Budo is personal. This seems like an obvious
thing to say, but it is a truth that often is forgotten in a world filled with
all sorts of ranks, titles, tournaments and awards. Budo isn’t about those.
Budo is about developing your skills, and if you’re lucky, finding a Way that
you can follow. Budo, in a way that can seem quite selfish, is about you. We are
not ranks, titles, tournament victories or nifty awards. Those are
things that hang on us like ornaments on a tree. Take away the ornaments, and it’s
still a tree.
I run into people who are so hyped up with worry
about their rank or passing their next test that their budo becomes a
stress-filled mess. Budo practice should lead one to be calmer and to have a
more balanced perspective. It’s easy to forget that when so much time can be
directed towards preparing for a rank test, and even more money and effort
spent getting to the test site in some far-flung city.
Much of practice can be consumed with getting
ready for tests. In the Kendo Federation, there are tests to pass every
year when starting out, so it seems like new students are always preparing for
a test. Forgetting that iai, for example, isn’t about testing and rank can get
lost in the whirl of test preparation and test taking. Rank should be a
recognition of how much you’ve learned, instead of a validation of ego. It’s
hard to make the distinction though when you’ve worked for a year or more to
prepare for a test. Pass or fail, with that much effort invested in the
process, the results of the test can overshadow the results of all the time
spent practicing and improving.
In budo, as in any do 道, or way, there is no ultimate goal that
can be reached. The point is to practice each day, and each day be a little bit
better at budo and living. The process of improving doesn’t have an end point.
In a world focused on results, where we check off the accomplishment of each
item on our task list and where results are emphasized, sometimes to the point
of ignoring everything else, this sort of thinking is easily overwhelmed and
washed away.
Budo isn’t limited to a finite goal.
Implicit in the vision of practice as a way, a path, is the idea that
roads don’t really have an end. You can always continue, sometimes in the
same direction, and sometimes in a different one. The path doesn’t have an end
point. We practice. We train. We polish ourselves. As people, we’re never
finished growing and changing. One of the ideas of do is that we can
influence how we change. We’re not just stuck with the random influences that
life throws at us. We can make conscious choices about how we are going to
change and grow. Each day life changes us. Are we simple clay molded by our
experiences with no input into what we become? Budo, and all ways,
insist that we can choose how we change and influence what we become.
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For each of us, the journey is personal.
Practice is personal. The lessons are personal. The changes are very personal.
Hang around a good dojo for a while and you will see new students, timid and
unsure of themselves, transform their minds and their bodies. If we let it, and
focus some effort on it, keiko, training, can profoundly change who we
are. The most common transformation is for someone meek and physically unsure
of themselves to become skilled and confident in physically dealing with other
people. That’s the obvious transformation. How else might budo training
transform us?
I find that budo can help change almost any part
of me. All I have to do is bring the part of me that I want to change into the
dojo. Just as the only way to change my skill with a sword or stick is for me
to take what I want to change with me and train with it, if I want to change
something that is not as easily seen as a sword cut or staff strike or a punch
or a throw, I have to take it into the dojo and begin working on it.
In Kodokan Judo, one of the core principles is
the idea of jita kyoei 自他共栄, often translated as “mutual benefit and welfare.” I
haven’t seen many people come into the dojo looking to change themselves to
consider how their actions can create mutual benefit for them and their
training partners, but I’ve seen many people implicitly learn this and begin
incorporating it into who they are as they spend time in the dojo. They
begin to consider how directly their
thoughtfulness or carelessness impacts the people they train with, who trust
each other to train together without harming each other. I’ve seen people who were strong, powerful and disdainful of
others train themselves to strong, powerful, gentle and considerate of others.
The story of a weak, timid person coming into
the dojo and learning to be a powerful, confident fighter is common (and
true!), but what other ways can we change ourselves through training? The
wonderful thing about budo keiko is that it is a time set aside for changing
aspects of ourselves that we want to change. That’s what makes training so
personal. We are taking time and effort and directing it towards changing
ourselves in some way. The potential for personal development and
transformation is tremendous.
We’re not simple clay molded by what happens to
us. We have choices to make about what we become and how we change. Those who
work at developing their entire self, who work on humility, graciousness,
kindness and compassion usually succeed in becoming more humble, gracious, kind
and compassionate. Budo is a way of interacting with the world. It’s
about how we deal with the world around us. It’s about how handle the stress
and mess of life. Practicing budo impacts how we relate with all the people
around us.
Budo is personal. It’s about developing and
refining who we are. It’s not about the flashy stuff on the outside. It’s not
about the ranks and belts and trophies and the awards. It’s about who we are
and how we deal with the world and the people around us. Ultimately, that
creates a lot more satisfaction than any rank or case of trophies.
