Perspectives and Priorities – proper training perspective and intensity in classical martial arts

Updated: March 23, 2019

Summer is waning, the smoke in Seattle has cleared, and I pause to think about some recent interactions I have had with budo colleagues, learning about their path and the broader martial arts community. Some strong men and women are excited to learn new things, dedicating their choice of location and employment to be closer to a teacher they value. Others test their skill against younger, stronger opponents, in freestyle competition. And lose, but are wiser for the experience and in a different relationship with fear. A small few combine the essence of a sublime teaching with an art they have mastered to create something new and old at the same time, training assiduously and striving to constantly challenge themselves. Others attempt the same, and combine different arts to the detriment of both, winding up with less than they started with, because they were not ready for the task.

I was walking through the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle on a recent evening when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A small hawk had taken a pigeon as prey, and was standing immobile next to the larger bird. Somehow it was still there as I got my camera ready and managed to focus while the opportunity still presented itself.

In xingyiquan, half of the tactical forms of practice (i.e., the 12 animals) are named after birds of prey. In the Hebei xingquan, we practice cultivating the spirit and mental intent of each animal, as opposed to mimicing its external movements. This is in contrast to many other animal-inspired forms of Chinese boxing. The hawk I saw (which may have been an example of accipiter striatus) was motionless yet alert, in a strong example as I have seen recently of remaining or steadfast mind.

When I returned to the same spot, having completed my errand, the hawk and its prey had vanished without a trace.

Opportunity can be as fleeting.

I feel the intensity of practice is waning in classical martial arts. Through my network of colleagues, I often am sent video links to watch about this or that style of jujutsu or kenjutsu providing a demonstration. In years past, as I was excited to be able to see each different example, I didn't think much about quality per se, or intensity. But, when I watch demonstrations lately – and I admit, because of these issues I have been watching less in recent years – I feel like the posture and kiai and intensity of practice as demonstrated is generally weak. Maybe too many people who focus on modern budo are "cross-training" with koryu? Some rather unique arts, that were known for their intensity, are now demonstrated as if they are a generic form of iaido or aikido. Arts that can only function with precise posture, distance, timing, and position are practiced in a sloppy, rushed, wavering manner. And I sit back at a distance and wonder how they cannot see the error of their ways? Easy to do from an arm chair. Maybe, with distraction paramount, I am not paying close enough attention to what I am seeing, often briefly, on a small screen, but some of the faults are so egregious, I wind up questioning the point of all of it.

If students publicly demonstrate high-level forms of an art in a formal venue, and then do so poorly, I think it is fair to say the overall quality of the art, in its current incarnation in that school, is poor. Because poor students were allowed to learn that material without mastering basics first. And there was also enough confidence in the students to allow them to demonstrate publicly. A person watching them might come to the conclusion that they should not train there. They themselves might be able to rise to a higher level at the same school, especially if they were good or would work harder than the people they saw, given the right opportunity, but it will be hard to blame them for coming to that conclusion. Because the first set of poor examples would be the senior members of the school, responsible for mentoring the next generation. How does one undo that?

An art could have been good at one time, but with too many people training, or people training not often enough, without enough of a reason to let the art sink into their bones to the marrow, quality control can easily wind up being low. I don’t believe in the platonic ideal of a martial art – that somehow by sleep walking through practice, we connect with the founder(s) of the art. Only by bringing a similar intensity to our practice will we ever get close to the realizations they had, and make the arts our own. Too much budo winds up looking like generic Japanese jujutsu or kendo or iaido kata, versus it being somehow different and unique and special and different from what is commonly found.

All arts change over time, and the classical martial arts have also changed, maybe to a lesser extent than recreations or modern syntheses, but changed nonetheless.

Consider that gokui (inner teachings) of a martial art, what makes it really work, are typically hidden, but infuse the quality of the art in those who know them. You can’t infer the gokui from looking at a master do kihon (basic practices), but there is often something different about how they move, how they respond, that elevates their practice to a higher level. I don’t know what the gokui of different martial arts I have not practiced are (and maybe not of arts I practice – long is the journey), but I can tell something is better about certain lines of each art I am able to watch than others.

Has your practice become overly ritualized?
Relegated to an occasional hobby?
Why do you practice?

Do you practice what I will call Enbu-do (the path of demonstration) instead of Bu-do (the martial path)?

When I look at people who are very good at martial arts, and then I enquire to what their training background has been, they each have gone through periods of their life when they had the focus and attention of a skilled teacher, and trained several hours a day, every day, for a period of years.

It is amusing to me that I have friends and training partners who have one or more of the same teacher (in one or more schools) and I will wind up with very different beliefs from them about what is good and bad about different martial arts. Everyone brings a different background and perspective to their practice, but I would have thought the experience of learning a particular martial art would have normalized those perspectives maybe more than it has or more than it can. One difference I have from some other of my contemporaries is that I have also been exposed to high-level martial arts from other cultures (for example, China), and the training methodologies and body mechanics of those arts. I think that colors the lens I use to evaluate what I am seeing in Japanese budo, and maybe I am unnecesarily harsh in my opinions at times.

My colleagues who only practice Japanese martial arts may in turn be puzzled by all the time I spend of Taijiquan. But one benefit of that study is understanding more about relaxation, posture, focus, and balance that I wind up looking for in others. My experience in Jikishinkage-ryū also causes me to look for a focus and intensity in practice that I don't often see in other koryu. My guess is that at one time, that focus and intensity was commonplace. Now, without focus or intensity, and without posture, balance, relaxation, or power, I am not sure what is left. Choreographed movements that are drawn from an earlier time, and would not work now, and would not work then? I don't think it is only modern "masters" of self-invented styles of Taijiquan that have something to fear from people who are young, healthy, and train hard at pragmatic approaches that provide direct feedback to the practitioners (e.g., Judo, Sanda, MMA).

I think it is important to keep kenjutsu practice alive, even if that means it should be somewhat changing or evolving over time. However, that does not mean losing its intensity. Otherwise, we are just practicing folk dance from Japan with swords (kenbu) — keeping the patterns we learned the same but not knowing if they can really be used, but absolutely certain that our folk dance is better than the other group’s folk dance, with no actual rationale for saying so.

That seems much less interesting to me, unless we just want to just do enbu-do instead of budo. I find especially grating discussions about the privations of medeival warfare, focusing on the resolve needed to travel many miles by foot, under harsh conditions, to the medeival battlefield, and how kenjutsu will provide the psychological and spiritual depths required to succeed in those environments, when the practitioners themselves demonstrating are slow and plodding, showing little power, spirit, or focus in their movements. If your art teaches skills for the medeival battlefield, maybe it would also be good to consider what it means to honor the depths of the teachings you have received.

Outcomes

Traditional martial arts practices were developed during a period in history when outcomes mattered – sword practice, for example, was a matter of life and death. Practitioners both had more time available for practice and motivation to make the most of their efforts. Regardless of the fact that our contemporary environment is different than that encountered in the past, it is arrogant to assume we can spend less time on training, and change styles or teachers while still developing our skill. Focus is required to receive the fruit of our labor – often progress only occurs after a long period of effort and frustration. Training can be a profound struggle. There is a question of finding instruction from people who actually know what they are doing, which is hard enough in itself, as we are often not educated enough about the arts that capture our attention to know at the outset whether we are making a good training decision. I personally have spent years heading down winding alleys, whose corners yielded many surprises and delights, that ultimately gave way to impassible walls.

In some ways, only that experience allowed me later to make better decisions about my training. Even if by some chance a person happens across an art that preserves a high level of skill in a number of its practitioners, what of the prospective student? Do they have the basic conditions (fitness, mental attitude) needed to succeed? Can they spend the time required to develop a level of skill? Can they stay focused on the school long enough to succeed?

Listening to senior practitioners speak a bit about their students, both their pride and frustration often shows through. Strive to be the person they are proud of, and have little hesitation spending their time guiding further along the path. Daily practice and dedication is a prerequisite for taking full advantage of what journeymen instructors or great masters have to offer.

For me, as I begin to teach a bit more regularly, some of the same questions apply to the people I will spend time mentoring along their path. First, what I offer has to fit with their vision for their journey. Second, I have to think the time I will spend working with them will be meaningful for them, and provide me a mechanism to also further my own understanding and development. Because I am far from the top of the mountain, as far as skill is concerned.

To borrow a phrase from a great master, I do not want to waste anyone's time if the right conditions for training are not met. That doesn't help anyone. For my own sense of focus, and to honor the ideals I am attempting to cultivate, I will leave these essays in place, but will be spending my time training and considering longer formats with which to express my ideas.

I have not abandoned commentary, but please expect essays that are longer and more developed, less often. Meanwhile, consider the conditions that face your own development, the opportunities you have had, the choices you have made, and take time to reflect on paths chosen, abandoned, taken up again:

What draws you to the arts you do?
What makes you continue to train?
How good are you?
What challenges are you ready to take on?
Are you setting your priorities so you can succeed?
What can you do differently, to better cultivate what is required for success?
How can you make your practice something that also benefits others?

A few questions to possibly focus on as spring blossoms.

Existence Proofs

A related topic is how we judge the skill of those we encounter in the martial arts community. Students typically regard their teachers as skilled, otherwise they would not be training with them – somewhat tautologically. Why I enjoy about the HEMA community is that while in general the direct historical linkage provided by Asian martial arts is not present, more detailed writings survive on the arts as taught in their time period, and with a great deal of effort, and a modern (almost open source) mindset, a high level of skill has been evoked in that community in a relatively short period of time. It makes me wonder what would happen in the koryū community if the different groups decided to regularly get together and fight one another.

MMA and Judo/BJJ are similar, where a strong emphasis is placed on shiai. It is a bit of a fallacy to think there can be no free practice in traditional martial arts, due to the dangers inherent in their practice. At the same time, we would want our practice to retain the character of what it is, instead of regressing to the mean in an attempt to win at a competition. But, where grappling is concerned, or sparring with swords is concerned, I think there is more the koryū community could do as a whole to keep their practices alive.

Some arts do this, but they are arduous, and do not attract many practitioners. People who excel at arts of good repute might quickly fail out of that kind of training evolution, once randomness and freedom are introduced. The familiar can become unfamiliar, and with freedom comes a proportionate amount of stress introduced into the practice. I am not sure each traditional martial art is capable of taking anyone interested on an intellectual level and bringing them to the correct mindset, without an external threat of conflict that would drive practice and an associated practice to allow the mind to stay focused and relaxed.

In my own case, after moving to Seattle I initially had no one to practice formal kenjutsu kata with. However, I did find a sparring partner who trains in a different tradition than my own who was interested in free practice, with the blessing of his teacher. In doing so, we use fukuro shinai and Lacrosse goalie gloves and HEMA fencing masks. I have found the activity to be a very useful laboratory to explore all the things I have learned over the years, at Hobyokan and elsewhere. I noticed that for me, Shinkage-ryū works much better than Shinto-ryū in free sparring, although bits and pieces of Shinto-ryū seem to be effective when just outside of grappling range.

My kenjutsu training wound up focused on gaining fighting experience and working on body conditioning. The reason the sparring sessions seem to be working for me is we are both committed to our individual arts and exploring how to use them, rather than deviating from them when we have trouble, simply in order to win.

I have also had the good fortune of being able to recently participate in Fight Night at Lonin, a HEMA collective in Seattle. Fight Night is an open sparring session where HEMA groups can get together to spar with light steel weapons. I acquired a fencing jacket, neck protector, padded pants, shin guards, gauntlets, back of head protector, neck protector, and a steel blunted longsword and joined in their open fight night two weeks ago. The longswords are about 42 inches long so the distance is closer to a larger Chinese jian or a Japanese odachi (greatsword) than a Japanese tachi (saber), so it is taking some getting used to.

At times in sparring I could use some tactics well, despite having to adapt to a different distance and tempo. I am taking time to practice aspect of Chinese swordsmanship with the steel longsword (called a feder or "feather" sword ) to get the movements facile (there is a cross-bar type guard that one must be cognizant of as jabbing yourself in the eye is not to be desired). Over time, I will work on Shinkage-ryū in the same manner.

I have taken photos of longsword competitions in previous years and was glad to attend Longpoint in Maryland and Swordsquatch in Seattle. In late 2018 I took the step of entering into an Open Steel longsword HEMA competition so I could experience the action first hand.

While I do not actively practice HEMA, I found the experience exciting and engaging and found it interesting to adapt to the increased distance and speed (the "Feder" is lighter than the weapons I typically use, for safety reasons) found within the Italian and German longsword practices. I enjoyed sparring people I had not met before and trying to adapt to their individual styles without much prior knowledge of what they would be doing.

The way I cut in kenjutsu and Chinese swordsmanship is a bit different than is common in HEMA; with proper body organization it is possible to generate sufficient power with smaller movements than are used in HEMA, but it takes a long time to develop that kind of skill. It is part of what makes those arts so special. So, I did not score well in the matches, but did manage to keep my focus and intensity and looking at the video footage, am generally pleased with how things turned out. I was there to experience freestyle sparring at speed with new opponents, and test my skill. That much I accomplished.

In the spirit of owning up to intensity needed for proper training, accepting strengths and limitations, striving to exceed the latter while developing the former, and taking the good with the bad, below are links to my matches:

Some thoughts. If I were to do this more often, I need to learn better the angles of attack at range to be able to protect myself better, given the speed at which the feder (feather) sword can move. I was happy with my ability to close and to uproot opponents backwards to make room to cut; a challenge with the rule set is how small the rings were. Part of how I fight involves closing with an opponent, removing their options by getting them off-balance, and then cutting them. One way to do the latter is to drive them back using body organization and cut. In my matches, I found that driving someone back to do this often took them out of the ring, calling a halt to the action.

I did succeed in executing two throws spontaneously, drawing on my Taijiquan, using an arm entangle and stab from Bagua Jian, and in escaping from an arm grab at close range. So, some of the Chinese Internal Martial Arts skills are coming through for me in free practice. The mat was a bit slippery and I lost my footing once. At least my opponent was moving backward and out of range when that happened, but falling was much less than ideal.

I found the continuous format very intense, as it required a great deal of stamina to stick with the flow of battle while wearing the relatively heavy armor and protective gear. I am glad I have been bicycling up hills recently. The ring, however, was a bit small to maneuver in, and caused many of the engagements to start too close. I would like to be able to do a similar format with more space as often by the time I was able to drive a person back, they were out of the ring.

I think I will make time to attend Fight Night in the future, maintaining an esprit de corps with the other groups at Lonin. The open steel format is different enough from what I am trying to develop in my YCGF and my kenjutsu practice that I am not sure I would optimize for it in my training, and make a point to start entering HEMA tournaments regularly, but they are a great resource that I want to point out exist for testing one's spirit, especially to the koryu community.

I think most koryu practitioners would find doing so useful as a calibration, even if not part of their regular training. It would be good if serious Asian martial arts groups that did sparring or wanted to do sparring with weapons took up HEMA gear and rules as a starting point and integrated free practice into their training after a while, and then sparred each other (even across groups). It would change most of the discussion around koryū. Of course, Kendo has evolved too much from its roots for that to be a meaningful laboratory for Japanese swordsmanship, just as Olympic fencing has for European swordsmanship. The HEMA community has developed or invented a sort of middle ground for themselves, where the German and Italian resurrected traditions can interact.

People have to have the right mindset in them, either instinctively, or through acculturation via specific methods of training. Hojo is one of those (and it is but one, particular to an art I practice). This is one reason why one might spend so much time on fundamental portions of a curriculum, before examining elaborations on a theme. In that regard, I feel that it is the smaller groups that often are stronger than those attracting many participants, as care must be taken to ensure a correct mindset is present, if what we are talking about is traditional swordsmanship. Often the basic practices of a tradition contain the hidden essence of the most profound, and when we see the full picture, after many years of study, we realize that what is seen is but the surface of a deep well of knowledge. Only by revisiting what we once thought we mastered can we begin to appreciate the full depths of our art.