The Old Masters

Do you know an old master?

I'm not talking about someone who has trained for 30 years, or some 40-something TKD teacher who started when he was six. Hell, I've trained for almost 30 years (more if you count my western fencing training), and I know I'm not a master. Old, maybe, sorta, but a master? Nope.

The old masters I'm thinking about have trained twice as long, at least - 60, 70, years. They're in their 80's or 90's, in varying states of health. They have more understanding of technique in their little fingers than the rest of us do in our whole bodies. Even better, they understand what they are doing, and why.

Some time ago, I looked at a very old video tape of one of my first demonstrations, which was held at a small dojo in New Jersey, in the 1980's. I remember we had a hell of a time finding the place (in the days before GPS) but I don't remember what the occasion was. In looking at myself on video (something I find uncomfortable even now) I noticed that I was trying very hard to do everything correctly as I had been taught, and, as a new student, I don't look too bad. At that time, I considered the sempai, who had about 3-4 years' seniority over me, as the "big kids." They certainly talked and acted like big kids, and, since I was new to this whole koryu budo thing, I believed them.

Only my teacher did his part in the demo with quiet grace and dignity. While the guys used to talk about him with great respect, none of them seemed to know him very well. It took some time for me to get to know him as more than the man who came in to okeiko, somewhat irregularly (his job kept him very busy), who told stories and sometimes made us repeat the same waza over and over again for a half hour or longer at a time. He never seemed happy with our progress, though he would let us stop after awhile, whether it was because he got tired of our relative mediocrity or decided we had hit our training wall for the night, I was never sure. I just knew I hated to disappoint him, so I kept trying.

When I did get to know him better, I was impressed by his humility. One time I came to see him on dojo business and before I could say anything he said, "Here, watch this. You've never seen anything like this before," and started the VCR. We watched an old, grainy film-to-video transfer of Nakayama Hakudo (a cleaned-up version is available on YouTube). In the film, Hakudo Sensei, clearly around 80 years old, both demonstrates and riffs (for lack of a better word) on Muso Shinden kata. I learned more about the meaning of practice in that one video than I had by studying for 10 years with my American sempai (and I realized later that it was not really their fault - 10 years is a literal drop in the bucket where koryu budo is concerned).

There were many other times like that. Once, when I visited him in the hospital, I noticed some books by his bedside. I asked him what he was reading. He said it was an account of the Ako Ogishi story (the story of the 47 Ronin). I knew the story in general, of course, but, thanks to sensei, I learned a great deal more after that. At his request, I went to Sengakuji, the temple in Tokyo where they are buried, to pay my respects. I still go there every time I go to Japan, and I have taken any number of hapless friends and students along with me. I go to honor him, and to try to give others a sense of what he taught me. And I go because I would still hate to disappoint him even now.

When he died, I spent over an hour on the phone with one of his daughters, whom I had met once or twice but did not know well. There we were, united by our grief, telling funny stories and laughing while we cried at the same time. She told family stories, I told training stories. Sensei didn't mix the dojo and his family life, so we were each hearing the stories for the first time. But we were clearly talking about the same guy - the stern family man with the goofy sense of humor and brilliant intellect.

My teacher, and others of his generation, began their budo training in the years before the Pacific War. Though the Edo period was a distant memory in Japan by the time they were born, the extraordinary changes in Japanese society after the mid 1940's created a clear separation in how people trained in koryu budo, and what it meant to them. More western influence and especially notions of competitive sport, along with a real and understandable concern for the survival of old art forms, has changed training. I'm not judging, I'm stating a fact. Good things may have been gained, but some good things have definitely been lost.

The problem with old masters, though, is they don't stay old masters for very long. They disappear. And a little piece of the world they were a part of disappears along with them.

So if you know an old master, whether of budo or something else, pay attention. Take him/her out for dinner, have coffee, sit and talk. Ask questions, and listen to the answers. You may realize how fortunate you are. Do it while there's still time.