A dojo is not a class

So, the dog days of August are lingering into September. It's hot, it's humid,and, thanks to the wildfires in the West, it's hazy with pollution. Not much wind, and no rain to speak of - for months. Catalogs are showing up at my door with people in long sleeves, but it's 90F outside. Nice try.

It's also the week before Labor Day. People who have not taken a vacation all summer are taking one this week. This means not many people will be at okeiko tonight. Their absence is causing some angst for my sponsor.

Him: "If no one comes, we have to cancel class."

Me: "No we don't. Anyway, why don't you come to okeiko?"

Him: "Because I'll have to have the part-timer come in to manage while I'm at okeiko. I'll lose money since no one else is coming. So I will tell her not to come in and stay in the office myself."

Me: "We will not cancel. A dojo is not a class."

As basically everyone knows (though no one agrees on how quite to interpret it), the word dojo (道場) means, "a place to practice the way." And budo (武道), of course, is the "way of the warrior." Other writers (actually, many other writers) have discussed the meaning of these terms, and especially the word michi (道) at length, so let's just put it simply and say that our dojo is the place where we practice the way of the warrior. And the "way" involves historical, aesthetic, technical, spiritual and (perhaps mostly) personal aspects of a particular martial art or arts. In actuality, some aspects of the practice may be emphasized more than others, but that's okay. The goal of practice is to improve - mentally, physically, spiritually, personally - over time. Slow time. Years. A lifetime.

A dojo is not a class. It's a dojo. That means that, even if I am the only one there, there's okeiko, because I will practice on my own, no matter what. With all due respect to my sponsor - that bills need to be paid, etc., you cannot take the above paragraph and redefine it into a commercial transaction, no matter how important your motives for doing so; because once that happens, then it is no longer a dojo, and the meeting of the practitioners is no longer an okeiko.

My sponsor offers other classes. At one point he confessed to me that the other teachers are all over the map - if they are tired, no class. If they have other plans, no class. If they think no one else is coming, no class. The lack of consistency makes it difficult to build up regular attendance because the students (and prospective students) don't know from week to week whether there will be a class or not. I think it's because teaching for them is a potential means to an end (i.e., getting paid to do something that you care about deeply; though in this case, I can say that the pay issue is pretty nonexistent).

With all due respect to these teachers, teaching is an integral part of budo, which is why I don't just blow off practice based on some hunch as to how many people might be there. I used to think that teaching was just a way of giving back, of metaphorically if not literally thanking my teachers and seniors for teaching me, but now I know it is more than that. Teaching other people is not just a way of passing on knowledge, or giving back, it is part of what budo is. It's not just that the kohai ask questions that may require thought. Teaching gives depth and perspective to what you already know, or think you know. Annoyingly, it can also be a useful gauge for realizing how much you don't know.

So, yes, I would rather practice with other practitioners. While it's true that I can practice solo kata to my heart's content on my own, the difference between a monk's cell and a dojo is that there are other people around to work with. As an old sempai of mine once said, you can practice what you know (and I would say, improve up to a point) alone, but in order to learn new things, you need other people. We see evidence of this all the time, in daily life. When two old friends get together and begin to recall the same incident, their memories of the experience are enhanced as their recollections feed off of each other. While solitary thinking is excellent, it often takes more than one perspective to solve a problem. A dojo works in the same way.

So, while I am perfectly happy tonight to work alone, if that's what happens (and leave early for a change!), I hope some people are back from their wanderings (or not quite gone yet for the holiday weekend) and available to practice with me. But even if I am hitori de, my okeiko will be time well spent.