Last night I was working with one of my budo students. I like this guy; he's talented and is one of the few people who almost never misses a practice. However, like a lot of people, he puts his own interests first.
Why is this a problem? In most cases, it isn't, especially in America. We value individualism, laud the person who rises through her own initiative. For my part, when I was a teenager, my cousin, who was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, could not understand my highly individualistic sense of style paired with a socializtic sense of common good. "You seem to value your personal freedom so much," he told me, "how can you believe that government should be expanded for the common good?" I'll never understand why I was friends with my cousin.
Anyway, as some writers familiar with koryu (old style) budo traditions have pointed out, the difference between the modern stuff and the traditional stuff is that in modern budo (think karate or judo), the practitioner can adapt the art to himself. In koryu budo, the practitioner adapts herself to the art instead. I have mentioned this idea to a number of people, both in and out of budo, and not many of them get it.
As an analogy, let's consider classical ballet. The practitioner spends years practicing, with a sense of commitment that for the best dancers is all-consuming. The discipline is exacting. But if all ballerinas (including the corps) are moving like automatons, there is no art there. They might just as well be automatons. The thrill of ballet comes from seeing a group of highly trained dancers transcend the technique into dance. Some people can never do it. Some people can do it only briefly (especially in ballet, which by its demanding nature belongs to younger people). The enjoyment of watching a corps de ballet is that individuals have adapted themselves to the technique, in spite of their differences. It's uncanny when it works well. And it's sorta cool.
Or take art. My husband and I have this discussion all the time. He is a painter who does work that could be described, I suppose, as abstract with twists of magical realism. (I never try to describe his work except to say that it's his.) But in order to get to that point, he studied life drawing and art history; he studied paint - from its chemical composition to how to manipulate its effects on canvas. If he did not have that background, he could not produce his work in the way he does.
Same with koryu budo. We study technique, seeking to perfect it, even if perfection is an abstract concept that will never be obtained. We adapt ourselves to it; it reshapes our bodies and (hopefully - ideally) our minds. We don't change the form. We learn the form. And maybe, eventually, we can surpass it, keeping the form intact while expressing ourselves through it.
That's why I wish my student's attitude was different. He wants everything to be his own way. In the rest of his life, he gets that he will have to make his own way, and in our society, he has the potential to do just that. Only in this practice, his indiviualism will make the path more difficult to discern. I worry that he will get bored, but in the end, koryu budo will not be adapted. It is what it is; and we either adapt to it or move on.
