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.

A curated selection of the best of the the Budo Bum

 

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.

 

Budo's Principal Lesson

 

Photo Credit Patricia Anderson Copyright 2023

Koryu budo schools teach many things: strikes, throwing techniques, joint locks, strangles, weapons, defenses, counterattacks, proper breathing, proper walking, techniques for receiving attacks, ukemi. However, the one thing every koryu budo school that I have encountered spends the most time teaching and practicing isn’t any of these techniques. It’s awareness; self-awareness, spatial awareness, temporal awareness, and awareness of others.

I’m purposely limiting this to koryu budo because gendai budo spend most of their practice time drilling competition techniques and sparring. Koryu budo schools spend most of their practice time on mental focus and awareness. If you give it a little consideration, it is clear that the amount of time spent on technical skills is second to what is spent on awareness and mental development.

The bulk of koryu budo training is kata. Pick any koryu budo ryuha and watch some of their kata. A kata might take anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds from the start to finish of one repetition. The technique practice in the kata will generally last from 1 second to around 10 seconds. The rest of the time is spent practicing awareness and focus. This is true whether it is iai or kenjutsu or jojutsu or naginata or jujutsu or anything else.

If we look at the first iaido kata in Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu and Muso Shinden Ryu, the kata starts while the practitioner is standing. She takes the time to sit in seiza carefully and attentively. Once she is sitting, she does not rush into drawing her sword. She stays calm and focused. She begins moving carefully, being fully aware of what she is doing and what her kaso teki (imagined opponent) is supposed to be doing. She begins drawing her sword slowly, completely focused on the situation, and does not rush anything. When everything is right, she finishes her draw and cuts quickly across kaso teki. She pushes forward and raises the sword over her head, then cuts quickly down through kaso teki. She pauses. Focusing and extending awareness, she considers if kaso teki is still a threat. She shifts her blade and pushes it slowly out to her right, then brings it in close to her head and drops it across her front for the chiburi and rises to her feet, all the while remaining focused on kaso teki, just in case the threat has not been completely eliminated. She pushes her right foot back into a relatively deep stance. Maintaining her focus on kaso teki, she brings her left hand to the koi guchi, and the tsuba close to her left hand. She pulls the back of the sword along her left hand until the tip drops into the opening in her hand and then slowly brings the saya over the sword tip and begins sheathing the sword, still staying focused on kaso teki. As she sheathes the sword, she slowly lowers herself to her left knee. Once the sword is sheathed there is a pause while she continues to focus on kaso teki. She rises, still focusing on kaso teki. Only after all of this, does she lift her eyes from kaso teki. Maintaining her mental focus, she expands her awareness to the whole space around her, and then she returns to her starting place with deliberate care and focus.

That’s a lot of time and effort to practice two cuts. The most important lesson isn’t the draw or the cuts. It’s the focus and awareness. Awareness combined with the ability to focus on what is critical are the most important skills in koryu budo. That’s why we spend more time practicing them then everything else combined. Awareness will keep you out of more fights than any technique can win, and focus will prevent distractions that cause losses. 

 

 

Paired koryu kata spend just as much time on awareness and focus as iai kata do. Take the omote kata Monomi from Shinto Muso Ryu. The partners start facing each other separated by around five to seven steps. The kata starts when tachi raises their bokuto to chudan. Jo carefully moves their weapon so that they are holding it by one end with the right hand and the other end is touching the ground on their left side, all while maintaining perfect focus on tachi. Tachi raises the sword to hasso and steps forward with their left foot, keeping their eyes and mind focused on jo. Tachi advances carefully into cutting range without breaking their focus on jo. When they are one step away from being able to cut jo, tachi swiftly raises the bokuto, steps forward and cuts jo’s head.

Jo has spent all of this time focused on tachi, ready to act the moment tachi begins any sort of attack. The instant tachi begins to raise their bokuto, jo moves just enough to the left to be out from under the bokuto’s cut and simultaneously brings their weapon up. As the sword is cutting through the space where jo’s head was, jo steps back with their right foot and brings their weapon down on tachi’s wrist. Tachi and jo are each focused on the other, minutely aware of each other. Tachi pulls their bokuto out from under the jo and steps back into jodan. As tachi is stepping back, jo whips their weapon around and points the end directly at tachi’s eyes, preventing tachi from stepping forward to attack. Then jo steps forward and thrusts the stick into tachi’s solar plexus. Jo carefully raises their weapon to tachi’s eyes, and tachi carefully slides back and lowers their bokuto. Jo and tachi are focused on each other, watching for the least sign that the other will try another attack. Jo moves their hands to the ends of their weapon and places their right hand on their thigh without letting their focus on tachi waver. Jo shifts their hands on the ends of the weapon and tachi deliberately pulls their left foot back to their right foot. Jo brings their left hand to their front and slides their weapon through their right hand to its middle and brings their left foot forward next to their right foot. Tachi begins to carefully retreat back to their starting point, remaining focused on jo the entire time. After tachi has taken their first step back, jo begins carefully backing towards their starting point, never letting their eyes leave tachi or their focus waver.

That’s a lot of time spent focusing on each other to practice one cut, one strike, and one thrust. The action takes about a second, maybe two. The rest of the kata is spent developing focus and awareness. When will tachi attack? Jo doesn’t move until tachi begins their attack. Move too soon and the opening is lost. Move too late and you’re hit in the head. Tachi has to be aware of everything that jo is doing and not doing. Jo has to be just as focused on tachi. If jo’s focus wavers for the smallest instant, tachi can cut them before they can act. After the cut and counter strike there is a brief impasse, with the partners focusing to sense the smallest intention to do something. If tachi tries to do anything other than step back, jo has to sense it and ram their weapon into tachi’s solar plexus. If tachi detects jo’s focus slipping they will instantly launch an attack. 

After the final thrust, jo and tachi are still focused on each other, each without an iota of trust for the other, until they are finally back to their starting points and the kata is over. The ability to maintain that sort of focus without letting it break for the slightest instant takes time to develop. Jo often learns to not trust tachi the hard way. I let my focus waver towards the end of a kata once and tachi hit me, seemingly without warning. As my sense of awareness improved, I began to sense when tachi was going to try to “cut” me and I could move to stop it. When I got better, I could sense tachi’s intention and shut it down by sharpening my focus, without making any movement. As tachi, I’ve learned to watch for breaks in my partner’s focus and attack into them. Jo learns to never trust tachi for an instant.

The principle lesson in koryu budo is mental. It’s the one that we devote most of our practice time to, and it’s the one that is most applicable to every moment of every day. Stay aware and focused. Don’t let your attention be diverted from what is important. 

Our society doesn’t encourage focus or awareness. We are surrounded by distractions. TV, radio, internet, cell phones. Advertising works best when it can distract your mind, interrupt your focus and make you think about what the advertiser wants you to think about. Distracted driving is such a menace that it injures more people than drunk driving does, and the number of deaths attributed to it is climbing fast. We have trouble staying focused in classrooms and in offices. Distractions on worksites are as much of a danger as distracted driving. 

 

Learning to focus and be aware was never easy though, even without our modern distraction machines. If it had been, the people who crafted the koryu budo that we train in would not have devoted so much of their pedagogy to practicing staying focused and being aware. All the other things we do in the dojo feed back into this principle lesson. If your breathing and posture are bad, you can’t focus nearly as well as when you are upright and breathing properly. If you are tense, you will focus on the wrong things, and you’re liable to react to the wrong stimuli. Proper posture and breathing help you to stay relaxed so you remain focused on what is critical. 

The essential mental state in koryu budo is known as heijoshin 平常心 in Japanese. One reading of heijoshin is “normal mind”. When I was first learning this I thought it was strange, because the focused and aware mind that koryu budo teaches is anything but normal in the world I live in. I don’t meet many people outside koryu budo who can combine focus and awareness like the experienced koryu budoka I have known. This kind of mind is special, and requires a great deal of specialized training to achieve. The goal of all this time spent practicing focus and awareness in the dojo is to transform that special state of mind into our “everyday mind”. 

Being focused and aware is more complicated than just paying attention. You have to learn how to mentally acknowledge things beyond you and your training partner without losing your focus on your partner. I’ve seen people who didn’t understand what was happening (or whose awareness was atrocious) walk right up to people who are swinging weapons about. I’ve also trained in a lot of places that weren’t exactly perfect for what I was practicing. Places where the walls were a little too close to be able to move as you want to in the kata, or where there is a pole or other object in an inconvenient spot in the dojo, or outdoors on uneven footing. If you are so focused on your partner that you don’t know what else is going on around you, or where the walls and obstructions are, or what is under foot, you need more awareness practice.

As your understanding of budo grows deeper, you begin to be aware of critical details that you couldn’t have noticed in the past, things like what your partner can and cannot do from a particular stance or position. In that Shinto Muso Ryu kata above, if tachi is so focused on jo that they don’t notice where jo’s weapon is targeting, they are likely to try an attack that will end with them (hopefully) on the ground because down was the best direction to go to avoid the counter-thrust to their eyes. If they are too slow or overcommitted, they may end up taking the stick in their eye. Awareness includes being aware of which options are open, and which are closed. When can your opponent attack? Which potential attacks are viable, and which can be ignored? Where is your opponent likely to attack you? Where is your opponent open to your attack? This kind of awareness takes a lot of time to develop, and you don’t develop it by doing reps. You develop it by taking time to see your opponent and by taking the opponent’s role. Slowly you become more aware of not just your opponent, but of everything around you. 

In koryu budo, we spend more time practicing being focused and aware than everything else we do combined. It’s that important. None of the cool techniques will work if you aren’t aware of a threat or aren’t able to stay focused on a threat. Awareness and focus are critical at every step in training, and they are just as critical, if not moreso, outside the dojo. Anyone who has driven on Detroit freeways knows how important awareness and focus are to getting home in one piece. There are accidents all over the freeways caused by people who aren’t focused on driving and lack awareness of what is going on around them. Detroit commuter traffic is the perfect application for the focus and awareness that all of my koryu budo training is developing.

 

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

Transmitting Koryu - A reaction to Ellis Amdur

 

Kiyama Hiroshi Shihan. Photo copyright Yamada Kumiko.

For some, no. For some yes. I think part of it has to be conveyed through intensity - and honestly, many non-traditional, non-Japanese instructors are reluctant to do this. If one trains in a dojo where there is an emphasis on hinkaku (dignity), formality, etc., certain essential qualities are certainly conveyed, but they could equally be done so in tea ceremony or flower-arranging. I believe that there has to be a sense, in bujutsu training, that your mistakes are unforgivable and unredeemable. I was told that in a least one elite combat unit, if an 'operator' makes one mistake concerning weapons-management, he's out. Period.

One of the problems people have with this is that they imagine, therefore, a dojo of screaming abuse, etc. I've written about this as 'wolf-pack etiquette' - the wolves are relaxed, even playing, but are continuously aware of the alpha(s) and at the slightest muscle twitch, they are 100% committed in attention and action.

That said, this is an elite model - and some people will never bring the intensity, some people may collapse mid-way.

And in this model, there is a lot of self-study required - not only introspection and solo-training, but in rounding out your knowledge any way one can, through books, etc

Ellis Amdur, from a conversation on Facebook

 

Transmitting koryu budo ryuha is a challenge, even in Japan. Koryu don’t fit neatly into the modern world of computer games and polite work cultures. The ferocity and intensity of good koryu practice are not generally welcomed in the workplace or anywhere else. The spirit of practice is very different from modern budo forms that have been created to fit into a sporting style of training and encourage ideas of fairness and openness. Teaching the techniques of a koryu budo tradition is the easy part. It’s transmitting the essential spirit of a koryu budo ryuha that is difficult.

Koryu aren’t nice, they aren’t sporting and they really aren’t fair. Koryu are about self-mastery and survival. Not all koryu are as raw as EllisAmdur’s descriptions of Araki Ryu training, but they are all ferocious in their approach to training and to living. Nice, at best, would get you ground under foot in the worlds of hot and cold conflict where they evolved in the Japan of the 14th through 19th centuries. Even during the enforced peace of the Edo era, daimyo were in conflict with each other, and everything was fought in ways that required absolute self-mastery.  The 47 ronin ended up committing seppuku because their daimyo, Lord Asano, didn’t have the self-mastery to deal with the indignities that Lord Kira is said to have inflicted on him. There were right ways and wrong ways to go about handling a matter of honor between two men of their rank. Losing your temper and drawing your sword in the shogun’s castle was the worst way. Asano’s actions declared him unfit to be a daimyo. 

Hinkaku 品格、 is an essential quality that all traditional Japanese arts seek to instill in their practitioners. The Kodansha Online Dictionary defines it as “grace; dignity; class; style; panache”. These qualities are fundamental to hinkaku, and are developed in all Japanese arts, from shodo to cha no yu to koryu budo (they are supposed to be taught in gendai budo as well, but from the behavior I have seen at judo, and karatedo tournaments, this idea is honored more in the breach than in the keeping). Hinkaku in koryu budo has additional characteristics. It is fierce with a cold intensity that can freeze others with a look. 

My iaido teacher, Kiyama Hiroshi, displayed hinkaku every second I was with him. He even managed to project hinkaku when playing with my then preschool daughters and with his own grandchildren and great-grandchildren. One of the things that sets koryu budo apart from other arts is this ferocious intensity. With Kiyama Sensei, that intensity was something that was always there if you looked for it, but the only time I saw it fully uncovered was during koryu budo practice. His intensity during iai was so great I expected the floor of the dojo to start smoking where his gaze was focused. During kenjutsu training he could freeze me in place with his ferocity. 

 

Kiyama Hiroshi Shihan, Photo copyright Yamada Kumiko.

For all that ferocity and intensity though, he was never tense. He was the embodiment of relaxed power even when tearing me apart in kenjutsu. Relaxed and focused and ferocious all at once. The ferocity and intensity of the hinkaku displayed by koryu budo adepts is what sets the hinkaku they display apart from that shown by masters of shodo, cha no yu and other arts.

That ferocious, relaxed intensity is an essential element of living koryu budo. Developing such intensity, whether in a local dojo or a distant study group, is a challenge. Early on in my training my teachers were often frightening in their intensity.  Over time, as my skills and my own intensity developed, I came to relish those moments when they unleashed it. I had to discover within myself the ability to stand before that level of focused ferocity and not disintegrate under its power. It is this aspect of the spirit of koryu budo, of relaxed, ferocious intensity that I am still trying to figure out how to develop in my students.

Describing that intensity and ferocity can cause people to imagine a world of teachers barking orders, students rushing around with military precision, corporal punishment and casual physical abuse. It’s not. Koryu dojo are the most relaxed places I have ever trained. Gendai budo are much more militaristic than koryu budo. The intensity and ferocity of koryu budo are always available, always within easy mental reach, but they are only pulled out when they are to be used. 

That the koryu dojo is not run with military precision does not mean that people are sloppy and lackadaisical. Just as with any good budo, there is no unnecessary tension. Everyone is aware of what’s going on and paying attention to sensei. Sensei never speaks louder than necessary to be heard. He doesn’t have to. People are paying attention and always ready to react to sensei’s direction, without looking like they are standing at attention.

One of my seniors is the nicest, gentlest person I have ever met. He’s Japanese and he is so gentle that he uses keigo (very polite, honorific language) with everyone he talks with, whether they are the most senior teacher or the most junior student. It is impossible to imagine him saying anything harsh, and I can’t imagine how you would have to misbehave for him to yell at you. However, bow in to train with him, and he is intense, ferocious and wickedly fast. He apologizes profusely if you get hit during training (he’s so precise that if I get hit, I know it was my fault) but he doesn’t pull his attacks. He comes in with intensity whenever he is actively training. In between he’s sweet and gentle.

Teaching the focus and intensity that characterize this kind of practice is one of the great challenges for koryu budo teachers in the 21st century. When my teachers were growing up and were first learning their koryu Japan was a hard place to live. Kiyama Sensei was born in 1925 and grew up when Japan was at war. Much of the education system was devoted to developing toughness and ferocity in the students. The first couple of decades after World War 2 bred their own sort of toughness, with food shortages and everyone’s energy directed towards rebuilding the country. What would be an overwhelmingly brutal practice session now was a walk in the park for people who had lived through WW2 and the post war deprivations. 

I got the tiniest taste of it when I was first training in Japan. Most dojo still weren’t heated yet, so winter training in unheated dojo was the norm. I was training with plenty to eat every day and working a cushy job teaching English with plenty of rest. Food wasn’t rationed and I wasn’t laboring 12+ hours a day to rebuild my community and then going to practice.

We all, Japanese included, now live relatively comfortable lives. How you teach the ferocity and relaxed intensity necessary for good budo is a real question inside Japan and out. In the past teachers could start out expecting certain basic toughness from their students on the first day. Being willing and able to survive those sorts of practices was a given. Life was harsh at best. 

In the 21st century, anyone who expects that sort of toughness on the first day won’t have many students. Toughness that was a given 75 years ago is hard to find. People in the industrialized world don’t need it, so it isn’t automatically developed.  But such toughness is a necessary foundation for the intensity of koryu budo, so how do we develop that in our students in such a way that we don’t drive students away and we don’t weaken the ryuha?

To successfully transmit the spirit of koryu budo, teachers and training must be ferocious and intense. When I started koryu budo, I had several years of Kodokan Judo training, including in those old, unheated gymnasium dojo to develop a foundation upon which my koryu teachers could build. Even that did not prepare me for the particular quality of koryu budo training. Gendai budo, like any modern sport, has intense training that requires strong  focus and dedication. I respect and honor that. However, koryu budo training brings in something additional that isn’t necessary in modern budo and sports.

For me, it comes down to the cliche of life and death. What we are doing in koryu dojo is going as close to the edge as we can, and then having our teachers and our seniors drag us several steps further through training. If I lose focus for an instant in judo, I get thrown or choked or arm locked. The moment passes and training continues; it’s nothing special. If I lose focus in koryu budo training, I’m liable to come in contact with my partner’s weapon. Even if your partner is tremendously skilled, the training is done with such intensity that there is no room for error. If you lose focus, you will get hit. You will know that you died.

Even when everything goes well, the margins in koryu dojo are only a centimeter or two. That’s all the space you have between success and death. Those weapons come in horribly close. You have to be so intent on your partner that having a dangerous weapon swing just past your nose doesn’t elicit the smallest response. For example, there are several kata in Shinto Muso Ryu that involve aiuchi situations. Uchitachi attacks and shijo doesn’t try to evade. She doesn’t try to block. She stops the attack with her own strike to uchitachi’s face. That end of the jo ends up about 5 cm deeper than where uchitachi’s face was. If uchitachi isn’t paying attention, she will get hit between the eyes. Hard. There is no room for error here.

In koryu kata there are many places where the margin for error has been removed. You either do your part perfectly, or you get hit. I’ve been hit a number of times. One of the most memorable involved a dear friend of mine. We were doing kenjutsu and I got careless. I started my evasion too early and gave her the time to adjust her cut. She did a wonderful job of tracking me and connecting her bokuto with the side of my head. I had an impressive swelling and bruising at the site for a couple of weeks. Other times I’ve moved too late or too slowly or left my elbow behind when I moved and gotten whacked. None of this is ever malicious. It’s just that the margins leave no room for errors. 

When I train with any senior student of Shinto Muso Ryu, I know they will be focused on hitting their target, and I’m the target. The cuts and strikes are precise. Move too soon or too far, and I create an opening that my partner will exploit. Move too late or not far enough, I get hit. Training at this level of intensity is always quite thrilling, and if I make a mistake it can be painful.  

As a teacher, I have to develop this intensity in my students. If you come to my dojo, I will try to make some of every practice as intense as I think you can handle. Often this will be more than you think you can handle. If I’m wrong, you probably won’t come back. The difficulty for teachers is gauging what a student can handle correctly. Even with a dedicated student, pushing too far too fast can be disastrous. People can get seriously hurt. Sometimes people decide not to come back, even if the teacher hasn’t made any mistakes.  

That’s okay. Koryu aren’t concerned with having lots of students and members. That’s not what they are about. Koryu budo are about training people to fully embody the spirit of the ryuha. The spirit of any living koryu is ferociously intense. Each ryuha has a unique spirit. Araki Ryu is very different from Shinto Muso Ryu, and both are far different from Yagyu Shinkage Ryu. Training in any of them is a fiercely intense experience. The individual differences are clear when you watch experienced practitioners. 

That intensity is always present at a low boil. There is laughter and joking, but always respect for the lessons we are learning, the weapons we are using and the people we are training with. Ellis’ metaphor of the wolf pack is apt one. If Sensei motions for attention, everyone is immediately silent, regardless of what sort of shenanigans were going on at the moment. There is a richness to this intense focus and practice that I don’t experience in the normal world outside the koryu budo dojo.

Koryu are not for everyone. That’s not an elitist or exclusivist statement. Lots of people bow into the dojo. Very few stick around. The dropout rate in gendai budo is high, but it’s even higher in koryu budo. Most people aren’t interested in the level of intensity required to fully transmit koryu budo; however, change the intensity level , and you won’t be doing koryu budo. The intensity is an essential part of the training.

 

Ki Ken Tai Ichi

 

 

 

気剣体一致

Ki ken tai ichi. A student recently asked me about the relationship of ki ken tai ichi to seitei iai and jo. It’s a fundamental concept in Japanese budo but it’s not difficult to be confused by it. It breaks down as:

• Ki 気: Yes, that ki. The one that folks argue about endlessly. In this case it is will, intent and energy.

• Ken 剣: This ken is read tsurugi when it stands alone. It’s the same ken found in “kendo”, and it traditionally refers to a straight, double-edged sword common in Japan from about 450 to 950 c.e. that was superseded by the curved tachi. In this usage it represents any weapon you might use. 

• Tai 体: This character is read karada when it stands alone, and it means body.

• Ichi 一致: Ichi is the difficult bit in this little 5 character phrase. It means “to agree, to conform, to be congruent, to be in concert, to be united, to cooperate, to be in accord”.

Intent, sword and body as one. Ki ken tai ichi.

Will, sword and body in accord. Ki ken tai ichi.

Intent, sword and body in agreement. Ki ken tai ichi.

Because the English and Japanese words only overlap as very poor Venn diagrams, there are  numerous translations. None of them are 100% right, but each captures some of the spirit of the Japanese. There is no fragmentation;here can be no divisions. Your kokoro (heart/mind), your body and your weapon must be combined into a single unit. 

When you move, do you do it with hesitation or doubt? Is the sword a tool in your hand, or is it an extension of your body? Can you feel what is going on in your partner’s body when you cross swords? Does your body move as a coordinated whole? Does your will and intent express itself instantly in your body and the sword?

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My student is quite familiar with ki ken tai ichi from his deep experience with koryu. However the Kendo Federation has ki ken tai ichi broken down almost to a science. There are particular markers to look for when someone does seitei iai or jo that indicate whether or not the will, the body and the sword are in accord. 

Does the whole unit reach the conclusion of the movement together without any separation? This is the central clue. Teaching this concept to students starts with the mechanics of how to swing the sword. From there teachers have to backward engineer the timing from the point where mind, body and sword all arrive at the completion of the movement together and become as one.

Moving backwards, the student has to consider that the hands are faster than the body, but for a sword cut the hands and sword have further to travel than the body. If the body and the hands begin their movement together, the body will finish its movement and come to rest followed by the sword. If the body and the sword are united, the full power of the body will be transmitted through the sword. If they are not united then the sword has only the power of the hands when it makes contact. For the full power of the body to be transmitted through the sword, the sword tip has to begin moving first and the body begins moving next so they will complete their action together, united in power and timing. 

Breaking down the timing of a sword cut into fine segments makes it a little easier to explain and teach the outer aspects of ki ken tai ichi. A little. Students can start work on training their hands and body to move in accordance with the timing of the sword to transmit the maximum power through the blade. However, just because a student has mastered the timing of their movements doesn’t mean they’ve achieved ki ken tai ichi. This is much harder than simply copying the timing. 

One thing you may have noticed that is missing in the above description is the intent, the will, the ki. Even after you train yourself to move hands first, then body when cutting,, you still haven’t achieved ki ken tai ichi. You’ve got the sword and the body, but the intent, the heart/mind is much more difficult. This is a lot more like achieving mushin. You can’t be thinking about anything else if you want to achieve ki ken tai ichi. Your mind has to be quiet and still so that your intent comes naturally in the situation and your body moves as the intention occurs in the heart/mind, so there is no separation such as thinking and acting. Intention and action become one as body and sword are one.

Combining intention and action into one is much more difficult than bringing body and sword into accord. After you’ve got your body and weapon acting as one, it takes a great deal of additional, focused practice to unite the mind with the body. This is an ongoing effort. Any little thing can disrupt the unity of will, sword and body. A bad day at work. A fight with a friend. Worry over someone’s health. All of these and an endless list of other things can knock your mind out of sync with your body. Mental stillness is difficult to achieve, and that much more difficult to maintain.

気検体一致 Ki ken tai ichi. Intent, sword and body in accord. First practice until the sword is an extension of your body. Then teach your body to move so the power of body and sword are united at the instant of contact and they finish moving together at the bottom of the cut. At that point  you have the outer form. Now learn to still your mind so that nothing separates intention and action. When intent, body and sword are united, that’s ki ken tai ichi.

 

Special thanks to Deborah Klens-Bigman for editing.

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.