Showing Respect: In And Out Of Japan

Someone asked me about how you show respect towards your teacher on and off the mat in Japan compared with the United States. As it happens, I’m getting ready for a trip to Japan and I’ve been thinking about that bit lately. Respect should be fundamental to any relationship, and that’s particularly true in budo, where what we’re just practicing is dangerous because of the nature of the techniques. If you don’t respect you teachers and partners, or if they don’t respect you, things can get ugly very fast.  Respect is essential before you even begin training.

I see a lot of different ways of requiring and showing respect in the West. I’ve seen dojo that made me think of images of military basic training from the movies, with everyone standing rigidly at attention and screaming out their responses to the teacher’s commands and comments.  I’ve seen other ones that were so quiet it was amazing.  The students and teachers said almost nothing. The students kneel, the teacher demonstrate something a few times, claps, and everyone spreads out to practice what was demonstrated.  All without a word. The dojo I’m most comfortable in are probably a little too chatty for optimal practice, but the same can certainly be said of me. These dojo are relaxed.  The teacher leads and demonstrates but the students are comfortable asking questions frequently, both when the teacher is demonstrating new things, and when the students are working on things on their own.

In each of these dojo, the teacher is shown respect, but it feels different, and results in a different sort of relationship with the teacher. There are teachers who expect to be obeyed instantly and who seem to stand above their students. It’s tough to imagine a student doing anything that might be interpreted as questioning the teacher’s understanding or ability, in the dojo or out of it. Regardless of what sort of person the teacher really is, the feeling generated is imposing and doesn’t leave room for difficult questions.

Other teachers seem almost like priests sharing mystic secrets. Their technique is beautiful and powerful.  Everyone works to duplicate it, but asking questions just feels out of place and rude, not just to the teacher but to the other students. The attitude shown towards the teacher shades from respectful into reverential. The teacher is the leader and the guide who makes sure you don’t become lost. Questions are inappropriate.

Then there are the chatty ones. They seem more like regular folks. They are sharing their practice as much as they are teaching. The dojo is neither a place of stern external discipline, nor a peaceful place dedicated to quiet striving. These dojo often seem surprisingly laid back. The teacher sometimes seems more like the the lead student than a teacher. The teacher is including the students in his practice and taking them along on their journey along the way, whatever way it may be. Questions are freely asked. It’s entirely possible for someone to respond to a lesson with “I don’t think that will work.” The teacher probably isn’t offended though.  More likely the response will be, “OK, let’s try it.”  The teacher is further along the path than everybody else, but she’s still on the same path and the students are exploring it with her. The students look to the teacher for leadership, but the teacher isn’t very different from the students.

That’s three basic types of dojo and teachers. I know that each can run to extremes that are awful.  The stern, disciplinarian dojo can become brutal and hurtful, abusive and dangerous to anyone who doesn’t toe the line perfectly.  The quiet, peaceful, reverential dojo can become cult-like and mystical with little room for anyone who questions the leader in any way. The relaxed, friendly dojo can devolve into a bunch of friends goofing around where no one is really teaching or leading and everyone is just there to have a good time. I’m not going to focus on the extremes here though.

Most dojo aren’t really one of these. Most dojo are some mix of all of them.  These are martial arts we’re talking about, so some sort of disciplined behavior is a requirement just for safety’s sake. There is nothing wrong with good discipline in the dojo. When we talk about budo, we are talking about a Way, a means of developing the self through the practice and perfection of a common activity, in this case martial arts. A little bit of quiet, spiritual thought and atmosphere is always appropriate. Even the hardcore, super disciplined dojo I’ve been in usually start and end class with a brief period of meditation and quiet thought. Teachers are usually a mix of all these traits.

Students show their respect for teachers in and out of the dojo in many ways. I have met a few teachers outside Japan who insist on being addressed as “Sensei” both in and out of the dojo, though these are blissfully rare. Most teachers, myself included, blend the formality of the dojo and their local culture, and separate which is dominate by location. In the dojo even the chattiest of sensei have to have a little formality to prevent injuries

In the dojo, we expect students to use formal, dojo behavior, with bows and proper forms of respect. All the bows to teachers and fellow students are clear, visible actions of respect for the teacher and your fellow students. It can feel extremely stiff and unnatural for people from cultures like the US where most formalities have been abandoned. It’s a good lesson though.

 

This is part of a  formal bow. Not every style uses the bowing form found in Karate, Judo and Aikido  

Photo courtesy of Grigoris Miliaresis

In Japan respect is built into the culture in ways that may have been true in the US 75 years ago, but it certainly aren’t anymore. Respect and politeness go hand in hand, and Americans have traded politeness for brutal honesty and the expectation that almost any sort of behavior will be tolerated. In Japan, all of those polite formalities are critical.

The closest analog to bowing is probably the military salute. The salute recognizes and pays respect to people of higher status. Bowing in Japan does the same thing, but with far more levels of nuance. Japan is a society that is obsessed with social hierarchy and everyone’s place in it. Contrast this with the American visceral dislike for hierarchy and insistance that everyone is equal and you can see that when the two mix, discomfort and confusion are guaranteed.

It may surprise some people to find out that I’ve seen all these same sorts of dojo described above, in Japan. I’ve seen a couple of other variations as well. The super disciplined, militaristic feeling dojo are often seen in modern budo styles like kendo and karate. These are dojo where everyone lines up, screams the dojo kun, and then does all the same exercises screaming and being screamed at. This is not terribly traditional. This sort of dojo behavior only goes back to the early 20th century as the modern budo were co-opted by the military government and used as means to instill samurai values in the peasants who made up the new army. Granted, the emphasis on everyone doing the same things together was an inescapable effect of trying to train hundreds of people at the same time, but many of the worst aspects of the Japanese military of the period became common in those arts well, including hazing and abuse of juniors by seniors. Over time this has been diminished, but it still is seen far too often.

The very quiet, spiritually focused dojo is probably less common inside Japan than outside. If you look, you can still find some of the most incredible examples of excess focus on the spiritual and mystical to the detriment of practical budo in Japan. In these dojo the sensei is more like a great mystical leader and guru than a budo teacher.

The koryu dojo that I have trained in are probably the most unexpected for non-Japanese. Koryu dojo don’t have nearly as much external discipline and signs of hierarchy as are found in the modern, post-war gendai budo dojo, nor are they terribly mystical, even in systems with a strong connection to Buddhism or Shinto. Usually there are few if any outward signs of rank, and the formalities are generally less formal. That doesn’t mean everyone is not aware of their relative position in the dojo, just that external expressions aren’t necessary. In contrast to some teachers who are decked out in beautiful obi, hakama and uwagi, Kiyama Sensei often has the most worn, patched and threadbare outfit in the room. Each person comes into the dojo, bows individually, and begins practicing in a corner of the room. There is nothing visible to distinguish who the teachers are until they start giving instruction to individual students.

Regardless of the style of dojo and teaching though, in Japan everyone is intimately aware of their position in the dojo’s hierarchy. People outside Japan often ask about using dojo titles outside the dojo, or how you show respect to someone outside the dojo. In Japan, a title is not just an honorific, it is a reflection of who you are in society. When a person becomes a section head in company there, everyone stops using their name. They become “Bucho.”  Literally this means “Head of the Section”.  Even his wife may start using the title to address him. When I was teaching school in Japan, everyone called me “Sensei,” including my Japanese mother-in-law. In Japanese culture, your role in society is who you are, so yes, in Japan you call your teacher “Sensei” everywhere, inside the dojo and outside. 

Respect isn't just shown by bowing and using titles. Photo courtesy of Grigoris Miliaresis.

Another aspect of showing respect is something people who don’t speak Japanese will completely miss. In Japanese, every time you say something, you are also emphasizing your position in the social group relative to the person you are talking to, and the people you may be talking about. In Japanese, you can’t say anything without expressing your relationship to the person you are talking to. It’s not just the words you use. To conjugate a verb correctly, you have to know whether the person you are talking to is above or below you in the hierarchy. Even if you don’t call your teacher by name or title, everything you say in Japanese makes clear your relationship.

In Japanese it’s very easy to show respect just by using verb conjugations and forms that emphasize someone’s high status, or conversely, expresses your lower status. On the other side of the coin, you can be incredibly rude simply by using the wrong verb conjugation. Instead of using a form that indicates whomever you are talking with is of high status, you can use one that indicates they are of low status. Japanese doesn’t have many swear words of the sort common in English because if you want to insult someone, you can do just by conjugating your verbs differently and implying your target far beneath you.

In the dojo and out, everything about Japanese culture expresses your relationship with your teacher. How deeply you bow is important (Americans always bow too low to just about everyone). A student always wants to bow lower than their teacher. In Japan you address your teacher by his role as a teacher, so she is always “Sensei.”  This can be confusing.

When I taught in Japan, I was usually addressed as “Sensei.” Even my budo teachers would refer to me as “Sensei” or “Peter Sensei”. The confusion came as people who didn’t know me tried to figure out my role in the dojo. Once they understood that was my job, they also understood that I wasn’t teaching in the dojo. The first few times this happened though, no one was more confused than I was. Later on, Takada Sensei referred to me as “Peter Sensei” to some new students and I went into shock while my brain tried to process. He was placing me in the dojo hierarchy for them. This way the new student knew to listen to me if I said something.

When we were just talking alone, I went back to being “Peter Kun.” Kun is a honorific that is used when adults talk to children, when someone senior wants to express a certain friendliness and affection towards the junior. This happens a lot in business relationships between senior managers who will take a young colleague under their wing and mentor him. It express a certain familiarity and warmth. When Takada Sensei called me “Peter Kun” he was saying he liked me. It wasn’t a put down. He was exaggerating the social distance between us and suggesting the closeness of a teacher/parent to child relationship. In our budo relationship, this was exactly what it was.

To maintain distance with someone, the easiest way is to stick to calling them “So-And-So San” This is the bland, standard, generic form of polite address. There is no particular emotion attached to it, and the formality is fine with strangers. The generic form doesn’t connect you with someone, so it holds them out at a distance. It’s not rude, but it doesn’t invite you in either. This is how strangers address each other. It’s how colleagues at work talk to people they know a little bit but have no strong connections to. It’s also how you talk to someone you don’t like but have no reason to be rude to.

The key in all of these is “in Japanese culture.” Japan is a different culture, and different cultural rules apply. If you don’t want to be rude and make people uncomfortable, you do things according to the local culture. If your teacher is culturally Japanese, call her Sensei all the time, inside the dojo and out. If your teacher is from the US or Europe, that’s probably not a great idea and will likely make the teacher feel uncomfortable outside the dojo.

Showing respect is about letting someone know you appreciate them and hold them in high regard. It’s not about slavishly following them and praising them. In the dojo do what is appropriate for that dojo. Call your teacher “Sensei.” Outside of practice use the forms of respect that are appropriate in your culture. If you’re in Japan, call her “Sensei” all the time. If you’re in Chicago though, Ms. or Mrs. or her first name, depending on how she prefers to be addressed. Just like you do with everyone else. Don’t go overboard with the titles and trying to be more Japanese than the Japanese when you don’t even live there. Relax.

One more thing. If you really want to let your sensei know how much you appreciate her, show up for class on time or a little early, and ready to train. Train hard. Help clean up the dojo after practice. Then buy her a drink. Teaching budo is thirsty work. I can’t think of any of my sensei who don’t appreciate a cold drink after practice. 

Photo courtesy of Grigoris Miliaresis.

How Can Iai Be Interesting

How can iai practice be interesting?  There are only about 4 real cuts (kiri oroshi, kesa giri, kiri age, and ichi monji).  It’s mostly done slowly. We repeat those same four cuts from every position and situation imaginable. We always work with an imaginary opponent or opponents. We endlessly return to the first kata in the system and practice it to death.

How could this not be boring?  What could we possibly do to make this interesting? We repeat these same few movements over and over and over. As a student and teacher, I know there is a standard script of comments that can be made, in fact need to be made, every practice with every student. What could be more boring than hearing the same critique every time you go to class? You know “You need to slow down. Relax your shoulders. Tighten your little finger. Use your hips. Move from you koshi. Don’t bend from the waist.” Every iaido teacher says the same things over and over.

Listening to sensei tell you what you are doing wrong, and knowing what he’s going to say before you even start practicing should  be one of the more mind numbing and discouraging you will ever encounter.

It’s not though. Iaido is frustrating and sometimes tedious. It is hard, physical work that takes effort and focus to do even poorly. It can make muscles ache and quiver from the effort demanded. Time and time again I can tell what Sensei is going to say before he says it because I can feel the weakness in my own performance of the kata. It’s difficult to be bored by what Sensei is saying when you can feel the truth of it in your muscles and bones while he is still drawing a breath to power his comments.

Iai is interesting because there is a chasm between knowing what you want to do and being able to do it with any sort of consistency. I remember as a new student watching Takada Sensei demonstrate for me in the old, unheated dojo in Eichigawa. The doors at each of the dojo were pushed open so we would get some ventilation, and since we were no more than a 100 meters from the shinkansen (bullet train) tracks, every time it roared by going over 100 miles per hour (160 km per hour) all other sound disappeared for a few moments.

Sensei never flinched at the sudden roar. His focus on the kata was fantastic. He was in his mid 70s when I started training, and he had perfect koshi, posture to die for, and cuts so precise and sure I would not have been afraid to let him use my stomach for a cutting stand. Sensei’s posture and breathing were so much a part of him that he could no longer stand incorrectly. I think trying to breath from his shoulders would have been physically impossible for him after so many decades of doing it right.

From the day I started, the goal was to get good enough that I could try to approach Sensei’s level of perfection. It was quite a while later that I realized that Takada Sensei was working on improving his technique in one corner of the dojo while I was in one corner of the dojo another working on mine. Initially, I couldn’t even imagine myself doing w

hat he did. It helped when a 2nd dan would attend. I could believe that what he was doing was possible for me. Looking back I understand that Sensei’s relaxed power and precision were beyond what I could understood, so I couldn’t imagine doing what he did. The 2 dan wasn’t far ahead of me along the path, so I could see myself doing what he did, and I tried.

It seems easy enough.  Draw and cut, step and cut. That’s the first kata.  Shouldn’t be tough at all. 20 years later I’m still working at it. At least now I can understand what Takada Sensei was doing, even though I still can’t approach his skills. I can at least draw, cut, raise the sword above my head, step and cut and make it look presentable. Which comes back around to the question at the beginning. How can this iai stuff be interesting?

Photo courtesy of Grigoris Miliaresis

If it was just going through the motions of drawing and cutting and stepping, it wouldn’t be.  Iai isn’t about going through those motions.It’s about being and moving perfectly. All of the challenge is internal. From the outside, it looks like you’re just repeating the same few motions again and again. Internally, every time through is different. You’re working on fixing the angle of the draw so you don’t miss the target (YES! You can miss the target in iai, but that’s a different essay). Maybe you are working to keep your hamstrings and thighs engaged. A big one for me these days is the relationship of my hips to my upper body, shoulders and head.

The sequence of movements nearly vanishes from thought now. The focus shifts to improving movement and balance. Once I do that, each movement is unique. I’m not swinging and cutting over and over. Just like practicing music, each repetition is it’s own thing. Faster or slower. Harder, softer. Adjust foot positions. Get my hips under my shoulders. Get a little better. Make the next version of the kata a little closer to the ideal.

The goal is to do everything perfectly.  Draw precisely. Stop at the perfect moment. Raise the sword and bring my body together in perfect form completely balanced and completely relaxed. Swing down and cut while driving my body forward from the hips. Step out and finish the cut without tipping forward with the energy.

Photo Courtesy of Grigoris Miliaresis

After a while doing the first kata over and over is fascinating because there are so many small variables to play with. Speed, strength, which muscles in the legs and back and arms to to engage. What’s interesting is how perceptions shift.

Early on in the study, the goal is to learn all the kata, to learn as many forms as possible.  The thinking is often that the more kata you know the better you are. I was anxious to be practicing all the kata of Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu, the iai system I was doing. The advanced kata include lots of cool scenarios. Multiple attackers, interesting set ups with narrow lanes or in crowds or trapped in a gate. These kata are fascinating because of the scenarios.

As I got better, these kata became more and more similar. No matter what the scenario, no matter what combination of opponents, what I’m trying to do with my body remains the same. I’m still trying to draw with precision so I don’t miss the target. I want to control the movement with as much power and as little muscle as possible. Swing so that I don’t create any openings and and don’t off-balance myself. Raise the sword and bring my feet together with my hips, shoulders and head balanced solidly above them. Snap the sword tip forward with the last fingers of my left hand. Step forward with my right foot and pull the now extended sword down with my left hand. Then catch it at the bottom with a slight twitch of my right and left hands while my whole body comes to rest with my weight settled and solid and my left leg loaded like a spring in case I have to move again.

 

Just as a basketball player practices endless layups and jump shoots in order to make their technique perfect, and just as an American football player spends hours every day drilling throws or blocks or whatever his position requires, and as football players practice ball handling, passing and kicking, and iai practitioner spends endless hours practicing and studying their most basic movements.

There are two main differences. The first is that until you can’t move, there is no reason to ever stop budo training.  I know people in their 90s who make every effort to practice, polish and improve technique.  Iai, and all budo, is not a mere pastime and entertainment. The lessons and training of iai and other budo continue as long as we do.

The other big difference is where this training is applied.  If you practice shooting baskets, passing, and ball handling, you will become better at basketball, American football, or football. If you practice iai, you will become better at being you. You will improve how move and stand in the world outside the dojo. You will have better control of your mind for whatever you want to direct it to. You will be able to control your reactions and breathing even under stress.

How can learning all of that be boring? If you are just looking to swing a sword around, then yes, iai will quickly become boring. If you want to learn to control and use your body efficiently and effectively, then iai offers endless lessons and challenges. The opportunities to refine your balance, movement and control never end. There are kneeling kata and standing kata and those weird tatehiza kata. As you practice, you get better and better at calming and quieting your mind so you can focus on only the task at hand.

The challenges here are endless and can keep you coming back to the dojo for decades. The value of making the these physical and mental improvements doesn’t end when you leave dojo. That’s when their true worth will appear. And the practice never gets boring. No matter how old you are.

Photo courtesy of Grigoris Miliaresis

Nin: Perseverance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

忍

The Simple Genius Of Kata

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth;

The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

Therefore let there always be non-being so we may see their subtlety,

And let there always be being so we may see their outcome.

The two are the same, but after they are produced, they have different names.

They both may be called deep and profound.

Deeper and more profound,

The door of all subtleties!

(Wing-tsit Chan, A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy)

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

Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;

It is the center hole that makes it useful.

Shape clay into a vessel;

It is the space within that makes it useful.

Cut doors and windows for a room;

It is the holes which make it useful.

Therefore benefit comes from what is there;

Usefulness from what is not there.

(Feng & English, Lao-Tsu: Tao Te Ching.  1989)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;

It is the center hole that makes it useful.

Shape clay into a vessel;

It is the space within that makes it useful.

Cut doors and windows for a room;

It is the holes which make it useful.

Therefore benefit comes from what is there;

Usefulness from what is not there.

(Feng & English, Lao-Tsu: Tao Te Ching.  1989)