Who do we train for?

When you train, do you train just for yourself?
Do you train just for the moment?
Do you remember those who brought the skills you practice down through time?
Do you consider those who may inherit the skills you are practicing?

We live in a world of fast food where everything is disposable.  But somethings aren't meant to be fast food, they aren't disposable, and they aren't meant to be on a menu with "Pick any 3" written above them.

When we train budo, we are training ourselves, but we are also contributing to a tradition, even if we are training a newly created style.  That style's creator had teachers, and hopeful he didn't create the style completely from his imagination.  Over the centuries a lot of people have contributed to the arts we train in.  Some of us are fortunate enough to train in living arts that have been around for many centuries, and we can easily look up the names of past teachers and master students.  Some of the people we owe our gratitude to are easy to identify.  Others, students and teachers whose names were not recorded, we will never know about.  We can, and should, appreciate them all the same.

I am amazed and humbled to think of all the great teachers whose lessons I am receiving when I train in my chosen budo.  And I am humbled by the thought that my teachers have decided to lavish their experience and wisdom on me.  They are some of the finest people I know.   One of the reasons I believe they have become such fine human beings is that their training is not just about themselves.  They train, they learn, and then they share what they have learned without jealousy or greed.  Their budo is much more than just a method for fighting or self-defense or to boost their ego through their own strength and power.

Budo, when practiced fully, weaves together the past and the future with the present.  I have inherited a great debt from my teachers.  In budo we should always be aware of just how much we have received from our teachers, and their teachers before them.  And it is not a debt we can repay.  It is one that can only be paid forward.  Budo lessons are not something to be learned for ourselves alone.  Budo cannot be practiced alone, and once we have learned lessons from budo, it is our responsibility to pass those lessons on to others.

This doesn't mean that everyone who studies budo has to go out and start their own dojo, or even that they have to teach classes.   But it does mean that we have to share what we have learned with those around us in the dojo without being jealous about the lady with more talent who picks it so quickly, or the boy who has lots of free time and advances rapidly because he trains a lot more than we can.  It means training with people, and sharing with them.

By training with people, and sharing what we know, we knit the next row of stitches in the fabric that is our budo.  We become some of those teachers and students who created, learned and passed on what they had learned.  If an art form can continue for hundreds of years to get to us, there is no reason not to expect it to continue for hundreds more.  We are part of it, and we owe it to those who gave the art to us, to give it to future students.  We train and learn and train with others and teach and give our art on to future students, not just those we know by name, but those who will come to the art after we have died and likely been forgotten.  Very few of us will be remembered as a master teacher or a soke.  But we are still a part of the art, and it is our duty as a part of the art to pass it on.

That's more than a little humbling, and I think that is why my teachers are so humble. They know that what they are doing is not just for themselves and their direct students.  It is for all those who will come after, their descendants in the art.  Kiyama Sensei has been doing budo for over 80 years, he can see a long way back, and I believe he can envision his budo traveling far into the future.  He would never call it "his" though.  It came to him from his teachers and he cannot keep it.  He passes it along to his students, and we cannot keep it either.  We can only ever be caretakers.  We may get to polish it a little, and perhaps, if we are something astounding, we might even be able to add a nugget to the budo treasure we have been blessed enough to receive.

Always keep in mind that "your" budo doesn't really belong to you.  It would be more accurate to say that you belong to the budo you practice.  It is a great treasure that past teachers have given you to care for so that future generations can benefit from this budo as well.  By practicing, you become a part of the fabric of the budo.

Been too long.  I've been thinking about the whole Tao, Do, Michi, Path, Way, thingy.  It may just be time for me to start learning Chinese.   I got to train with Kiyama Sensei some last week, and it is always an honor.  Seeing Sensei reminds me just how much of a journey without destination this really is.  Sensei is 87 years old this year, and coming back from shattered his femur while working in his vegetable field.  Tough doesn't begin to describe him.  The doctors said he'd be in the hospital for at least 3 months.  1 month later they kicked him out because he was going up and down the stairs unassisted!  It's the journey.  He is working to get back to training.  At 87, it is not unreasonable to ask "Why is he working to go back to training?"  The answers are first, "Why not?" and second, "Because that is who he is."  He trains and he teaches.  The journey isn't over, so there is no reason to quit.

I think about this as my own journey has slowed down because of my own injuries.  Like Sensei, I'm going to need a little surgical repair, but once that is done the journey continues.  If I'm honest, the journey continues even before the surgery.  I'm learning new lessons about what I can and can't do, and some interesting lessons about motivation and who I think I am.    I wonder what lessons Sensei took away from his journey through injury and recovery.  I do know that he is back in the dojo, and back in the vegetable field.  I had dinner at his house the other day, and 100% of the fruits and vegetables on the table were from his field.

The foundataions

A friend asked a question about the foundations of Judo that is a great one.  Are we teaching a collection of techniques, or something else.  This is my answer to him.

I believe we are teaching something else.  My old dojo had a joke, “The only thing I’m going to teach you is how to breath and how to walk” which becomes more true for me every day.  The techniques are just pointers on the way to learning Judo, they aren’t Judo themselves.

I think focusing on the foundations of moving and breathing are important and not nearly enough time is spent on them.  It’s assumed that you’ll pick them up spontaneously from your technique training.  Personally, I think this is a backward approach.  The more I train in Judo and other budo, the more I believe that drilling the fundamentals of movement, posture and correct breathing are essential to developing good Judo (I almost said “great Judo” but the only way I will ever experience great Judo is in being thrown by some of the greats). 

If you take apart any of the throws, proper use of the body is essential.  You can’t do any technique well by bending over at the waist, and if move with a bounce in your step, you’re partner will bounce you off the mat.  Learning to stand in a relaxed, upright, well-balanced manner, and to move so that you maintain that is essential to doing everything else in Judo well.  However, just practicing standing and walking would bore even the most dedicated student out of the dojo.

The trick is to find ways to practice the fundamentals in such a way that the students can see the connection between the practice of the fundamentals, the techniques, and the application in randori and kata.  In iaido, I’ve broken out some of the primary movements that are commonly done poorly and we use 10 repetitions of the isolated movements as part of our warm-ups.  The students can see how the warm-up applies to the practice and can spend a little time focusing on the fundamental action before we incorporate it into the kata practice.

I think you might have some luck teaching basic tai sabaki movements as individual actions as part of your warm-ups.  The entering tai sabaki for osotogari and the turning tai sabaki for seoinage for example.  Students can readily see where these movements are applied and will do 10 repetitions without protest because they can understand why they are doing it.  Once you get them to appreciate the obvious tai sabaki such as for osotogari and seoinage, you can start introducing movements that make less immediate sense.

When to specialize

A friend asked about when is it appropriate for a Judo student to start specializing in one technique.  He’d been talking with other instructors who emphasize that students should pick one technique and specialize in it.

I think the defining thing about this discussion is that the other instructors are building their entire discussion around competition.  For competitive judoka, there are really only a few techniques that have been proven overwhelmingly to be the strongest in the competitive arena.  I don’t remember the exact list, so I googled it. http://www.bestjudo.com/article/0924/frequency-judo-techniques

Uchimata

Seoinage

Osotogari

Ouchigari

Harai Goshi

Tai Otoshi

If you are a competitor, based on the evidence, these techniques are clearly the most effective under the rules of judo competition.  For a competitive orientation, I think it would be a fairly simple procedure to introduce these 6 techniques and then let the student discover which one best suits that student.  I don’t really think it is too early to start specializing as a green belt if competition is your goal.  I don’t think you should stop learning other techniques, but those should be part of the variety of training, while you spend some time every practice polishing your primary technique.

If you are learning Kodokan Judo, or you want a more rounded self-defense base, then you will need to learn a variety of techniques that can be used in conditions other than those of the competition mat.  Competitive judo is great at close gripping range, but it teaches nothing about techniques and timing at other ranges.  That’s what kata are for.  Kata teach a lot of things that are useless to the competitor, but vital in self-defense, such as understanding striking ranges and timing, dealing with non-competition standard attacks and assaults, and what the range and distance of a variety of weapons are.  Too much specialization may actually be detrimental to this type of training because you have to have flexibility to change your responses to suit the conditions.

Competition is a very specialized activity and it makes sense to specialize if that is where your focus/interest lies.  If your interest lies elsewhere, heavy specialization may actually interfere with applying the appropriate response.

Thanks Frank.  This was a good question.

What is Budo?

I wrote this in response to a question on an email list about "What is Budo?" and thought it was worth putting out for more public comment.


Shinto Muso Ryu, Shinto Hatakage Ryu, Judo, and Aikido all share combative function and technique as their core practices. This gets them lumped together as “bugei” (literally “martial arts”) or “bujutsu” (martial skill). “Do” or “michi” both written 道 is a much more involved idea. While bugei / bujutsu can refer to just the techniques and skills practiced, anything with the “do” 道 suffix implies a class of not just technical activity, but also a means of polishing and developing the whole self and one’s way of dealing not just with the literal techniques of combat, but with how we approach every action and non-action throughout the day. This is both an elevation of martial activity to philosophical/spiritual and a spreading it out by making it apply to everything thing we do from putting on our shoes to sitting in a chair to drinking tea.  Anything that can be done mindfully should be impacted.
       To me, the first thing that is required for something to be budo is that it must be effective at a technical level. If it’s not effective for what it is trying to teach at the most basic level, it can never hope to reach level of a michi. If you’re not practicing to be martially effective, you’re certainly not doing budo. Any michi has to
be grounded in reality.  It’s clear how ways such as sado (Way of Tea) and kado (Way of Flowers) are grounded in reality. You are making, serving and appreciating tea, or you are arranging and appreciating
flowers. I haven’t figured out a way to fake either one of those. Budo unfortunately is rather dangerous to practice, so it easy to deceive yourself about what you are doing. I do Kodokan Judo, hopefully as budo, but it is very easy to do it as nothing more than a sport by forgetting or ignoring the parts that aren’t comfortable to do or aren’t allowed in the sporting context. In iaido, since it is a solo practice, it is easy to drift away from the martial aspects of the practice and let it become just a series of beautiful movements.
With jodo, if you and your partner are not serious, and don’t practice with strong intent, it too can become a pretty, choreographed dance  sequence. Budo requires that the intent, practice, and practicality.
       Effectiveness is only a necessary component of budo though.  Just because something is effective doesn’t make it a form of budo.  Krav Maga is extremely effective, but I’ve never heard anyone argue that it
is budo.  For something to be budo, it has to have the broader application to all aspects of life, and not be limited in its practice to combative situations.  It needs to have a philosophical bent to it that allows this broader application. It must be bujutsu, but it must have an additional facet that is informed by the threads of Taoism, Confucianism and 1000 years of Japanese thought on the issue of individual development through the mindful practice of mundane activities. This is the tough part, and I suspect there is a PhD dissertation in there somewhere.  I’m not talking about religion, but a concept of what it means to be human and how to perfect one’s self. The practices that effective at a technical level for a narrowly defined practical activity have to applicable beyond that, to all aspects of life. There is in Japanese thought the idea that by developing the body to do practical things perfectly, the mind will be developed as well. This is why people revere masters of flower arranging, tea ceremony, and calligraphy. Through polishing a practical skill, they are polishing their whole being, and when they display outer mastery of a skill, it is seen as confirmation of their
inner development.  I’m not sure it always works, but that’s the idea.  The tales of simple people who have achieved true understanding of the Tao through perfection of a common task abound.  The tale of Cook Ting is a great example.  He has mastered the art of cooking and through that gained insight into the nature of the universe.
       If your art can be do that, and be effective, then it might be a form of budo.