Being Uke Versus Taking Ukemi

 

Photo Copyright Girgoris Miliaresis 2014

 

Nearly everyone in the gendai (modern) budo world talks about taking ukemi (receiving a technique), and being uke. Real ukemi is not something you take, and uke (one who receives a technique) is not a passive existence. The character in both “ukemi” and “uke” is “受け” “to receive or incur”. Being uke is really about receiving your partner’s technique and how you absorb it, and it is a very active role. There is nothing passive about it.

Gendai budoka, be they judoka, jujutsuka, aikidoka, or any other group, will say that they “take ukemi.” What they really mean is that they put their body out there for a partner to apply a technique to without offering resistance. The only time resistance shows up is during whatever sort of randori training their group does. Their ukemi is passive, and their job as an uke is to present no difficulty or opposition to their partner. The only real requirement for the job is that you be skilled enough to survive whatever technique is being practiced. 

  The real depth of the role of uke becomes clear when you look at the structure of uke’s role in koryu budo, or classical Japanese arts. The teacher, or other high level senior, takes the role of uke.  They are actively engaged in what is going on, not just passively “taking ukemi.”   In all of these precursors to the various gendai budo, uke’s role is considered critically important, and a beginner cannot understand what is required of a good uke.

Photo Copyright Peter Boylan 2019

Uke indeed receives their partner’s attack, but not passively. If stand alone techniques are being practiced, uke has to decide how they will receive the attack. If the attack lacks a critical element of timing or kuzushi, if the attacker is not well-balanced and solid, uke is under no obligation to let the technique succeed. If any of these elements is missing uke may decide to simply stop the technique from continuing, or they may decide that their practice partner needs a stronger lesson about the suki, or opening, that they are leaving and counter-attack into the suki. Uke has to be skilled enough to understand what suki are being presented, and be able to execute the counterattack without endangering the tori (there are many terms for this role, I use tori because it can apply to any art or weapon being practiced).

This is true whether what is being practiced is some sort of empty-hand jujutsu or even if weapons are involved. My students know that if they leave too big an opening during an attack that my sword will fill it, stopping their attack and showing them their weakness. It’s not me showing off. The trick is judging when the kata is broken and attacking an opening. Students are learning, so of course they leave openings. I’m constantly calibrating my responses for individual students. Someone learning a new kata gets a lot of leeway to make mistakes while they learn movements. The same student practicing something they should know well doesn’t get much room for mistakes at all. If they were practicing with someone who wasn’t already skilled in the art, they would end up practicing all sorts of incorrect movements, spacing, and timing,  embedding these mistakes in their bodies.

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For uke, there is also the challenge of receiving attacks properly. Uke isn’t passively accepting whatever the student does to them. Uke is trying to receive the technique in the best way possible from a martial perspective. If uke is just going along with whatever the student does, uke is teaching themselves to move in ways that aren’t optimal for receiving such an attack. Uke has to be able to move in such a way that they receive the energy of the attack in a manner that is safe and gives them the best opportunity to counterattack.  

It’s not enough to just receive an attack in such a way that it doesn’t immediately end the encounter.  If your receiving technique simply sets you up for a different finishing technique, it’s not effective ukemi. It’s a failure. Good ukemi should move uke to a position where she can counterattack or break off the encounter. Even in kata practice, there should always be a tension between uke trying to successfully attack tori, and tori trying to eliminate the possibility for the uke to attack. Uke has to learn to move not just to receive the attack, but to the most advantageous position to receive the attack. As long as it is possible, uke’s movement should put her in a strong place to both defend, and to launch another attack. Tori’s job is to close all of uke’s options until uke is defeated.

Throughout a kata, uke should be seeking opportunities to attack. This seems obvious, but I see lots of kata being done where uke makes an initial attack, and after that they only attack the most obvious of openings. This is where a kata can come to life. If the kata is well designed, when done correctly there is only one optimal movement for uke in each situation. When tori does their part correctly, uke’s options are constricted so the best choice may well be limited to one thing. If uke is participating in the kata with the intent of continuously attacking tori, they will attack into any opening tori leaves.

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Uke isn’t breaking the kata when she does this. Tori breaks the kata when she leaves the opening for uke to attack. It is this interplay that makes kata live. If uke is just going through the motions, then tori isn’t going to learn much. If uke is seeking those openings that tori leaves and filling them with attacks, tori quickly learns to close those openings.

Uke isn’t there to receive an attack. Uke is there to teach tori how to move and act without leaving openings that an opponent can exploit. Receiving an attack is the smallest part of the job.

 

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman, PhD. for editorial guidance and support.

When The Senior Is You

 

Adam Grandt, Deborah Klens-Bigman, Kiyama Hiroshi, Peter Boylan.  Photo copyright Peter Boylan 2023

I still remember clearly, the first time at the judo dojo in Omihachiman, Japan, that we lined up to bow in and there was no one to my right. I was so shocked at being the senior on the mat that I promptly forgot half the commands that the senior calls out at the beginning of practice. Thank goodness the dohai on my left remembered them and was kind enough to whisper them so I didn’t look like too much of an idiot. Maybe I should have realized that this could happen and made a point to really memorize the commands, but I never in my wildest imagination thought that I would be the senior person on the mat. Fortunately, on that occasion it didn’t last very long: about 10 minutes into practice a sempai showed up and I was quite happy to have someone else be responsible. 

Being the senior in the room is one of those things that happens slowly, and then suddenly. We start training and we have no idea what we are doing. As the weeks go by and we get a sense of how things work in the dojo we don’t have to know much and we don’t have any responsibility. As the weeks turn into months we start learning some of the basics and we’re able to contribute a little to the dojo besides our dues and our ignorance. As the months turn into years we find ourselves helping beginners figure out that they need to step with their other left foot, how to take a fall or a strike, how to do the warm-ups and what the dojo etiquette is. 

Gradually our place in the lineup shifts towards the deep end without us doing anything more special than showing up for practice regularly and putting some effort into learning what sensei is teaching. If you’re lucky, sensei will help you learn the senior ropes and maybe even have you teach occasionally while she watches so you can get some experience at the front of the room and start feeling the weight of being responsible for teaching well and making sure everyone finishes practice in health as good as when they started.

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 It’s not uncommon though, to be taking your time edging your way up the seniority ranks, when you show up to practice and sensei is out sick, or one sempai has to work late, or another has child raising duties…no one knows where the others are, but you’re in charge! 

Dennis Hooker, the late founder of Shindai Dojo was fond of saying when asked how you become a senior martial artist: “Don’t die and don’t quit!” - that, and a little genuine effort to learn your art are all it really takes. Seniority certainly doesn’t take talent. If that were required I would still be a white belt.

Becoming a senior student is something that happens if you don’t quit and you don’t die. Succession in the martial arts is fraught with ego, but first you have to not quit and not die. One of the arts I train in, Shinto Hatakage Ryu Iai Heiho, very nearly ceased to exist when the soke passed away, and then a month later his son and successor was killed in an automobile accident. Suddenly my teacher, Kiyama Hiroshi, was the most knowledgeable person practicing Shinto Hatakage Ryu.  He didn’t set out to be the head of the system. He was just learning it as best he could by copying what Noda Shihan was doing. 

It doesn’t take planning and desire to become a senior; it takes the quiet dedication to show up for practice day in and day out. Then one day you don’t do anything new and suddenly you’re the senior in the room.

I’ve seen lots of people so desperate to be the senior at the top of the heap that they will start their own organization or even invent their own art. Somehow folks imagine being the senior is a glorious parade where everyone treats you with deference and you can do what you want. Being senior is the opposite of glorious. 

What is often missed in training is that increases in rank aren’t rewards. They are weighted with responsibility. Every time you move up in rank, the responsibilities become a little heavier. As a white belt my responsibilities were to show up, and if I got to the dojo early, make sure I was on the floor sweeping it before anyone senior to me could show up and grab the broom. As you get more senior you get more responsibility. Maybe you start handling some of the record keeping, or you’re taking care of the bookkeeping. Then you start teaching occasionally. Then one day sensei asks you to take a regular spot on the teaching roster. 

Rank doesn’t equal privilege. Rank equals responsibility. Kiyama Sensei passed away in September. That means that three of us who have been around long enough without quitting are suddenly responsible for everything that he taught us. We are responsible for teaching all the principles that he shared with us to the very fullest of our ability. We are responsible for Shinto Hatakage Ryu Iai Heiho. We are responsible for whether this ryuha and these teachings live and contribute to another generation or are forgotten and lost forever.

That’s what happens when you become senior. You get the responsibility. Deborah Klens-Bigman, Kawakami Ryusuke and I received this responsibility. If we fail, then Shinto Hatakage Ryu Iai Heiho becomes just another footnote in some books.

Everyone who does budo, whether koryu or gendai, has this responsibility to a certain extent. We are all responsible for the arts we train in. We are responsible to those who gave their time to teach us, and we are responsible to those who take the time to learn from us. Our rank just tells us how much responsibility we bear.

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 In an art like judo or kendo or aikido, with plenty of dojos around, you don’t have to worry much about being responsible for the survival of the art. You still have the responsibility to your teachers and the other members of the dojo. If you’re teaching, you have responsibility to your students, and the responsibility to carry on the traditions of the dojo and to pass on the understanding of your teachers. That would be plenty of responsibility for anyone. Those who climb to the highest echelons of an art take on the responsibility of seeing that the art that is passed on to the next generations is a strong, healthy one.

Small styles like Shinto Hatakage Ryu are wonderful jewels. There are perhaps 200 small ryuha surviving in Japan. Many of them have only two or three or even just one dojo with a handful of students. In such an environment it doesn’t take long to find you have a lot of responsibility. When you're at the top, you’re responsible for everything in the dojo, from teaching the classes to making sure the toilet works. If you belong to a small koryu you might discover that you have at least some of the responsibility for the art living into the next generation. 

That’s what happens when you’re the senior.

The Role Of Competition In Budo

 

Final of All-Japan Judo Championships in 2007   Photo Copyright Gotcha2. Used under GNU Free Documentation License.

There is a continual discussion in budo about the importance of competition. The argument for competition has two prongs. The first is that you have to learn to perform techniques under stress, and competition is the best way to pressure-test technique.  The second is that you have to learn  to deal with the unexpected and the only way to do that is in a competitive situation. I agree  that you have to be able to perform under stress and that you have to be able to deal with the unexpected.  If you’re not learning to do things when you are stressed, and you’re not learning to deal with the unexpected, you’re not learning budo.

I’ve heard a lot of people expound on the stress benefits of competition. The desire to win ramps up the stress, and in judo or full contact karate, the fact that effective technique can hurt, and may even leave you unconscious, ramps it up further. Add the frustration that builds when your adversary prevents your technique from being effective and the stress level can get pretty high. You can certainly learn something about stress in competition.

I know that for most of the time I was competing I found competition stressful. I would get anxious and it would become harder and harder to stay still and not fidget as the match approached.  I had to learn to apply breathing and relaxation techniques in order to control the stress so I didn’t become tense and lose my ability to move flexibly and quickly. 

Once the match starts the tension can get worse. The more skilful the adversary, the more frustration and stress. It’s a quick check on students getting cocky about the strength of their technique. It is one thing to practice a technique on a partner who isn’t resisting, and another thing to try to throw someone who is trying to throw you. The experience of learning to flow from technique to technique is great. The dynamism and volatility of competition are excellent experiences for many people.

As Rory Miller so eloquently points out in Meditations On Violence, every training methodology includes a fail. That is, there is always a way in which what you are doing fails, and specifically doesn’t mimic the real world. In competition, it’s that fact that there are rules limiting what you can do, and what your partner can do to you. The possibilities are artificially limited so people can compete with a reasonable expectation that they will be safe and healthy at the end of the competition. Just think of all the techniques that are excluded. Or the protective gear that is worn. Then there is the referee who is there to award points, but also to make sure no one does anything harmful.

This is a safe environment to train in. And the stress level never gets too high because we know it is safe going in. As much as it is a pressure-testing experience, the fact that we don’t have to worry about someone taking a shot at our throat or eyes, or attempting to destroy our knees or elbows means that we’re not experiencing anywhere near the pressure of dealing with someone who genuinely wants to harm us.

There are different kinds and levels of stress. I’ve never seen evidence that competition can rise to anywhere near the level of stress and fear and adrenaline dump that a confrontation outside the tournament area and outside the tournament rules produces. When someone swings a knife at you, the feeling in your gut is quite different from the one when someone is trying to pound you with the ground or choke you unconscious in a tournament. The fear and the adrenaline hit you  much harder. That doesn’t make competition useless; we just shouldn’t think it can do something it’s not specifically designed for.

 

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One of the best things about competition is that it is fun. We enjoy it, whether it’s a friendly match in the dojo where no one is keeping score, or it is a national level tournament, we enjoy competition. Competition is so much fun that people will come back to train again and again just so they can have the fun of competing, both in tournaments with medals and trophies, and in friendly bouts in the dojo. Competition is a great motivator for many people, but it’s not combat preparation and we shouldn’t pretend it is. 

There are lots of ways stress can be induced in training. I know the most stressed I’ve ever been in the dojo wasn’t some sort of competition. Some of the most intense stress I’ve experienced was the day my teacher swapped out his wooden sword for a metal one during jodo practice. I’ve made plenty of mistakes during practice that resulted in me getting whacked with a wooden weapon. Some of the bruises have been spectacular. When Sensei swapped out the bokuto for a metal blade though, I broke out in a sweat. If I screwed up, the consequences could have been a lot more severe than a nasty bruise. 

Other ways stress can be induced: Train into exhaustion. Ramp up the speed. Increase the intensity. Yes, even compete. Don’t imagine that any of these comes close to combative stress. The closest I’ve come to feeling stress equal to what I’ve felt in real confrontations was in kata practice. Paired kata training as is done in koryu bugei has consistently generated the most stress-filled training I’ve done. It can range from very gentle walk-throughs to adrenalin rush inducing intensity. It all depends on what your partner is giving you.

My koryu teachers have never given me more than I can handle, but they have been more than happy to give me more than I thought I could handle. They ask me to put as much as I can into practice, and sometimes that includes dragging me past the edge of what I perceive as my ability into frightening new territory. That’s part of their role. In koryu the senior is responsible for taking the losing role. It is the senior's job to control the speed and intensity of training so the junior gets as much from the training as is possible.

One of the complaints that people make about kata training is that you know exactly what is going to happen. In good training that is, and isn’t, true.I was strongly reminded of that recently. I was working with a senior teacher who would attack into any opening I left while doing the kata. I got whacked on the head with his fukuro shinai in places where it’s not called for in the kata. It was good kata training. He showed me openings I was leaving as I did the kata. In most instances I was too focused on one aspect of the kata and he attacked where my awareness wasn’t. 

Talk about inducing stress! My stress level went well above what I have felt in competition. It was a lot like randori because I never knew when he would spot an opening and fill it with his sword. Thank goodness it was a fukuro shinai; a bokuto would have left colorful bruises in a number of places.

This way of practicing kata is a great one, and it provides the same sense of uncertainty that competition does. In koryu kata practice, your partner is supposed to be trying to kill you. It makes sense that they would attack any opening you leave, not just move with the choreography of the kata. Uchi’s intention to attack you anywhere they can is important for making the kata practice as effective as possible. In koryu kata the role the junior person takes is the winning side, and the choreography of the kata on their side is the optimal set of techniques for the situation. That doesn’t mean the senior, in the role of uchi, should just go  along and forget about any attacks that are specified. In good kata practice, uchi is always looking for additional opportunities to attack. If the junior does a good job, there won’t be any. Since the junior is in the process of learning, they will make mistakes, leave openings, and get attacked. If you practice kata correctly, the planned actions are the logical ones. If you don’t, other options present themselves.  Or not.

The element of unpredictability and spontaneous action is what gives competition its real value, but the  stress level of competition isn’t any greater than many other exercises. Competition involves  learning to see openings and to close them. Learning to deal with unexpected attacks and how to prevent them. Learning to flow from one action to the next without pausing and without leaving openings. That’s where the real value of competition is. I just don’t think that it’s the only way, or even the best way, to learn these things. 

The rules that make safe competition possible also limit its value for learning to deal with spontaneous action. Too many options are artificially eliminated. Judoka get used to nothing coming at their faces and not having to worry about strikes. Karateka don’t have to worry about opponents closing with them. No one learns to deal with weapons attacks. No one learns to deal with asymmetrical situations where people are armed differently.

In competition everything has to be fair.  No one would show up for a competition where you don’t know if you or your opponent will be armed or unarmed, or even armed similarly. That wouldn’t be fun, and it wouldn’t be a fair comparison of skills. It would be much more realistic though.  And more dangerous!

I think that too much concentration on competition will render one blind to everything that is not allowed in competition. A little competition for the purpose of learning to be spontaneous and flow  isn’t bad. Too much focus on competition and you risk training the things that aren’t allowed in competition right out of your system. If you ignore all the stuff that isn’t allowed in competition, very soon you aren’t doing budo. You’re only doing sport. Kata training can fill in some of the gaps. Budo training doesn’t need competition to be effective.

 

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman, Ph.D., for editorial support.

Why I Still Train

A guest post by  

Richard Riehle, PhD 

Judo Godan

Judo — Why I still Train

 

People are sometimes surprised that, at 85 years old, I am still in my judogi in the dojo, still enjoying Judo. Of course, my competition days are in the past. My last tournament was a little over ten years ago at 74 competing with guys my own age.

 

I was never a star competitor. Starting my life in Judo at age 16, I lost far more matches than I ever won, mostly to newaza. I was never an athlete, but I loved learning and participating in Judo.

When I was still a nidan, during one of my many annual visits to the Kodokan, I said to one of the high-dan instructors, “I have been in Judo for many years, but I have never been a champion.” He replied, “I have never been a champion either. That is not the purpose of Judo.”

 

And there we have it! 

 

I have learned that Judo, at its fundamental level, is not about defeating another person. It is not about scoring an ippon against another person. I also enjoy chess, but have been put in checkmate hundreds of times during my lifetime, just a few weeks ago by one of my three sons.

 

True, that there is some ego gratification in scoring a win in a Judo, but as we grow older, we score fewer and fewer ippons in competition. With Judo we eventually learn that our training is not about ego gratification. It is more about learning about ourselves in a unique way, even as we learn more about Judo.

 

Chess is much the same. There is never an end to our learning in either activity

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Too many of those I knew when I was younger have “retired” from Judo because they believed they were too old to be good competitors, too old to even have a chance to become champions.

“Why bother to continue now that I can longer have a shot at winning a medal or trophy?” or “My best days are behind me!” or “I’m too out-of-shape.” In reality, it's usually about ego: “I will look ridiculous because I can’t do what I used to be able to do!”

 

And with that, they acknowledge that they never learned the real lessons of Judo. They have learned only about victory and defeat. There is so much more to learn.

 

Jigoro Kano once remarked that it was not important that you are better than someone else. It is more important that you are better today than you were yesterday.

 

This raises the question, “Better in what way?” We each will have our own answer to that question.

For me, “better” means many things. One of them is good physical feeling. Sometimes, better is because I have learned something new. Better might even be because I have been able to help someone else overcome a difficulty of their own. Better will different for each of us.

 

As an older Judo practitioner, I can work at imposing waza that were not my best during my long ago, and brief, competition days. I am working on sumi-otoshi and some other difficult techniques I could never execute successfully in a shiai. I have experimented with Mifune’s tama-guruma. I know of no one who has ever attempted tama-guruma in a contest.

 

We can all learn the deeper lessons from the kata. There are a lot of techniques we would not have attempted in a shiai that we can improve when we no longer need to focus on winning.

 

There is also the fellowship with other “old timers” and the opportunity to share experiences with the youngsters. In the dojo, there is no politics, no religion, no ethnic biases — nothing but improving ourselves through good Judo training. Training, even light randori, after 40, after 50, or even into the 80’s, can be satisfying — even rewarding — when we are no longer worried about earning trinkets for the trophy shelf at home or in the dojo.

 

Finally, I still train because I can. There are things I cannot do: no kata-guruma, no sitting in seiza, no hard falls. Our lifetime of occasional health issues such as weaker bones, injured knees, slower reflexes are all part of that training, but while we can still don a judogi and still train, there will still be benefits in that training.

 

Why do I still train? A life in Judo has enriched my life in so many ways, and my continued training continues to enrich my life. I cannot, at my age, defeat anyone, but there is still the chance to be better tomorrow than I am today using my own ideas of what it means to be “better.”

Growth And Change In Budo

 

I was talking with a student and teacher of classical Japanese martial arts, and the all too-common myth - that the teachers and students of these centuries-old ryuha practice exactly as their creators taught them in the first generation - came up.  We both laughed. It’s a compelling story, but it’s a myth - one that is dangerous for the students, and for the arts themselves. Whether you do something called a way ( “do” 道). An art (“jutsu” 術), or a style or school (“ryu” 流)、the story is the same.

These are all arts that have survived centuries of use and application. The thought that hundreds of years ago someone discovered a principle and created techniques for applying it that were perfectly formed and are still perfectly suited to the world they are in credits the founders with a level of genius that I cannot imagine. I can imagine them realizing principles that can be applied to an ever-changing environment, but I can’t stretch that to the founders also creating techniques that perfectly apply that principle no matter how the world has changed.

Principles don’t change. That’s the nature of principles. They are fundamental ways of understanding the world and how it operates. In budo, sometimes principles are expressed and learned through physical practice, such as that discovered by following the Shinto Muso Ryu directive “maruki wo motte suigetsu wo shire “丸木を持って水月を知れ””holding a round stick, know the solar plexus”. Others are clearly expressed philosophical concepts, such as Kano Jigoro Shihan’s “seiryoku zen’yo” 精力善用 (often translated as “maximum efficiency, minimum effort”), which is the short form for “seiryoku saizen katsuyo” 精力最善活用 “best use of energy”.Jigoro Kano, Mind Over Muscle, Kodansha, 2005). Usually shortened to “maximum efficiency minimum effort,” Kano’s maxim  refers to  a broader principle than just the physical technique. It’s about the best use and application of energy, mental and physical. These core principles of different arts haven’t changed since they were first expressed.

Principles, by their nature, are universal. If they can’t be applied universally, they aren’t principles. I can apply the principle implied by the jodo maxim maruki wo motte suigetsu wo shire in a variety of ways and situations. I can even apply this principle without a stick in judo randori, to pick an example outside of Shinto Muso Ryu. Kano Jigoro was an evangelist for the idea of seiryoku saizen katsuyo and its usefulness outside the constrained world of the dojo. He wrote extensively about the principle and why everyone should apply it, whether they practice judo or not. These principles haven’t changed since they were first understood.

 

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How they are applied and expressed changes all the time however.  Not because the principles change at all, but because the environment in which they are being applied changes. Judo is nearly 140 years old. Shinto Muso Ryu has been around for more than 400 years. For all of these arts, the world has changed dramatically since they were founded. The world of combat in Japan slowly changed as weapons and tactics evolved, and then was transformed by the introduction of firearms in the 1500’s, followed by the enforcement of peace by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603. Shinto Muso Ryu, essentially military police tactics, was born into the first years of unsteady peace during the Tokugawa Era. The samurai class was still on a war footing, with the Tokugawa victory only a few years earlier. Weapons of war and people skilled with them were everywhere.

A little over 250 years later the wearing of swords in public was banned. Clothing styles in Japan changed from traditional kimono and hakama to European dress. The tools of combat increased in number and power. People still study Kodokan Judo and Shinto Muso Ryu and other koryu arts. The arts are still seen as relevant to this age that would have been unimaginable when they were created. 

The people who study Kodokan Judo still practice many things that Kano Jigoro laid down as part of his art. They do a lot of things that he didn’t include in his pedagogy for the art. I find Kodokan Judo principles being applied not just in competitive matches with people wearing traditional dogi, but in no-gi matches and even professional MMA fights. More interesting to me is the way Kodokan Judo’s principles continue to be applied in and out of the dojo. It’s still seen as an effective form of physical education, and the principle of seiryoku zen’yo, along with the principle of yawara 柔 (softness, pliancy, flexibility, suppleness), is taught as having far more than just martial applications. The whole of Kodokan Judo manages to offer a very complete set of principles for interacting with the world physically and intellectually nearly 140 years after its founding. It hasn’t stopped growing and adapting. In addition to the official kata of Kodokan Judo, many practitioners develop their own, unofficial, kata to practice and explore the principles in situations that are not focused on in the official curriculum.

The proportion of waza practice versus randori practice versu kata practice is something judoka never stop arguing about, and every judo dojo has a different answer to what the proportions should be. I see people working out new techniques based on the classical principles, and practicing in new ways. It’s not uncommon now to see judoka train without dogi so they can prepare for no-gi tournaments. Do they stop doing judo because they take off their dogi and fight in competitions that aren’t using IJF rules? If you're applying judo principles it’s still judo, regardless of what you're wearing or what you’re doing. Judo is, after all, yawara. It’s soft and pliant. It can change its shape to fit the situation.

Shinto Muso Ryu reaches further back for its origin, another 270 odd years past Judo. The relevance of a stick that was intended to be used to subdue people with swords in a world of guns and IEDs is difficult to imagine, especially when you see the people studying it wearing clothes that have been out of date for centuries and practicing against people armed with swords. Relevant in the 21st century? It looks more like Live Action Role-Playing to most people. However, the principles haven’t changed, even if the practical applications have had to evolve. 

Throughout its history Shinto Muso Ryu’s students haven’t been afraid to add new lessons to the art. Kata were added steadily over the centuries, and tools were added to the practitioner’s kit. An art that started out with just a stick and a sword now teaches students to apply the principles to sticks of nearly any length, as well as chains (and in some lines even bayonet length blades!). The real principles about movement, timing, spacing and rhythm are still useful not just in combat situations, but everywhere in life. I’ve only been doing Shinto Muso Ryu for 28 years, but in that time I’ve watched teachers tweak kata and change what they emphasize. Looking back before my time, to the films that survive from the last 90 years or so, it’s clear that people have been tweaking and playing with the kata since long before I showed up. Considering all the recorded changes that have been made to Shinto Muso Ryu over the centuries, no one can seriously claim that they do Shinto Muso Ryu just like Muso Gonosuke Katsuyoshi did it.  It’s been changing and adapting from the day he started figuring it out for himself.

Budo practices are paths to follow, not fossils.  You have to adapt to the terrain. If you never change anything, and never learn anything beyond where the founder began, you would be preserving an artifact that has no relationship to the age you live in. I fully expect the arts I practice and teach to grow and change. The principles will still be there, but I sincerely hope my students learn new ways to train, new ways to teach the principles, and new ways to express the principles. Anything less than that is a discredit to everyone who has gone before us.

Corallary To The Budo Law Of Conservation Of Movement

 

A while back I wrote a post about The Budo Law Of Conservation Of Movement. Effective budo systems don’t waste time and mental space teaching a hundred ways to do the same thing. Instead they teach one way to do a hundred things. There is a corollary to law which is

 The smallest movement that is effective is the best movement

 Budo is about conflict, fighting, combat. Do you want to waste any resource in a fight, including your energy?. Strength and stamina are finite resources; no matter who you are, they will run out. How long will the fight last? Is there likely to be another one soon? These are unknowables, so any wasted effort reduces what you’ve got to work with down the line. Don’t waste energy.

 Look at any classical budo. Koryu budo are almost dull in the way they do things; there’s nothing flashy or decorative in their movement.  All the fancy movement and dancing that you see in movies is notable for its absence in classical budo. Or even watch competitive judo - there’s no unnecessary movement. Really good judoka often make for rather boring matches to watch. The competitors are there to win and move on to the next match. 99% of the action is in movements so small you can’t really see them. High level judo matches have so little excitement in their 5 minute spans that the rules are juiced to make them more interesting. These matches require a serious attack to happen every few seconds or a penalty can be awarded by the referee for stalling. In a tournament, a judoka might end up fighting 6, 7, or more matches in one day. Skilled judoka know they can’t afford to waste any effort because they will need it later.

 Conserve your motion. Conserve your energy. Don’t make a big movement when a small one will do the job.

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 The other thing about using the smallest movement to do the job is that it protects you. It’s not good to throw your energy around unnecessarily. Any movement you make affects you as well as your opponent. Bigger movements mean committing more energy. Any energy you put out there can be used by your opponent against you. I love countering techniques in judo because they turn an opponent’s attack into their defeat. The more energy an opponent sends out the more I have to work with. The bigger the movement you commit to, the harder it is to change trajectory once it’s started.

 Overcommitment to a technique backfiring can happen whether it’s in an unarmed situation like a judo match, or weapon versus weapon. Learning to control your movement and take advantage of moments when your adversary is over-extended is fundamental. Watch a kendo match. The kendoka jockey for control of the center with just the tips of their shinai. Movements are just big enough to evade being controlled by the opponent and use just enough energy to do the job and no more. Openings are created when someone moves further than is needed or puts too much power into their shinai and can’t recover their position in time to prevent the attack.

 All good budo is efficient. Wasting energy is foolish. So is giving your adversary anything to work with. Any excess movement, any unnecessary movement, creates an opening for your opponent. Overextend an arm on an attack and it can be locked or used as a lever to throw you. Too big a movement leaves a window for a strike or an entry. Therefore

 The smallest movement that is effective is the best movement.

 

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman for her wonderful editing work.