In modern life there is a propensity to pack too much into a day, and this results in a compulsion to move too quickly. We eat too fast. We work too fast. We drive too fast. Besides the stress involved, which may or may not be bad for one, I believe one’s awareness and clarity of mind suffer because of this rapid pace of life. With the mind constantly preoccupied, one loses touch with one’s environment. Also, being so busy, fewer people read in favor of entertainment which is more rapid (television, movies, video games, etc.), but these media develop the mind’s capacity for abstraction far less and contribute to reduced mental agility.

Eating too quickly is unhealthy in a number of ways. First, the foods that tend to be available for rapid consumption are calorically dense. Second, when one eats too quickly one over-consumes before feeling full. Finally, when one under-masticates one’s food, one my not get all the nutritional value that one should from it.

One value of all forms of kobudō is the mindset that they convey. If you are not working on developing a clear and composed state of mind, you are missing an important part of the training. This can be a demoralizing struggle. One may train year after year only to find that such a state of mind is elusive and easily blown to the winds. Furthermore, if one doesn’t take this state of mind outside the dōjō, then it really is just an arcane hobby practiced for amusement and entertainment.

I’ve been thinking about state of mind quite a bit lately and have concluded it is crucially important not to fake it. What constitutes a wise person? One factor is that such an individual is not ruled by emotion (have you ever seen Yoda throw a temper tantrum?). However, this is not to advocate the suppression of emotions, which, on the contrary, is unhealthy. Most people are good at suppressing emotions. People play off being angry or sad because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves, but yet they are angry or are sad.  This lacks wisdom because the suppressed emotions still rule the person – if silently - and can have concrete effects (e.g. stress and the diseases of stress.) So how does one achieve a genuine ability to not be ruled by emotion? I know of only one way, and that is to put everything in perspective. Perhaps this is most commonly seen among people who face potentially terminal ailments well. I’ve been reading Dr. Maoshing Ni‘s Secrets of Self-Healing which, despite its banal self-helpy title, offers interesting insight into the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) approaches to fixing one’s ailments. Dr. Ni tells the story of a patient with cancer who he had told would find cancer to be their greatest gift. That person fundamentally changed their lifestyle and ended up living out a much healthier life. How does kobudō make smaller the issues that challenge us? One way it does so is by giving one an opportunity to attain a mindset of life and death. In the Hagakure it says, “The Way of the samurai is found in death.” This is an often misunderstood concept. If one can come to grips with one’s death – and the fact that it can occur like a bolt from the blue – then every mundane trouble is diminished. Also, one must learn to exhale emotion. Even in sparring holding onto anxiety or anger can be devastating.

Getting to the specifics of the value of yoroi kumi uchi, which I’ve been thinking about as I reflect upon Kukishinden-ryū Happō Bikenjutsu, I believe the value is in teaching one not to be sloppy and how to move in a manner that reflects a certain precision in the chaos of a fight. While there is a downside in that one may develop a habit of avoiding perfectly respectable targets (which would be unavailable on an armored opponent but readily available on a contemporary opponent), one is forced to be conscientious in one’s targeting of kyūsho. The difference between an attack that is ineffective and one that is devastating is highly dependent upon accuracy when one has to contend with gaps in the armor. It seems easy enough to attack a specific point, particularly when grappling, until one is faced with an opponent who is moving around and counter-attacking and so forth.

Another value of this training is found in building one’s legs and putting even greater emphasis on movement that maintains the balance.

In Kukishin Ryū there is a series of poems called the Gokui no Uta (Poems of the Secrets) that lay out the core philosophy of that school in a manner similar to the budō kun of other schools.

The first of these poems is:

“There is no village upon which the moon does not shine, but in the mind of the viewer there is.” 

This poem is attributed to Izumo Kanja Yoshiteru, the founder of the school. Like the other poems, this one conveys a quite simple concept, but it is exceedingly difficult to put the lesson into practice in one’s life. In an Introduction to Psychology course one learns about how people tend to attribute the actions of others to the disposition of that individual while one attributes one’s own actions to external factors. This is one of several coping mechanisms that the mind practices to get by. There is also a proclivity to think one is being treated unfairly whether one is or not. These are delusions one should work to avoid, but, it should be noted, without these coping mechanisms one’s failings stand naked before one’s mind. One must cultivate mental strength if one is going to blow away theses clouds from within one’s mind.

Happiness and sadness are one’s reaction to external situations and conditions, but are not caused by those events. If one can gain control over how one perceives the world, one can fundamentally change one’s life. Perspective, being intangible, may not seem important, but a dark perspective can drive one mad.

My goal in the new year is to see the world more as it is and not to give into the comfort of martyr complexes.

While, at first, attention is often paid only to getting the physical posture correct and later this may be augmented by consideration of where, if anywhere, one’s mind should reside, it is easy to overlook the tremendous importance that the eyes play in kamae. For both the aggressor and the defender, there are important considerations regarding the eyes. Is it in one’s interest to maintain eye contact with the opponent or should one  center one’s vision on their forehead or chest? While too narrow a focus is always risky, there are times when seeing into the opponent’s eyes may yield a benefit and other times when one may offer up an advantage to the opponent by doing so. There are kamae that seek to irritate or distract the attacker by putting a moving weapon into their field of vision. Attacks to the eyes can be particularly effective because these organs are relatively fragile and even putting them out of commission for an instant can produce an insurmountable vulnerability.

Seigan no kamae (“True Eye” posture) can vary considerably across ryū-ha, but, I believe, most of these kamae take advantage of the unique vulnerability of the eyes to influence the attacker’s behavior, adversely affect the opponent’s field of vision, or both of the aforementioned. No one charges face first into a weapon, so inserting a weapon in the path of the opponent can make them reluctant to attack and withdrawing it can have the opposite effect.

Below are some variants of Seigan no kamae with which I am familiar.

Wu Wei

In sparring, I’ve found leaving one’s elbow in the path of attacking limbs to be a quite effective tactic. One may think it necessary to supply the kinetic energy, but allowing the opponent to do so offers a number of benefits. First, it’s energy-efficient. Anyone who has spent a few minutes in free form training will realize that one can become tired quite rapidly, and anything one can do to burn less oxygen is beneficial. Second, it’s hard for the opponent to see and adjust to because they are fully committed to their attack without one having moved a muscle. Finally, for the attacker, it hurts like a son-of-a-_ _ _ _ _.

Kamae, or posture, is another means by which wu wei is practiced in martial arts. Kamae instills an impression in the mind of the opponent that can serve to discourage attack or to manipulate the nature of an attack (e.g. its direction or timing.) Because kamae seem static (appearances can be deceiving) they are often given short shrift, but this is done at one’s peril because they are one’s first line of defense.

Yet another example of wu wei in the martial arts are the brief pauses within forms during which one is still and observing. It is a common problem to miss the rhythm of a form by speeding through these instants without taking to heart the importance of not doing. This wu wei is essential because one needs to be able to adapt to the changes exhibited by the opponent. Speeding through the still points, one may mindlessly venture into dangerous territory when facing an individual who doesn’t follow the “script” of the form.

Wu wei is among the hardest lessons for most martial artists to learn. Bugeisha are people of action. As I’ve been known to say, “vicarious living, ain’t living.”

The idea of wu wei should extend beyond the practice of martial arts and into daily life. There is often a bias against doing nothing, and it can be strategically unfortunate. Consider people’s reaction to silence. When there is a social pairing or a small group, there is almost a compulsion to fill the silence. Most of the time this is a harmless enough social protocol, but it can work to one’s disadvantage. In the 80′s there was a fair amount of discussion about how Japanese executives sometimes defeated Americans in negotiations because the Americans, feeling the need to fill the silence, would start bidding themselves downward before the Japanese even spoke a word. I’m not suggesting one should be anti-social [though I sometimes am], but one should not fall into a compulsion to speak, or do, when not doing might yield better results.

Statue in Ueno Park, Tokyo

I’ve been reading Mark Ravina’s The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigō Takamori, which tells the tale of the last samurai general to lead warriors into battle. This is not to be confused with the film The Last Samurai, which, while the life of its fictitious Katsumoto somewhat mirrors that of Saigō, is pure Hollywood.

What makes Saigō‘s story so interesting is that it is positioned amid a struggle between modernity and tradition. It is easy to be conflicted about what happened at the time. Japan’s feudal Era was an ugly time and place to be alive unless you were among the very few on the top tier of society (the Imperial family, the Shogun, daimyo, etc.), and its end is an event to be applauded. [FYI- Even a samurai like Saigō had to walk 900 miles at an average rate of 20 miles a day to get from his home district of Satsuma to Edo (present-day Tokyo).] Yet, as I mentioned in a previous post about Emerson, each societal advance is matched with the loss of something valuable. There is no free progress. In the case of the end of the era of samurai, these losses include the start of a process of decay and demise of old style martial arts. While we may think ourselves good stewards of those arts that have survived, I can’t help but suspect that many of the deepest lessons learned from the Warring States period have perished in the yo-yo-ing in which these arts went from life-savingly relevant to despised. These losses presumably not only involve physical technique, but also lessons of the mind, strategy, and of how to comport oneself.

It seems that reality might be more nuanced than my impression of events. I suspected that this was simply a tale of a warrior class trying to maintain power in a world that had left them behind in order to grow into a more mature form of governance.  However, this simple line becomes muddled in reality. Western powers were at the time using force and intimidation to open up markets throughout Asia. This, in itself, is an example of a perversion of principles inherent in real world events. While they sometimes get a bad wrap, markets are fundamentally peaceful entities. What is a market, after all, other than a voluntary system of exchange which acknowledges ownership of property and an owner’s right to set the price for that which they own - be it their labor or goods. Forcing another country or individual to trade with one is at odds with the core nature of a market.

I found Saigō to be a much more sympathetic character than I had expected I would. In contrast to the idea of an individual who was power-hungry, Saigō is portrayed as a supremely humble individual. He was on occasion confused for one not of the samurai class because he eschewed the finery that normally accompanied such a post. [This simple clothing can be seen in the statue that appears prominently in Ueno Park in Tokyo - a picture of which I took in 2008 appears above.]  He didn’t just pay lip-service to the highest ideals of Confucianism, but he actually lived them. That is, the responsibilities that come with leadership were at the forefront of his mind, not just the perqs, and he was cognizant that no one was free of obligation to behave in a proper manner. He was also a reluctant warrior, and not a blood-thirsty tyrant. Instead, he seems to have taken on the role that he did because he thought it was his obligation in accordance with the way of heaven (a fancy way of saying the way one properly behaves.)

Humans tend to be terrified by uncertainty and to crave certainty. This is fundamental to our nature. Given the vastness of what we don’t know and the dearth of that which is known with certainty, we must ”know” a great deal more than we know simply to get by. In order to get through life, we have to treat the highly probably as certain in making decisions. Still, as I’ve said many times before, I fear the tyranny of certitude among those with similar beliefs  more than those whose beliefs differ from mine but who are undeluded (i.e. don’t think they know with certainty that which is not- or cannot be- known.) At any rate, we built an information society, so concerned are we with knowing and the futile attempt to avoid surprise (avoiding surprise comes more from minimizing our expectations and developing the ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstance than it does from foreseeing the future).

Interestingly, there is a proclivity to accept that which is documented as “true” and to treat anything undocumented as “myth.”  This may seem reasonable, but it creates its own problems both with respect to how we treat myth and how we equate the documented and the true. 

We have removed the neutrality from the term “myth” and made it a euphemism for lie. It’s true that myths, as we know them, are by-and-large factually untrue, but that doesn’t mean they are devoid of truth, or, more properly, of worthwhile lessons. Consider the story of the Trojan horse contained in Virgil’s Aeneid and Homer’s Odyssey, and spread through other texts. In the story, the Greeks are finally able to penetrate the impenetrable Troy by offering the Trojans a gift of a horse sculpture as a peace-offering as they pretend to withdraw their forces. Inside the horse was small contingent of men who open the gates for the army. There is a considerable range of opinion on the degree of truth contained in this myth. However, even if it is completely false, the story contains truths about human nature that do not require factual truth to be worthy of learning. 

 Because of our craving for knowledge we’ve arrived at an information age in which almost everything is documented because great efforts have been made to make it easy and cheap to document events. Many of us have cameras everywhere we go as one of many functionalities designed to capture information within a pocket computer/phone. Our information age experience has jaded us with respect to documentation, and many overestimate the capacity of past generations to record events. Take covert operations activities. Today we may be able to know the truth of these events because, while the information may be classified, it’s collected, rigorously documented, and saved for posterity. However, this is a relatively new trend. In past times, it could be a fatal move to collect and store information. 

Even where historical documentation takes place, historical accounts sometimes remain suspect. It is commonly suggested that history is written by the victors, and thus we expect histories to reflect a glorification of victors and villianization of the defeated. While it may not be true that history is always written by the victors, it does quite often reflect the perspective of some entity, which may or may not jibe with the truth. As I’ve mentioned before, there was a common belief that is still being propagated that Bodhidharma brought martial arts from India to the Shaolin temple in China (later to be passed along further to the east). This is now believed to be untrue, but what exactly is true cannot be known.

This brings me, admittedly via a long  meandering route, to the question of what one can know about the past of old martial arts if one believes history to be suspect.  I think one can learn a great deal more that is true via an anthropological approach in which one seeks to learn about the general nature of warfare (as opposed to historical detail) by way of the evidence provided in the techniques of a martial art. There are more specific terms for the study of war and combat including “polemology” and “hoplology.” Both of these terms came into “common usage” in the 20th century, and hoplology focuses more specifically on combative behaviour, while polemology addresses the study of war in a broader range of activities.

Consider how combat lessons learned have been translated into technique from the dawn of time. We have an early homo sapiens intent on clubbing another to death due to competition for resources or dominance within the group. We expect that survival disfavors those defenders who try to run backwards away from the onslaught by the forward moving attacker (a readily recognized losing move that, yet, is instinctively popular) when compared to those who use motion that mitigates the attacker’s advantages and gives them fewer opportunities to continue the onslaught. From this we can see the importance of the selected stance or posture. If one makes it more difficult to reach vulnerable targets, makes it easier to move to safe spaces,  and keeps one’s limbs in position to redirect/intercept incoming attacks one is better off. From a mental perspective, one who doesn’t succumb to their fear, but rather is able to move against the attacker with a counter-attack, has a better chance of survival.

I’ll now turn to a specific ryū-ha, Gyokko-ryū Koshijutsu, for examples of what I have been talking about. Historically speaking, there is not a lot known about this school of martial arts. As far as documented information, there is a list of the heads of the school which dates back to a supposed founder who created the art sometime in the late early to mid sixteenth century. There is one fairly famous martial artist, Momochi Sandayu , who is said to have been the second head of the school. Provided it is true about Momochi Sandayu being involved with the school, there is a little known about his life. However, as I indicated, I don’t take even this basic information without a grain of salt if for no other reason than that I can imagine an incentive to spread disinformation as a survival imperative during the eras in question. (e.g. Momochi was apparently on the side opposing of Oda Nobuo, son of Oda Nobunaga, and, thus, was on the weak side in an asymmetric war.) 

However, there is a set of techniques, handed down by some set of people, that has an internal consistency to them, and contained in these techniques are a good deal of information about what the former heads of this school thought was important to know.

There are some important points that I believe are relatively common among martial arts. For example, one may note that the techniques all put one in the role of defender. It is, of course, assumed that individuals will practice skillful attacks as a means not only to be useful to combat but also to be an effective training partner when learning the technique. One can imagine a few explanations for this defensive focus, which are themes that will recur in the balance of this post. One thought is that one practices defense because that is what one anticipates facing in combat. A second explanation can be found in a belief that defense holds a great advantage in that one can be flexible while the enemy must be committed. The final explanation is that one practices defense because, by putting oneself in the worst case scenario, one develops the highest level of skill. Certainly today a martial artist would expect to be on the defensive because there is a very slim sliver of the population for whom it would be at all acceptable to take offensive action against another.

I will now address just a few of the specific lessons emphasized in Gyokko-ryū that include:

1.) not leaving a hairbreadth of maai (interval) between receiving and one’s counter-blow. One may think of kata like Dan Shi and Dan Shu that blatantly emphasize this, but it is also important in the kihon happō techniques and other kata (e.g. Sakanagare.)

2.) kick diverting is an essential skill. This speaks to either a popularity of kicking attacks or a perceived vulnerability to them. Kicks in arts of this era tend to be between ankle and gut height and to be very direct (as opposed to more recent martial arts in which high kicks and acrobatic moves are valued), and so we are talking about motions that use one’s leg to deflect kicks off-line or occasional low counter-strikes with hands.  

3.) related to #2, the importance of being able to effectively move when caught on one leg is crucial. One may think immediately of hichō no kamae, but, with a number of techniques in which one is engaged in kick-counters or kicking, one is momentarily on one foot in several kata. Kata such as Keō and Ketō demonstrate what I am talking about with respect to the need to be able to transition smoothly to a stable position when one finds oneself attacked as one is on a single foot.

4.) the use of a deception in which one leaves an apparent vulnerability, but maintains a position in which one can readily move to counter attack. This is most explicitly seen in Kokū, but it is revisited in kata like Renyo. Like point #1 above, this speaks to the maai of the technique- in this case one leaves a lag where it suits one. There is also a valuable mental lesson in this as one must be able to be still in moments of duress.

Stepping back to some of the more general points of emphasis of Gyokko-ryū, there is a great deal of focus put on two types of attacks that are not always seen in other schools. First, there are a number of kata featuring attacks from behind. Again, I cannot know whether there is a focus upon rear attacks because it was a common type of attack in the era in which the school developed, or whether it was thought that if one can handle such a disadvantage one will be ready for anything. I suspect it is a mix of the two. The same can be said of the school’s emphasis on mutō dori (techniques in which one is unarmed against an armed attacker.) The bulk of the middle level scroll involves mutō dori as does all of the highest level scroll.

To recap, I don’t know much about the history of Gyokko-ryū, and even what is documented I don’t take as absolute truth. However, there is an internally consistent set of techniques that presumably came from somewhere, prior to the current generation of teachers who I’ve learned from, that offer what I’ve experienced to be valuable guidance with respect handling various attacks. For that, I am greatly appreciative of whoever passed these techniques along and I can only hope, through diligence and effort, to learn as much of what they tried to transmit as possible.

Actually, the book does justice to the old adage of war as ”long periods of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror”, showing one the mind-numbing moments of life in a war zone, laudably, without ever getting bogged down. Another moment from early in the book that is instructive is when the protagonist, Waino Mellas, recalls that before he shipped out he complained to his mother that the T-shirts she dyed for him were too light and might get him killed. It is clear that, reflecting on that comment after having experienced combat, the off-the-cuff statement has more heft - and the protagonist is imagined to feel like a turd for having said it. He didn’t really know what death - violent death - meant before, and so he had said the words with mere irritation while his mother is presumed to feel them on a gut-wrenching level.

The book also does justice to the “moments of sheer terror” portion of war. The book describes being out on ambush in the jungle at night with all senses straining for the one sign of one’s impending death. It describes fire-fights, fraggings, and other brutal ways men meet their ends. It tells the story of men holding a hill against a bigger unit while fog and rain eliminated their technological advantages. Interestingly, by the end the protagonist seems ready to return to the much-despised bush, because at least the deaths there make sense on some level and one knows who is on one’s side.

I recommend this book as food for thought.

1.) A strike on one’s mind gets one two in the lip.

This will be readily apparent to those who practice sparring or other free-form training (randori keiko). When one is struck, if one cannot stay in the moment, one is likely to experience a death spiral of incompetence. Often the source of this obsession is not fear of getting a bruised body, but of getting a bruised ego. By the time one is sparring and / or practicing free-form grappling, one probably has some level of competence with respect to absorbing an attack, and one is likely training with people who have reasonably high levels of control over their own bodies and movements. However, a student may still be worried about who saw the blow land and how he or she is perceived as a result. 

One of the gifts from lifelong martial arts training is the opportunity to be hit a lot. That may sound crazy, but one increasingly learns that in a fight, or even in sparring, one will get hit or kicked. It’s a given. These beatings help one to lose one’s attachment to being unsullied.

While taking a hit may not be your bag, the abstraction of this lesson is to learn to operate outside one’s comfort zone. You may come across people who are quite proud to say, “I’ve never failed a test in my life.”

My response to such a statement would be,  “Oh. How very sad for you.”

If you’ve never failed at anything, you haven’t lived to the edge of your capabilities, and you have no idea what you’re capable of. I’m not saying one should make a life path of doing the things you do poorly, or that one shouldn’t intensely cultivate that which one does well. I’m merely suggesting that at sometime during your life you need to go to the places that scare you rather than hovering in the middle of your comfort zone. Of course, one must realize that comfort zones are situational. There are people who can maintain composure and respond smoothly and appropriately while being attacked with a baseball bat or knife, but who are absolute disasters at public speaking. Conversely, there are some who can boldly get up and give a speech in front of millions, who would literally piss themselves when facing the aforementioned weapons. Being able to do either of those activities well is worthy of respect, but a person who is willing to try the one that is painfully challenging is even more deserving of respect.

2.) If it’s broken, don’t marry it.

Grapplers may be most familiar with this lesson. Say one is trying to apply a lock or throw but it’s not working, so one knuckles down and muscles up. At this point, if one is lucky, one’s opponent is only simulating (or lightly) pummeling one about the head and neck. Note: I’m not suggesting this is a universal dogma. One doesn’t want to develop the habit of giving up on everything when it seems to be failing, but there are a couple key guidelines. Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So the first thing one must consider is whether one is making a change that can earn a different outcome.  The second thing one must consider is that there are situations in which one’s window to achieve success is quite small, and, in such cases, wasting time on a failed approach is a certain path to failure. The example of grappling locks and throws that I used above remains informative. Depending upon what type of technique one is using, one has a slim instant to exploit during which the opponent is off-balance, writhing or tensing in pain, or both of the above in which to set up one’s technique. If you haven’t gotten it done by the time that instant flickers out, you need to have moved on to the next tack.

3.) Keep your head in the game until the fat lady is in her dressing room with her corset on the floor. 

There is a concept in budō called zanshin, which refers to the “lingering spirit.”  I think in past blog posts I’ve mentioned the samurai adage, “Even in victory, cinch tight one’s helmet cords.”  In the training hall, we begin and end the practice of technique with a bow to our training partner, and at no point in between those bows is relaxing one’s vigilance or being distracted appropriate. When the opponent is on the ground and / or in a lock or choke, one must still treat the engagement as a matter of life and death.

I think this conditioning is important to avoid the temptation to slack off. There are many activities outside the dōjō in which there is also a temptation to treat an inappropriate benchmark as the end. Teenagers often get into trouble when they see that graduation seems to be a lock. When one knows one is leaving a job, there is a temptation to go about one’s work in a half-assed manner. In the military we called this “short-timer’s disease” – when all one’s energies go into preparing for life after the military or at one’s new duty assignment.  

4.) Be attentive in small matters.

Americans (and this could be applied to other Westerners as well) have an interesting and somewhat (for lack of a better word) ambivalent relationship with old style Japanese martial arts. On one hand, to the degree that there is an interest in these arts, it is often disproportionately Western. I have trained in a dōjō in Japan in which there were eight students training at the time and only one of them was Japanese, and I have been told by others who are more broadly experienced that this is not uncommon. For Westerners,  budō offers a path to composure under fire that has appeal in a modern society where such opportunities are not inherent (our lives generally don’t require us to hunt for food or build our own shelter, and so we look for means to build a core self-confidence rooted in being master of one’s domain.)

However, on the other hand, the fastidiousness and deferential nature of the Japanese are anathema to Americans generally. As an example, most of the American teachers I have trained under seem to consider being called Sensei more cringe-inspiring than respectful. As a result, most American students, myself included, tend to avoid such honorifics with their Western teachers, even if they use these terms with their Japanese teachers. For my part, I can say that I  always call my Japanese teacher by an honorific, but almost never do so with an American teacher (and when I do it is at times of light conversation and is intended to watch them cringe). Of course, this is not just restricted to the domain of martial arts; in academia, some Professors are uncomfortable with titles such as “Professor” or “Doctor” as well.  This has nothing whatsoever to do with me respecting an American teacher less, but rather respecting that person enough to not seek to make them feel awkward (in a training environment.)

Why does this dual-standard exist? Because Confucian values hold a measure of sway in the culture and minds of the Japanese and many other Asians, but American culture is quite different. Americans, from our nation’s founding, have been inculcated to the idea that, on some level, all individuals are equal. While perceptions of the meaning of this equality vary considerably, there seems to be consensus that - as a minimum - there must be a uniformly applied rule of law, and that in matters in which control is exercised over an individual it will be done so only in accordance with said laws. That is, rights are not something granted us by the grace of superiors, but rather are an inherent feature of one’s existence. While it may be true that there was talk of offering Washington a kingship (a notion he rejected), America was founded with a foul taste in its mouth about the idea of superior and inferior classes of people. In Confucian societies, however, it is expected that both extra rights and extra responsibilities are a feature of being in a dominant position in a relationship.

My own view is that I should overcome my own discomfort with honorifics with teachers who are comfortable with them, and avoid them with those who are not. I will readily admit my preference for the American mode of thought where honorifics are concerned (both as a teacher and a student), but I wouldn’t arrogantly declare my worldview uniformly superior for all.

The preceding discussion was all by way of starting to talk about another element of Japanese martial arts that also comes difficult for Americans, but which I have found to have great value. That is, being attentive in small matters. I’m not entirely certain why this is so hard for many American students, but there seems to be a certain irreverent devil-may-care attitude inherent in the American spirit – for good or bad. I would suspect that when the average American hears the ostensibly neutral terms “fastidious” or “meticulous”, they don’t instinctively think of them as neutral character traits but rather as negative traits. Americans rail against “bean-counters” and ”fine-print.” Being fastidious may not make one hated, but it does make one a target for ridicule. 

So why should one concern oneself with meticulous concern for life’s minutiae? In the interest of full-disclosure, I’ll admit it took me almost a week to master the “slipper scheme” of Japan (i.e. there are indoor slippers, outdoor slippers, and toilet slippers and there is no overlap in the Venn diagram for where each can be worn [for all I know the 3-slipper scheme is a dumbing down in efforts to be kind to gaijin  - this gaijin has trouble enough with left-slipper and right-slipper.]) Having made my disclosure, I will reiterate that I think attention to small details has great value. Eventually, it is hoped, one will achieve a confidence that is born of a composed mind and an inherent understanding, and acceptance, of one’s strengths and weaknesses. However, in the beginning (perhaps for decades), one may have to “fake it till you make it.” The young often do this with arrogance (which I’ll define as irrational exuberance in one’s capabilities), but arrogance has a lot of negative side-effects - in addition to people wanting to choke the life out of you. For some reason, attention to detail (how one stands, where one stands, how one holds a weapon, what one says when one bows to a training partner, what one says and at what time, how one stows a weapon, etc.) helps train in composure.  I think it does this by allowing one to know exactly what to do so that one can do it precisely and without awkwardness. As one begins to eliminate awkwardness, one gains a certain tranquility of mind. Also, the benefits of precision of movement are probably tied to avoiding the need to rush that is so prevalent in American society. Rushing, which is part and parcel of modern life everywhere it seems, brings with it a tendency toward being flustered.

These are among the most important lessons that I have received, and continue to receive, from practicing martial arts.

My last post, which was anything but concise, got me thinking about the value of being able to state one’s rules to live by in a concise form.

As I mentioned in the last post, there are many writings by martial artists including such lists.

So here is my attempt to distill wisdom to its essence.

1.)  Simplify.

2.) Maintain composure.

3.) Live boldly.

4.) Be a student.

5.) Be respectful.