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archive 2008 Jan-Mar |
It is an interesting assumption in the martial arts that the best technician becomes the highest ranked person in the organization, and the top instructor as well. Even more strange is to automatically assume that the top folks are the best technicians.
Rather feudal actually, where the strongest arm gets the biggest chunk of land.
Consider any other activity involving physical skill, soccer perhaps. Is the head of FIFA the best soccer player? Is the top coach the best soccer player? Sounds silly doesn't it? Some folks are going to be good at organization and some are going to be good coaches and younger folks who don't have the experience and don't have the time for either organization or coaching are going to be the best players.
In fact, the whole idea of an organization is to put those who are best at certain jobs into those jobs. This means that one person doesn't have to do everything, which is a good thing since, if you're doing everything, you're doing everything poorly.
Even Musashi, that archetypal loner, thought that was a good idea. Consider his parable of the carpenter. The top fellow is best and most useful at knowing how to organize the folks under him, each according to which job he most suits.
So where did this idea in the martial arts come from, that the top guy has to be the top technician and the top instructor?
Consider the image of the wizened old codger living in a hut on the hill, and the eager young student who shows up for instruction. In a situation where there's a single teacher, two or three students and nothing else, the old fellow is going to end up doing all the jobs. He's going to organize the day's schedule, teach the youngsters, and of course, be better than they are at what he's teaching them. When they get as good or better than the teacher, they leave to go study or teach somewhere else.
Fine and good for one dojo or small schools but not so efficient for the big organizations. Once teacher gets 10 or 12 sub-dojo with his students teaching there he may decide it's time to hire a secretary, maybe someone to keep the books, maybe even get someone to run the business who likes doing that sort of thing. Meanwhile, since sensei has not been getting any younger, maybe he becomes the technical advisor and lets the younger teachers do the heavy lifting and throwing back down again of the students.
The most recent 8dan grading results from Japan have been released:
12 new iai 8dans (12 our of 209, pass rate 5.7%)
2 new jodo 8dans. (2 out of 34, pass rate 5.9%)
13 new kendo 8dans
(Day 1: 5 out of 574, pass rate 0.9%)
(Day 2: 8 out of 834, pass rate 1%)
Why so few? At that level there is a lot more to it than who's still practicing and who's good. Although we all like to believe there isn't any "politics" in rank, at the upper levels of course there is. By politics I mean organizational realities and interpersonal relationships rather than "vote for me", although anyone who doesn't believe there is "lobbying" that goes on is naive.
So let's look at it from a practical point of view, with no 9 or 10dan ranks being awarded for many years (and none planned for the future as far as I've heard) there is a backlog of 8dans that will be created. In other words the operative principle switches from "he deserves it" to "we've got enough".
Hence in the last several years we've seen a reduction in areas that will do jump grades, and an increase in the requirements for grading. Things get stricter "because they can" and also "because they must". Too many people at the top makes things more complicated than they need be.
Looking at it another way, if there are 10 levels between bottom and top you'll get a certain spread of numbers and age. If you reduce that to 8 levels you will still get a similar spread but with fewer levels you'll get a constriction lower down, the difference in "pass qualification" gets tougher at each level.
So for iaido and jodo I see a pass rate of close to 6%, while for kendo it's 1%. Kendo is by far the larger art and has been promoting people up the ladder longer than either iai or jo, so their manageable quota of 8dans must be pretty much filled.
With 1400 challengers to 8dan you can see how "backed up" the system is for kendo. Compare that to 34 in jodo and 200 in iai and I'm surprised the pass rate isn't a bit higher in those arts.
So the reason for such low pass rates is quite likely a small need for new 8dans rather than a low level of skill.
I did mention politics, and before anyone starts assuming that I mean something distasteful by that, let me explain the term as I see it.
Up to a certain level you are going to be graded purely on technical skills. In fact, the criteria for awarding dan grades in the ZNKR state that at 1-3dan the central concern is the level of kihon, of basic (kendo) skills. These criteria apply to iai and jo as well.
For 4-5dan the central concern is the level of basic (kendo) techniques and advanced techniques. At these levels it's "skill", not theoretical knowledge, and you're not expected to be teaching (at 5dan you can start). There isn't anything else expected of you except that you're working hard and getting better so really, who cares what you think of the curriculum or whether or not you get along with the other children in the schoolyard.
From here on up there are further expectations. Now, instead of listing the "political" things that come into play let me put it another way.
In those ranks where you are expected to start teaching, leading and promoting the arts and the organization would it be wise to quickly promote up the ladder into more and more responsible positions someone who:
- Doesn't work hard at the organizational skills required to keep the system running
- Doesn't work hard at teaching those under him
- Doesn't give back to the organization by way of extra work times
- Doesn't show up at seminars
- Doesn't show up in his teacher's dojo
- Can't get along with the other folks in the organization
- Complains constantly about the organization
Don't all those things up there sound like a bunch of brown-nosing and "buying" the grades? In other words don't all those things sound like "office politics"? Sure they do.
If you aren't willing to "play the game" don't expect to be promoted as quickly as those who are working hard for the organization.
The rest of the criteria, by the way, from 6dan on up all make explicit mention of the continuing need for basic and advanced skills, and an increasing understanding of the theory and practice of those skills. They do not mention all those extra "political" things above because there's usually no need to invoke those considerations. Most of those who can't get along and don't like the organization will leave before they get to a senior position of authority.
The considerations would only need to come into play when someone does something damaging to the organization, or when you get the "jam-up" we were talking about at 7-8dan, in which case the positives and negatives will start to count in considerations for pass. Does this person give extra to the organization? If so, and in a choice between him and someone who complains constantly and does nothing useful, who do we promote???
I believe you can probably advance by skill alone, but honestly, is it good for the organization to push troublemakers and complainers quickly to the top, no matter how good their technique?
It is not a good thing.
Instead, it might be useful to give those folks another year to think about it and see if their attitude changes.
It's not good to have shirkers and whiners at the top, but it's also not good to have toadies and yes-men up there either. One thing I've noticed about the top folks in the organization that I've met over the years is that they are very, very good judges of character and they can very quickly size up any troublesome situation. Contrary to the usual assumption of "consensus" and shilly-shallying and avoidance of decisions, these guys can make decisions, make them stick, and suggest, in very blunt manner, some pretty ruthless solutions to difficult problems.
Am I privy to the discussions and mind-set of the senior levels of the ZNKR? No of course I'm not, but this makes sense to me and when I say politics this is what I mean. The reality of any organization is that you need people at the top who can get things done and bring people together more than you need people with massively impressive technical skills. That's why you may see the technicians out in the field teaching and the "politicians" in the office making the decisions.
Sometimes it's the same people, sometimes it's not. It has been said that Oe Masamichi was not the most skilled iaidoka of his generation. Think about the implications of that.
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When I was 20 I decided I had to sort some things out. After an "interesting" youth (oh nothing earth shattering, I wasn't a child soldier in Biafra like one of my fellow students... go look it up).
I looked around for a Zen priest and couldn't find one so settled for an Aikido class that was starting up in 1980 at the University. I had read a comic years before, "Judoman" that had a blurb in the back about the spiritual art of Aikido and Ueshiba sensei.
In any case, I spent the next several years... no I spent the next couple of decades devoting myself to the martial arts, Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, Boxing, Iaido, Jodo, Kung Fu and several others.
Several months ago one of my senior students told me he was ready to learn the deeper aspects of the arts. Here's what I told him.
To learn what I learned you have to be willing to do a few things. Get a job that lets you stay close to your sensei, never mind your career or the salary, you just need enough to live on.
Forget relationships... well that's not entirely true, you can have lots of relationships, and the girls will be pretty impressed with you for a while because you're going to be a pretty intense guy, but eventually they are going to realize you're intense about martial arts and not about them. You are going to neglect girlfriends, family, wives and kids because you are training.
Forget vacations, no time to waste relaxing, all that counts is to get to class, every class, as many as there are, and between classes you need to spend at least 3 to 4 hours a day training on your own. No days off. Between workouts and classes you will spend another 10 hours a day thinking about and reading about the martial arts.
Health? Forget it, you're going to have repetitive strain injuries, dislocations, bruises, breaks and migrains from concussions. You'll train through them all.
I can go on but you get the idea. If you want to get the deep secrets (which, it turns out aren't really secrets at all, just a knowledge that comes from 20 years of neglecting everything else) you have to put in the time and pay the price.
My student didn't decide for the martial arts, he decided for his career, and I'm happy he made that choice. I don't regret my own choices, they may have been the only ones that I could have made, and I really do understand some interesting things, but unless you need it, you don't really need it.
By the way, the martial arts aren't particularly special in this regard. If you want to be the best at gymnastics, baseball, chess, what have you. You'll spend the same amount of time getting to the top of the heap, neglect others, and become obsessive in the same way. You'll also find the strength and internal calm that comes with knowing you can drive yourself beyond what most folks could stand.
Here's a link to a downloadable chart for the various angles to cut in ZNKR iai. Very useful to check out. There's also a chart showing the parts of the sword. http://auskf.info/iaido-new/2004/
Check here http://ejmas.com/pt/2008pt/ptart_watson_0805.html for an ejmas article on kamae in Jodo by Andy Watson. The rest of the May updates are here: http://ejmas.com/thismonth.html
Page Tracking: If you use firefox you can download an add-on that will track specific web pages such as this one and notify you when they are updated.
Wisdom of the Internet
One of the truisms on the internet is that you should never practice without a sensei. If you do you will develop bad habits that you won't be able to correct, or that will be much harder to correct than learning them from scratch.
All I can say to this is that if you can't correct a habit, you can't be taught. The martial arts are a life-long process of modifying habits, of changing and refining movements. The problem isn't developing a bad habit, the problem is not practicing enough to develop a habit at all.
So if you're too far from a teacher, or too young for class, or can't afford the lessons, get a book, get a video and work on it by yourself. For iaido that means swinging the sword. Trust me, I've seen enough beginners and even people with years of practice, to know that whatever bad habits you develop, they won't be any worse than if you'd studied only under a sensei. The difference is that you'll have all that swinging behind you and won't have to wear the grooves into your bones like the rest of the class. You'll have a base on which to build.
Happy swinging.
The advice to "train as if your hair is on fire" came to mind when I read the following in Jeff Broderick's blog.
I had a weird experience Thursday night. After the orientation, I went out with some co-workers as it was my last day in the office. After some food and some drinks, we came out of the bar and started heading for the subway. It was about 10 p.m. at this point, and they weren't very many people on the street. We rounded the corner, and I noticed an old man lying on his back in the sidewalk about 20 metres ahead of us. "Crazy old drunk!" I thought; it's rare but not unheard of to see people passed out in the street at night. But this was a very strange place to pass out. As we got closer, I realized from the position of his limbs and the way he was lying, that he wasn't drunk. "This isn't good," I remember saying. I ran up and yelled, "Are you all right?" He obviously wasn't. I felt for a pulse at his neck and at his wrist. There was nothing, and in fact, he was cold to the touch. "He's dead ... you'd better call the police..."
My Japanese co-worker went off to get the police from the local station, and I stayed with the body. The man's eyes were open slightly, and there was a trace of blood around his nose and mouth. He had been wearing a medical-type bracelet on his wrist, but it had fallen off. His clothes were strangely askew. At some point, I realized that he had jumped or fallen out of the high-rise apartment we were standing in front of. It was starting to rain, and I had this feeling that I couldn't just stand there and let him get rained on, so I held my umbrella over his body. A small crowd of people gradually started to accumulate. The sight of me holding my umbrella over a dead body must have made the whole scene doubly strange. Within a few minutes, a pair of young police officers rode up on their bicycles. They felt for a pulse, didn't find one, and then radioed it in. My Japanese co-worker had to stay and answer a few questions, but I was free to go so I left.
On the way home, the train was full, as usual, with all kinds of people: taciturn salary-men, boistrous couples, sleepy high school students, housewives. I couldn't stop looking at their faces. A few people must have wondered what I was staring at.
Jeff is a member of Sei Do Kai and has been living and working in Japan for several years.
Merihari refers to the overall pacing of a kata, the way that some places are emphasized, some more quiet, and especially how all that ties together. It's what prevents a kata from being mechanical.
Here is a training exercise that we used in class recently to try and demonstrate merihari for ourselves.
We started with "teaching/learning mode" with all sections of the kata (ZenKen iai, seitei mae) done with equal time, at an equal pace while checking that we hit all the points. That means that each part, nuki tsuke, kiri tsuke, chiburi and noto ended up taking pretty much the same time and all the movements were done at about the same speed.
Then we did the kata with the same pacing but added in jo ha kyu on the cuts, chiburi and noto. This means that the movements started slow and accelerated to the finish. The draw and cut showed an acceleration, the final cut, shaking off the blood and the movement to put the sword away all showed a slow to fast section.
Next we added a feeling of seme from the hips to get rid of any sloppiness, and to keep everything pressing forward. This means that we kept our hips pressing forward as if pushing an imaginary enemy back. Without this feeling of pressure the posture can collapse and the body can sway back and forward while doing some of the movements.
Finally we forgot all about what we were doing and instead concentrated on teki, the imaginary opponent, trying to see him move and react to our movements.
Watching the class it was very interesting to see how they went from being robotic to "telling a story" as you could see them catching the opponent in some places, and carefully watching him in others. The timing/pacing of the kata was radically different from the first one of course.
Immediately after the final "teki" kata, I asked them to do the "equal pacing, no effort" teaching/learning mode kata again.
Finally I asked them how they felt about the last kata they did. I won't give their answers but it was pretty apparent that they could feel a difference in their own techniques between a kata with and without merihari.
I doubt they would have been able to do a kata "with merihari" if I'd just explained what it was and let them try to "do it", but there was no problem when we went through these steps and finally "told a story".
This Concussion KiT contains:
- A concussion guide for coaches, parents and the public at large
- A coach’s concussion pocket card for quick reference
- A guide for athletes
- Sport specific return to play guidelines for rugby, basketball, hockey, football, soccer and sports (non-contact)
- Acknowledgements and references
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2007 SIRC Research Award Winners Announced The SIRC Research Award recognizes outstanding sport research in Canada. Acknowledging how sport research benefits the Canadian sporting community is the primary purpose of this award. Congratulations to all who participated. ... Read more »
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SIRC
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If you're not interested in learning any more. If you know everything you want to know, than there are a few things you can do while at a seminar or in a class.
1. Pick a student and help out by teaching him or her for the class. Sensei will likely ignore both of you.
2. When sensei starts to explain something, remark on how you were told something different by some other sensei. That will tell sensei that you are someone else's student and he'll leave you alone.
3. Make sure that any new students, especially seniors, coming into the class are treated as outsiders. That way, even if they may know more than you, or have some skills to pass on, they will keep it to themselves.
4. Look at the clock more than you look at sensei. He'll get the message.
5. If all that fails and sensei still gives you a comment, maybe suggesting you fix something, immediately tell him you were working on something else. That way he'll know that you have no interest in correcting either one of the mistakes.
6. Of course you should always line up as far away from sensei as you can, preferably in a dark corner of the room.
There you have it, I hope those will help keep you from the inconveniences of new learning.
If you're a serious student there are some things you can do to help sensei find things to complain about.
First, don't say "I know" or explain why you can't do something. Both are really telling sensei to go away and help someone else, you aren't listening or you can't fix it today, try again next class.
On the other hand, if you want some help, here's one method. First try to figure out where sensei is looking during class. This may be harder than you think since every sensei I've ever met has wonky eyes, they tend to correct people who are somewhere they aren't looking.
I suppose that's because when they look at students, those students try to do better, and the ones that aren't getting looked at figure they can be sloppy.
Here's the suggestion: When sensei is looking somewhere else, make the corrections, practice carefully and with your eyes turned inside so that you're checking your body position, the timing, whatever you're trying to fix today.
Then, when sensei is looking your way, forget about corrections and concentrate on doing the technique at as high a level as you can, full concentration, full on. What will happen is that you will show sensei where your ragged edges are, and that lets him tell you what you have to work on next.
In this way the two of you will leapfrog over each other and your skills will improve. You correct things while he's not looking and he corrects things while he is.
Producing Total Knockouts: Not The Typical Boxing Club
TORONTO, March 28- Punch Card: Producing Total Knockouts is an event designed to raise awareness of women and transgenders who have been the victims of violence and are looking for a way to break the cycle.
The first Canadian female boxing club, To ron to Newsgirls, in conjunction with The Shape Your Life Program will play host to the event activities. The Shape Your Life program aims to empower survivors by building self-esteem through the sport of boxing.
In the first corner of the ring, champion Lanay Browning will demonstrate boxing techniques and speak about the obstacles she has overcome to become one of Canada 's champion female boxers. In the second corner, graduates from the Shape Your Life Program will candidly speak about past experiences that led them to the program. With special appearances and musical performances by To ron to Newsgirl's founder, Savoy Howe and singer songwriter Mike Celia (www.mikecelia.com).
On Thursday, April 10 at 6 p.m., at the To ron to Newsgirls Boxing Club, 388 Carlaw Avenue, Unit.108, men and women will band together to make a difference in each other's lives.
Proceeds from the event will be donated to the Shape Your Life program for graduates to have a one-year gym membership to The To ron to Newsgirls Boxing Club. The To ron to Newsgirls (www.torontonewsgirls.com) is a boxing club that provides a safe and positive space for women to explore the sport of boxing.
Punch Card: Producing Total Knockouts is organized by Centennial College 's Corporate Communications and Public Relations students, in partnership with Opportunity for Advancement.
For further information,
images or to schedule an interview: Please contact Chrissy Newton, Punch
Card: Producing Total Knockouts- Media Relations, (416) 705-9523, punch.card@hotmail.com
Website- www.torontonewsgirls.com
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This is sort of a follow-on to the post yesterday. I made the point that progress is a bit of an illusion, that one only "progresses" in comparison to someone, someplace, some time or ideal. I also suggested that one could stop worrying about progress by not worrying about the past or the future and living in the present. It's also sometimes a good idea not to live in comparison to other people or in reference to things they say.
In the present there is only what exists now, which, somewhat paradoxically, leaves room for massive and sudden change. If we aren't caught up in the idea that the past/present is permanent and that change is gradual we can simply change.
I have taught women's self defence for the last 20 years at the University of Guelph and one thing we discuss in each class is a rather interesting change I noticed in the rape literature over time. In the beginning researchers would ask women if they had ever been raped and the women would answer no. "Well have you ever had this or this happen to you"
"Yes"
"But we define that as rape, have you ever been raped?"
"No"
So the researchers simply stopped asking whether or not women had been raped and asked what happened, then labeled that as rape when they made their conclusions and reports.
I have always found that fascinating and ask the class to explain it. Personally, I think the women being studied simply didn't want to take on the baggage that comes with "being raped". There is a large set of expectations and assumptions that are put onto women who are "raped", and many women don't want any part of it.
From here we go on to a discussion of what women (and men) should think about anything that happens to them. We usually get to a point where I start on one of my rants and it goes something like this.
You, and only you, get to decide what you think about what happens to you in this world. Nobody else, no movie of the week, no magazine, no school psychologist gets to decide how you react to the world around you. Only you get to do that. Good things happen. Bad things happen. You sometimes get injured, sometimes by rocks falling from the sky, sometimes by people who hate you. Good things also happen in equally random ways.
Only you live in your own head and only you are allowed to decide, and you can decide, how anything effects you. If you choose to have no long term psychological problems due to bad or good things that happen to you, that's OK. If you decide to just forget about it, that's OK. You aren't some kind of unfeeling freak, you're simply someone who chooses to define how you react to the world.
Memories don't get buried to resurface and cripple you decades later, you either remember things or you don't. When you do happen to remember something you get to decide what you feel about it then. You don't have to take on extra baggage because someone tells you that you will, or worse, that you should.
Oh go on, say it, I'm blaming the victim by suggesting that people who are psychologically crippled due to some event in their lives could simply decide that it doesn't cripple them.
I honestly don't know, am I? What I am suggesting is that any "cure" that I've ever heard of amounts to the damaged person deciding, slow or fast, with help or not, due to some talking circle or some psychoactive drug, that they are now fine. The therapist or pharmacist does not declare them cured, only the victim him or herself does that.
The alternative to saying that we get to decide (eventually) how we feel about what happens in our lives is to say that if something bad happens we can't get over it and are crippled for life. There are reasons why people might suggest this but by the very nature of the statement those reasons have nothing to do with helping the victims.
What I'm saying is that we have a choice about how things affect us and that nobody else in the world should presume to tell anyone that they should or will react in any particular way. It's not our right to tell anyone whether they are happy or unhappy, damned or saved, cured or sick.
Not Our Right.
Back to our person in the world. Let's say they have a broken arm. In one case it's from a rock falling down a mountain. Does one start to fret about the reason why the mountain hurt them? Or why the gods don't like them? Or if one was trespassing somehow on sacred ground and was therefore a bad person and deserved to be hit by the rock? How about if ones arm is broken by one's significant other?
Me, for myself, I think it's pretty clear that what needs to be done is that the arm needs to be fixed, a sigh of relief needs to be given that it was an arm and not a neck that got broken, and then one needs to decide whether or not to go back to the rocky slope or the relationship. It doesn't really need to get any more complicated than that.
So, here you are in the now, something happens, you decide and there you are. You are where you think you are.
The reason for practice gives the assumed goals and you will make progress or not toward those goals.
Iaido and Jodo are closed/semi-closed arts, Let's get simple and just assume we're talking technically, as in "am I getting better at the physical skills of jodo or iaido?" This is possible for these arts since they have an ideal form that one can move toward. The question of progress then becomes "am I getting closer to the ideal form as demonstrated by my sensei"? You can check this by filming yourself, having sensei tell you you're getting better, or if you're further along the path, checking your own form internally, comparing the position of your body to what you know it should be through being put there by sensei. You progress through being corrected and incorporating those corrections, at which time you get more corrections.
With something like Jodo you have a partner, so you have another comparison to make, "am I better or worse than my partner today"? You can measure your progress through matching yourself to the other guy. For more open sports like boxing, kendo or wrestling the measurement of progress becomes whether or not you beat the other fellow. Fairly simple... well perhaps not, what if you're not getting better, what if your competition is getting worse?
What if you change instructors and the new guy isn't as good as the old one, do you suddenly get better (closer to what sensei can do) or is the comparison suddenly different? OK too obvious, what if your instructor gets older, more feeble, more injured? Are you improving then?
In every case the idea of progress requires some sort of comparison, to myself yesterday, to someone else, to an ideal form. Without something to measure ourselves against we can't have any notion of progress. Without some sort of "here" and a "there" to get to, you won't progress at all, you'll simply be "here".
Even self-improvement is difficult since we're actually comparing ourselves to what we remember of our skills yesterday. Memory isn't always very accurate, one's skills as a beginner tend to rise as one acquires more skill, I seem to recall I was pretty good at about 2 years into practice... but I've seen video...
Now before you pounce and say "yes, video! That's the ticket" just remember that a single performance laid down on a video isn't always accurate either. Your current skill is quite variable, some days are better than others, some minutes are better than others, a video captures one of those.
What happens when you get so good you achieve your goal? Is there anywhere to go, any progress beyond that? Ever wonder about the black belt dropout rate? There's anecdotal evidence of a massive loss of students as they reach black belt, could it be that they see nothing beyond their goal and once they arrive there they have no reason to stay?
Now, what happens if you suddenly lose the idea of progress, think only of what you are doing now, only of what sensei is telling you this instant, and focus on change rather than progress. Only change, not good or bad change, not caring about where you're going, only participating in where you are?
With noplace to go what might you do here? With no worries about last week's corrections or next month's gradings, how much concentration can you give to what you're doing today? With nothing to accomplish, what might you achieve?
"Every day in every way I'm getting better and better". Compared to what?