Once upon a time in the west …… or the east ….. or wherever ….. folks wandered into a dojo looking for the magic of Budo (self-improvement and all that), for the intellectual challenge of learning something never before seen in their home town (“Can I wear a Samurai topknot under my Stetson?”), or to learn a practical method of self-defense (aka, how to not be shoved into the lockers at high school and be given 1st spot in the food service line for enchilada Friday in the cafeteria).
New prospective students walked in, asked good questions, showed interest, signed up, and like many of us stayed with the same Sensei for decades; leaving only after having squeezed the sponge dry and hitting a high-enough rank to be able to honestly make the claim that they actually trained and learned and knew something.
Today those folks are still out there but it seems that they are there in lesser numbers as many applicants to today’s dojo seem not as interested in learning; just in gaining rank or status, or in checking off one more box on their punch-list. They visit class to observe and ask whether we teach the technique they saw in a video game (yes, I’ve had that specific question put to me). They send an email with a photo attached and, in the photo, they have colored hair, tattoos, and enough piercings to start a jewelry store. I don’t care about the hair (one of my Japanese Sensei had purple hair and I was told that only descendants of senior Samurai families could color their hair like that as it close to being a sign of royalty). Tat’s don’t bother me as I have two already and am looking at a third (my wife and daughter both have more tat’s than I do).
Then they never make contact again even after an open invitation is extended, which begs the question …. why the photo if you never intended to show up? Why the “personal touch” of too much information including your sexual preference (yes, I have even had that given me before …. but why …. because I didn’t ask and really don’t care). Do you always send photo’s to strangers? The dojo email and messenger app are not dating apps are they, so why treat them as such?
Sometimes visitors show up and they don’t have the colored hair or the tat’s but they have the piercings complete with nose rings and ear plugs. One guy came in and his first night in the dressing room everyone noticed that he had pierced nipples so it was no wonder he complained about the pain when we taught grappling one night. One guy showed up in a dress with his hair in French braids hair down below his shoulders and in the braids, he had woven metal bells. Oh my, how he jingled when he walked. When told that the bells in the hair had to go (might hit someone in the face when training) and that the nose rings weren’t safe (might get hooked by someone’s finger and jerked out, don’t need blood on the mat) and that the ear plugs might get torn out (don’t need that blood on the mat either) he was offended and left. Oh well. One less future problem to prepare for.
So, do you want to train or not? Or are your personal affectations more important than learning something new and improving who you are as you progress?
We old-sters (maybe “Mat Fossils” is a better term) no longer understand a culture in which people seem to think that rank is simply gifted and not earned, that rank and status are more important than becoming a better human being by improving mind, body, and spirit, or not comprehending that adopting a “martial arts” mindset of sorts is a necessary part of learning some pretty sophisticated and powerful material.
We no longer understand how someone can walk into a dojo claiming to want to learn but bear personal affectations (with the concurrent attitudes) such that training is neigh-on impossible; and yet they still expect to be allowed on the mat and to be promoted in quick time no-less.
Yeah, yeah …. now the naysayers are going to tell me that martial arts have always been about rank and that if someone trains even a little bit then they should be promoted just because they tried. Well, martial arts have always been about rank but only in the sense that the rank signifies the work put into gaining the overall knowledge and ability, along with the growth (and improvement) of their body, mind, and spirit.
So yes, they’ve always been about rank but not to the commercialized levels we see these days where dojo drop their standards just to get money paying bodies in the door; and certainly not with the strange humans walking into the dojo. So what we’re seeing (not all the time mind you but on occasion) are prospective students coming in with a life-style that contradicts the requirements of actually training; and that life-style reflects the idea of entitlement as-in, “If I show up for class once in a while and remember to wash my gi on occasion, then I’ll be promoted even if I’m not really up to speed on the material”.
This attitude is even being seen (for some time now) in corporate America where I was told the story of a man who straight out of university was hired at a large corporation (with what was likely a 6-figure salary) and on his first day at work was seen sporting an ear-stud. His new employer could be accused of having no sense of humor as he was apparently told that if he showed up the next day with the ear-stud that he shouldn’t bother coming in at all; so much for that posh overpaid executive position.
When you sign up at a dojo and become a deshi (a word that roughly translates as “disciple”) you are expected to adopt certain behavioral aspects. The color of your hair is not important. The number of tattoos is not important. What is important is understanding that body piercing can be dangerous and is therefore not desired; along with the realization of the need for good hygiene and the correct clothing (a clean gi & hakama, trimmed toenails). Becoming a disciple doesn’t mean joining an abbey, becoming a Marine vegan, it doesn’t mean carrying the gi bags of the senior students, but it does mean devoting yourself to learning and adopting the means by which you can learn. Basically, it means following the forms and the rules that over decades, centuries in fact, have proven most effective in allowing you to learn and to become the martial artist you have decided you to be.
Enclothed cognition is the psychological concept that states that how you dress affects how you think. In other words, dress like a samurai and start to think and behave like one. This concept is one of the key ideas behind a study of koryu and indeed of all serious martial arts that are structured to change who you are by giving you knowledge and abilities that you’ve never had before. Thinking in the patterns that the reishiki describes and the kata flows in will over time change the way in which you view the work, which will lead to understanding how the Samurai had to think when using the movements in actual combat. Understanding the mind-set leads to a change in how you in turn consider exposure points in your kamae, and openings in the opponents’ kamae. “Becoming” the kata, performing the kata in the way it was designed, doing the work as an “old flow” system makes it effective in adapting to combative exchanges as it came from battles that likely had limited outcomes (you die, I die, we both die, we’re both chopped up so bad that we wish we had died).
In a sense this is what combat consists of; kamae that either offer an opening (in the attempt to appear weak and draw the opponent in), kamae that are strategic (such as Mushashi’s concept of “open on all sides”), or kamae that allow you to “spring-board in” so-as to advantage openings in the opponents posture. Not taking the concept seriously and attempting to make the kata “yours” by changing the way you view and perform it in order to suit some personal idea nullifies its’ effectiveness.
Aikido is one of the worse but all martial arts today seem infected with the idea that a student is supposed to study (to some degree, or not), learn something (how well may be debatable) and then at some undesignated “future time”, understand the art form such that they can, “make it their own”. They totally miss one of the central themes of koryu which is that you don’t change the art to fit you; the art changes you to fit it including body posture and movement, reaction to stimuli, and mental attitude. This is a key component behind the concept of actually “learning” something instead of “being exposed” to it.
Sensei, as they screen prospective deshi for admittance to the dojo have to learn to ask questions of dojo visitors in an attempt to discern whether the monjin (person standing at the gate) will be a serious player or just a tourist; a nice tourist but still, just a tourist. By working to analyze intent and commitment which is done by subjectively judging their adaptability and willingness to drop affectations (thus becoming a deshi) the Sensei can understand who to focus the most attention on (and who to look out for); understanding of course that there are beginners that at some point become seriously devoted to the entire idea of koryu and budo. Flexibility in judging and categorizing deshi, combined with understanding the issues at hand is invaluable to any serious sensei.
As the saying goes, “To acquire something you’ve never had before, you have to do something you’ve never done before” and the same holds true for both senior long-time players, and beginners.
L.F. Wilkinson Kancho
The Aikibudokan
Houston, TX
February 17, 2020
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