I was practicing a kata wherein the shidachi begins in a squatting position (both knees up) at an American sempai's dojo.
"Women put one knee down," he admonished me.
"I'm a hermaphrodite," I replied.
I tell other people this story and get knowing snorts in response. They know me, so it's funny. They also know the American sempai, who's a great guy, but is also something of a stuffed shirt (stuffed gi?), so that also contributes to the laughter. But the story also brings up, in a small way, the subject of gender in budo, and how it is treated, both here and in the Old Country. This is not my favorite subject. I circle back to it from time to time, because I have to - gender issues in practically anything is the gift that keeps on giving, whether I like it or not.
To return to my story, I explained to my sempai that I was well aware of the one-knee-down kamae for women (which, by the way, also exists as an option for anyone with knee problems, male or female), but I teach men. I have a little trouble maintaining the two-knees-up position because I have a lot of tightness in various leg muscles, so I *want* to practice it, the better to teach it to my male students. He was fairly satisfied with this explanation, or maybe he wisely did not want to make an issue of it, and practice continued, with me being a "guy" the whole way.
The same difference in kamae occurs in kendo sonkyo, but, when I began practicing, being the only female in my group, I learned the same sonkyo as everyone else. Even my Japanese instructor did not bother to explain it; it took a different Japanese instructor to tell me after the first one went back to Japan. But he didn't insist. My American sempai, on the other hand, did.
I practice in Japan with a large group of people. The group is probably about 1/3 female, with many senior practitioners represented. Most of the women take the one-knee-down kamae, but no one seems to care whether I do it or not. Some (male) sempai have taken care to point out this kamae to me when I am first learning a kata where it comes up, but they don't insist either. For my part, I try the kata that way, then I try it the other way. For me, as I said, it's a pedagogical issue. I also can't help but notice that personally, it seems more difficult to rise from a one-knee-down position rather than a simple squatting one. One other female foreigner who holds a menkyo in the style *never* puts her knee down. No one at the Japanese okeiko seems to care one way or the other.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I was practicing in the US with a large group. At first, the instructors (all Americans) pointed out the difference in kamae, but said that we should simply be aware that the difference existed, and the women present could use their own judgment. The second day, they flatly stated that two knees up for women was considered "immodest." Of the 6-8 women present in a sea of men, most of them complied, while I did not.
I don't do this to cause trouble. I realize there are customs everywhere. If I were to be at a dojo in Japan with an old-fashioned teacher who insisted, of course I would comply with his wishes. But I practice in Japan with a liberal-hearted teacher who seems to feel that it's more important that we practice, rather than to insist on gendered kamae. On the days when I have a stiff knee, it's knee down. Other days, both knees up. I have an older male student with knee trouble who does the same thing.
I find this generally to be a problem from time to time with Japanese art forms that make the jump across the pond to the US. There's a lot of mythmaking that focuses on minutiae rather than on the substance of practice. Sometimes it really expands - one of my original sempai once told me that, in Japan, it was considered "not proper" for women to learn Japanese sword. Our teacher, who was Japanese, had welcomed me warmly in the dojo, so I decided my sempai was, to put it simply, full of it. And since then, of course, I have met many Japanese women who hold dan rankings in swordsmanship. Sort of like Bruce Lee's famous finger-pointing-at-the-moon line, if I had listened to my old sempai long ago, I would have missed out on a lot of heavenly glory...
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Inflexibility, Part 2
It had been a very long and pleasant evening. We had a nice sushi dinner, sipped beer and sake', and now, here we were, at a little place on the same street as the hotel, having a last round (or two, or three). The teacher's eyes were somewhat unfocused, though his hand was steady as he held his glass. He complimented the progress our fledgling group had made at learning his style. Then he said:
"D (his wife) and I are looking forward to the day when you make this style your whole practice."
Say what?
I wanted to chalk up what he said to how much we had been drinking, but inside me, I knew better. He meant, of course, that we should give up our entire current curriculum, as taught by my original teacher, and focus exclusively on the style he practiced. The problem was not the style - a documentable form that reliably dated back to the end of the 16th century. We loved it. The problem (outside of the rather major point of being a real diss to my teacher's memory - he being only recently deceased) was that the idea of a mono-practice was entirely outside of my training experience.
To be sure, there is precedent for affiliating with a single teacher, and many people still only affiliate with one. Back when, the techniques taught in the training hall were kept fairly secret in order to (hopefully) have an advantage over possible opponents when that actually meant something, as well as enforcing Confucian ideas of loyalty. It was also a time when training halls taught multiple types of personal combat - horsemanship, grappling, swordsmanship, spear, glaive, etc., etc. A samurai's service to a particular house was bound to that house, and training was a part of it. People who wanted to practice with another teacher went "on the road," seeking new types of training, and held loyalty to no one. The down side, of course, was having to fend for themselves, without real employment.
But that was a different time. Nowadays, it's not unusual to find practitioners (including teachers) of multiple arts, both here and in Japan. Of course, discretion is called for - it's bad form to arbitrarily blow off an obligation to one teacher in favor of another (and, if it is truly a problem, then a choice has to be made between them). And, in spite of international membership associations, dojo-hopping in Japan is frowned upon, and not well-tolerated here either. Some teachers are jealous, and some are extraordinarily generous - it's up to the student to figure out whom to study with.
In my own training, we did whatever my teacher or sempai felt like during a given night, whether sword, jodo, empty hand, or the latest techniques someone may have picked up at some seminar the week before. One time we hosted a visiting naginata teacher on her way home from a seminar in Canada (which was really cool). To be honest, we did not always retain the seminar stuff, but it didn't matter. We learned to adapt all the time. No one complained. If we didn't like it, we could always go elsewhere, except, at the time, there wasn't really any other decent place to go. If we were truly interested in something not taught at our dojo, the "unwritten rule" was that it was courteous to have shodan rank at least before branching out. When I told my teacher about my interest in the above-mentioned particular style, he said, "That's okay. Once you know the principle, the technique doesn't matter." He knew me well enough to know that I was not going to abandon his dojo. In fact, it was this generous sensibility that allowed us to host this teacher (among others) to give a seminar with us in the first place.
So, I was rather shocked at the drunken teacher's assertion (I can't really call it a request, because it wasn't one). He was the highest-ranking practitioner of this style in the US, so while I figured he was serious, I decided not to bring it up again anyway. I was hoping that he would be okay with our budo academy approach once he got to know us better.
However, as our training progressed, I began to chafe under some of the rules imposed on students. It was not the monthly per-student charge sent to the American honbu. It was not even the silly uniform gi we had to wear, with its patches sewn on precisely in the same place, or the fact that only students at certain levels could wear certain colors (none of this stuff was done in the Japanese honbu, by the way). It wasn't the regular video-taping of classes sent in for the American teacher's review, which was picky, but helpful. The problem was that some rules were written to control our little group alone, being, as we were, at some distance from the American honbu. Monthly reports became weekly reports. After years of successfully teaching according to my own experience, I was given a standard curriculum and told I had no choice but to follow it.
Eventually, I got tired of adapting to their increasing inflexibility, as did my students. A mild, polite protest produced a threat of expulsion unless we complied with everything. We did not comply; and, while we were disappointed, we were also relieved.
So, I thought this was an anomaly, until, several years later, I was informed by a teacher from Japan, with whom I had had a very long association, of the same thing - that in order to progress further in his style, I would have to exclusively devote myself to it. What struck me odd about this request was that I knew this teacher had other students in other locations who had added his practice to their existing curriculum, with his approval. Moreover, he himself practiced and taught other budo forms. Interestingly, my old group did throw out our teacher's original curriculum in the new guy's favor. Perhaps he thought I would follow suit. I did not. I politely, but firmly responded that my teacher's generosity was the reason why I was able to train with him in the first place, and I had no intention of abandoning that legacy.
Previously, I wrote about inflexible students unable to adapt to new circumstances or techniques. I constantly meet people whose inflexibility limits their options in life and causes them anxiety. And I try like hell not to be one of them. A colleague, who studies calligraphy, gave me a sample of his work, which reads, "ju nan shin" - flexible mind. Good advice for both students and teachers alike.
"D (his wife) and I are looking forward to the day when you make this style your whole practice."
Say what?
I wanted to chalk up what he said to how much we had been drinking, but inside me, I knew better. He meant, of course, that we should give up our entire current curriculum, as taught by my original teacher, and focus exclusively on the style he practiced. The problem was not the style - a documentable form that reliably dated back to the end of the 16th century. We loved it. The problem (outside of the rather major point of being a real diss to my teacher's memory - he being only recently deceased) was that the idea of a mono-practice was entirely outside of my training experience.
To be sure, there is precedent for affiliating with a single teacher, and many people still only affiliate with one. Back when, the techniques taught in the training hall were kept fairly secret in order to (hopefully) have an advantage over possible opponents when that actually meant something, as well as enforcing Confucian ideas of loyalty. It was also a time when training halls taught multiple types of personal combat - horsemanship, grappling, swordsmanship, spear, glaive, etc., etc. A samurai's service to a particular house was bound to that house, and training was a part of it. People who wanted to practice with another teacher went "on the road," seeking new types of training, and held loyalty to no one. The down side, of course, was having to fend for themselves, without real employment.
But that was a different time. Nowadays, it's not unusual to find practitioners (including teachers) of multiple arts, both here and in Japan. Of course, discretion is called for - it's bad form to arbitrarily blow off an obligation to one teacher in favor of another (and, if it is truly a problem, then a choice has to be made between them). And, in spite of international membership associations, dojo-hopping in Japan is frowned upon, and not well-tolerated here either. Some teachers are jealous, and some are extraordinarily generous - it's up to the student to figure out whom to study with.
In my own training, we did whatever my teacher or sempai felt like during a given night, whether sword, jodo, empty hand, or the latest techniques someone may have picked up at some seminar the week before. One time we hosted a visiting naginata teacher on her way home from a seminar in Canada (which was really cool). To be honest, we did not always retain the seminar stuff, but it didn't matter. We learned to adapt all the time. No one complained. If we didn't like it, we could always go elsewhere, except, at the time, there wasn't really any other decent place to go. If we were truly interested in something not taught at our dojo, the "unwritten rule" was that it was courteous to have shodan rank at least before branching out. When I told my teacher about my interest in the above-mentioned particular style, he said, "That's okay. Once you know the principle, the technique doesn't matter." He knew me well enough to know that I was not going to abandon his dojo. In fact, it was this generous sensibility that allowed us to host this teacher (among others) to give a seminar with us in the first place.
So, I was rather shocked at the drunken teacher's assertion (I can't really call it a request, because it wasn't one). He was the highest-ranking practitioner of this style in the US, so while I figured he was serious, I decided not to bring it up again anyway. I was hoping that he would be okay with our budo academy approach once he got to know us better.
However, as our training progressed, I began to chafe under some of the rules imposed on students. It was not the monthly per-student charge sent to the American honbu. It was not even the silly uniform gi we had to wear, with its patches sewn on precisely in the same place, or the fact that only students at certain levels could wear certain colors (none of this stuff was done in the Japanese honbu, by the way). It wasn't the regular video-taping of classes sent in for the American teacher's review, which was picky, but helpful. The problem was that some rules were written to control our little group alone, being, as we were, at some distance from the American honbu. Monthly reports became weekly reports. After years of successfully teaching according to my own experience, I was given a standard curriculum and told I had no choice but to follow it.
Eventually, I got tired of adapting to their increasing inflexibility, as did my students. A mild, polite protest produced a threat of expulsion unless we complied with everything. We did not comply; and, while we were disappointed, we were also relieved.
So, I thought this was an anomaly, until, several years later, I was informed by a teacher from Japan, with whom I had had a very long association, of the same thing - that in order to progress further in his style, I would have to exclusively devote myself to it. What struck me odd about this request was that I knew this teacher had other students in other locations who had added his practice to their existing curriculum, with his approval. Moreover, he himself practiced and taught other budo forms. Interestingly, my old group did throw out our teacher's original curriculum in the new guy's favor. Perhaps he thought I would follow suit. I did not. I politely, but firmly responded that my teacher's generosity was the reason why I was able to train with him in the first place, and I had no intention of abandoning that legacy.
Previously, I wrote about inflexible students unable to adapt to new circumstances or techniques. I constantly meet people whose inflexibility limits their options in life and causes them anxiety. And I try like hell not to be one of them. A colleague, who studies calligraphy, gave me a sample of his work, which reads, "ju nan shin" - flexible mind. Good advice for both students and teachers alike.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Inflexibility
My colleague, the Budo Bum, once said that it is easy (and, I would say, maybe even expected) to adapt a modern martial art (judo, karate, kendo) to yourself as you are, but that when dealing with old-style (koryu) arts, the opposite was true - the practitioner had to adapt him/herself to the art instead. From this, it would seem the issue of inflexibility would apply to the koryu arts, but that is actually not the case. In fact, the opposite is true.
Several weeks ago, I hosted a joint practice that included an old sempai of mine and some of his students. The idea was for me to show some of what we practiced by leading "miniworkshops" of about an hour or so, culminating in about an hour of tameshigiri practice (after which, it was party time). The main practice of this other group is karate, one of the modern martial arts that my colleague was generally referring to in the above paragraph. For the first two hours, everyone, to their credit and good manners, did their best to make their way through the jodo form I offered, as well as several sword forms that followed (they did better at the iai portion than the jodo, a point that did not at all surprise me. I have written here and elsewhere how frustrating it can be to control a plain, wooden stick). My sempai, at 71 years old, is still strong and well-coordinated. With allowances for the difficulty of maneuvering a featureless stick, he did just fine with the workshops.
The very interesting part of the day was the tameshigiri (practice cutting), because this was where the proverbial sheep were separated. None of them, with the exception of their teacher, had ever tried cutting before. This surprised me a little bit, but the plain fact is that, as karateka, even though they owned a variety of gunto (Japanese swords made for use by the military in WWII) and Chinese-made "sharpies", their main practice is not in sword arts. As I worked with them, one-by-one, leading them through the basics of how to cut a target, I found there were two kinds of people in the group - those who listened and followed directions, and those who pretended to listen and then did whatever the hell they wanted. Following good practice, I made everyone stand well out of the way of the target-cutting, and was doubly glad I did so, given that about half of the guest students variously wailed on the targets, ignoring advice on safe footwork and proper cutting techniques as they did so. I tried to correct them, but it was useless. Since they were using their own equipment, I decided not to interfere, and let them do whatever they wanted (since I was powerless to do anything about it anyway).
But it did leave me thinking afterward (and I am still thinking, so this may not be my last word on this subject). All of them (with the exception of some sort of "assistant instructor," who thought he was much better than he actually was, in all aspects of all things that we did) were fairly nice guys, and on good behavior, but for the half that were "wailers," they reverted back to what they knew best - apply power to the punch - even if the "punch" was being delivered by means of a sword.
I know many, many budoka who do more than one art form, both traditional forms and other modern ones. One does Daito (traditional) and iai; one does judo (modern), jodo and iai; one does kendo (modern) and iai; one does aikido (modern) jodo and iai, etc. etc. My colleagues in Japan also study multiple art forms, modern and traditional. The difference between them and the wailing guest students was that they were adapting themselves to their traditional art forms, not trying to bend those art forms to themselves.
As I said, I am still thinking over the implications of this experience. It's not that people who do modern art forms can't do koryu - I see that all the time. It's not even that karateka are particularly stubborn. I simply find it worth thinking about that the presumably "rigid," traditional forms of budo seem to inspire the most flexibility in their practitioners.
More to come, no doubt...
Several weeks ago, I hosted a joint practice that included an old sempai of mine and some of his students. The idea was for me to show some of what we practiced by leading "miniworkshops" of about an hour or so, culminating in about an hour of tameshigiri practice (after which, it was party time). The main practice of this other group is karate, one of the modern martial arts that my colleague was generally referring to in the above paragraph. For the first two hours, everyone, to their credit and good manners, did their best to make their way through the jodo form I offered, as well as several sword forms that followed (they did better at the iai portion than the jodo, a point that did not at all surprise me. I have written here and elsewhere how frustrating it can be to control a plain, wooden stick). My sempai, at 71 years old, is still strong and well-coordinated. With allowances for the difficulty of maneuvering a featureless stick, he did just fine with the workshops.
The very interesting part of the day was the tameshigiri (practice cutting), because this was where the proverbial sheep were separated. None of them, with the exception of their teacher, had ever tried cutting before. This surprised me a little bit, but the plain fact is that, as karateka, even though they owned a variety of gunto (Japanese swords made for use by the military in WWII) and Chinese-made "sharpies", their main practice is not in sword arts. As I worked with them, one-by-one, leading them through the basics of how to cut a target, I found there were two kinds of people in the group - those who listened and followed directions, and those who pretended to listen and then did whatever the hell they wanted. Following good practice, I made everyone stand well out of the way of the target-cutting, and was doubly glad I did so, given that about half of the guest students variously wailed on the targets, ignoring advice on safe footwork and proper cutting techniques as they did so. I tried to correct them, but it was useless. Since they were using their own equipment, I decided not to interfere, and let them do whatever they wanted (since I was powerless to do anything about it anyway).
But it did leave me thinking afterward (and I am still thinking, so this may not be my last word on this subject). All of them (with the exception of some sort of "assistant instructor," who thought he was much better than he actually was, in all aspects of all things that we did) were fairly nice guys, and on good behavior, but for the half that were "wailers," they reverted back to what they knew best - apply power to the punch - even if the "punch" was being delivered by means of a sword.
I know many, many budoka who do more than one art form, both traditional forms and other modern ones. One does Daito (traditional) and iai; one does judo (modern), jodo and iai; one does kendo (modern) and iai; one does aikido (modern) jodo and iai, etc. etc. My colleagues in Japan also study multiple art forms, modern and traditional. The difference between them and the wailing guest students was that they were adapting themselves to their traditional art forms, not trying to bend those art forms to themselves.
As I said, I am still thinking over the implications of this experience. It's not that people who do modern art forms can't do koryu - I see that all the time. It's not even that karateka are particularly stubborn. I simply find it worth thinking about that the presumably "rigid," traditional forms of budo seem to inspire the most flexibility in their practitioners.
More to come, no doubt...
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