Optimal Budo

 

I saw someone on reddit saying that the footwork in Kendo feels unnatural. My immediate reaction was “Of course it feels unnatural, it’s budo.” Budo isn’t natural. Budo is about doing everything in the optimal way. Budo is about letting go of the things we’ve learned naturally and refining ourselves.

“Natural” gets used a lot in 21st century marketing. So many things are marketed as “All Natural” that you’d be forgiven for thinking that “natural = good health.” Natural just means that humans haven’t manipulated something. Natural doesn’t have any positive or negative connotations. All-natural honey tastes wonderful. All-natural rattlesnake venom will kill you quite naturally. Mother Nature isn’t a gentle lady, and you shouldn’t assume that “natural = good.” Until the 20th century, the majority of children didn’t make it past childhood, and more than 1 woman in 100 died in childbirth. Look at the animal kingdom, pick any species, and you’ll see that the vast majority of offspring die before they can mature. This is “natural.”

We learn to breathe, stand, walk, and run, naturally. If the natural way of doing these things was the best way, musicians and athletes wouldn’t spend years learning to breathe properly. If the way we naturally stand was good for us, Feldenkrais and Alexander Technique teachers wouldn’t have jobs. If the way we walk and run was naturally optimal, there wouldn’t be any track coaches.

There is nothing natural about using a sword well, about throwing opponents smoothly and effortlessly, about hitting someone’s face with your fist in a way that damages them but doesn’t break the delicate bones in your hand, about taking a little jutte and handling a guy with a sword. These are not natural acts. Budo seeks to optimize what nature has given us in both mind and body. We train in budo not to be natural, but to make the optimal seem natural.

 The first lessons in budo, I suspect in any ryuha, are techniques but are also about learning to use your body properly. I teach new students how to walk and how to breathe. They think they are learning to hold a sword or staff, learning how to throw someone, or learning the footwork to a kata. They aren’t really learning any of these things at this point. They are learning to use their bodies properly. Students usually take a year or more to overcome enough of the bad habits they picked up naturally to be able to start learning to hold a weapon properly, or even walk without throwing themselves off-balance with every step.

They’ve learned to use their bodies naturally, and what they’ve learned is all wrong for budo. They grip things with their thumb and index finger, because it feels natural. They sway side-to-side and bounce up-and-down when they walk. These are natural habits. Only once they stop reflexively gripping with their index fingers and throwing their bodies off-balance with each step they take will they truly start to learn to hold a weapon or move through a kata.

Optimal budo comes from the optimal use of the body. To get there you have to start with the fundamentals. What’s more fundamental than breathing? Optimal breathing is a learned skill. Just ask a trained vocalist or flute player. Developing great breathing skills takes time and effort. Classical budo ryuha all have pretty firm ideas about how to develop a great martial artist in their tradition. There are specific techniques and kata that are studied in specific order so that the student develops that unnaturally optimized body and mind that make their budo powerful and adaptable.

The flip side of learning to do things well, is learning to not do things that don’t need to be done. One of the key things in optimizing the budo body and mind is getting rid of everything that is unnecessary. Unnecessary movement, tension, and mental noise all have to go. Unnecessary movements create openings and opportunities that a good opponent will make use of. Unnecessary tension slows you down and makes it harder to move and respond to what is happening. Unnecessary mental noise stops you from realizing what your opponent is doing until it is much too late to do anything about it. There are many reasons the great martial artists throughout Japanese history spent time repeatedly talking about mushin 無心 or “no mind”.

Swinging a sword or throwing someone is hard work when you first start out. It would wear me out. As you train under a good teacher, two things are likely to happen. Yes, you are likely to get stronger from the training. More importantly, your movements will become more efficient and you will use less effort to swing the sword or throw your partner. You will hear your teacher make ridiculous statements like “The sword wants to cut. Let it.” How is the sword going to cut if you don’t power it? The more you learn, the less you are driving the cut, and to your surprise, the more the sword is doing the cutting for you. You are optimizing your movement. You are using just the muscles needed, and no more. Very small women throw very large men with little effort. I’m not talking about the woman applying a joint lock and the guy jumping into a breakfall to save his joint, I mean she takes him into the air herself, adds her power, and physically throws him to the ground. This isn’t because the woman is stronger, it’s because she is efficient. She isn’t using her back to lift him. She has stripped all the unnecessary effort and movement out of her action so that all of her power smoothly moves him through the air and to an abrupt meeting with the ground.

Optimal use of weapons is subtle. I used to think my hikiotoshi uchi was good because I could smash the sword out of my partner’s hands. I was strong and I was smashing their weapons. Eventually my teachers got it through my skull that this wasn’t good technique. FIrst, it wasn’t efficient. I was putting far too much effort into the swings for the effect I was getting. On top of that, by putting all my strength into the strike, I was destroying my own stability and creating openings that could easily be counterattacked.

I’m a slow learner, but once I realized that my teachers were getting more power with less effort than I was, I slowed down, emptied my tea cup, and started learning hikiotoshi uchi from the beginning. I spent a lot of time just watching my teacher and other seniors. I learned to better coordinate my movement and my breath. I discovered that the proper angles and alignment are more important than either strength or speed. Then I really practiced hikiotoshi uchi for the first time. What I had been doing before that was swinging a stick, but it wasn’t the hikiotoshi uchi of Shinto Muso Ryu that my teacher did; it was closer to “Huck smash!” than to any real technique.

I was beginning to learn optimal movement.

I worked to take out all the unnecessary muscle activation, to be soft rather than stiff. To be precise and efficient in my application of power. Over time, my technique became softer and more powerful, while I expended less effort. This was particularly embarrassing for someone who had spent as much time reading the Tao Te Ching and doing Kodokan Judo as I had, but my technique began to move in the direction of optimal.

I’ll never have perfect technique; no one does. That doesn’t stop me from working to improve my technique every time I touch a weapon. Efficiency and precision beat raw power. One of my first iaido teachers, Suda Sensei, would do kendo randori with high school students who had been training in kendo for 10-15 years. They were strong and quick as only 18 year olds can be, and yet he shut them right down. His technique wasn’t fast. It wasn’t muscular. It wasn’t stiff. His shinai flowed, filling openings almost before they were created. His technique was precise, the kissaki always exactly where it should be, and it was efficient, using only as much power as necessary. Did I mention that Suda Sensei was in his 80s at the time? He hadn’t had the strength or speed to challenge these young men physically in decades, but he didn’t need it. His kendo was so close to optimal that he could drive them off the floor and there was nothing they could do about it.

Suda Sensei practiced to improve every time he touched a shinai, even in his 80s. Look at the video link below of Mifune Kyuzo of the Kodokan doing judo in his 60s and 70s. This is as close to optimal technique as I think you can find. Light, flexible, flowing, smooth, and precise.

It’s not natural. It’s better than natural. It’s optimal.

Thank you to Deborah Klens-Bigman Ph.D., for using her editor’s knife and cutting a lot of stuff out of this that needed to be cut.

Unravelling The Cords: The Instructions of a Master in the Tradition of Taisha-ryu

 

 

 

 

 

Unraveling The Cords: The Instructions of a Master in the Tradition of Taisha-ryu 
Georgi Krastev & Alex Allera (authors), Yamamoto Takahiro (contributor)

476 pages

Hardcover and softbound

2023

Available through Amazon and the Purple Cloud Institute

I have finished reading the most insightful book I have ever encountered on budo thought and philosophy. “Unravelling the Cords: The Instructions of a Master in theTradition of Taisha-ryū” by Georgi Krastev & Alex Allera, with significant assistance from Yamamoto Takahiro (Contributor). Krastev and Allera are longtime students of Taisha Ryu, and Yamamoto is a shihan of Taisha Ryu. They know the ryuha, and at least as important in this case, they know the literary and cultural background of the author they are translating.

What they are translating is Nakano Shumei’s 17th century treatise, “Taisha Ryu Kaichu.” Taisha Ryu is a sister art to the more well-known Yagyu Shinkage Ryu. Like Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, Taisha Ryu was founded by a menkyo kaiden student of Shinkage Ryu founder Kamiizumi Ise-no Kami Nobutsuna, in this case, Marume Kurando. Nakano Shumei was a late 17th century master of Taisha Ryu, and he wrote the Kaichu to help later generations better understand and practice the art.

The translation of Taisha Kaichu and other writings by Nakano Shumei is excellent, and makes up about a quarter of the Unraveling the Chords. A history of Taisha Ryu and Nakano Shumei, along with the discussion of the Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian thought that flows through Nakano’s writing takes up about half of the book, and reference materials, including the original Japanese for all of Nakano’s writings, makes up the last quarter of the book.

Until this volume was published in 2023, Taisha Ryu Kaichu was unknown outside of a few scholars of Taisha Ryu. Like the Heiho Kadensho by Yagyu Munenori of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, it is a treasure of information and budo wisdom. The authors of Unraveling the Chords have done a masterful job of not only translating Taisha Ru Kaichu, but also locating it in the history of Chinese and Japanese philosophical thought. Through extensive footnoting, the authors have made clear just how much an education in these philosophical concepts is needed to truly understand their subject. They point out where seemingly mundane phrases are references to important philosophical concepts that transform the meaning of what is being read.

Knowing neither ‘Enemy’ no ‘I’

Serene is made the twilight sky

By wind rustling the pines.

                                        Page 178

This is the last of fifty teaching poems by Nakano Shumei contained in the Kaichu. It seems straightforward, yet the authors of Unraveling the Chords took half a page just to list all of the references contained in this brief poem. Without the copious footnotes, the meaning of the Kaichu and all of the other things translated would be completely missed by readers.

In addition to the translation, the authors provide more than 200 pages of history, as well as explanations of the Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian ideas and concepts that are necessary to understand Nakano Shumei’s writings. Alone, this necessary background should be a requirement for anyone who is serious about understanding the mental and philosophical aspects of the Japanese martial arts. As a companion to the widely known and generally misunderstood Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, Heiho Kadensho by Yagyu Munenori, or any of the writings of the zen master Takuan Soho, this book is an invaluable resource.

I’ve read all of these books many times, but after reading the Unraveling the Chords, I find myself really seeing them for the first time. What Krastev, Allera, and Yamamoto have done is lay out much of the philosophical world that these volumes were written in, and give the reader the chance to begin drawing sophisticated connections. The discussion of the much abused terms setsuninto and katsujinken is remarkable. Rather than being terms that Takuan and Yagyu came up with in their discussions of budo, these are ancient ideas from Buddhist thought that carry a great deal more meaning than the simple translations usually seen of “death dealing sword” and “life giving sword”. There is far too much to attempt here, but the depth brought to these concepts is eye-opening.

This is a treasure for all practitioners of budo, whether classical or modern. The clear explanations of topics that have been presented in translations of other books that do not contain the accompanying history and philosophical explanation make reading this book a must. I am rereading all of my classical budo texts, and what I have learned from reading Unraveling the Chords has made all of them completely new books for me.

This is simply the most important text on budo that I own. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. You could buy it from Amazon if you had to, but if you can, I recommend buying it directly from the publisher so they get as much support as possible from the sale.

 

Thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman for editing the mess I gave her.

Seitei versus Koryu

by 田所道子, copyright 2017

A friend asked me to contrast seitei systems and koryu systems in Japanese budo, and their relative benefits and drawbacks. “Seitei” are standardized systems, generally practiced by large organizations that intend to create a common standard for rank testing and competitions. “Koryu” are classical systems, generally defined as having been founded prior to the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868. Seitei are used by organizations that can be global in reach, such as the International Judo Federation, the International Kendo Federation and the International Naginata Federation. Koryu are generally small groups ranging from fewer than 10 people, to a few hundred or a thousand.

The advantages of standardized training systems are straightforward. Everyone knows what is expected. The syllabus and the path to promotion are clearly defined. Since it is standardized, you know that anywhere you go in the organization, people will be doing the same thing in the same way, and that your experience and rank will be respected. Because the decisions about rank are made by the organization, you should be able to clearly see and define differences between ranks. If you run into a personality issue in one dojo, it is not difficult to move to another dojo training the same curriculum. The biggest benefit is that there are many people pushing against each other to improve, so there is a great deal of experimentation in how to teach things, and successful techniques are shared widely, making the teaching ever more effective. A similar benefit for the art is that people are naturally competitive, comparing themselves to others in the organization and finding more ways that they can improve. Actual competition deserves its own essay.

Koryu is the antithesis of a standardized practice. There have been thousands of koryu throughout history, and there may be a couple of hundred that remain today. They each have their own prescribed kata, and the variety is amazing. Not just unarmed combat, sword arts and naginata (similar to a glaive), but somewhere in the syllabus of one of these koryu you’re likely to find methods for fighting with nearly anything that was recorded as being a weapon in Japanese history. Koryu are personal rather than organizational. Koryu’s strength is actually this lack of standardization. The kata are there, but they are not carved in stone, or even really printed on paper. Koryu grow and evolve as their practitioners explore new ideas and pathways. Different groups doing koryu of the same origin are free to go in different directions. This flexibility and adaptability mean that healthy koryu never stop evolving. It is much easier for a koryu to modify or add to its syllabus than it is for a large organization where everything is codified and overseen by committees that have to come to agreement about how things will be done. Koryu can adapt quickly to changes in the world around them.

Large, standardized, organizations are large, standardized, organizations. This means that they come with all the baggage of any large bureaucracy. There are internal politics and petty fights to satisfy petty egos. They tend to be rigid and have difficulty with change, even when the path they’re on is clearly heading off a cliff. All that standardization that makes it possible for people to freely train with each other also tends to drive things down narrower and narrower roads. The effort to match the ideal of the standardized kata often means that anything that strays from that limited model is deemed “wrong”. This makes cross-training difficult because you will be criticized for anything that bleeds through from other systems, styles, or schools into the standardized set. I find this a particular issue because I sincerely believe that martial arts whose practitioners don’t cross-train are doomed to fade and die in weakness and irrelevancy. Cross training in martial arts isn’t optional. It’s necessary. 

 

Where I mouth off about a lot of things!

The rigidity of the bureaucracies includes another problem: ego building. The one thing that is truly required for someone to become the head of a group, section, division, or even an entire international organization is that they want the job. Competency is not a requirement. Look at all the big companies that have been run into the ground by incompetent CEOs. Then combine this with an unhealthy dose of ego and you get all sorts of problems. People argue and fight over who’s going to be in charge. They fight because their self-esteem is so small that they feel threatened by anyone who is competent. I find organizational politics to be so petty and contrary to every reason that I do martial arts that my reaction is to go somewhere else. I have great respect for competent people who are willing to put up with organizational politics in order to preserve and grow what is worthwhile in the organization. 

Another weakness of organization budo is the tendency to mistake technical skill for individual maturity and organizational ability. Too often, the people who are the most technically skilled, the ones who can win in competition, are the people who end up at the top of the organization. The traits required to develop great personal skill are very different from the traits required to effectively manage an organization. Just because someone has a great  o soto gari doesn’t mean they should be put in charge of anything. Look at the people who become great coaches and managers in team sports. Very rarely were they great players. Many baseball general managers come up out of the minor leagues without ever playing in the major leagues. Playing and managing are unrelated skills. Respect those who develop great personal skill, but don’t put them in charge. In budo organizations though, it is far too common for people with high rank but little organizational and managerial skill to be given positions of responsibility. Then things get messy. 

Koryu don’t generally suffer from the problem of the best technicians rising to the top. They do suffer from the problem of not having clear standards for when someone is ready for the next step in learning or responsibility. It all depends on the soke’s or shihan’s ability as a teacher, leader, and organizer. If the current leader is good at these things, then likely this generation of the ryuha will do well and flourish. If they’re not, the leader’s incompetence could kill a ryuha that has survived for hundreds of years. If the leader isn’t a skilled teacher, critical elements of a ryuha’s curriculum and pedagogy can be lost. If the leader can’t manage people, they can end up creating jealousy, anger, and frustration among the ryuha’s members. A teacher who plays favorites, or plays students against each other can seriously weaken and even destroy a koryu. 

Koryu lack the quality control of a large organization’s clear, easily evaluated, standards. The standards all exist in the leader’s mind. They aren’t clearly written out, argued over by committees of experts, and easily evaluated. If the leader is great technically, but not good at teaching and evaluating students, the quality of the skills the ryuha teaches can deteriorate and the teacher can end up hurting it even more by elevating unqualified students. The end result is that unqualified people end up leading, and the ryuha slides towards death.

Another weakness that destroys koryu is their relative isolation. Koryu practitioners don’t have to get out and deal with people from other groups. They can stay in their dojos and only deal with people who do the same koryu. They don’t even have to deal with people from slightly different branches of the same ryuha who are trying different interpretations. The result can be ryuha that gradually become duller and duller, losing the sharp skill levels that competition and contact with a variety of different practitioners brings. Koryu where the practitioners don’t get out and train with outsiders will get insular and weak. Practitioners who don’t train with outsiders from time-to-time don’t have their assumptions and skills challenged. Cross-training challenges us and polishes us just as abrasives sharpen a sword. Without active competitions and large training seminars, koryu risk becoming dull and weak.

There are small groups that work to keep people in slowly diverging lineages in touch with each other and training together. They work to prevent practitioners from getting isolated and stagnating. They don’t impose a single, standard way, but provide people with the opportunity to test and explore their ideas with people who will challenge them to find the optimal way of doing things. There’s never agreement on what’s optimal, and that’s a good thing. That means that the testing and exploring won’t end. Isolation and elitism are the path to extinction for koryu budo.

When people are involved, nothing will ever be perfect. Koryu and seitei budo organizations all have faults. The biggest ones are that they are run by fallible, egotistical, humans. In koryu and seitei groups, human weaknesses and faults find different ways to express themselves. It’s up to those of us who love and value budo to resist these human traits that can tear down everything that decades and centuries of effort have created. More than 99% of the ryuha in the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten are extinct. Part of our training is our effort to maintain healthy organizations and push back against our inherent human faults so future generations can experience the growth that training in good budo provides.

 

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman Ph.D. for editorial support and bad idea busting.

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