious budo kihon becomes. You stand more solidly. People will notice that you move differently. They may even comment on how gracefully you move, particularly when you’re not thinking about budo. These are signs that you are absorbing your budo practice and it is becoming a part of you.

All that  practice breathing and staying relaxed while people attack you with big sticks turns out to be useful for maintaining mental and emotional balance during those sorts of attacks too. As budo practice is absorbed deeper, you notice when your emotions are making you tense and unbalanced. That’s when you discover that the same breathing exercise and other practices used to control physical tension are effective on mental and emotional tension as well.

Long before you are aware of the changes, people around you will notice the effects of budo practice working on you. You don’t get as worked up about things. As long as no one is actively trying to hit you with a stick or choke you, they cease to be threatening. You stay relaxed even as pressure mounts.  All because you’ve learned to dislike being tense because it ruins your budo, and you’ve learned how to breathe to control some of the tension.

Budo lessons sneak up on us. Budo practice doesn’t transform you into a master of calm and peacefulness in an instant. Early on, the lessons and practices of the dojo show up in the rest of your life as a surprise when you’re not looking. Over time the strong posture, steady movement and calm, clear mind becomes more and more normal for you.

As you absorb your budo practice into yourself, step by step, repetition by repetition, it becomes less something you practice, and more something you are.  That’s what budo does.

Dojo

Kyoto Butokuden Dojo.  Photo Copyright Peter Boylan 2015

 Something happens when I take off my shoes, stick them on the shelf by the door, bow and step onto the dojo floor. For me, it’s like coming home after long trip, even if I was there yesterday. My stomach relaxes and my feet feel like they extend deep into the floor. My breathing deepens, and a smile seeps out from the corners of my mouth and flows all across my face.  The dojo is my favorite, happy, peaceful place.

Dojo 道場、is an old word borrowed from Chinese Buddhism. When Buddhism entered China, the Chinese language was already rich with Taoist and Confucian spiritual terms. Buddhism borrowed freely from this trove of language to describe ideas from sanskrit. Terms related to “way” 道,  “michi” in Japanese are frequently used for Buddhist ideas.  Dojo is one of them. Written with the characters for “way” 道 and “place” 場, the term came to mean the spot under the bodhi tree in India where the Buddha achieved enlightenment. From there it was applied to halls where the  Buddhist teachings, sutras, are studied and where monks chant and meditate.

Somewhere in the early Edo period (1604-1868) people began calling martial arts practice halls “dojo.” The Edo period was preceded by several hundred years of fractious war in Japan. During that time martial arts training related to military activity and generally took outdoors. Martial arts instructors traveled with the armies, which didn’t tend to have long term barracks. Training happened in the field.

It was only with the establishment of peace that permanent training halls became a practical option. The armies were mostly decommissioned, and the much smaller forces that remained were serving in peacetime. Troops were based in the castle towns and weren’t likely to experience the battlefield. Under these circumstances, troops, officers, and anyone who claimed the status of bushi, would need to train somewhere.

Instructors connected to the local daimyo, or lord, became established in most castle towns. It was probably not uncommon for training early in this period to take place in the dojo of Buddhist temples. These would have been the largest indoor spaces available initially. When purpose built budo training halls started to appear, they were built in a similar manner and carried the name with them.

The tradition of the temple dojo doubling as a martial arts dojo didn’t end when people started building dedicated martial arts dojo. The temple dojo hall, much like a church hall in the West, served as a sort of community hall, and would be used for many things in the community. The most famous instance of a temple dojo serving as a martial arts dojo is the place where Kodokan Judo was founded in 1882 in at the tiny, neighborhood Eisho Temple in Tokyo.

It doesn’t matter what the dojo is like, or even if it’s just the parking lot in back of my first jodo teacher’s house. When I bow to show my respect for entering the special space, even if the only thing making it special is my bow, I transform that space for myself. That bow I do before stepping into the training space marks it off from the rest of the world. The dojo is special because we make it special.

The dojo is a wonderful place where people are encouraged to grow and push themselves, to develop themselves as much as possible. Much of what happens in the world isn’t concerned with who we are or what we become. That’s not the world’s fault. Mother Nature is a tough lady, and sometimes personal development seems like a luxury when there are immediate needs of meals and mortgages.

For me though, that time I spend in the dojo is essential to being better at fulfilling those requirements of food and shelter so I can work on other things. The dojo is the place where working on myself, becoming better at being me, is allowed and encouraged. I know it doesn’t always look like that, especially when Hotani Sensei is yelling at me, but it is.

Sensei can yell at me all he wants, because he has proven that I can trust him. Training with him is as hard and as fierce as it gets, but not abusive. The dojo is filled with people I’ve learned to trust through the experience of training with them. That sense of trust makes the dojo a uniquely comfortable setting for me. I go to judo and people throw me around the room and try to choke me. I go to jodo and everyone tries to hit me with sticks. It’s odd, but, this makes these dojo more comfortable and secure to be in, not less.

That trust shows up in the respect everyone feels in a good dojo too. I respect people for overcoming their fears and worries and coming through the door. It takes a lot to decide you want to do something where getting banged and bruised is less a distant possibility and more a near certainty. Budo hurts sometimes, but so does life. Learning to handle it and distinguish between hurt and harm is one of those budo lessons that is useful all the time. It isn’t a fun lesson in the learning, though learning it makes you seem tough to people outside the dojo.  The respect is simple. If you have have what it takes to show up and bow in, we respect that.

Stepping onto the mat in a good dojo isn’t like going home.  It is going home. Everyone there wants to improve themselves and they want to see everyone else in the dojo improve too. The amount of care and concern is remarkable for something the world usually sees as just a hobby or pastime. These people will push me and pull me and drag the best out of me, and I’ll do the same for them.

When I first moved to Japan, and spoke about 10 words of conversational Japanese, I asked the people I worked with to introduce me to where I could practice judo. I’d been doing it for 4 years in the college before I moved to Japan and had a brown belt. One of the junior high teachers made some calls and got me introduced to the judo coach at the local high school, Sakashita Sensei.  I was invited to come over and join the practice. I could barely introduce myself in Japanese, but it turns out I spoke fluent judo. I knew how to bow properly. I knew nearly all the general dojo terms and commands. In a land where I didn’t speak the language or know the culture, I discovered a place where I was welcomed and where it turned out I knew the rules, the etiquette and the language! 

 

Yokaichi High School Dojo. Photo Copyright Peter Boylan 1991

9,000 km (6,000 miles) from home, and I am welcomed into a dojo and invited to practice. That means these people invited me to try to throw them around the room, pin, choke and arm lock them. What wonderful hospitality! Of course, I offered them the opportunity to do the same to me, and believe me, they did. It really was a homecoming for me. As soon as I bowed in I was treated like every other player on the mat.  They weren’t sure what a brown belt meant, since they only use white and black for adult ranks in Japan, but they were happy to throw me around and assure themselves I could take it while I got a feeling for just how far into the deep end I had jumped.

It really doesn’t matter where the dojo is, or what it looks like.  Once I’ve bowed in, the air becomes sweeter, I stand a little better, and my step becomes more comfortable. When I’m in the dojo, I’m where I belong.

Budo Art by Brian Hanlon

My friend Brian Hanlon is painter and graphic artist who does some wonderful budo artwork. Brian practices Shinto Muso Ryu jo and Kung Fu.  He has also trained in Aikido and Judo. His artwork reflects his real understanding of the budo technique.

UCHI MATA Copyright Brian Hanlon 2016

He's doing a project to turn the above work, UCHI MATA, into a t-shirt over at teezily

TAI OTOSHI Copryright Brian Hanlon 2016

The originals are available at his Etsy Store KORYU ARTS.

There just isn't enough good budo art around.  Please take a look at Brian's, and support his efforts.

Upcoming seminar February 27 & 28 in NYC

I'm going to be in New York City teaching Jodo.  If anyone is interested, there are still a couple of open spaces.

Am I Really Practicing Budo?

We go to the dojo regularly.  We practice hard.  We listen and try to follow sensei’s direction when she says “Cut with your hips” or “More extension” or the all-purpose direction “Relax.” We do these things.  We learn to do o soto gari or nikyo or kiri oroshi or whatever the technique is. Are we really practicing budo though?  Is budo what the samurai did in Japan? If that’s the core of what budo is, how is it possible for us to do budo now, in the 21st century?

Of course, if budo is what the samurai did in ancient Japan, then the next question is, which samurai in which period of Japanese history? The samurai of the 14th century were quite different from those of the late 16th century, who differed tremendously from those of the 17th century, and who might not have recognized all of the attitudes and behaviors of the samurai in the 19th century.

In the 14th century, samurai armies were often paid in loot. As for budo, the first of the ways, cha no yu or sado (tea ceremony, the way of tea) was just beginning to form.  Such a thing as “budo” wouldn’t be envisioned for several hundred years. The idea of forming bugei ryuha wouldn’t become common for another 200 years.

Katori Shinto Ryu only stakes its founding in the 15th century, while Kashima Shinryu and Kashima Shinto Ryu both date to the 16th century, as does Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu. In that era the term “budo” hadn’t been coined yet, in part because the idea of discrete Ways, michi, 道 was still being formed in the teaching and practice of tea ceremony. What people did when training in these early ryuha was bugei 武芸. That second character is the same as in geisha 芸者 and means an artistic skill, technique, or performance.

It’s only in the 17th century, with the establishment of peace throughout the Japanese islands by the Tokugawa shogunate, that we begin to see a flourishing of discrete bugei ryuha.  Prior to this soldiers would be training together in armies moving and fighting all across the country.  Skills were constantly practiced, applied and evaluated in battle. After the the Pax Tokugawa was established in 1604, the armies were disbanded and skills were no longer used and tested.

With peace, there came time to codify and systematize teachings. People saw a genuine need for bugei schools where samurai could train in skills that were no longer applied on a regular basis. Over time, being able to show certification of training became important for samurai to earn promotions and to gain increases in their stipend.

Iaido schools flourished in the peaceful world of Tokugawa Japan

As the Tokugawa peace continued, townspeople who couldn’t wear the two swords of the samurai began to train in various bugei, and jujutsu systems flourished. With an emphasis on unarmed techniques and a variety of weapons besides the sword, these styles were well suited to the interests and legal limitations of merchants, craftspeople and wealthy farmers as well as samurai.

Over centuries the weapons changed as well. The famous samurai sword was originally little more than a backup sidearm for when the mounted archer ran out of arrows. The skills a samurai practiced were known as kyubajutu　弓馬術, “bow horse skills” since the primary role of the samurai was as a mounted archer. The sword might only be drawn when the battle was finished to collect the heads of defeated opponents for presentation to the winning lord so the samurai could get his reward.

Over time, pikemen armed with yari grew in importance on the battlefield and tactics for countering the speed and power of the mounted archers developed. Then in 1543 Portuguese merchants sold matchlock rifles to a Japanese lord and within 20 years these weapons that could be used by anyone with minimal training had transformed the battlefield. 65 years after they entered Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu used firearms to decisively take control of the country and bring the age of warfare to an end in Japan.

Under the reign of the Tokugawas, firearms were secured for the sole use of the Tokugawa and regional daimyo forces. Following in the path of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, only members of the samurai class could carry swords. The samurai for the most part ceased to be soldiers and warriors as they transformed into the bureaucratic class responsible for running the country.

As government officials in a peaceful nation, members of the samurai class practiced swordsmanship. Without battles to test themselves in, challenge matches with bamboo weapons proliferated and styles such as Itto Ryu, whose tactics and techniques were well suited to this sort of dueling, grew in popularity along with the matches. Non-samurai also began studying and styles emphasizing unarmed skills such as Tenjin Shinyo Ryu flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Following the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868, the reopening of Japan to the world and the abolishment of the samurai class, the martial practices changed along with the world. Competitive displays flourished as the old martial skills lost their role in society. These competitive displays mixed with new ideas about sports from western culture and the modern arts of judo and kendo emerged. Instead of being used in battle, or being a part of a class and role expectation, the arts became educational and recreational activities.

Kano Jigoro 1860 - 1938

Kano Jigoro lead the way by molding his Kodokan Judo into a system that could be incorporated into the physical education curriculum of the new government’s national education system in Japan and by instituting a clear tournament system. Leading swordsmen in Japan soon followed Kano’s example and did the same, taking elements from numerous forms of kenjutsu and creating a standardized system for national use that was incorporated into the public education system in Japan.

In the 21st century, all of these are called budo.  Are they all budo though? Is the modern study of judo and kendo the same budo, the same spirit, that the samurai in the 15th and 16th centuries learned in Katori Shinto Ryu, Kashima Shinryu and Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu? Of all the experiences of budo through the centuries, which one is the true budo?  The guys who fought for loot and collected heads for reward? Perhaps the true budo was practiced by the samurai of the Tokugawa era, who might go their whole life without needing to use their martial skills. Or is it only the modern budo, with the influence of Kano Jigoro in judo and the great kendo teachers like Nakayama Hakudo in the 20th century that is true budo? Is it only budo if you’re using it professionally as the samurai did? Do you have to be a soldier, guard, or law enforcement officer to truly do budo?

Nakayama Hakudo 1873-1958

A mistake we often make when encountering something from a different culture is to force it into a pre-existing category from our own culture. We try to draw the same lines between things that we are used to. There are many people who maintain that any art or way that seeks to promote individual development cannot be a true martial art. I’ve also encountered people who maintain what they do is superior because exponents explicitly talk about peace and harmony while bending joints and tossing people around the room.

One of the most difficult things to wrap my head around when I first moved to Japan was that things do not have to be clearly differentiated black or white. People there are generally not Buddhist or Shinto. They are Buddhist and Shinto who might well get married in a Christian ceremony, exchange chocolate on Valentine’s Day and check the calendar for auspicious and unlucky days from Taoism.

It is not Japanese culture that draws sharp lines between things. There is no need to call one the budo of one era “the true budo” (though you do run into people in Japan who claim that things in modern Japan have deteriorated and degenerated badly and need to be infused with the spirit of some previous age. Mishima committed suicide while making just that claim).  Ways are paths, roads, and roads can go long distances through wildly different terrain, all while changing from concrete to asphalt to gravel to dirt and back again.  It’s all still the same road.

If we stop trying to fit things into the discrete categories that our culture tries to fit everything into, and adopt a lesson from the home culture of budo, it might be easier to see that we are all on the same road. It’s a lesson that never tires of slapping me in the face from different angles. The beginner who just walked in the door is on the same road as the 90 year old master who’s been training for 80 years.  They are on very different stretches of road, but it’s the same road none the less.

The same idea applies to the people who have practiced budo in all those different eras.  They were on the path, practicing the Way. They weren’t where we are. They were on other sections of that road. The bits that are “relevant” keep changing. Armored warfare with bows, arrows, spears and swords dominated the fight for centuries. Firearms transformed things and made armor obsolete. Technology moved forward and somehow armor is back.

The immediately applicable bits and the historical scenery change, but the fundamental lessons that form the foundation of the budo Way never seem to. I’ve written about what I consider fundamental to budo. Whatever else it does, budo has to teach how to move with good structure, an understanding of the effective ranges of movement, how to use time, and it has to be concerned with making practitioners not just better fighters, but better people.  If it’s doing those 4 things, it’s probably budo.

Those 4 essentials haven’t changed   since some samurai in ancient Japan first started putting together a budo curriculum. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, those essentials have to be there. Whether it is unarmed jujutsu, kenjutsu, kyudo or modern firearms, you have to understand structure, spacing and timing to be effective, and those ancient samurai teachers recognized that bullies and jerks need to be grown into decent human beings if they are also going to be entrusted with martial skills. If those items are the basis of everything else going on in your training, then what you’re doing will still be budo, whichever century you’re in.

Ukemi Skills, Flow and Counters

In my last post I wrote about ukemi　受身, or receiving techniques. Proficiency in ukemi is important in arts like judo and aikido where practitioners are thrown around the room and have to be able to land safely. How you receive attacks is critical in arts like karate and kenjutsu as well.  

How you receive techniques is fundamental. When we start we are all a least a little stiff and scared. Whether it’s fear of falling and hurting ourselves, or the fear of getting hit with a stick or a fist, we react by tensing up. Relaxing when you know someone is going to pick you up over their head and throw you at the floor is tough.

The mental states of mushin  and fudoshin are essential for doing good budo. I’ve written about the mental states, but these are reflected in the body and impact how we deal with attacks.  If you’re afraid of getting hurt, if your mind is stuck on the possibility of pain, you’re not going to be able to respond properly. You’re going to be stiff and worried.  Your state of mind translates very directly to your body.

Basic ukemi, whether they be breakfalls, blocks, or other methods of receiving attacks, have to be practiced until they are smooth and until we are so sure of them that we can relax when our training partner attacks and just focus on our partner. Our bodies have to have to be emptied of anticipation in the same way our minds are in mushin. Only then can we really relax into whatever needs to happen to receive a throw or other attack.

If you wonder about the use of the word “relax” in the last sentence, I use it because you can’t stiffen up for an attack.  The Tao Te Ching nailed this one more than 2,500 years ago:

The living are soft and yielding;

the dead are rigid and stiff.

Living plants are flexible and tender;

the dead are brittle and dry.

Those who are stiff and rigid

are the disciple of death.

Those who are soft and yielding

are the disciples of life.

The rigid and stiff will be broken.

The soft and yielding will overcome.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 76

http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/lao-tzu/64466

If you have any doubts, just try taking breakfall ukemi when you are tense and stiff.  It hurts, and you’re quite likely to break something.  Relax and be soft, yield to the energy instead of trying to resist it.  I’ve seen people in their 70s and 80s safely take big falls in judo and aikido because they know how to be soft and pliable instead of stiff and brittle.

Once you get comfortable with the fundamentals of receiving attacks, and learn to relax into them, you’re ready to begin working on the fun stuff. When you can take falls casually, easily and without thinking about them, then you can start working on interacting with the attackers energy.

In aikido, uke (the person receiving the technique) and tori (the person doing the technique) are always clearly defined.  In judo randori on the other hand, one of the things determined through the randori is who is uke and who is tori. Both people are working to destabilize and throw their partner. This is when the fun begins. There is nothing that states that because someone begins to throw you that you have to simply accept being thrown. I’m rather fond of kaeshiwaza, or counters.

The current rule in competitive judo is that for a counterattack to score a point, the initial attack must be clearly stopped before the counterattack occurs. Frankly, this is lousy judo. I cannot imagine a good reason why anyone would want to stop all that lovely attacking energy and then start from scratch. To me, the best counters flow seamlessly from the attack to the counter.

Nice kata of counters.  Shows the attack, then the counter slowly, then at speed.

Take the energy that is attacking you and flow with it. When you are confident you can handle fully receiving the attack, then you can start playing with it. Every attack has a counter. Some have several. I’m fond of a version of tani otoshi against big hip throws and yoko guruma is often available when receiving kote gaeshi and other popular aikido techniques.  The key is flowing with the attack and transforming tori into uke during their attack.

Tani otoshi is beautiful in its simplicity.  It’s little more than applied sitting down yet is wonderfully effective against big hip throws.  As tori attacks you drop your hips under their attack off-balancing them to the rear. At that moment, they cease to be tori and become uke. As you continue dropping your weight until you are on the floor you hold uke to you and turn a bit to make sure they land on the floor and not on you (OK, there might be more to it, but that’s what a good one looks like).

Not very fluid, but you get the idea.

Counters, kaeshiwaza, are advanced ukemi skills. Being able to do counters is a critical skill for anyone teaching budo. Students are stubborn. They will keep doing things wrong, giving away their balance and energy while attacking, unless there are consequences for doing so. Counters are the consequence. If tori sets up the technique properly then it’s not possible for me to counterattack. If tori leaves any sort of opening though, I’ll take it.

When a student gets to a level where their ukemi can handle an unexpected throw, they should start getting countered occasionally when they leave an opening. This avoids all arguments about whether or not an opening was real. If I attack, and I end up on my back, I know I left a juicy opening for someone. There’s no need to counter every time someone makes a mistake during practice.  Just the knowledge that counters can happen tends to make people stand a little better and pay attention to not bending over at the end of a technique.

Counters are also fun on the folks who like to replace good kuzushi and technique with raw strength. It’s a concrete way to demonstrate the weaknesses of raw strength. Take all that raw strength that’s making you twist or bend and go with it. If someone is pushing or pulling that much, a counter of some sort will be available.

Yoko wakare is a lovely, flowing counter.

Attacks have weaknesses. If those are never demonstrated students won’t know where they are. Teaching people counters and how to find them does something else. It teaches them to see the openings in their own techniques, which is the first step in closing them.