The Thoughtful Sensei-Aikido Musings

168. PIE R Square - A Brief Rambling

What we do in the dojo needs to be as real as we can possibly (and safely) make it.  It’s Budo.  It is not a sport.  It is not a game.  It is an activity where we practice the very serious art of controlled violence where mistakes have consequences and even the little things can often be critical so everyone’s head must always be on straight.  The quantum 8-dimensional algorithm may therefore be stated as:

PIE (Physical, Intellectual, Emotional) ………….. R (Reigisaho) Squared. 

Reigisaho can be considered many times more important than simple PIE.  PIE can be looked at as how “teachable” a student is (a measurement of their capacity and potential so-to-speak).  R (Reigisaho) can be looked at as “how seriously” that student views the training and whether they develop the proper mental attitude to understand that the dojo (and indeed Budo) are not sports nor are they games.  Reigisaho should then be looked at as R-Squared.  Maybe even R-Cubed and beyond.  That is how important Reigisaho is to the life of a dojo and to its’ existence in the Budo-Verse.

A dojo, if one pauses to consider, is an unrealistic and impractical idea; a waste in the business sense of unoccupied space and underutilized facilities since 24/7 classes are impossible.  Many Sensei have described the dojo in their own fashion so there are many ways to consider the idea of the existence of such a place.  A place of competition?  No.  A place of combat?  No.  A place of pure contemplation?  No.  A place of self-realization and enlightenment?  No.  An institution of learning?  No.  A place of social discourse?  No. 

What then?

It is not a gymnasium, a sports bar, a church, a social club, a rec center, a temple or monastery, a beer or dance hall, a business or a corporation.  Some Sensei have used the term “sacred place” although that term while more complete than others, is still insufficient.  It’s not even a school although most of the advertising one sees describes it as such because the normal Western civilian is simply unable to grasp the idea that it is something beyond a mere “school” per se.

It is also not a “physical” place.  Yes; it has walls, roof, floors, and other structures that one can walk into and “be” within, but a dojo is more a mental and spiritual state of being than of mere body.  Yes; the dojo is a physical manifestation of the ideals of Budo, and a dojo is said to absorb the “energy” of those who train and spend time there to the point that a sensitive can enter and “feel” those energies.  A Dojo however is better considered a larger existence with all other descriptive possibilities attaching themselves to that one point; a locus as-it-were.

We all work and struggle and rejoice and suffer in our efforts to prosper or just to survive in our society with its emphasis on achievement, money, politics, etc. so the dojo becomes an offset to that life-battle.  It becomes a space that exists for our larger selves, and that space is energized by us going beyond the binary yes-no, win-lose idea.  The dojo needs several things that create, support, and maintain its “being”.  Those are within the overall encompassing aspects of Reigisaho.

There is a widely told teaching story in Budo concerning kendo and kickboxing.  A high-level championship shiai is held and when the winner is declared there are two differing reactions.  In the kendo match the facial expression of the winner and of the loser both remain the same with no real emotion.  The winner is the one who first bows (to the loser) to show his respect for the efforts made by him.  The respect from each to each is obvious.  In the kickboxing match when the winner is declared, the winner begins to raise his hands in the air, jump up and down and beat his chest as-if to gloat and disrespect the loser.  Two different reactions.  Two different personalities.  Only one understands.

When we train in controlled violence we have to “over-respect” our training partner who is giving us permission to do things to them that contains the possibles of maiming or killing someone who is not trained; or who is poorly trained or just sloppy and unobservant.  In Aikido and Judo when we throw someone into the floor they survive intact only because they have been taught and have learned how to relax, react, and respond.  Despite their understanding and knowing their side of the Budo-equation (you throw …. I react and protect myself) there is still danger involved and showing respect maintains an attitude within you that reflects your appreciation for their working with you that will cause you to slow down or hold back to ensure that they can “get down” (to the mat) or not break or dislocate anything.

Many people are ejected from a dojo.  I’ve ejected more than a small handful myself over the years because they just seem unable to respect and protect their training partner and seem to not understand that they are in a dojo, not a high school debate club.  They claim that they are only “just making sure it works against someone resisting”; a ridiculous claim at any level.  They act as if the dojo is not a special space and as if Sensei and the Sempai can be argued with and debated illustrating their lack of understanding of the serious nature of training in Budo and their ignoring the idea that Sensei and the other Sempai might have a different viewpoint on the important issues at hand; those viewpoints being based in the fact that Sensei might literally have more years on the mat than the kohai has been alive.

A matter of perspective but an important one.

If we are training properly, if we have good teachers, if we pay attention, then we should realize that the repetitive practice we are engaged in is designed to exploit the opponent’s weaknesses.  Soft repetition gives us feedback that we cannot sense or understand if we are using power and speed.  That soft repetition sometimes means that the technique fails on occasion BUT WE MUST understand that it is failing against another player that is likely at the same level of ability that we are.  That means that even if it failed against another highly skilled player that it would work against an unskilled civilian (non-martial artist) who has none of the highly trained reactions and skill sets a trained player has.

This distinction means that to develop skill we must have someone who we can work with repeatedly over a long period of time.  Doing simple things like bowing before, during, and after the keiko shows the respect due to a fellow player and show that we appreciate their working with us, and that we will show our appreciation by not trying to inflict injury by “testing” the technique, or ignore Sensei and “fly by the seat of our pants”, a cute phrase to describe someone not following directions and inventing their own variations.  In most forms of Budo, this “free-style” training and ignoring Sensei is itself a dangerous form of disrespect.  Sensei is working to keep training safe and by consciously disregarding Sensei (not respecting his directions) the student can do something dangerous that results in injury.

In the end, reigisaho is simultaneously respect and an adjustment of our attitude and how we relate to and work with others as we train in controlled violence.

L.F. Wilkinson Kancho

The Aikibudokan

Houston, TX

October 30, 2019

167. Pie R Round

Yes.  Pie are round.  Annnd?

Most pies are indeed round but so are zenpo kaiten (forward rolling breakfalls) as is one of the three primary figures many attribute to Aikido (the square, triangle, and the circle).  Understanding the circle can’t be done overnight, zenpo kaiten takes some work, and making a great pie takes some “Grandmother” level skill-sets.  Try getting overly technical when teaching a beginner how to roll into a breakfall properly and that beginner may end up not liking you very much as their confusion and frustration levels rise.  Then go home and make that peach pie your grandmother used to make when you were a kid; you know, the one that has the old-style “pre-Betty Crocker” recipe that says “take a pinch of this, add a palm-full of this, pour in a tea glass of fresh milk (I thought it was all fresh milk but maybe grandmother had a different cow than most people).

Teaching, like pie making, is an art form for which there really are no good textbooks to follow so if you’re a “book person” then you’re out of luck.  My old Sensei who guided my development for about 20+ years once told me that I was a “book person” and that until I accepted that martial arts are an “art form” (pun) and that training in them (but most especially teaching them) is a true “art” that I would be locked into place at my current Budo-Ceiling and unable to rise any higher in rank, understanding, or ability at randori. 

His observation (as I finally figured out) came largely from my tendency to look for hard and fast rules in how I was to learn, in my demanding that everyone I was teaching follow the same hard and fast rules, my placing everything into boxes and categories, and my assuming that everyone else did also.  All those hindrances to my martial arts development and career were a result of years of being a finance & economics major, followed by working as a bank regulator and then an EDP examiner.  Everything had a box, or a flow chart, or a graph, or a policies and procedures manual, or a spread sheet to fit into.  It didn’t matter whether it fit or not, “Get thee into yon round hole thy wearisome square peg”.

It took years to work myself out of that “bookish” over-analytical attitude (or frozen mind) and to understand how to look at the art form as just that; art.  Martial Art ..... Art Form ...... any clues here to see?

Teaching was the same.  Not everyone learns the same; something that is not easily understood until one fully accepts and has the responsibility to run and manage a dojo.  I had to figure it all out, first at my Sensei’ dojo for several years before I moved on, and then at my own dojo for the next 20.

So ………. PIE …. A Budo acronym for (P)hysical, (I)ntellectual, (E)motional. 

A researcher named Gardner many years ago wrote a book that detailed the idea that IQ is not simply and only the ability to score high on the Weschler Scale (one of the most commonly used IQ tests) but instead is multiple intelligences.  He believed that each can be separately tested and measured thus giving a more comprehensive view of any persons’ actual abilities in areas such as spacial perception, mathematical ability, understanding of abstractions, morality, or verbal acuity.  Taken together, the various IQ’s give a more comprehensive picture of any single person’s adaptability and learning potential than would otherwise be possible.

Budo then ………..

Physical.  Ever notice how some students work hard but still can’t tell their left foot from their right or how some students have such a fear of breakfalling that you think they’ll never, ever get it in a thousand years? 

Some students just don’t have the physical ability of the “natural athlete” to do physical things which, according to Gardner is an indicator of a low kinesthetic IQ (remembering that this is a "physical or kinesthetic" IQ and not that of overall intelligence).  It comes difficult for them and they must work twice as hard.  We had one student who finally learned how to do forward and backward rolls (there’s that zenpo kaiten circle again) but for whatever reason they simply were terrified of being thrown over their own hand as is required for kotegaeshi, sumiotoshi, or a guruma.  Even a well-supported Judo hip throw was frightening. 

How did we get the student past this?  We spent weeks and months working on a soft crash pad until finally, they jumped into it and could do it as well as the rest of the class.  I for one thought that part of the issue was that in childhood they fell out of a tree and their subconscious contained a subliminally instilled fear.  Another, more spooky thought was that maybe in a prior incarnation they fell off a cliff resulting in a genetically imbued fear of being airborne or thrown; a concept known as epigenics (a topic for another time).  Whatever the underlying reason, we had to work to desensitize them to the idea of being thrown and of falling until they could use their mind to control the subconscious fear and work through the issue.  All it took was a little extra instruction which no good Sensei should object to doing. 

So don’t let them quit.  Only keiko and facing the fear inherent within the issue will get them past it and you the Sensei (or the Sempai) must bluntly insist that they work the problem.

Intellectual.  Some folks just talk it to death.  You explain the technique, demonstrate it, ask them to do it, and then get a hundred questions.  You again ask the student to do it …………. and get another hundred questions.  Sometimes I think that there are those out in the Budo-verse who are just too smart for their own gi.  They may have some brain smarts, a couple of degrees or two, and be very competent (and maybe overpaid) in their profession but they use their intellect to question, and then explain what they think it is.  They share their opinion across the board without actually understanding what it is and what is ain’t.  They seem to doubt most or all the information given them as if keiko on the tatami is a Socratic debate with everyone passing around the hemlock (and if you’re the Sensei then you’re the first to reach for the cup so that you can put yourself out of your own misery from having to listen to the incessant brain dump).

After encouraging, telling, directing, literally ordering some deshi to just be quiet and to do the work, they finally (after a time) get the jest of the idea and the incessant running commentary finally stops.  The body learns before the mind can grasp the questions that may arise.  Confusion and uncertainty can be overcome after a few dozen if not hundreds of repetitions of the movement during which the neural pathways are formed, and the body begins to automatically respond correctly.  The issue here is that sometimes being Sensei and working to guide the deshi and to teach them requires that a firm (and sometimes rude?) attitude adjustment be directed at the deshi.  As one of my former Japanese teachers once told me, “More work, less koochi-waza” (koochi waza (sic) roughly translated from the Japanese meaning “working the mouth”).

At some point they have to get past the Socratic idea and just accept the teaching as it is; otherwise they will never progress and become a burden, an irritant, an (insert your own adjective) since they know so much that they make themselves “unteachable”.

Emotional.  What we do in the dojo needs to be as real as we can possibly (and safely) make it.  It’s Budo.  It is not a sport.  It is not a game.  It is an activity where we practice the very serious art of controlled violence where mistakes have consequences and even the little things can often be critical, so everyone’s head must always be on straight. 

Some students are unable to “get into” the idea of learning how to potentially hurt or damage someone and if they accidentally cause an injury, even a very minor one such as a scrape or bruise, their reaction is to semi-panic and become overly concerned over what actually amounts to nothing.  The occasional bruise in a dojo is (and should be) an accepted part of the training as long as it is not a serious matter requiring unnecessary recovery periods.  Most people, myself included, have received much worse injuries playing high school football or turning an ankle while running the city park for example

Some are not able to handle the focus of intense training required to learn how to responsibly control the physicality of maintaining control of uke and of themselves; the combination of the two needed to avoid injury of either training partner.  A lot of training and mat time is necessary to achieve that level of expertise, but the mental acceptance of that required time may be difficult for the student with mat-time is pushed aside in favor of Happy Hour and running personal errands.  So should the Sensei consider that deliberate avoidance of training time to also be an avoidance of the personal responsibility of building that focus?

Some people push too hard and get in too much of a hurry to learn (and being too concerned about that next promotion) and they must be slowed down.  All learning, especially of physical art forms requires an absolute minimal amount of time, and trying to rush the overall process can result in personal burnout, injuries to either tori or uke by trying things that they are not yet ready for, and can thereby become a burden for the senior ranks who are working to teach and guide them.  The senior ranks would prefer to work on the basics while the student drives to rush ahead to the next promotion or kata before they have fully developed the prior work.  This can and very often does make them a safety concern on the mat that the Sensei or Sempai must now be concerned about.  Advancement means not only learning that new material but reaching a higher qualitative level when working on the earlier material that came before.

And for the moment let’s not get into the emotional issue of ego where they learn a little but now think they know a lot; an attitude that stops all progress in its’ tracks.  Not much needs said about ego other than it must be squashed, preferably through self-correction by the person engaged in it; but by the Sempai in a firm manner if necessary.  Suppression of ego is a critical part of true advancement in Budo.

Teaching martial arts is a difficult task; one that many senior ranks believe they understand when their understanding is only just started and barely beyond the elementary level.  Like many arts in life, the longer you the teacher is “at it” so-to-speak the better you get, the more you understand, and the more backwards looking observational time is available to you.

The more total teaching time as Sensei or a senior Sempai you have under your belt, then the further back you can look on your historical pathway enabling you to see the results of the various teaching and learning methods you tried, and how they helped or hindered a student’s development.  Adjusting your methodologies is a critical part of advancing your (the Sensei’ or Sempai’) development and guiding the development of the student.

Having a 20- or 30-year history of success and failure with students allows you to see how to help that person with the unconscious fear, how to finally get the chatterbox to stop the brain dump and cease giving opinions and just doing the work, and how to address the various emotionality’s and ego’s that students bring to the dojo.

The flip side of that is identifying the weak player who may not be the consummate athlete, may have fears of trying something new, and who may not be the fully mature individual but …. they want to learn so it’s up to you to take them under your wing and guide them to full maturity and ability.  As long as they can physically progress and act in a mature fashion it can be a successful relationship and they will eventually rise to their natural level and may one day become a Sensei in their own right.

The other flip side of that however is that it also enables you the teacher to identify the “lost cause”; that person who will never make it, never really learn, never really improve.  Sometimes, asking someone to stop training is the best thing for all concerned as they will never hit their goals, and may never be able to safely train or to avoid injuring themselves or someone else. 

While one can and should argue that every potential student should be given the opportunity and that a good Sensei should work to ensure everyone’s success, one can also rationally argue that sometimes the tough decision should be made while we remember that what we do in the dojo needs to be as real as we can possibly (and safely) make it.  It’s Budo.  It is not a sport.  It is not a game.  It is an activity where we practice the very serious art of controlled violence where mistakes have consequences and even the little things can often be critical, so everyone’s head must always be on straight.   

Not everyone can make the tryout for the volleyball team.  The dojo, being what it is, is no different.

L.F. Wilkinson Kancho

The Aikibudokan

Houston, TX

October 14, 2019