Mindful practice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Techniques and Arts

At practice last night, while we were doing iaido, there were some no-gi grappling guys using another piece of the dojo for their practice. Being a judoka, I’ve rolled around with them a little bit, and they are good at what they do. They study individual techniques for take-downs and submissions, and they can apply them in sparring quite well.

They are always talking about which techniques are the hottest, and trying to find the ultimate killer technique. There doesn’t seem to be any discussion of ideas or principles that might bind together groups of techniques, or whole strategies of movement. Watching their training, I’m always looking for the threads that tie their techniques together. Most often, I don’t see any effort to connect the various threads of their training into a few fundamental principles.

This is one of the basic things that differentiate an art form, a way, from a collection of skills. Someone can be a great technician without understanding the principles from which the individual techniques are derived, but without a grasp of the foundations on which the techniques are built, you can never go beyond the level of a technician. You are stuck with collecting techniques. A lot of what I see in the MMA and no-gi grappling fighters are technique collectors, without anything more going on.

An art, a way, has to be something more than a collection of techniques. It has to have some fundamental principles that are expressed through the techniques, but not limited to the techniques. An art, a way, must be more than just a collection of techniques, no matter how cool or effective they are individually. Judo is the easiest example of an art because its fundamental principles were so clearly stated by the founder, Jigoro Kano. The two principles are “Jita Kyoei” (Mutual benefit and welfare) and “Seiryoku Zenyo” (Maximum efficiency, minimum effort). Those are very clear. They are not simple, nor are they easy, but all the techniques of Judo point towards them and practicing the techniques can lead you to an understanding of the principles.

I say “can” because not everyone who practices an art, even for a lifetime, will understand the principles. To reach the level of principles requires a lot of work on them beyond just mastering the techniques of the art. The techniques are just techniques. They are a means to learning the principles, but they aren’t the principles. It’s very easy to get caught up with the beauty and power of the techniques and never go any further in the learning. Studying the techniques of an art does not grant automatic understanding of the principles. Even mastering the techniques of an art does not guarantee that someone will master the principles.

I’ve known very powerful judoka who had no interest in Judo beyond what takes place on the mat. They have studied the techniques of Judo for years, decades, without ever developing the least interest in how the principles of Judo might be applied to something other than competition. To me, they have missed the real beauty of the art, but they are quite satisfied with being technicians. On the other hand, I have met people who diligently practiced the techniques without ever achieving a high level of technical skill, but who were able to grasp the principles of the art and apply them expertly in whatever they were doing.

In order to make something an art, a way, we have to practice it with the idea that there is more to it than just a collection of techniques. We have to pursue the underlying principles and how we might apply them in ways beyond the techniques. This is true no matter what art we are practicing, whether it is Judo or Tea Ceremony or Flower Arranging or any of the dozens of other arts out there. Without conscious search for the principles and a will to apply them to the world, all we have are collections of techniques.

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

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

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

jutsu vs. do?

I see a lot of writing that suggests that arts whose names end in "jutsu" are in some fundamental way different from arts whose names end in "do." I have a hard time finding this significant difference. I want to look at the whole concept of "michi" (do) or "way" in English, and see if there really is a fundamental difference between jutsu and do, or if that is a false dichotomy.

bjj

After judo practice last night, I got to work out with a new bjj/MMA teacher who is coming to the dojo. It was an interesting experience. The language was different, but the techniques were familiar. I'm used to learning techniques based on applying a small set of fundamental principles to a variety of situations and problems. For the bjj there didn't seem to be unifying principles, but every technique was broken down into minute steps that were easy to follow. It was great fun to be a pure student, just keeping my mouth shut and learning what he had to offer.

Ways

People argue a lot about whether some art is a "jutsu" or a "do." They miss a simple fact. In Japanese culture, there is a way to do everything. There is a proper way for everything to be done. Not just those things that have been codified as arts with names. There is, for example, a proper way to wring out a towel.
"Huh? You've got to be kidding." I can hear people thinking. There really is. The idea is to find the best way to do something. All the arts we study and practice, judo, sado, kado, iaido and on and on, are little ways. They are supposed to point us at the big Way of life. But it's not just the named arts. Everything has a way. The unspoken lesson of Japanese culture is that there is a way for everything we do, every day. Even simple things like how to hold a pen, pencil or brush, or how we hold and drink our tea, or how we wring out a towel.
The ancient idea is that if the outer ways are correct, the heart and mind will also be correct. Unfortunately, I've known too many elegant and polished scoundrels to believe this to be true. I do believe that we can approach everything we do with the idea that there is a way hidden within it. A friend of mine taught me about the way of standing. She worked with me and taught me how to stand. Her way was much better than what I had been doing, and had the benefit of making my back feel better. I wish she was closer because I'm sure she could teach me a lot about the way of walking.
All of these little ways should give us clues about the way of living. None of the little ways is complete in itself, but they all point a finger at how to approach the rest of life, the physical, the mental and the emotional.

Training Direction

We go to the dojo and train. Ok, so what does that get us? We will show improvement in return for making the choice and effort to go practice. This can only be a good thing. As an American, anything that gets me up and active has to be counted an improvement. Going to the dojo to train means getting some kind of instruction in your art and being able to practice it. That’s good, but relying on the teacher to provide all of the direction in your training makes for weak, inefficient training and slow progress.

If we pick some fundamental aspect of our art to work on, whether it is entering, or timing, or posture, or movement, we can refine that aspect of the art while practicing whatever it is our teacher is focusing on for the day. This gives training more continuity from practice to practice, and gives something to focus on any time we think about our art, whether we are in the dojo for formal practice, or just thinking about it when we're supposed to be accomplishing something at work. We can either float through our training, or we can choose what kind of martial artist we will become.

Isn’t this how we should approach the rest of our time outside the dojo as well? With an idea of the person we'd like to become, and be making effort in that direction? Some people say things like "That's just who I am. I can't change." Every day though, life changes us a little. The question is, will we passively allow life to shape us, or will we actively participate in shaping ourselves? Whether we are in the dojo, the kitchen or the workplace, we can choose what we become day by day.

Kiyama-Sensei basically said to quit worrying about anything in the kata except making the cut incredibly powerful. His cuts are absolutely incredible. On the street he's a little, kindly old Japanese grandfather. At 85 years old, and maybe 5 ft tall, in a floppy hat and casual shirt, he doesn't seem powerful or unusual. He is though. I'm still working on the complete physical integration that he has, but a couple more little pieces came through for me this year. He calls it "heso powa-", literally, belly button power. He ties everything together with koshi and drives that through the blade's kissaki. It's really incredible, and it's going to take some time to get right. When I try it, I often end up tensing the wrong things, and my head will bob up and down as the unstablized powere I'm generating finds an exit through something other than the sword. I think it did it right a couple of times while I was there, but it's going to take some work to see if I've really got it.

Of course, once I get this down, then it has to be integrated into my practice without disturbing all of the other things I've worked on, like timing, spacing, pacing, movement, and other stuff I'll regret forgetting.

Budo and Old Friends

I went to Japan for a week to see my friends. I did some incredible jodo with Matsuda Shihan, and judo with old friends (and we all felt old in the heat), and iaido with Kiyama Sensei. It was wonderful. Each time I get a little more. This time I understood a bit about what Kiyama Sensei is pointing me at. I'm not sure I'm looking at the moon he's pointing me to, but I think I may have stopped focusing on his finger finally. I didn't catch on the to lesson in the dojo though. It was on a Saturday morning at his house, watching old budo videos and commenting back and forth. I think I finally got what he's been trying to tell me for years. Now I just have to translate it from understanding to expression.

One Punch, One Kill

I've heard karate guys talk about their art as being so "effective" that "One Punch, One Kill" is an outcome. I wonder, how effective is a tool that can only be used in lethal situations?