Martial
arts and self-discipline are nearly synonymous in modern American
culture. The benefits of developed self-discipline are heavily touted
in advertisements for many martial arts, from karate to judo to
Brazilian jujutsu to kung fu and Taekwondo. Popular images of ranks
of martial artists performing technique after technique in perfect
unison; “Senseis” who bark commands and students who leap to
comply.
This
is the image of discipline in U.S. martial arts, and if you travel to
Japan, you’ll easily find more examples of this sort. Gendai budo
culture was forged in the first half of the 20th century in the heat
of Japanese nationalist fervor that saw the martial arts as a means
of instilling “samurai values” into the masses of Japan. Modern
budo that were systematized during this period often are run in a
strict, formal manner. This is most clearly seen in karate and kendo
dojo, especially in school dojo.
These arts were molded to the service of the military culture of the
day, and so they adopted many practices that are suitable for large
numbers of people to train together.
Pre-modern
budo, or koryu
budo,
in Japan weren’t designed or intended for training large numbers of
people at the same time. They were, and are, about individual
transmission, teacher to student. As such, they don’t really
lend themselves to large group instruction, and so the military
tended to ignore the classical budo.
But
there is one crucial difference between US budo practice and practice
in Japan: Regardless of whether the art is classical or modern,
students in Japan are expected to have self-discipline before they
start. I can’t imagine anyone trying to get their child into a
koryu budo so they could learn discipline. It’s even more
difficult to imagine any koryu budo teacher accepting a student in
those circumstances.
In
modern budo as well, Japanese students are expected to arrive with
self-control. Teachers of modern and classical budo in Japan expect
to be teaching their art, and helping their students forge
themselves, not working on developing the basic self-control and
focus students need to get through class. Learning self-control and
focus starts at home in Japan, and it starts early. Children are
encouraged from an early age to sit with a stillness that seems
unnatural to an American. Behaving well in any public situation,
whether it is riding the train, sitting in class at school, or
practicing a sport, a martial art or a hobby, is emphasized and
socially enforced from from the age of 3 or 4. It’s not that
parents enforce good public behavior, but that society does it.
Japanese
groups are self-regulating. School children are allowed to regulate
their own social interactions, and they can be harsh. Kids who don’t
play well soon find themselves ostracized and alone. Peer pressure
isn’t just a thing in Japanese society. It’s the only
thing, and children learn to behave in public very quickly without
much interference from adults. Teachers don’t usually need to
enforce discipline, and from what I’ve seen they really don’t
know how enforce it when it is needed.
Japanese
society is quite ruthless about excluding anyone who can’t follow
the norms of good behavior. There are stories of seeing children
being allowed to fight or quarrel among themselves over toys or some
such, and later, when the observer returns, he discovers the child
who had been aggressive and pushy is ignored and alone while the rest
of the children play together.
Even
when students start budo at an early age, there is an expectation of
self-control. The judo dojo in Omihachiman always had a few toddlers
just out of diapers running around in dogi. The toddlers were gently
encouraged to copy the older children, but if they went off script
and sat in Sensei’s lap, that was greeted with an indulgent smile.
By the time they were about 4 years old, they were capable of taking
part in class, sitting at attention when called for without anyone
having to yell or make a fuss. They learned self-discipline within
the culture of the dojo and society at large.
In
Japan, by the time most people start a martial art, usually in a
junior or senior high school club, they are expected to have
self-discipline already. Anyone without it won’t last. It won’t
become an issue the sensei has to deal with. Their fellow students
won’t put up with them. Japanese groups won’t tolerate
undisciplined members. For self-discipline, it doesn’t matter
whether the budo is old or new in Japan. Students are expected to
enter the gate with self-discipline.
Discipline
in the traditional dojo is modeled by the members, not dictated by
the teacher. All that is required of a new student is that she
sincerely work to learn the proper etiquette and behavior. I’ve
been in dojo in Japan long enough to have been through the process
myself and to have seen new Japanese students enter the dojo and
learn.
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New
students in Japan don’t come into the dojo with arrogance, or even
an air of confidence. New students are expected to enter the gate
with sincere humility and a sincere desire to learn. As long as the
student is sincerely working at learning the way things are done in
the dojo they won’t have problems and mistakes will be forgiven and
gently corrected. One thing you will NEVER hear from a new student or
guest is “In my dojo we do it this way.” If you’re in a dojo,
you’re there to learn, not show what you know or how you’ve done
it somewhere else.
This
applies not just among Japanese children ostracizing kids who won’t
play well, but also to large, socially awkward non-Japanese as well.
I’m surprised at how generously I was tolerated as I blundered
around the judo dojo when I first moved to Japan. I think I was
regarded much as one of the toddlers in dogi
running
around the dojo were regarded; I was too lacking in proper learning
and development to know how to behave.
By
the time I moved to Japan, I’d been doing Judo for 4 years, so I’d
sort of learned the basics of good dojo behavior. But in the years I
spent in Japan I absorbed much more. I learned to really appreciate
the simple respect and expectation of self-discipline that was
embodied by everyone in the dojo.
Arriving
in Japan fresh out of college and quite full of what I thought I
knew, I made more mistakes than I can bear to remember in these sorts
of things. I lacked the awareness of what everyone else was doing and
what they would think of me that is an essential part of learning and
entering the dojo as humbly as students in Japan should. The patience
which my teachers and fellow students showed me as I slowly learned
humility and emptied my cup amazes me still.
If
dojo in Japan enforced discipline in the harsh way movies often
imagine I would have been beaten into silence any number of times for
my cocky, heedless behavior when I first arrived in Japan. I was
greeted with calm patience instead. I did eventually learn to
sincerely try to see what was going on around me, but it took longer
than I care to admit.
The
big, bearded gaijin
was
treated with much the same sort of indulgence as a toddler when I
first showed up at the dojo. I knew the some of the basics of
dojo behavior, like when to bow, but I was completely lacking in the
finer points of good behavior, of good self-discipline. I didn’t
know how to properly receive an answer to a question or a particular
point of instruction. I remember Hikoso Sensei teaching me about
footsweeps one day. I had asked something about the timing, and
Sensei carefully showed it to me once. Then he turned to someone
else. I was disappointed because he hadn’t gone into the
details and spent time working with me until I “got it.” What
I didn’t understand then was the expectation between teacher and
student that the teacher would show it, and then the student would go
off on their own and work on the particular point rigorously by
herself. The teacher or coach doesn’t expect to stand there making
endless small corrections. The student is expected to woodshed
the point until she understands it deeply and fully.
My
endless questions about things that I could have figured out for
myself with enough work on my own were handled with what I realize
now was a touch of disappointment that I was 23 years old and still
so immature. I’m lucky I didn’t find koryu
budo
until
I’d been in Japan for several years. By then I had started to
absorb some of the Japanese ideas about personal dedication and
effort. I learned that if I asked a question about maki
otoshi
in
jodo one week, I’d better show that I was listening to the
answer by putting in a few hours of polishing the technique before
the next practice so Sensei could see that I was paying attention.
Japanese children learn to apply themselves in that way very early
from their parents. If a child is taking piano lessons or shodo class
or karate, she is expected to be as dedicated in her practice away
from the teacher as she is when the teacher is standing next to her.
The
common image of the Japanese sensei yelling and berating their
students isn’t false, but it’s not as common as the mythology
would have it, and it’s missing the necessary context.. A Sensei
doesn’t start yelling and berating students until she feels the
students are dedicated to the practice already. Most of my teachers
in Japan have not been fond of yelling. They just don’t give
you any energy if they think you won’t do anything with it.
Whatever you do is “good” because they don’t want to waste time
on you. When the teacher starts paying attention to you and tearing
apart your technique you know you’re doing something right.
I
do have one or two who like yelling. The funny thing is they never
yell at new students. They seem to base their attention on who they
feel is the most dedicated, and one sure way to show dedication is
travel six thousand miles to train with them. Then you really get
some attention. It can be disconcerting and downright frightening to
have a senior teacher yelling at you with this kind of intensity. He
expects you to have the self-control and dedication to knuckle down
and do what he’s demanding. If you don’t already have it,
you’re not going to survive in the dojo. Those who don’t have it
tend to leave at the end of the night and not come back.
The
English idea that discipline is, as the Cambridge Dictionary defines
it “training that makes people more willing to obey or more able to
control themselves, often in the form of rules, and punishments if
these are broken, or the behaviour produced by this training”.
In
Western society,
discipline
is something imposed from outside to train Discipline is
assumed in budo in Japan, whether it’s koryu
or
gendai.
It’s
just there when the student enters the dojo, or they aren’t
welcome. The situation in the USA is vastly different. Society
doesn’t assume children can have discipline. There is no real
expectation that everyone will learn to follow the group and behave
accordingly. This puts a different requirement on budo teachers in
America if we want students. We have to be ready to impose a
certain amount of discipline from the outside because we can’t
automatically assume that our students come with it built-in. What’s
thought of as “teaching discipline” in the US just doesn’t
exist in Japan. Japanese students learn that sort of
self-control and develop the ability and maturity to apply themselves
with dedication very early. Martial arts teachers don’t have to
teach that; they expect discipline to be there before the student
knocks at the gate.
