Is budo for everyone? I don’t know. Some of the great proselytizers of budo certainly seemed to think so. Kano Jigoro worked hard to get his Kodokan Judo into the national educational curriculum in Japan, and sent teachers all over the world to popularize it. Funakoshi Gichin brought Ryukyu Te to the main islands of Japan and created modern karatedo. Ueshiba Morihei wanted to spread his art of peace all over the world, and sent out teachers wherever there was interest. Kendo has a regular world championship.
Is budo for everyone? Should it be for everyone? I and an army of others have written endlessly about the benefits of martial arts training and often suggest that some sort of martial arts training would be good for pretty much everyone. Besides the arts above, there are countless commercial martial arts schools that are premised on the assumption that everyone can, and should, do martial arts. I started out in a Kodokan Judo club at a university. We never considered that judo wasn’t for everyone.
After a few decades of practice, as well as having encountered many other budo forms, I have begun to wonder about this assumption. Classical budo were clearly not for everyone. Many ryuha had requirements that students bring recommendations, and then if the teacher accepted them, they still had to prove themselves. Students who couldn’t follow the rules or didn’t fit the particular budo culture were out. Students often had to sign lengthy pledges, keppan, promising to follow the rules of the school (see the chapter on keppan in Ellis Amdur’s Old School). These arts had, and still have, an innate assumption that they are not for anyone who walks up with tuition money.
Classical ryuha exist for themselves. A few were otome ryu, schools that were officially attached to local daimyo and were tied to the political scene, but most were not officially linked with any political organization and flourished or perished on their own merits and the ability of the teacher(s) to bring in enough students. The Bugei Ryuha Daijiten lists thousands of individual ryuha that existed over the centuries in Japan. Most didn’t survive any great length of time. The ones that have survived the longest are famous; Kashima Shinto Ryu, Katori Shinto Ryu, Kashima Shinryu, Maniwa Nen Ryu.
They are also famous for their pickiness when accepting new students.Their founders and members have never dreamed that these arts are meant for everyone. Just the opposite. These arts are treasures to be guarded jealously and not just shared with anyone. Until the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868, a person’s martial skills could be drawn upon in duels and fights. For the samurai classes, this was a matter of honor and legitimacy. With the very real possibility that they might have to use what their ryuha taught them, it became vital that not everyone knew its secrets. A samurai might have had to rely on those secrets to survive.
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Keppan are serious business. A potential student is swearing allegiance to a social organization based around a deadly serious practice. Even though keppan are no longer required for most koryu, a potential member still has to respect the traditions and social norms of a specialized group. The organization does not exist for your benefit or the benefit of any student or teacher. The ryuha is a body of knowledge, behaviours and skills. These are rare and terrible treasures, and their existence doesn’t require you. The teachers have the responsibility of deciding who is taught and who isn’t. You aren’t likely to be accepted as a student because of what the art will do for you. If you are accepted, it will be to find out if it's worthwhile sharing the ryu’s treasures with you. This can take a long time. I knew one of my teachers for 20 years before he decided I was worth teaching and entrusting with the knowledge of the ryuha.
As much as arts such as judo, kendo, karate, and aikido assume that they are meant for everyone, the classical arts begin with the certainty that they are not. In an age of firearms, and with CQC classes available in every city, it can seem strange that the secrets of an art that is hundreds of years old need to be kept secret. After all, what kind of secret can any of these ryuha have that are so precious that they must be jealously guarded? I will be the first to admit that what they contain are not uniquely secret methods of fighting. Each ryuha has its particular way of doing things, but the techniques aren’t the secret.
The ryuha as a whole is the secret. The number of ways you can throw a person, apply a joint lock, or swing a sword are pretty limited, and the possible techniques are all known. There are a myriad of places to learn strikes, joint locks, throws and weapons. Training in the ryuha teaches you how to organize your body and mind to be effective in any conditions.
That mind-body organization is what a classical ryuha is teaching. Each ryuha is a way of training and molding bodies and minds. The secret treasure of any ryuha is the person it creates. How do you organize your body? How do you think and act under stress? How does your body react? These are the secrets of classical ryuha. Classical ryuha are organized around the practice of kata, not individual techniques. It is the whole of the kata that teaches both movement and stillness. The trained body/mind of the practitioner is the goal and treasure. How do you move, respond, and preempt? This is what all those kata are about. Not simple techniques but melding a single body/mind unit. No Western mind-body dualism here.
Are these for everyone? I have arrived at the position that budo training is not for everyone. The teachings of classical budo ryuha are effective, and students should have the maturity and discretion to know when to use them, and when not to. I have known many people who are middle-aged or older, but have the maturity of an adolescent. As a teacher of a classical ryuha, it is my responsibility not to put the ryu’s treasures in the hands of anyone who will misuse or abuse them. We often hear about what people deserve. There is no mandate that anyone deserves to learn a koryu bugei ryuha. Even in the 21st century these arts are precious and should be treated as such.
