Budo: The Way of Change

 

Great day of training. It must have been 95F (35C) in the dojo, though.

I talk a lot about the benefits of budo. We go to the dojo and we sweat.  We work at improving some aspect of our skills every time we enter the dojo. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been training or how old we are.  My iaido teacher, Kiyama Hiroshi, was still training in his 90’s. A friend of mine pushed himself to improve his jodo to challenge for 8th dan when he was 90.He didn’t make it to 8th dan, but he was pushing himself to improve until the day he died.

Budo, much like other Japanese arts such as chano yu and shodo, makes three assumptions about practice and us. First, that perfect technique can be imagined. Second, that we can always work to come closer to perfection. Third, that we’ll never achieve perfection, but that’s no excuse for not continuing to grow and improve.

All of the streams of thought that come together to form budo assume that human technique and character can, and should, continue to develop throughout one’s life. Confucius, Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi, Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), all provided strands of thought and ideas to the cultural stew of China and Japan. All of them assumed that people could change, grow and improve at every stage of life.

The Zhuangzi is filled with stories that emphasize taking your time and learning things. The idea that learning and development never end is intrinsic to the all of the lines of thought in ancient China that used “way” 道 as a metaphor for their school of thought. There were a lot of them.

On the other hand, there is a common idea in Western thinking that we each have some sort of unchanging, immutable core or essence. I’ve heard many people say “I can’t change. That’s just the way I am.” or “I don’t like it, but that’s who I am.”  Once they finish high school or college, many people seem to think that they are done growing, changing and evolving as a person. Thankfully, there is no evidence to support any of this.

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Everyone changes, every day. Whatever we experience changes us. Little things change us in little ways, and big things can be, as the saying goes, “life changing.” Life never stops working on us, changing us, molding us. We are not stone. We are soft flesh that changes and adapts to the stresses it experiences. An essential question is whether we are going to be active participants choosing how we change and what we become, or are we going to be passive recipients of whatever life does to us..

A central concept of the idea of a Way, michi or do 道 is that there is always another step to take, another bit of ourselves we can polish, a bit of our personality that we can improve, and that we can direct that change. This is true whether we are talking about Daoist thought or Confucian thought or something in between. The idea of a finished, unchanging human really doesn’t come up. 

Budo constantly reminds us that we aren’t finished growing, developing, improving. Rather than declaring that we can’t change, budo is a claxon calling out that we change whether we want to or not, and that we can direct that change if we choose.  Budo is about choosing to direct how we change instead of just letting the circumstances of life change us.

We are making the choice to take part in how life shapes us from the moment we enter the dojo, although I doubt many realize how much budo can influence who we become when we make the decision to start training. Good budo training should, and does, change us. Physically we get stronger, more flexible, improve our stamina and develop the ability to endure fierce training and even injuries. That’s the obvious stuff. More importantly, budo changes who we are. It should make us mentally tougher and intellectually more flexible. It should help us to be more open to new experiences and ideas. It should teach us that we can transform ourselves. It’s a cliche that budo training makes people more confident, but it’s also true of good budo training. You go to the dojo and you get used to people literally attacking you, and as time goes on, you’re not only okay with that, but you look forward to it. I don’t know anyone who started budo training because they enjoyed being attacked, but it doesn’t take very long before that sort of training, whether it is done through kata geiko or some sort of randori or free sparring, becomes something you look forward to with a smile.

Keiko, the formal term for budo practice in Japanese, is the highlight of my week. The time I spend in the dojo practicing and doing budo never tires my spirit. It exhausts my body, but my spirit always comes away refreshed, recharged, and ready to deal with all the stresses of life outside the dojo. Budo practice isn’t something we “play”. In Japanese you never use the verbs associated with play when talking about budo, and even judoka avoid words that emphasize the competitive and focus on terms like tanren 鍛錬, forging. Budo is about change; conscious, self-directed change.

The wonderful thing is that once we learn how to change ourselves in the dojo, we know how to do it outside the dojo as well. The discomfort we get used to while pushing ourselves in the dojo teaches us how to deal with discomfort outside the dojo. That’s one thing budo doesn’t eliminate - the discomfort of changing. Self-directed change is difficult and pushes us into places and situations that are anything but comfortable. I can remember being a pugnacious jerk, and dealing with disagreement and conflict as a win-lose scenario that I had to win. It took a lot of time in and out of the dojo to learn that just because there is conflict there doesn’t have to be a winner and loser.  There are lots of other ways to deal with conflict, and I’m grateful to my budo teachers that I learned something about conflict as something other than a zero-sum game.

Budo has a lot to teach us about life, how we can change and adapt to the world instead of letting the world change us. All the effort that we put into learning the techniques and skills of budo also teaches us how to direct an equal amount of effort into changing any aspect of ourselves that we wish to confront. The budo path has no end destination. We just keep working at it.

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

 

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.”

The PItfalls Of Budo

Budo is personal. I talked about that in my last essay. Budo practice can indeed transform who we are. If we’re not careful though, that transformation can take on aspects and go in directions that we shouldn’t want it to go. A lot of ink is spent detailing the marvelous benefits of budo practice, and the benefits are great: at the most basic, physical fitness, and moving upward to physical skills and confidence in high stress and conflict situations. Then there are the mental benefits; becoming calmer, more mentally strong and able to maintain an even mental keel even when the world is pushing you towards rash action.

These are all great. But what happens when you take a wrong turn and start acquiring attributes from you training that you don’t want? What if, because of your budo training, you become an arrogant, abusive jerk?

Judging from the many arrogant, abusive people I’ve met in the martial arts, the ones who don’t have any interest in the aspects of budo that have to do with more than just hurting other people, becoming a jerk seems to be far too common an outcome.

I’ve met the arrogant ones who will hurt you just to prove they are better than you, in some way only they understand. I don’t know how being happy to hurt someone so you can say you defeated them makes you “better”. I’ve met the abusive ones who feel entitled to harm those around them simply because they have more powerful technique. I’ve met the vindictive ones who will hurt partners that don’t do exactly as they want, or take out their frustration at missing a technique on their partner. I’ve been to seminars and met jerks who feel entitled to only train with senior practitioners, and pout when they have to train with anyone they feel isn’t “good enough”. Then there are teachers who only pay attention to their favorites and ignore everyone else. There are teachers who abuse their students with extreme training under the guise of making them tough.

Somehow, through all of the training meant to polish their skills and humanity, the jerks only polished their skills, not their selves. The lessons of budo are intensely personal. Instead of learning “mutual benefit and welfare” or “loving protection” they learned only to care for themselves and what they want. 

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The first lesson in any dojo is etiquette, which is a formal means of expressing respect for your teacher, for your fellow students, and the art you are practicing. Etiquette and respect are fundamental to all of budo. Without it, we’re only learning how to hurt each other.  Some people manage to ignore this cornerstone of budo training and continue to think only of themselves. They can usually be spotted because they toss off their bow to the dojo casually and without feeling. Their bows to training partners are perfunctory at best. They don’t realize it, but their lack of respect for the dojo, the art and their training partners is clear to anyone who watches.

The most obvious lesson in budo, and the one that everyone is clear on before they walk into the dojo for the first time, is that budo teaches personal, physical power. The power to protect yourself and inflict damage on others is fundamental to making a practice budo. Less clear to people is that respect, discretion and self-control are also fundamental to making a practice budo. I’ve met too many people who sought to acquire the power without acquiring any discretion and self-control, much less respect for their fellow travelers on the path.

Acquiring physical power like developing skill in budo, often comes along with an elevated feeling of self-confidence. If this self-confidence isn’t tempered with a sense of humility while the budoka is training, that self-confidence can turn into arrogance and disdain for those less skilled or powerful. This arrogance and disdain is a poison that pollutes everything it comes in contact with. Arrogant, disdainful budoka aren’t worried about the health and welfare of their training partners or their students because they perceive that such people aren’t powerful enough to command their respect.

Budo training takes time, sweat and the collection of not a few bruises. For some reason, there is a tendency among budoka to think that just doing the physical part of  budo training makes them superior people. There is no magic in budo training that automatically transforms anyone who does it into a spiritually perfected and superior human being. It doesn’t just happen.  You have to work at anything you want to improve, whether it’s strike, a joint lock, or being a better you. All of these take work. Without it, none of these skills will improve.

It’s easy enough to forget about working on who you are when you’re busy acquiring powerful physical skills. The first time you realize that you really can dominate someone physically, there is a rush of thill. The danger lies in seeking that rush by dominating other people in and out of the dojo. There can be a thrill when you crank an armbar a bit more than necessary, just enough to make uke yelp a little. If you  to go after that thrill, you’ll develop yourself, but not in a way anyone else will like. You’ll become a bit sadistic and dangerous to be around because you want that thrill. What happens when you meet someone you can’t dominate? Do you turn up the strength to fill in for the technique that isn’t good enough? Can you see how this might poison someone?

I’ve seen teachers who brutalize their students because they can. I’ve seen others who are worse, and damage any student who gives them the least resistance. Often this is cloaked as “hard training that will toughen you up”. It’s not.  It’s abuse and it is strictly to feed the diseased ego of the teacher. These teachers tend to leave a trail of broken students who gave them a little too much resistance, and they are surrounded by students who make excuses for their teacher. “He’s just teaching discipline.” “It doesn’t hurt that much, and it makes you tougher.”  He’s not teaching discipline, and that’s not how you get tougher. It’s how you get broken.

My teachers have done their best to make me as skillful as possible. Not all teachers are like that. I’ve seen talented and dedicated students driven out of the dojo when they became too skilled. These skillful students are a threat to the teacher’s ego, because they might equal, or worse, surpass, the teacher. Anyone who gets too good is perceived as threat that could challenge the teacher’s spot as the dojo alpha. These students could become more popular, or they could start their own dojo and steal the teacher’s students away. These teacher’s insecurities can destroy a dojo, and will certainly mean that the dojo will never develop a healthy group of senior students who can support the teacher and perhaps take over the dojo someday when the teacher is ready to retire. Instead, anyone like that is a threat and has to go. Such a student might get hurt in a training accident with the teacher, or the teacher might start completely ignoring them. I’ve even seen students simply driven out of the dojo and told to never come back. These teachers have become addicted to the adulation and honor they receive as “Sensei” and they can’t risk having anyone around who might draw some of that attention away.

In budo practice, as in most things, you get out of it what you put in. If you work hard at the techniques you can become a skilled technician. If that’s all you practice you won’t be much of a person though. The people who work at all aspects of budo, polish their etiquette and their spirits, these people make themselves into fine human beings.

Budo Is Personal

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.