Kendo World magazine

If you read this Blog, and you haven't subscribed to Kendo World magazine, then there's something wrong! Kendo World is the leading - no, the only - print magazine devoted to kendo, with sections on iaido, jodo, and koryu bujutsu. It is a real labour of love, and if you want it to stay around, then please show your support and subscribe. Reading the worn-out, dog-eared copy that gets passed around your kendo club is cheating!
I think Kendo World had some problems with subscriptions in the past, so they are having a special now: get 4 issues for US$49.95 - This is 30% of the individual price - in other words, if you subscribe, you get a free issue. Subscribing is also the best way to make sure you don't miss an issue. This special offer is only going to last until December 25th.
www.kendo-world.com

Recent events

I've been falling behind with my posts lately. There are two main reasons for this: one is that I could be going through a period of listlessness and can't be bothered to write anything. The other is that I'm busy with something and just don't have much time to write. Fortunately this time, it's the second reason.
I have quite a few things I wanted to mention. One is that I think I've fixed the problem with my cut. (Readership: "Hurray! We were all losing sleep over that!") Sensei had been watching me with a sense of annoyance. I thought it was just annoyance at me for being unable to fix my swing, but now I'm guessing that he was a bit annoyed with himself for being unable to get to the root of my problem. A couple weeks ago, he got me to change the timing of my footwork with the cut. Before, I was doing a kind of 1 .. 2-3 timing, which means the front foot steps, I cut, and the back foot comes up at almost the same time. He tried to get me to do everything at the same time - not possible, in fact, but that's the feeling. I couldn't get it at all, until I started imagining I was doing kendo. Then I got it.
One thing I've learned since I've come to Japan is that there isn't one way to do things. You could be forgiven for thinking so in the west, at least for a while. You have a seminar, and a bigwig comes over and tells you, "This is THE way it is done." You silently think to yourself, "But X. Sensei told us to do it THIS way last year ... but I guess it's changed. Okay." The fact is, though, that not only does Seitei iai change from year to year, but it changes depending on whom you are learning from. This is a good thing, to some extent: everybody has their own way of doing iaido. Why should there be ONE way to do everything? If you analyze the way the top dozen golf pros hold their clubs, I'm sure you'll find a couple who do it differently than the others. But if they can all hit the ball roughly the same distance, with the same accuracy, who's to say who's right? Same for tennis, same for baseball, same for iaido.
The bummer part is that most teachers think they're right, and so whenever I have changed teachers, I have gotten some criticism that runs directly counter to what somebody else has just told me. Oh well; it keeps me from getting complacent, and that is a good thing, despite all my whining. All of this is just my long-winded way of saying that I've fixed my cut, for now, but when I change dojos again in the future, I'll very quickly be working to fix it again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I was thinking the other day at jodo practice about "winning" and "losing". Even though it's already decided that the Jo side always defeats the Tachi, there is a dynamic within the kata that means that there is a "real winner", I think. I don't want to overstate this, nor do I want to make anybody think that the point of Jodo is to be the winner. But sometimes it's hard to ignore. You know you've "won" the kata when:
-you're the tachi side, but your kiai overwhelms that of your partner; his kiai is weak and unconvincing
-you make your partner blink a few times with a look of, "What just happened?" on his face
-you have to slow your movements down because your partner wasn't ready to block the strike you were preparing
-when you're on the Jo side and you drive your partner back almost into the wall; then he goes to step back and bumps into the wall because he forgot the wall was there, he was so focused on getting away from you
-when your partner can't look you in the eyes
-when you're on the Jo side and you almost knock the bokuto out of your partner's hands, and he is clearly thrown off-balance, mentally, by this
-conversely, when you're on the Tachi side, and your partner does a strike which doesn't work, or has little effect

Basically, I'm not saying that your goal is to beat your partner up - although there seem to be many people in the Jodo world who think so! But if you can maintain an unperturbable mental state, while throwing your opponent off-balance mentally, then you've won.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The "Dai To-Ken Ichi" or "Big Sword Market" was held in Tokyo a couple weeks ago. I went to this event a few years before, and it was like Shangri-La; more swords in one place than I could ever imagine. And not only swords, but spears, naginata, matchlock guns, suits of armour - it was absolutely incredible.
Well, as often happens with me, I forgot when it happens, exactly, and so it had been a few years since I checked it out. About a month ago, I was at the Japanese Sword Museum. I met a gentleman from Australia who asked me if I was going to the sword market, and I confessed that I had no idea when it was happening. As it turned out, it was the following weekend, so I made plans to go. I think I offended him, though, because when he asked me, "So, do you study swords?" I told him that, while I thought swords were beautiful in their own right, I could never imagine spending hours and hours studying who was the student of whom, and learning what combinations of nioi and nie and jigane and hamon were representative of what school. When he heard that, he said, "Well," and turned on his heel and walked away.
But at least I learned when the event was. Here are a few pictures:

I'm guessing that there were 30 dealers or more, so imagine this scene multiplied by 30. Enough swords to make your head spin, and each sword worthy of hours of study and examination. Of course, barbarian that I am, I just wanted to pick them up and swing them.
I was looking for swords in my "length range", i.e., swords that I could use for iaido. I use a 2.7, so I was looking for swords over 2.5, basically. It's kind of a funny thing that swords look a lot longer when they are out of their furniture. I kept thinking, "Oh, that one looks pretty long!" but when I checked the fine print, it was only a 2.4 or something. Nosyudo had a fantastic 2.64 sword by Kanefusa, stunning hamon, only $8,000 or so. I had to give it back because I was salivating all over it.


A few suits of armour, too. Strangely, the armour was quite a bargain compared to the swords. I suppose it is just the fact that armour is large and difficult to store, and so not in demand? I think the above suits were going for about $20,000 each. That seems like a lot, until you realize the sheer number of swords which were going for $30,000 and up. I think the same principle is in effect when you consider that small, compact objects like netsuke and inro have been commanding high prices for much longer than swords. In fact, tsuba used to be the valuable parts of swords, until collectors in the west learned more about the blades. I think this is because tsuba are small and easy to store, and the workmanship is easier to appreciate. I dunno.
So anyway, my dream sword can be mine for just $8,000. Guess I'd better start saving my pennies.

Moving Zen

My iaido teacher, when asked, sometimes tells the story of how he got into the martial arts. He was originally drawn to Zen, but was unable to find a Zendo in the area, so he figured he'd start martial arts, thinking that they were kind of the same thing. Turns out he was right.

My sixth reason for "Why Somebody Might Study a Sword Art" was that it could be a type of moving Zen practice. I've been putting off writing this piece because I'm simply not qualified to say much about it. (I know being unqualified has never stopped me before...)

Of course, like everybody else out there, I've read some books on the topic, but I've also read opinions that the links between martial arts and Zen are overstated; that there really is no deep connection. People sometimes state that martial arts are much more closely connected to Shinto, Confucianism, or Shingon Buddhism. I can't comment intelligently on any of that, so instead, here are some random thoughts. (Hey, it's my blog, and I'll ramble if I want to...)

I think Zen has had such a deep and wide-ranging effect on Japanese culture as a whole that it is impossible to deny the influence of Zen on any Japanese art. To my mind, it would be almost like denying the influence of Christianity on Western culture. Historians of the future might argue, "Oh, so-and-so was an atheist, so his works were not influenced by Christianity." But that would show that they failed to recognize the extent to which the culture as a whole has been shaped by Christian beliefs, so even someone who was not specifically a believer, or who never went to church, would still have been educated and brought up surrounded by Christian values.

Moreover, I sometimes get the feeling that people who deny a historical connection between martial arts and Zen are just trying to be contrary, or stirring up controversy. But at the end of the day, I'm not a historian, so I just don't know.

What is clear is that in the modern era, martial arts have been imbued with a connection to Zen that may or may not have been there historically. Kendo and Iaido practices usually begin and end with a period of mokuso, or meditation. While it is often brief, it is a time to clear the mind and focus on the present.

When we are practicing, we are encouraged to remain in the present moment; not to intellectualize. Although questions during iai practice are fairly common in the West (in my experience) they aren't asked much in Japan. It's just "do it ... now do it again". You're not supposed to think about it too much, but let it seep into your bones through repetition.

Zen tells us that everything is one; there is no difference between "this" and "that". When we practice iai, there is no difference between our state of mind when we are sitting quietly and when we are slicing our imaginary opponent in half, nor when we are looking out over his bleeding corpse. When we practice kendo, we have to "become one" with our opponent - the ideal is not that we move in reaction to his movements - cause and effect, attack and defense - but rather that we move at the same time, or even slightly before he knows he is about to move.

Increasingly in the modern world, we are able to spend hours and hours in a purely intellectual world. We stare at computer screens, thinking about abstractions, writing to people who aren't present, while our legs fall asleep. Practicing the martial arts, we remember to breathe; we feel the pain in our knees and ankles, the floor beneath our feet, the sweat trickling into our eyes. We look into our partner's face, and when everything works right, we reach the end of a kata and realize, "Hold on ... What just happened? I must have done it correctly because he didn't split my head open, but ... I honestly don't remember the last 5 seconds at all!" It is as though we ceased to exist for an interval, before our brains slammed on the brakes and brought us screeching back to the present.

In "Opening the Hand of Thought", Uchiyama Roshi talks about how Zazen practice is not really the act of sitting there with an empty mind, but rather the act of stringing together short little intervals of "empty-mindedness", interrupted by random thoughts that bubble up from our brains like gas from a swamp. Zazen is exhausting because you have to constantly struggle to let go of those random thoughts, to obtain brief windows of silence - of nothingness. I believe I have experienced nothingness in the middle of kata practice.

Notes from a cluttered mind

I was reading over my own Blog entries from last year (what kind of sicko does that, anyway?) when I noticed my entry about the All-Japan Iaido Tournament, and also the A-J Jodo Tournament. I started thinking, "Yeah, those should be coming up any time now ..." and checked the All-Japan Kendo Federation webpage. They had both come and gone!

The Iaido tournament took place in Nagasaki this year. As I lived in Nagasaki-ken from 2000 - 2002, I really wanted to go and see the tournament. All the Sensei I had met around Kyushu were sure to be there. Plus, the Oita team this year was headed up by 7th-dan Ishii Toyozumi, instead of the man who has become kind of the "regular" Oita delegate, Kosaka Sensei. Ishii Sensei is a wonderful guy who taught me many times, and I was really interested to see how his dynamic, sharp style would do in competition. (He also does Niten Ichi Ryu and Sekiguchi Ryu iai.) Not very well, it turns out! The Oita team did quite poorly, although it may be that they just ran into tough competition early on, as frequently happens in elimination tournaments like this.

Results of the tournament from the ZNKR website:

5th dan
Winner: Hirose (Nagasaki)
2nd: Imai (Niigata)
3rd: Harada (Kanagawa) and somebody whose name I can't read (>_<) from Chiba.

6th dan
Winner: Yamazaki (Shizuoka - wonder if he is related to 8th dan Yamazaki Sensei?)
2nd: Takagi (Nagasaki)
3rd: Kamei (Kochi) and Nakagawa (Yamagata)

7th dan
Winner: Morishima (Kanagawa)
2nd: Tsukimi (Nagasaki)
3rd: Akiba (Chiba) and Shimamura (Tochigi)

This was, I think, the first time that Morishima has won the 7th dan division, but it was only a matter of time, as he has been coming in 2nd or 3rd place for years now. Given that he's only - what? - 39 or something, he has a lot of good years left in him, too. Definitely a man to watch.

With 2 second place finishes and a first, Nagasaki easily won in the team competition. This is not surprising as they were the host prefecture. Perennially strong Kanagawa and Chiba both did well. What was a bit surprising was that Niigata came in 3rd, I believe. They have not been particularly strong in the past but they may have some strong leadership there; I need to find out more, I guess. Good for them, in any case.

Meanwhile, the Jodo tournament had taken place in Kanagawa over a week before. To my knowledge, nobody in my dojo mentioned it to me, which made me feel a bit neglected. (Being a foreigner in Japan is sometimes a lose-lose situation, especially when you've got an attitude problem like me. When people treat you with extra consideration, you get your back up and say, "I'm not a child! Don't treat me like I'm so helpless!" On the other hand, if people don't help you, you do dumb things like missing events that are common knowledge to everybody else, and then go around saying, "Thanks for not telling me, you jerks!")

So basically, I hate that I am disorganized, but I guess I don't hate it enough to become organized. I wish I spoke better Japanese, but I don't seem to want it enough to put in the hours of study required. I wish I was better at iaido and jodo but ... oh, ouch.

Excuses, and Inflicting Pain

Just a quick post, as a kind of addendum to the last post.

Kim Taylor has a martial arts Blog, and he usually says things better, or at least gets to the point quicker, than I do. In his Oct. 20, 2009 edition, he says:

...some folks just can't be taught physically. The student who tells you why
they can't do some movement or other, the one who fixes it while you're looking
at them and then drops right back into the same old habits, the one who looks at
you blankly, as if to say "I'm doing it that way, what's wrong with you?" and
the one who tries, really, really tries but never gets it.

I have been all of the above at one point or another. In fact, I am one or two of them right now.

I have a problem with my cut. I'm trying to make my cuts as large as I can, but in doing so, I have developed a bad habit of moving through "dead hand" when I am making contact with kasso-teki's forehead. In other words, my wrists are over-extended at the point of impact, which is weak. Then, I pull my hands into my belly at the end of the cut, resulting in a kind of wobble. The sword should stop firmly at the end, but mine doesn't. It does a little one-two bounce.

My teacher has tried to get me to fix this problem. When he first mentioned it, I was "the one who looks at you blankly, as if to say 'I'm doing it that way, what's wrong with you?'" I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. When it became obvious that I was, in fact, doing it that way, my next reaction was to think, "But I've seen lots of people do it this way! Iaido champions do it this way!" (Which is true, actually; if you slow down video of many of the frequent iaido taikai winners, they cut the way I do, which is neither here nor there; I had been told to fix something, and I shouldn't be denying the problem, or evading it.)

The next week, I came back and was cutting the same way. I had become "the one who fixes it while you're looking at them and then drops right back into the same old habits". Well, I hadn't really fixed it to begin with, actually. The best I could manage was to do 2 or 3 good cuts out of 10, while my teacher stood there saying, "No ... no ... okay ... no ... nope ... Yes! ... no ... no ..." Eventually he got tired and wandered away, to our mutual relief.

Last week, I went to practice and was still cutting the same way. Sensei was exasperated and said, "Even though I tell you what you're doing wrong, you just keep doing the same thing." My defences rose up and I tried to explain why I couldn't cut properly. I tried to blame the weight of my sword (it's a 2.7, but not all that heavy, really) and the unusually thin tsuka it came with, which is hard to grip firmly with the left hand. I had become "the student who tells you why they can't do some movement or other".

A few days later I was at jodo practice. During a break, I took a bokuto and began doing some swings in front of a mirror. I was doing the same thing with the bokuto! I couldn't blame my strange cutting on the weight of my iaito, or its thin tsuka. (Damn!) I was finally able to fix my cut when swinging the bokuto, but it remains to be seen whether it will translate over into my iai.

_________________________________

Regarding my last post on self-improvement, my friend Paul had this to say:

One thing that you didn't really talk about in the "Self-Development" training
reason was about partner training, especially when you have to inflict pain
and get it inflicted on you in turn (Aikido is a good example, but there are
many painful techniques, and errors for that matter, in Jodo and Kenjutsu
kata). You talked about the pain of pushing yourself, which is a very
important factor, but I think that partner work teaches a lot about empathy and
compassion and appreciation, things that are very beneficial in life both inside
and outside of the dojo.

And in a later mail:

I have always found that the kids in the Judo clubs at the high schools I've
been at were a lot nicer than the kids in the Kendo Clubs. Not a very
scientific comparison, but there might be something to it. While Kendo
does hurt, it's more because you let yourself get hit, [i.e., failed to prevent
yourself from getting hit, by dodging, blocking, etc.] than you allowed your
partner to inflict pain in order to better understand a technique.

Great points, Paul, and thanks for letting me post them.

Martial Arts and Self-Improvement - A Self-Fulfilling Goal?

I'm writing this a bit reluctantly. It's the next item on the "Why practice sword arts" list, but it's probably the hardest one to tackle. "Self-improvement" is difficult to define. We have to define a "good person" before we can decide what it means to be a "better person", and the first one has eluded philosophers for centuries. We can't really measure self-improvement either, except subjectively, and there is certainly no way to prove if it has happened.
Of course, we all have anecdotal evidence. "Before I started martial arts, I was spineless, cowardly, weak, selfish, and morally bankrupt. Now, 20 years later, I am somewhat less so." Not exactly scientific, is it? How much did martial arts have to do with it, and how much of it was merely "growing up" a bit? We each have to answer that one for ourselves.
I want to take a look at Kendo. Kendo is an art that is practiced mostly for the purpose of self-improvement. Nobody is out there taking kendo for self-defence. And as I said before, it's good exercise, but it's a lot easier to do 40 minutes on a stairmaster while watching TV, than to go to the dojo and get whupped for 2 hours twice a week. Which leaves the idea of doing it because it makes you a better person. According to the All-Japan Kendo Federation;

The concept of Kendo is: To discipline the human character through the
application of the principles of the katana.
The purpose of practicing Kendo is:
To mold the mind and body,
To cultivate a vigorous spirit,
To hold in esteem human courtesy and honor,
To associate with others with sincerity,
To forever pursue the cultivation of one's self,
And through correct and rigid training, to strive for improvement in the
art of Kendo.

Therefore from kendo we hope to
learn:
Proper ways to interact with others.
Continuous concentration as
we aspire and reach towards goals.
Total commitment to what is right.
How to become contributing members of society.

Kendo is hard. I can definitely agree that it molds your body while providing you with mental toughness and powers of concentration. By adhering to strict etiquette, it teaches courtesy. At higher levels, you must become aware of your opponent/partner's intentions, which makes you sensitive to others. But what about the other points? "Total commitment to what is right?" How does that happen?

I think this is kind of a chicken-and-egg thing. People come to kendo because they are already interested in self-improvement - "becoming a better person" - which means that they are already thinking about what it means to be a "good person". Kendo attracts and keeps ethical people who are receptive to these ideas. It's kind of like church, particularly in this day and age when fewer and fewer people are raised with religion. The people who drift back to church are the people who are interested in questions of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Even if they don't agree with every tenet of religious teaching, they find themselves part of a group of like-minded people.

Next, telling people "By doing kendo, you can make yourself into a better person" is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Kendo provides people with a specific type of social interaction, with juniors and seniors, and rights, and responsibilities, over a backdrop of physical challenges and pain. The way you cope with the pain, while still maintaining your responsibilities, teaches you something which, because you've been made aware of the possibility, you then extend to your life outside the dojo.

If you practiced another activity - let's say bowling - with the same kind of attitude as kendo or kyudo or iaido, I think the results would be the same. "Clear your mind before you bowl. Extend your ki towards the pins. Bow to the pins slightly, acknowledging that they are one with you. Begin your approach and release the ball in one fluid motion ..." I think the self-consciousness is the important part: finishing a practice, feeling exhausted, and asking yourself, "Why did I put myself through that? Is it making me a better person?" We look for changes in ourselves, signs of improvement, and it is that process that changes us.

Is there anything inherently beneficial about martial arts? I don't think so, any more than there is something inherently beneficial about waking up on Sunday morning and singing hymns with a bunch of other folks in a building somewhere. But if we are self-conscious that we are doing it for a reason, and that reason is that we want to become a better person, then the potential for improvement is there.

Why do a sword art, anyway?

Let's begin at the beginning. Why would anybody practice a sword art in the first place? These are the conceivable reasons I could think of.

1. To learn how to kill someone with a sword.

2. Because it stimulates their sense of fantasy and lets them imagine being someone else.

3. For exercise.

4. For fun; either sheer physical enjoyment, or social interaction.

5. Because it is a form of self-improvement.

6. Because it is a type of "moving Zen". (This may be closely connected with #5.)

7. Because they want to become part of, and to perpetuate, a historical / cultural tradition.

The commenter a few posts back told me to: "... stop making the error of viewing the rest of the world through the window of one overly defined, poorly practiced, narrow example of what a sword art can be." I've tried to do that, and the above list represents every conceivable reason why I could imagine someone might practice a sword art. I've left out other reasons such as "I enjoy cutting myself" or "I look forward to having bad knees when I get older."

Reason #1 seems a bit odd when it is put bluntly. If you want to kill, there are more effective ways of doing it. You could join the army; they will train you, pay you, give you the tools, fly you around the world, and maybe even provide you with opportunities to kill people.

A very small number of historians might be interested in "historical" killing methods. I have heard about historians who look at battle injuries on skeletal remains to determine how those people died, and presumably, what kinds of techniques were used. It seems a very limited area of study, with very limited rewards, in my opinion. And unless you're writing a PhD thesis on the topic, it doesn't apply to you.

Few people would admit to doing a sword art for reason #2, but I suspect that most of us are, at least partly. That was absolutely the reason why I started. I played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons when I was an awkward teenager (I've stopped since I've become an awkward adult). I also thought the greatest comics ever were Frank Miller's "Ronin" and the Japanese manga, "Lone Wolf & Cub." I dreamt of enduring the hardships necessary to become a master swordsman. I imagined myself becoming like the stoic, tortured Itto Ogami, a lone assassin on the road to hell. How cool is that?

When I discovered a "Japanese Swordsmanship" club at my university, I was expecting people in karate-gi using wooden swords. Imagine my ecstasy when I showed up and ... Oh my God ... they were dressed up like samurai! And the best part ... they were using real swords! I almost passed out in my haste to sign up for the class.

Not everyone is as immature as I am/was. Either way, the "dress up" factor soon wears off, and people who may have started Japanese sword for that reason soon gravitate to something else, like Live-Action roleplaying, or Society for Creative Anachronism.

But still, there is something about doing sword arts that allows people to play a role. No matter what they are really doing or what they are really getting out of it, it lets them tell themself, "I am a wise martial artist on the path to enlightenment" or "I am part of an ancient tradition" or "I am becoming a killing machine." In other words, this is a sort of "meta-reason" ... the perception of why you're doing a sword art, regardless of the real reason or real result.

Reason #3 was exercise. Kendo is great exercise; iaido much less so. But for couch-potatoes like me, something is better than nothing. When I started iaido, I had been a sedentary teenager for years. Even the relatively easy movements in practice were strenuous. 18 years later, I am not much better, really (knees are far worse) but I am far more active than I used to be, and recognize the need for cross-training. I respect trained athletes. And I'm trying to get into better shape. If it weren't for iaido, who knows what I might be doing now?

But as far as a reason to practice sword arts? For iaido, exercise hardly rates.

#4. All of us, I'm sure, find sword arts "fun" on some level. We enjoy it, or we wouldn't do it. Young samurai may have been forced to practice martial arts - many Japanese school kids are, as well - but nobody is forcing us. We have friends in our dojo, or we take satisfaction in seeing some small improvement in our technique. Doing well at tournaments may give us an adrenaline rush, and a sense of self-esteem. But again, as with exercise, martial arts are not really "fun" when compared to other leisure activities. There are plenty of ways to meet like-minded people that don't involve physical pain, occasional humiliation, and getting up early on weekends to attend camps and seminars.

So, I don't think "It's fun" is a good enough reason.

I'll look at reasons 5, 6, and 7 next.

Why is it so hard to write about this stuff?

There was an interesting comment on my last post. If you haven't read it yet, check it out below.

Immediately after I read the comment, I wrote a response. It got longer and longer, and as I read it over, I felt like I wasn't really being clear. The more I wrote, the more confused my message became.

I saved the message, telling myself I'd work on it later and post the finished version. Well, the more I thought about it, the more rabbit holes I started to find myself down. The more I wrote, the more cans of worms I had to open.

Which in turn, made me think: why is it so hard to write about - or at least reach any conclusions about - martial arts?

I'm going to try and devote the next few posts to hashing out a few things. I'm not expecting to uncover any actual "answers" but at the very least, I might be able to illuminate my thought processes a bit.

Update Oct. 6: I wrote a big comment which probably should have been a post of its own.