Practicing classical budo changes your perspective. Yes, I train in an archaic system of combat. Shinto Muso Ryu as a tradition goes back to the first decade or so of the 1600s. The sword system included with Shinto Muso Ryu may go back further. The Shinto Hatakage Ryu that I train only goes back to the 1700s, but it’s founder had studied Kashima Shinto Ryu, which has roots that stretch far back into Japanese history. Certainly the fundamentals of how to use a Japanese sword effectively have been the same since the Japanese sword first achieved the curved shape that we are familiar with. The weapon and those principles go back about 1,100 years.
When I started training, these were so many cool details. They didn’t really have a lot of significance for me. The longer I train, the more I relate to the world, and see aspects of the world, through the the framework provided by the ancient traditions I’m studying. As I learn techniques and principles that go back hundreds of years I see my position in the world differently. As I teach these same basic techniques for swinging a sword or a stick that haven’t changed in perhaps a thousand years or more, my position becomes even more fluid.
I started out solidly in the present studying about the past. Koryu budo is all about the past. Right? We’re studying archaic weapons and fighting styles that don’t have a place in the modern world. Everything about the modern world says that learning to fight with a stick or sword is a quaint pastime, a lovely hobby with no relevance outside the dojo where it’s practiced. With something like a jujutsu system such as Kodokan Judo or Aikido, there is the possibility of applying it for self-defense. Mention that you train with swords and sticks and the smile says that you never quite outgrew playing pirates.
The more I do it though, the less distant that past becomes from the present, the closer and clearer pieces of t the future become. The sword hasn’t changed in any fundamental way in a thousand years. Sticks have been sticks since before humans figured out how to walk on 2 legs. The most effective means for handling these weapons hasn’t changed because neither the weapons nor the people handling them have changed. The epiphany for me was the realization that the centuries old practices were still relevant and effective.
The ideal postures remain ideal. They are strong, stable and provide a base that allows quick movement and response. The cutting and striking techniques that were most effective 400 years ago have not become less effective over time. Those principles of posture and movement are available for me to apply all the time wherever I am, from the dojo to the kitchen to the office to the factory floor.
As I learn and apply these, the first lessons of any budo system, I see myself differently. There is less and less of me and my world that is more advanced than the world where my budo originated. Some of the technology surrounding us may have changed, but the folks wielding it have not. Effective cutting in the kitchen hasn’t changed since Cook Ting was working in his kitchen more than 2000 years ago. The effectiveness of these techniques will not be lost in another 2000 years either. We may develop new technologies, but they will continue to employ the same principles.
Though I live in the 21st century, I find myself less and less at the pinnacle of humanity. That peak sometimes looks much more like a valley with me at the bottom. I’ve learned some, and the more I learn the less advanced I become. Those ancient stances that are just for kids who never outgrew playing pirate turn out to be very effective for subtle communication with people who don’t know anything about them, but still respond to them with primal instincts.
When I delve deeper into the ways of stick or sword I am schooled again and again in the lessons of tactical and strategic thought. We may have developed new weapons, but the old lessons still apply. People don’t continue to study The Art Of War because it is quaint and amusing. They study it because after thousands of years it is still the most concise treatise on military strategy ever written.
When I practice and learn, I pull the past up to the present. I stand in a valley surrounded by all the lessons of the arts. The accomplishments of my age come down to size. I am a part of the history and the ryuha. The past is no longer distant. Once it felt strange and unreal to think that I was practicing the same arts and techniques that have been practiced for centuries. Continued practiced has burned away the strangeness and replaced the sense of unreality with a strong bond to all those who practiced before me. I can imagine them making the same mistakes and learning the same lessons and asking themselves the same questions.
Now that I have a few students, I see them make the same mistakes I have made. I hear my questions coming out of their mouths, and I discover that the questions aren’t really mine. Those questions belong to those stages of learning. Nearly anyone who treads that path will discover the same questions. There are the obvious ones like, “Does this really work?” and “Can I do this?” Later the questions get more subtle, but they follow a similar path for anyone who has trained in the art.
Because these are physical arts, verbal answers never receive more than temporary, tentative answers. The student who is wondering if the techniques really work and if she can do them always has to answer the questions for herself. Can she really throw someone? She trains and trains week after week wondering. After a while she gets so busy training that she forgets to ask the question. Then one day she hears someone else ask one of her old questions and she realizes that it’s not a question anymore. That this works, that she can do it, these are solid facts burned into her muscles, bones and blood through the simple process of regular training.
Her view of the world and herself changes. She has become, not someone who might, not even someone who can, but someone who does. Like me, her view of the world has been changed by treading the path. Through practice ancient techniques and ways of being are worn into our being. We train and ancient ways of movement become modern and advanced for us. A way of moving and interacting with the world that was developed hundreds of years ago remains effective, efficient and advanced. The past becomes a part of the present, and that present can be clearly seen in the future.
Koryu budo are ancient systems. They are not out of date. Modern martial arts often fall prey to the sporting instinct, and their practitioners forego all the old lessons that can be learned there in pursuit of victory in the sporting arena. The parts of practice that bring the deep lessons are dropped as training is modified to suit the narrow confines of the arena.
I want to continue learning. Being a sports champion at 15 or 20 or 25 is wonderful. More wonderful I think is whatever it is that makes teachers like Kiyama Sensei and Omori Sensei powerful in their 80s and 90s.
Omori Masao at the age of 85.
That’s a lesson worth learning, and a question worth asking. What is there in koryu budo that keeps people training and working at this when they are 90 years old? I’m not that old, but I can see that even after only a few decades of practice, I keep making new discoveries, learning new things. The question might be, what is that my teachers are still discovering after they reach 90 and have more than 80 years of training? I don’t know, but I also know that the answer to that question is not some discrete piece of knowledge or wisdom. The answer is that all I have to do to learn that is not stop training.
Dennis Hooker Sensei used to say that “If you don’t quit and you don’t die, you’ll get there.” My only quibble with that is that I don’t think there is any “there” to get to. If you don’t quit and you don’t die, you’ll keep learning, keep growing, keep going. If we don’t die, and don’t get distracted, there are infinite lessons to be learned in these ancient practices. Each time we train we learn a little more, even on those days when we feel like we haven’t learned anything. Koryu budo takes the long view. Learn the fundamentals, learn the techniques, learn the art, learn life. These aren’t arts and paths with a black belt ceremony at the end. They don’t have an end.
You keep training, learning, refining. You refine your technique and you refine yourself. Old questions become certainties. The path continues and you find new questions and you train the answers to those questions into your bones as well. Your view of the world is transformed. Old men can become enormously powerful. So can young girls who’ve never been told they could be powerful.
A lifetime grows both longer and shorter. You begin to see all the changes and growth that can happen in a few years and the idea of what can be accomplished across a lifetime becomes immense. You see your own teachers age and pass away and that lifetime grows so short that every moment with them transforms into a precious jewel beyond price.
Working on techniques that you know a student 400 years ago was working on and traveling the path that they did. Teaching these techniques as a teacher did 400 years ago and seeing students progress and master the technique.
The past and the future cease to be separate places. We are not just connected to them, we are part of them. As I train, I age and grow younger. All in the same practice session I am teacher and student. I look to my left and can see the founder of my ryuha standing on a polished wooden floor in Japan wearing a tired and much abused hakama, swinging sticks just as I and everyone in our dojo does. I look to my right and see students in the distant future still wearing patched and faded hakama standing on polished wooden floors and swinging sticks as they train their minds and bodies. Koryu is a long path.
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