OMG. Sensei chewed me out and tore me a new a______. Why did he do that? I’ve been a good boy. What was that for? Haven’t I bowed enough, or low enough? I pay my dojo fees on time. I wash and you can’t call me “stinky gi”.
I have been in martial arts for the last 50 years, ever since I was a senior in high school so I can honestly say that there isn’t much I haven’t seen, haven’t had done or said to me, or haven’t experienced. I’ve learned over the years that training in martial arts, serious and true martial arts that is and not swarmy commercialized schlock, is much more involved than simply going to class, sporting around in your new gi, strutting for the junior ranks, blowing kisses at the girls, and doing a few punches or throws.
Serious training such what as the term “keiko” (deep thought and consideration being put into a training session to better understand both the surface of the lesson and the lesson not seen) actually implies is a series of “life lessons” possibly given over years or decades and that are intended to teach you (or lead you, or shove you) into becoming a better mannered, more thoughtful, more considered, more elegant person exhibiting shibumi (effortless perfection) in any professional, social or martial situation (and that’s putting it mildly).
I started in Tae Kwon Do as a strong and conditioned athlete (after four or five years of high school football, track, and weight training) and the idea of learning aggression (or more aggression in my case) was simply a part of the lessons. When I started in Judo and Aikido I was taken by my Sensei to a weekend lesson and promotion with the man who was the head of the ryu. We did some randori Aikido style one-on-one and I was stymied. He had me so wrapped up I couldn’t do anything. When you are totally under the control of your opponent your brain goes berserk but no matter how fast or slow I went, he simply dominated me while as he sang bad German opera. It must have shown on my face because he suddenly backed away and said, “I think you should go sit down. You look like you don’t feel very good”. I considered that to be a personal put down and when we got back home I made some comments and suddenly my Sensei looked at me and said, “You better watch what you say. You’re getting too big for your britches”.
I had to way step back and look at those two sets of comments; both of which made me realize that one, I wasn’t nearly as good at anything as I thought I was and two, I basically didn’t know what I was talking about. It was likely the first time as an adult fresh out of university that I had been spoken to like I was eight years old.
So thankfully, no matter how chagrined (or downright embarrassed I felt) I took both as lessons and got down to a serious but humble study of how the head of the ryu so easily handled me, and I basically stopped “mouthing off”. Thus began my 50-year martial arts journey and a new understanding of how to engage in serious learning while working to temper my ego and learn some humility.
Along the way there were other “learning moments” of note.
Like the night the head of the ryu (I was living in Houston at the time and training at his dojo consistently) and he was taking supplies into the dojo so I said, “Want some help?” which implied that I could give it if he asked (basically requiring him to beg me to assist him) instead of just walking over and pitching in. He told me what I had said or implied (really) and rudely suggested that I figure it out (as his lecture on manners continued as we carried things back and forth). Having learned, these days I just say I’ll help and then I pitch in, and I have found that the spontaneous effort on my part results in positives from the other person.
Then there was the time he and my wife and I went to dinner after class one night. I ordered a beer and when it came, I immediately drank out of the glass. His reply to me was, “That’s my beer” (even though I had ordered it). So after a few minutes of his firm lecturing (well actually butt chewing) on the proper order of formal manners in front of your Sensei, I figured out that the senior person goes first and then everyone else down the line in order. If you are the most junior then you go last (and in Japan you also get the worst bottle of sake while the seniors get the best, you must earn it you see). This was a lesson well taken and in the years that followed I used it in formal business and social settings and found that it was not only expected in the dojo, but in polite society and including politics as I later found. Until that moment I had just not realized the importance of acknowledging the privileges that come with age, seniority, and life accomplishment and how it applies even to who has the first sip of the cocktail.
Then there was the night that my wife and I were directed to take a Japanese Sensei to dinner before she returned to Japan. The drink came (I went last on the sipping of the alcohol) so that went well. Then the food came, and we all started (again let her go first) so far so good. Then I picked up my bowl of rice and the chopsticks and held the bowl up to my mouth and started scooping it in. We had just finished a very long day of training and filming, my belly button was rubbing on my spine, and I was just starving so I acted on my primal instinct of hunger instead of disciplining myself about what to properly do in a social setting with a very senior personage.
I have never seen such a look on someone’s face. A look of disgust mixed with anger. She could speak English as well as Japanese (along with a couple of Chinese dialects) so the facial expressions were in about three cultures along with the tone of her voice. I then proceeded to remain silent with my head bowed as the Japanese Sensei told me very directly how bad my table manners were, and that I was to fix them immediately. I was humiliated as all this was in front of my wife and the people sitting at the table next to us; and understand, I was a 7th Dan so my rank at that point in my career was not that of a beginner. I later realized that she was more disgusted that at my rank I had bad table manners than she would have been if I had been a white belt.
If anyone ever tells you that Japanese Sensei are so gentle and so elegant and so nice to work with and would never comment on your table manners, then don’t you believe them. They will chew on you like a dog setting onto a bone as I can personally attest. The net result was that I went back to square one, did some research, and taught myself as best I could what proper table manners are when having supper with a Sensei who is descended from a Samurai family. I haven’t (nor will I ever) make the same mistake again if I can help it.
The other “lesson in manners” aka “getting spanked” that to this day still sticks with me was the time the Consul General of Japan was training at the dojo. Since I was a senior rank I always bowed on and off the mat up front with the other seniors. I was to the junior side of the Consul General and when the rei came I bowed in his direction too slow and too high and I came up before he did. He was very angry and obviously thought that I had insulted him since he held junior Aikido rank to me but senior Judo, social, and ambassadorial rank. I was disturbed because I had no idea how to correct it. Sensei came to my rescue by having me work with the Consul General all class long and very patiently teaching him Aikido randori principles.
At the end of class as we lined up to bow off the Consul General grabbed me and put me in the line in a position of seniority to him. I immediately bowed, said “Sumimasen” and got back in my junior position. He immediately grabbed me a second time and put me in line senior to him. Sensei looked at me and said, “If he wants you to stand senior to him then do so.” We bowed out and he bowed to me again, shook my hand and said thank you very much for the lesson. All I could think was “Wow. It only took me two hours to fix a problem that I had no idea how I initially walked into”.
At some point I finally had the chance to ask an older friend and martial artist what all the butt chewing was about for things that initially I didn’t see a problem with or fully understood or just did by accident. There were plenty of other people that I never saw get crossways with Sensei who occasionally committed social faux pas that even I thought were on the edge. I got an answer that at the time I didn’t really anticipate. That was, “Obviously they think you hold promise”.
I had to think about that one as we talked and gradually came to realize that the goof balls who would likely never be promoted to high rank or become a teacher were looked at by Sensei and other very senior ranks as essentially being a lost cause. They just didn’t have the long-term commitment or discipline to really dig into the ryu and the learning that came with it and therefore Sensei paid attention only to those he felt could learn and move forward. Basically, if you were viewed as having potential and stepped out of line you were “gifted” the lesson. If you were viewed as being “not serious” or just a tourist passing through the dojo then you were not a beneficiary and ignored.
Those lessons that were sculpted and designed to “wake you up from your slumber” or “shock you into a higher level of awareness” were intended to prepare you for interactions with potentially very senior ranks some day; those ranks being in the dojo and on the mat or in business and social settings. They were also very direct lessons in perspective such as where you stand in relation to people and events that surround you.
Over the last few decades I have observed players, some very senior in rank, be the recipient of one of those “lessons”. Unfortunately, instead of swallowing their pride and accepting the lesson for what it was (a blunt and unpleasant criticism of their personal actions and attitudes, an attempt to “wake them up” as it were) their ego got in the way and in several cases that person quit thus largely ending (or severely truncating) their martial arts careers. A loss by any estimation. Sometimes we all just need to step back and look for a bigger picture by engaging in some self-evaluation and regain our perspective.
L.F. Wilkinson Kancho
The Aikibudokan
Houston, TX
April 18, 2022