Every now and then I hear stories of some 10th dan teacher of such-and-such martial art who apparently doesn't know what s/he's talking about. Or about a high-ranked teacher or self-appointed "shihan" who is teaching iai but cannot sit in seiza, etc. And it makes me wonder about ranking systems generally, and what they are for (and what they are not for).
A very long time ago, I was involved in a very traditional iaijutsu style. Among the students was an older American who had some movement issues. I was at the honbu dojo for a seminar and ranking exam to be administered by the fuku-soke of the style, who had come for his annual visit from Japan. At one point, the American shihan noted to me (apropos of nothing in particular, except that in those good ole buddy-buddy days we used to share a lot of teaching lore) that the movement-challenged student would be allowed to test during this round, but that the fuku-soke had advised him to tell the student that he would not be allowed to test for any higher rank - ever. I thought this was a little harsh, but I was intrigued by the reasoning: "Fuku-soke feels that in order to attain higher rank than sandan, one needs to be able to do all of the techniques, and be able to teach them to others." Someone who had trouble sitting in seiza, or tatehiza, for example, or who struggled to get up and down from the floor, would be excluded from higher ranks because he would not be able to pass on the techniques of the style to others. The object was not exactly to encourage the student to quit (though he could make his own decision about that) but to advise him that, if higher rank was in his plans for this art form, he should instead pick something less physically challenging to train in. And the corollary seemed to be that the American shihan would be wasting his time trying to teach him techniques he would not be able to master.
By my next visit, the senior gentleman was no longer practicing the art form. I never asked, but I always wondered what that conversation was like. Did the American shihan (not known for tact, by the way), simply tell the student he was not eligible for higher rank, due to his physical limitations, while offering to still train him to the best of his ability, or did he more strongly suggest he not train any longer, period?
I don't know the rest of the story, but it does raise some interesting issues. The sympathetic part of me feels that the American shihan should not have discouraged the student, even as he had to deliver what many competitive-type Americans would consider bad news. After all, if he really loved the style, why not keep going, even if progress would be limited? On the other hand, I have been to seminars where the senior American teacher could not do all of the techniques of the ryuha commensurate with his rank. In one or two cases, it could have been said that the senior on the floor was INcompetent, relying on his students to illustrate his points. In one case, the instructor was muddling through because his students were not even well-taught enough themselves to know (I didn't go to another seminar there - live and learn).
Occasionally, one of these dinosaur-types raises his head on one forum or another, and other members of the American budo community tend to be somewhat derisive, let's say. They have a point, as do organizations, such as the Kokusai Budoin, who insist that higher-ranked members must be able to teach all the techniques of the style wherein they have senior rank (the American shihan that I knew was just making that point abundantly clearly). In Japan, I know that, every now and then, a senior person will actually retire in favor of someone younger and more technically able to teach, but not always. Of the older Japanese teachers that I know, they are, even in their 80s, still able to kick butt, even if they do it more slowly; and they have a legion of senior students and a couple of menkyo kaiden who can fill in any gaps. Their students speak for them; additionally, when it comes to the wisdom behind a particular technique or kata, no one can match these shihan. Even the menkyo-tachi still ask questions seeking better insight into the techniques. I would never say these older gentlemen are incompetent. There is more to techniques than just technique.
This leaves aside the whole question of honorary rank. Honorary rankings are just that - honorary. I look at this as being somewhat similar (though I think more common) to honorary Ph.D's for commencement speakers. No one expects Julia Roberts or Barbara Bush to begin teaching seminars the following semester - their degrees are simply honors and not indicators of ability. Why then do Americans (I am limiting the discussion to my experience) in budo tout their honorary dan rankings as measures of competence? I am not just talking about the occasional honorary rankings from a Japanese shihan, but the ones conferred by organizations where one gets a certificate of rank by paying a membership fee. Is caveat emptor all we have, then?
Unlike Japan, a small country with a fairly close koryu budo culture where many people know of each other even if they don't know each other personally, American budo is like the Wild West (as we are in some other ways, still). In this case, caveat emptor is indeed all we have. I'd like to be able to say I have some sort of magic formula for being able to tell the difference, but I can't. But I can say that the proof is in the doing. Can the instructor answer questions? Can he show the techniques, or does he rely on someone else? Do his senior students seem tentative or unsure, or competent and knowledgeable? Is there a senior student who clearly seems to be in charge, even when the instructor is present?
And then there's this - some years ago, I visited a seminar where the senior instructor was actually sitting off the floor, apparently napping while activity was taking place all around him. Somehow I didn't think this one was worthwhile, so I didn't sign up.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Make some noise
I don't write about my day job for a host of very good reasons. Nevertheless, I can say that this was a tough week - between demanding bosses and the occasional whiney co-worker, by the time Thursday night rolled around, I was real tired of it all.
During jodo class, we began with the first set of kata, and worked from the familiar to the strange - er - less familiar. I should point out that our jodo class is a workshop - we are all beginners, pretty much, and we practice together because we have to - the only way to learn jodo is to learn it together.
I have been struggling with one kata in particular that requires a big hikiotoshi strike to the opponent's bokuto at just the right moment. I learned this kata years ago; but have rarely, if ever, gotten this strike to work correctly. Even though we practice hikiotoshi uchi every week, my strike at this point of the kata, whether because of distance, timing, attitude, opponent's position, my position or some combination of all these, is frequently weak and barely effective.
But not last night! As I went through this kata with my training partner (a much bigger person than me) I let out a sharp kiai and whacked his bokuto with a surprisingly focused strike. Ha. Just like that. I saw his hands curl back to his right, just like they were supposed to. And they curled back that way because they had to, not because the kata called for it. Shazam, I thought. Could I do it again? Yes, I could! I did not feel as though I had put more effort into the strike at all - it just seemed to work better. A bad day, a kiai, and a focused strike.
Recently an article in the NY Times outlined an experiment designed to see if creating music would improve people's workout results. I found this amusing, considering that there are work songs from virtually every culture that have been around for centuries, at least. But this is science. The researchers rigged up some workout machines to generate music while subjects used them. The control group just listened to the same music playing in the background as the kind of soundtrack often heard at the gym.
When they analyzed the results, they found that the subjects who had used the music-generating machines not only had a better workout, they had a more efficient one - they used less oxygen to produce similar results. They also reported less fatigue, even though their workout levels were as good or better than their baselines, done on the same machines without being able to generate sounds.
I thought about this article on the way home last night and wondered if my kiai, in focusing my strike, had made it better. Not just the expulsion of breath, but the creation of the sound. Many years ago, I remember (vaguely) a meditation teacher claiming that generating certain sounds was supposed to create certain states of mind (though, if I am recalling correctly, one didn't need to sing - he said rich people would hire musicians to play certain notes at the right time - it just figures). The gym experiment did not include singing as a music-making activity, though it seems to be the logical next step.
Maybe people in the fields singing work songs, or soldiers singing as they march, are not just passing the time, or coordinating their rhythm with others doing similar work - maybe singing makes their work more efficient - that is, they can accomplish more with less effort. In the same way, maybe the sound made in kiai has more to do with focus than just vocalizing an exhalation of breath.
Only one thing to do - test the theory again next week.
During jodo class, we began with the first set of kata, and worked from the familiar to the strange - er - less familiar. I should point out that our jodo class is a workshop - we are all beginners, pretty much, and we practice together because we have to - the only way to learn jodo is to learn it together.
I have been struggling with one kata in particular that requires a big hikiotoshi strike to the opponent's bokuto at just the right moment. I learned this kata years ago; but have rarely, if ever, gotten this strike to work correctly. Even though we practice hikiotoshi uchi every week, my strike at this point of the kata, whether because of distance, timing, attitude, opponent's position, my position or some combination of all these, is frequently weak and barely effective.
But not last night! As I went through this kata with my training partner (a much bigger person than me) I let out a sharp kiai and whacked his bokuto with a surprisingly focused strike. Ha. Just like that. I saw his hands curl back to his right, just like they were supposed to. And they curled back that way because they had to, not because the kata called for it. Shazam, I thought. Could I do it again? Yes, I could! I did not feel as though I had put more effort into the strike at all - it just seemed to work better. A bad day, a kiai, and a focused strike.
Recently an article in the NY Times outlined an experiment designed to see if creating music would improve people's workout results. I found this amusing, considering that there are work songs from virtually every culture that have been around for centuries, at least. But this is science. The researchers rigged up some workout machines to generate music while subjects used them. The control group just listened to the same music playing in the background as the kind of soundtrack often heard at the gym.
When they analyzed the results, they found that the subjects who had used the music-generating machines not only had a better workout, they had a more efficient one - they used less oxygen to produce similar results. They also reported less fatigue, even though their workout levels were as good or better than their baselines, done on the same machines without being able to generate sounds.
I thought about this article on the way home last night and wondered if my kiai, in focusing my strike, had made it better. Not just the expulsion of breath, but the creation of the sound. Many years ago, I remember (vaguely) a meditation teacher claiming that generating certain sounds was supposed to create certain states of mind (though, if I am recalling correctly, one didn't need to sing - he said rich people would hire musicians to play certain notes at the right time - it just figures). The gym experiment did not include singing as a music-making activity, though it seems to be the logical next step.
Maybe people in the fields singing work songs, or soldiers singing as they march, are not just passing the time, or coordinating their rhythm with others doing similar work - maybe singing makes their work more efficient - that is, they can accomplish more with less effort. In the same way, maybe the sound made in kiai has more to do with focus than just vocalizing an exhalation of breath.
Only one thing to do - test the theory again next week.
Monday, November 4, 2013
In Memory of Shibata Kanjuro XX
Shibata Kanjuro XX died a couple of weeks ago at his home in Boulder, Colorado. The cause was lung trouble, but he was quite old, I am fairly sure, though I am not sure exactly how old he was.
Shibata Sensei taught a branch style of Heki Ryu Bishu Chikurin ha kyudo, and he was a traditional bow-maker (his "XX" title actually related to his bow-making). He taught kyudo in the US and in Europe, chiefly to people who were also affiliated with a sect of Tibetan Buddhism that was established in the US by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
I met Shibata Sensei in the mid-90's. One of my iai sempai had taken up kyudo with him, and waxed on about it endlessly in front of our iai teacher (my teacher was eventually rather put out at the constant enthusiasm, attempting to end the conversation by saying, a number of times "Kyudo - that's for girls." It wasn't that sensei was particularly sexist; it was that no traditional teacher likes endlessly hearing about how wonderful someone else's practice is.) Some time after that, this same sempai arranged for a "power lunch" featuring my teacher, Mr. Shibata, and a taiji/meditation teacher we both knew. To be honest, I don't remember much about what happened at the lunch (this was probably around 1996). I just remember that I thought, for a kyudo teacher, Shibata sensei seemed kind of frail. The taiji teacher noticed the same thing; and it turned out that Shibata sensei had esophageal cancer. I don't know if he knew it at the time, or not, but he had successful surgery for it the following year.
At that time, I was writing pretty regularly for the Journal of Asian Martial Arts, a quarterly that, for a while at least, was doing the seemingly impossible by casting an academic lens on various martial art practices. I wrote book reviews and sometimes contributed a more substantial article. My sempai got it into his head that I should interview Shibata sensei for the journal. The journal editor was all for it. However, things stayed that way for some time, as some of Shibata sensei's students were unsure whether it was a good idea or not. Eventually, after some months of negotiating, it was decided that I should take a "first shot" workshop in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Labor Day weekend in 1998. In the context of that practice, my rota (service, in the Buddhist sense) would be to assist sensei one afternoon, and therefore I would have a chance to ask him some questions.
"First shot" was an intensive practice of the "Seven Coordinations," a kihon-based simple setting of the body, nocking the arrow, and loosing the shot at a close-in target. The practice would take all weekend, beginning Friday, culminating in a completed shot by Sunday afternoon or so, followed by Monday morning of more practice before returning to NYC.
The resulting article, which was published in early 2001, was a combination of a description of my first shot experience, a *very* brief history of kyudo and an overview of how it was practiced in the US; and the interview itself. It seemed only logical to include the other information; while there were a few books on kyudo practice published in English at the time, there had never been a kyudo article published in JAMA. Outlining my personal experience seemed like a natural way to draw readers in to the story - I could honestly assume that this was their initiation to kyudo in the same way the actual first shot experience was for me.
After I heard about sensei's death, I dug up my article. I had not read it really since it was published. I noticed a few mistakes, from odd turns of phrase (did I really write that?) to a couple of inaccuracies, but nothing really major. I was fortunate to have the article reviewed before publication by Robert Dohrenwend, who ripped it apart and made me put it back together again, better.
The interview itself is fairly brief - I had forgotten how brief. Sensei was not given to long explanations. It was not just that his English was limited (it was, but the interview was conducted in Japanese) - it was his way. Sensei said (1) the purpose of practicing kyudo was to make your mind clear; (2) modern kyudo placed too much emphasis on competition and not enough on disciplining the mind; and, maybe most importantly to him (3) the purpose of kyudo was to cut away the ego. "My heart is the target," Shibata sensei said. I was so impressed by that thought, I made it the title of the article.
I practiced kyudo, off and on, for more than a year afterward. There were a number of reasons why I stopped; time being one of the important considerations. When I hear about budoka who have dan rankings in multiple disciplines, my first thought is always "how do they have the time?" Koryu budo takes a great deal of time in practice to even begin to do well. Kyudo in particular, with its exacting form, called for a commitment that was more than I could handle, I knew. I also knew my sempai's circumstances made it easier for him to pursue practice than me. One of the other reasons was political. There were two kyudo camps, essentially, and both camps made legitimate claims regarding the other's practice. I waded into that as far as I dared as a researcher; then stopped. One of my colleagues is fond of saying that politics is endemic to humanity - that wherever you find a group of people, you will find divisions based on opinion. She's probably right, but I never cared for it. I only cared about practice, and though I did not know Shibata sensei all that well, the one impression I always got from him was that practicing was the most important thing. Keep you mind clear. Cut to the heart.
Many things have happened since that time. My iai teacher died in 2004. My affiliations and practice changed (and then changed again!). Some of the kyudoka's affiliations changed as well. JAMA fell victim to the rising costs of paper publishing, like a lot of other journals, and there has been virtually nothing to take its place. The world has gone digital - Shibata sensei's warning that mechanical devices cloud the mind has become true beyond his wildest imagination, I am sure. Even in my practice as a budoka, I often find myself preoccupied with practical concerns, or technical points, rather than the most important point - employing my practice to make my mind clear.
It doesn't matter what the practice is. As sensei said, "The heart is the same."
Shibata Sensei taught a branch style of Heki Ryu Bishu Chikurin ha kyudo, and he was a traditional bow-maker (his "XX" title actually related to his bow-making). He taught kyudo in the US and in Europe, chiefly to people who were also affiliated with a sect of Tibetan Buddhism that was established in the US by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
I met Shibata Sensei in the mid-90's. One of my iai sempai had taken up kyudo with him, and waxed on about it endlessly in front of our iai teacher (my teacher was eventually rather put out at the constant enthusiasm, attempting to end the conversation by saying, a number of times "Kyudo - that's for girls." It wasn't that sensei was particularly sexist; it was that no traditional teacher likes endlessly hearing about how wonderful someone else's practice is.) Some time after that, this same sempai arranged for a "power lunch" featuring my teacher, Mr. Shibata, and a taiji/meditation teacher we both knew. To be honest, I don't remember much about what happened at the lunch (this was probably around 1996). I just remember that I thought, for a kyudo teacher, Shibata sensei seemed kind of frail. The taiji teacher noticed the same thing; and it turned out that Shibata sensei had esophageal cancer. I don't know if he knew it at the time, or not, but he had successful surgery for it the following year.
At that time, I was writing pretty regularly for the Journal of Asian Martial Arts, a quarterly that, for a while at least, was doing the seemingly impossible by casting an academic lens on various martial art practices. I wrote book reviews and sometimes contributed a more substantial article. My sempai got it into his head that I should interview Shibata sensei for the journal. The journal editor was all for it. However, things stayed that way for some time, as some of Shibata sensei's students were unsure whether it was a good idea or not. Eventually, after some months of negotiating, it was decided that I should take a "first shot" workshop in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Labor Day weekend in 1998. In the context of that practice, my rota (service, in the Buddhist sense) would be to assist sensei one afternoon, and therefore I would have a chance to ask him some questions.
"First shot" was an intensive practice of the "Seven Coordinations," a kihon-based simple setting of the body, nocking the arrow, and loosing the shot at a close-in target. The practice would take all weekend, beginning Friday, culminating in a completed shot by Sunday afternoon or so, followed by Monday morning of more practice before returning to NYC.
The resulting article, which was published in early 2001, was a combination of a description of my first shot experience, a *very* brief history of kyudo and an overview of how it was practiced in the US; and the interview itself. It seemed only logical to include the other information; while there were a few books on kyudo practice published in English at the time, there had never been a kyudo article published in JAMA. Outlining my personal experience seemed like a natural way to draw readers in to the story - I could honestly assume that this was their initiation to kyudo in the same way the actual first shot experience was for me.
After I heard about sensei's death, I dug up my article. I had not read it really since it was published. I noticed a few mistakes, from odd turns of phrase (did I really write that?) to a couple of inaccuracies, but nothing really major. I was fortunate to have the article reviewed before publication by Robert Dohrenwend, who ripped it apart and made me put it back together again, better.
The interview itself is fairly brief - I had forgotten how brief. Sensei was not given to long explanations. It was not just that his English was limited (it was, but the interview was conducted in Japanese) - it was his way. Sensei said (1) the purpose of practicing kyudo was to make your mind clear; (2) modern kyudo placed too much emphasis on competition and not enough on disciplining the mind; and, maybe most importantly to him (3) the purpose of kyudo was to cut away the ego. "My heart is the target," Shibata sensei said. I was so impressed by that thought, I made it the title of the article.
I practiced kyudo, off and on, for more than a year afterward. There were a number of reasons why I stopped; time being one of the important considerations. When I hear about budoka who have dan rankings in multiple disciplines, my first thought is always "how do they have the time?" Koryu budo takes a great deal of time in practice to even begin to do well. Kyudo in particular, with its exacting form, called for a commitment that was more than I could handle, I knew. I also knew my sempai's circumstances made it easier for him to pursue practice than me. One of the other reasons was political. There were two kyudo camps, essentially, and both camps made legitimate claims regarding the other's practice. I waded into that as far as I dared as a researcher; then stopped. One of my colleagues is fond of saying that politics is endemic to humanity - that wherever you find a group of people, you will find divisions based on opinion. She's probably right, but I never cared for it. I only cared about practice, and though I did not know Shibata sensei all that well, the one impression I always got from him was that practicing was the most important thing. Keep you mind clear. Cut to the heart.
Many things have happened since that time. My iai teacher died in 2004. My affiliations and practice changed (and then changed again!). Some of the kyudoka's affiliations changed as well. JAMA fell victim to the rising costs of paper publishing, like a lot of other journals, and there has been virtually nothing to take its place. The world has gone digital - Shibata sensei's warning that mechanical devices cloud the mind has become true beyond his wildest imagination, I am sure. Even in my practice as a budoka, I often find myself preoccupied with practical concerns, or technical points, rather than the most important point - employing my practice to make my mind clear.
It doesn't matter what the practice is. As sensei said, "The heart is the same."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)