30th International Budo Seminar 3

Kyudojo’s Kamidana

On the final day, there was a lecture by Hirai Masato, 10th head (souke) of the Tennen Rishin-ryu style of premodern martial arts. He had a very approachable disposition and emphasized the importance of hard work and effort in his lecture. Tennen Rishin-ryu, by the way, is quite famous since it is the school of Kondo Isami, leader of the fearsome Shinsengumi in the 1800s. The school was started in 1789, and Kondo Isami was the 4th head of the school. I didn’t quite catch the exact familiar relation between Hirai-sensei and the Kondo family, but I think they are cousins or something. The school is based on kiai-jutsu but incorporates swordplay, staffwork, and unarmed combat techniques. It is especially famous for training with an extremely heavy, thick wooden sword to build up the muscles and accurately reflect the weight of a real sword. It also emphasizes a disregard for the swordsman’s safety with the aim to defeat the opponent.

After the lecture, the head and his top students gave some rather impressive demonstrations and then let all of us try kata in pairs. I am not especially a fan of the Shinsengumi (although I love Kondo’s quote from the NHK drama: 百姓こそ武士より武士らしくなる “Precisely because I am a peasant, I will become more samurai-like than a samurai himself!”), but I really enjoyed learning the kata. My partner was a Chinese Taekwondo practitioner who didn’t speak much English or Japanese, but was eager to practice the kata a couple million times together with me. That sort of rote repetition, plus the lack of needing to actually whack my opponent (although I did stick the poor fellow in the gut a couple times by accident) was very soothing. Also, the souke himself was kind enough to instruct my clumsy self in the kata.

 

The last event of the seminar was another practice session of kyudo. In this we did zasha (formal shooting) twice and the teacher’s gave us their advice afterwards. To be honest, I think they were a little disappointed with us as a group. They emphasized that we need to practice more, and furthermore that there are different types of practice: Mitori keiko (watching-practice), kufu keiko (experimenting-practice), and kazu keiko (repetitive-practice). We especially needed to do more mitori keiko, and not just expect people to tell us exactly how to improve. I think I am certainly guilty of not practicing enough, both generally and mitori keiko specifically, so I need to take their advice to heart. Also, Tosa-sensei asked me how long it takes to wash my rather long hair (笑).

Anyway, that was the three day seminar. It was a really good experience, and I think a gained a deeper understand philosophically of budo as a whole by attending. In the lectures, the place and importance of human interaction (morality) was a strong trend and gave me a lot of food for thought. The first time I attended (last year) I was a bit over whelmed by everything, so I mostly focused on the technical aspect, but this time being my second time participating, I felt like a got broader experience of “budo” in general. I can’t say what my schedule will be next year, but I hope I can attend this seminar again.

This post was broken into three parts: 1, 2, and 3

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30th International Budo Seminar 2

Sunset from the dormitory hallway

The panel was followed by a keynote lecture by Okazaki Hiroshi-sensei (Hanshi 8-dan) on some characteristics of kyudo. Kyudo is a but different from the other 8 modern martial arts because there is never an opponent, unless you count the target as the opponent. What that means is that your opponent becomes only yourself, which makes the physiological/ spiritual battle especially difficult in kyudo. This is often expressed with the phrase that “the target is a mirror”. In mere sports, it is just about winning physically, which is why there are doping scandels etc. in the Olympics. But in budo, it is also a spiritual challenge. Afterall, anyone can hit a paper target with an arrow, but in kyudo there needs to be a spiritual stablity/fullness to the shot. Thus in kyudo there are considered three “sicknesses”: hayake (早気 realizing too soon), yurumi (緩み collapsing the release), and busuki (不数寄 not practicing enough). These sicknesses are caused less by physical characteristics, but by spiritual weakness. Personally, I have found this to be very much so in my own practice: if I am feeling depressed or bashful (something to which I am genetically prone), I find it very difficult to avoid lapsing into a yurumi style of release. Westerners tends to dismiss any idea of spirit having physical influence, but phenomena like the placebo effect and psychosomatic illness demonstrate how our mind/spirit affects our bodies physically. Anyway, Okazaki-sensei also talked about the importance of benevolence (仁) and human relations in kyudo, as illustrated by the proverb “To shoot is the Way of Benevolence” (射は仁の道也). Those skilled at kyudo (“senpai”) and act all arrogant are like small scared animals, puffing themselves up in the hopes of frightening away a larger preditor. Senpai should explain things simply to beginners and those less skilled at kyudo (“kouhai”), just as a mother uses babytalk to an infant, but proper language to a teenager. The lack of benevolence in overseas kyudo groups seems to be a widespread problem, but I won’t go into that now.

After these morning lectures, there were demonstrations of all the modern martial arts by the teachers and then we were able to experience different budos for two short sessions. I tried Jukendo (bayonet) and Karate. Jukendo is associated with the SDF, so the teachers were two kindly but brusk military men assisted by two extremely cute and talented girls. This time, we tried learning only the dagger, since that is generally with what beginners start. I really think Jukendo is so cool, which is why I chose it, but to be honest it doesn’t fit my timid personality that well. We practiced thrusting at the abdominen, head, etc. and I find being asked to strongly whack my poor opponent over and over again quite emotionally distressing. She insisted it didn’t hurt, but all the same I felt really bad for doing it. Despite this–or perhaps because of this–I found it a very good chance to understand the more energetic side of budo and I hope I have a chance to try it again. In the second session I tried Karate. Karate is of course well known in the West, but I haven’t had that much exposure to it. We practiced kata, which meant I didn’t have to physically hit anyone, which was nice. I was impressed by the importance of keeping careful control of your speed (ie: speeding up at only the last second) when punching. It reminded me of how the correct modernation of speed (faster at certain times, slower at other times) is so important in almost all Japanese arts, not just martial arts. I have a tendency to be too slow all the time, so it is something I need to work on.

In the evening, we had a cocktail party (懇親会), which was pretty fun. I surprised that it was only at this party that the 150th anniversary of Meiji was mentioned. I had expected it to be celebrated a bit more promently. The speaker said something like “you guys probably don’t care much about the anniversary of Meiji, but…”, which I thought was a bit of a sad statement. Personally, I do care about it because I am a great fan of the Meiji period and emperor, but even setting that aside, I felt like the speaker should have confidence and explain to everyone the importance of Meiji’s anniversary. There was pretty nice food and I was able to chat with my roommate and other participants. Randy Channell, a Canadian tea master (Urasenke school), also had a somewhat impromptu tea ceremony with a rather charming selection of tea utensils gathered from around the world: a metal chaki from India, an antique Chinese kensui, and a teabowl made by a Canadian potter in Japan. The chashaku was carved by the retired headmaster of Urasenke and was named (something like) “Friendship throughout the World”. It was quite interesting to see the casual tea ritual of someone who has been studying tea longer than I’ve been alive… In the evening, after nipping back to the kyudojo for a bit more practice, many participants gathered on the fourth floor for some raucous drinking and talent show. I am not generally one for late night drinking parties, but I enjoyed the Russians’ folk dancing and had a rather fasincating conversation with another kyudo practitioner. During this, an American participant kept flashing looks at me, so I brought him up to teach him a touristy hula (E Huli Makou) as a part of the talent show. It was quite an effort since I had to sing the song, as well as dance the hula, all while wearing kimono. I was a bit embrassed, but four or five people came up to me the next day saying how much they liked my hula (!), so it seems it wasn’t that bad. This experience did make me think about the creation and passing down of traditions however. Many people could just suddenly stand up and perform folk songs/dance or sing karaoke, or do magic tricks, but the American fellow insisted he didn’t have anything he could do. I think that is probably true for many Americans and it makes me think American culture is a bit impovershed in that aspect. In Hawai’i, ukulele music is often just randomly performed for fun in just anyplace, and likewise hula is often danced in an impromptu manner. But I can’t think of any art in general American culture which can be done in a similar manner.

Since this post is rather long, I’ve broken it into three parts: 1, 2, and 3.

 

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30th International Budo Seminar 1

View from the dormitory window

Last weekend, I went to the 30th International Seminar of Budo Culture. It is a 3 day seminar, split between philosophical lectures about martial arts and practical trainer. As for the practical training, there were two sessions of your own martial art (archery, in my case), two sessions to try out martial arts (I tried bayonet and karate), and then the last day had a lecture and session in kobudo, or pre-modern style martial arts.

Coming from the distant countryside of Hokkaido, I arrived late, missing the beginning of the first lecture which was by Takeuchi Seiichi. Prof. Takeuchi is the ethics/philosophy professor at Kamakura Women’s University, so he gave a lecture on some of the ethics found in Budo. In particular, he utilized the philosophy of Kuki Shuuzou to focus on the balance between “mizukara” (your deliberate efforts) vs. “onozukara” (the natural consequences of situations). In Budo, we must put in our own deliberate efforts, but it our mastery of it cannot be considered complete until it stops being a deliberate effort and becomes natural to us (onozukara, or “second nature” in the trite English idiom). This also ties into humanity’s relationship with nature, that is, that there needs to be a balance between our own efforts and having respect for what is the “natural” way of the world. Prof Takeuchi used as an example the terrible 3/11 Tohoku tsunami. We humans with our inventive nature built up many defenses and precautions against tsunamis and nuclear accidents, but they still were no match for nature’s ferocity. He wasn’t personifying nature here, but merely conveying no matter how inventive we are, no matter how much effort we put in, there will always been things in nature that are beyond us. So we should always keep that in mind and realize that we cannot have mastery without including the whims of nature as a part of it. Personally, this seems like a lesson many Westerners should take to heart more. Furthermore in response to one of the questions after the lecture, Prof Takeuchi noted how in Japanese culture, we emphasize the “onozukara” when discussing good things, but the “mizukara” when speaking of bad things. In other words, we give credit for good things to all the many people and circumstances around us, but when it comes to bad things, we take responsibility (the blame) all upon ourselves and do not pawn it off on the people/circumstances around us. Of course, in both cases our own efforts and circumstances played a part, but the socially ethical thing to do is give credit to others for the good while taking the blame for the bad only upon ourselves.

The evening consisted of Kyudo practice with Kubota-sensei (Hanshi 8-dan) and Tosa-sensei (Kyoushi 8-dan). Of course, I received some good advice from them, but I won’t bore you with that here. In kyudo, we have both “dogi” (uniform) and “Kimono” (clothing) that we can wear when we practice. Kimono is of course the more proper of the two. All but two persons wore dogi, which was generally considered a bit disgraceful. For lower-ranking practitioners, they might not own kimono or know how to wear them, but for those at 3-dan or above, a kyudo practitioner should know how to wear kimono. I wore dogi myself, however, so I promised to wear kimono next year.

The second day began with a panel of four participants. Mohammed Shihab, a Karate practitioner from Syria, talked about the difference he saw between sports and budo, and the importance of moral education. It was sometimes a little hard to understand exactly what he was saying, but he seemed to feel strongly that having a respectful heart–whether that is towards your teacher, or the art, or even the Emperor–is important. Then a David McFall, a Judo practitioner and commentator, presented three key proverbs to illustrate how budo is about learning how to interact properly with our fellow humans. It was a well-presented lecture. The three proverbs were:

虎穴に入らずんば虎子を得ず　”You cannot catch a cub unless you enter the tiger’s den.”
七転び八起き　”Fall down seven times, get up eight.”
一期一会　”A once in a lifetime experience.”

The third panel lecture was by Per Flood, a Kyudo practitioner from Sweden. He discussed how what is important in budo is your interaction with others, especially aiding those below you. Some people can practice so hard yet never become technically good, while others might never practice yet quickly become technically good. This technical skill is much less important than aiding those around you, which will also help you morally grow. The final panel lecture was by an Australian Aikido practitioner, Rionne McAvoy. He had a very casual, but amusing presentation style. Unfortunately, he used a lot of cuss words, which lent a rather uncouth feeling to the lecture and embarrassed poor Prof Tanaka Mamoru, whose duty was to comment on each of the panelist’s presentations. Anyway, Mr. McAvoy’s lecture discussed how experiencing/learning other arts can help one understand the main martial art one practices. Overall, the panel lectures were quite interesting and I enjoyed hearing about the diverse perspectives of the participants.

This post has gotten too long, so I’ve broken it up into parts: 1, 2, and 3

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Practicing Japanese Arts

Japan has a wide variety of arts–praxes, really–whose names end in the character 道 (dou, or michi). “Michi” means “Way”, so all these arts are focused not merely on the result but in the way one gets to the result. Chado (tea), Kyudo (archery), Kendo (fencing), Kado (flowers), Kodo (incense), et cetera. “Shinto” is also in this group of arts.

Anyway, I was reading a sort of textbook about how to conduct Shinto rituals and naturally, it begins with the sort of spiritual mindset one should have when learning and practicing rituals. I think much of this advice is relevant not only to Shinto, but also to those other “michi” arts such as Tea ceremony and Japanese archery. So I thought I would share some of the things it says. The book, by the way, is called “The New Textbook of Shrine Ritual Events’ Etiquette” edited by NUMABE Harutomo and MOTEGI Sadasumi.

The order in which one should learn:

1. Listen carefully
2. Watch carefully
3. Practice it yourself
4. Master it, ie: Practice it until you thoroughly can do it
5. Research, ie: don’t merely do the rituals by rote, but investigate their meaning and different ways
6. Perform it, ie: only after all this can you truly conduct the ritual for real

Particularly, number 5 is quite interesting. Japan is often accused of lacking creativity and initiative. But I don’t think that is true and number 5 demonstrates this. To truly practice an art for real, it is important to investigate and research it yourself, not merely copy what has been taught by your teacher. I think there is creativity and a great deal of initiative in Japanese arts, but it is done with a slow carefulness that isn’t generally praised in Western culture. I think for many Western new learners of Japanese arts, number 4 is the most important. There is a tendency for Westerners to jump to innovation before truly mastering the skills they are learning.

When reviewing what we are learning, the book tells us that we should review the material until it clicks, so to speak: to practice by ourselves until the art becomes second nature to us. There has been a great deal of scientific study about the importance of practice, and that only reminds us of this.

Actually, there is another section which is titled the “relation between Mind and Form“. I will just translate it:

“After the Form has become second nature to you, do not be a slave to the Form in conducting the actual ritual. Rather, make your best effort to properly perform your responsibilities with a sincere heart. If you exert yourself in this, as time passes you will develop your own etiquette that is appropriate to you as an individual.” p3

Again, this reminds us that merely copying is not enough. I think there is some parallel in Kyudo when we are told that merely hitting the target is not enough. If we want to merely hit the target, a modern Western bow equipped with technological sights is a better choice. We should hit the target, but that shot must incorporate our whole self and be completely ours all the while maintaining the established harmonious etiquette with our classmates.

Finally, the book as gives some suggestions on when performing a ritual. A couple of them are not so relevant to the other arts (ex: Be sure the offerings are arranged firmly so they don’t fall down…). But most of them are.

• Remind yourself of the ritual’s purpose.
• Make and review a plan for the ritual.
• Work together with all the participants.
• When finished, reflect and record the ritual in order to continually improve it.

Anyway, I think this advice is good not only for the various “michi” arts, but in fact has a lot of relevance in striving to improve everyday of our lives. Nothing does it seem especially mystic to me. But then again I am pretty involved in this stuff, so I could just be used to it. What do you think?

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Kobudo

Japanese martial arts are all based on historical practices, but in keeping up with the times, most have been modified and standardized. This is likely necessary in order to popularize the martial art and keep it from being discarded as irrelevant and boring in this modern age. However, some people feel a lot is lost in this modernization process.

For example, in yabusame (traditional horseback archery), there are two kinds of events: tournaments and hounou (demonstrations held at shrines). Hounou are traditional events, while tounaments are newer events, treating yabusame as a “sport”. For now they are existing side by side. Recently there has been talk about standardizing and making universal ranks for yabusame. This would make yabusame more like a sport, making it easier to popularize. But many people are also against this. With standardization, yabusame would lose the variety and practicality that give it its meaning.

Martial arts that haven’t been modernized are referred to as Kobudo, or ancient martial arts. Today, I had the fortune witness the practice of a kobudo. Actually, this is a rather rare opportunity. Following more traditional customs, kobudo is a rather closed circle and isn’t eager to share with strangers.

I am not well versed in martial arts, and neither is it my place, so I can’t write much about the actually practices, but I do think the surrounding cultural practices are interesting. I think that these sorts of traditions are followed quite strictly in kobudo, but they are true in most Japanese arts, such as tea ceremony and dance.

For example, I of course could not just show up. Rather it was through the introduction of friend–one of the teacher’s senior students. Basically, my friend is vouching for my good intent. If I do something rude, it would also reflect badly upon my friend.

I also brought a small gift along, as a token of goodwill. This is fairly standard in tea ceremony and other cultural activities, but I was surprised because the teacher also gave me a gift in return. Doing so, he explained that a gift must always be returned with one, although in modern times often people forget this.

Something else I thought was interesting is that one of the students told me that practicing kata is the same as practicing tea. While kobudo seems much more difficult to me than tea ceremony, I can see how this could be so: they are both the small variations of many movements practiced over again until it fits your body naturally.

And lest you think kobudo sounds unfriendly, it wasn’t that way at all. While everyone was serious in their practice, several of the students came up to talk to me (several in English!) and the teacher explained many things to me as well.

Anyway, I thought today was quite interesting, and I could reflect on many things.

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