"Does it work?"

This is HUGE!

We spend all this time practicing martial arts - no wait - anything, any hobby! But I'm going to talk about this in the context of martial arts right now because it can be a particularly judgemental arena on such matters. SO! We spend all this time practicing martial arts; punching and kicking the air, throwing each other around, dressing up in strange clothing, paying large amounts of money, occupying our incredibley precious free time ... for what?! Well, many people do it because "it works."

What the hell does that mean?

Well, it means many different things, depending on what "it's" working for. Lets simplify and specify this a little more. Let's say the point of martial arts is to be martially proficient: fighting, defending yourself, or controlling others' bodies. If a technique works, then it's a good technique, and was worth spending the time to learn, practice, and ingrain. BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW IT WORKS!?!?!? Some people go out looking for fights to practice techniques, and however much I may negatively judge that approach because I wouldn't ever do it myself, you gotta admit that's a pretty good way to check if a technique works or not. But what about for the rest of us? Because you have your buddies give certain fake (no matter how well your friend simulates the attack, it is never the real thing without intent) attack, you think that's battle-testing it? I would never contemplate a defense against an attack if it came, #1 because I probably wouldn't have the time or peace of mind to do so, and #2, because my natural reaction, no matter how much it may violate the ideals of stances or balances, will do a better job because of my conviction and instincts rather than a contemplated technique.

Anyway, I think I'm getting a little off track. This whole question and realization actually started in the context of iaido. Just the other day I found an extremely interesting flier about iaido (the art of drawing the sword, generally) in Toyama. It actually looks like it's part of a big organization called, "International Batto-do Shizan Association Ryuseiken." (So if any of you have any stories or opinions on this, PLEASE let me know because I want to get as much information as I can in case I decide to join.) Anyway, I've always wanted to try iaido, and I've talked a lot with my aikido sensei about iaido because he happens to be a third degree blackbelt. He's practiced in Toyama, and maybe even with this particular group. I'm not sure, I'll ask soon. But the problem is, he says there are a lot of contradictions between iaido and aikido, and that it can really end up being a minus for each other to practice them both, at least in his experience. For example, do you swing a sword with your hips straight ahead or tilted at a 45 degree angle? This is really important if it's the most basic of concepts you're trying to incorporate into your body's subconcious reactions. Moreover, he mentioned that a lot of iaido schools are supported by kendo practitioners, who practice iaido to get a better sense of using a "real" sword in "real" situations, but that the iaido gets manipulated and changed to better serve the kendoka. This is a real turn off for me.

So I was thinking about practicing iaido, and judging for myself whether the techniques were good or not. Well, what's the criteria?

"Does it work?"

"DOES IT WORK?!?!?!"

What do you mean!? The "purpose" of using a sword is to cut and kill people ... I will never cut people!!! Never say never, I know ... but seriously, I'm way more likely to try and kill someone with a bad joke than a sword (you dead yet?).

Do you see where this is going?

If "working" iaido is the kind that enables me to cut someone in half with a traditional Japanese sword, that's a pretty fricken worthless skill isn't it? Or at least more worthless than learning how to kill people with jokes, which is a better technique based on the fact you spend less time around a traditional Japanese sword than you are able to tell a joke. Furthermore, for empty handed techniques, if the sole purpose of "working" emtpy handed martial arts is to be physically invincible, then I'd say you're spending way too much time on this task when you should just get a gun or ... oh my god, how about this ... how about you train your awareness so you can avoid danger before it engages you physically?

So, if you follow my logic, the purpose of practicing martial arts lies outside mere physical abilities in martial activities. I just watched an interview of Tim Cartmell  (a prominent figure in modern martial arts particularly in the arenas of TCMA and BJJ) provided by a certain dojo rat where he is asked various questions about his opinions on the martial arts, and guess what, the question of "why do we practice the martial arts" came up. His answer? Self-cultivation. A person can acquire in a pretty short amount of time a good enough arsenal to protect them in the majority of physical altercations. So why then, do so many people stay at it? There's something else. Tim Cartmell labels it "self cultivation". In a book I'm reading now about qigong, "The Way of Qigong: the Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing" written by Kenneth S. Cohen, there is a very memorable quote that states, "The purpose of practicing tai chi chuan is to have a relaxed spirit." A fairly simple idea, but how many people physically realize this? Lately, this has been the most recurring idea in my mind, and one that lies at the center of this issue.

In addition to the many wonderful physical benefits, a lot of which include martial phenomenon despite my peaceful agenda, the primary reason why I practice martial arts is to have a relaxed spirit. Self-cultivation is part of it, and actually, may be bigger than merely having a relaxed spirit, but for some reason that quote is too relevant to me right now. The number one reason why I put all this time and energy and thought into practicing martial arts is to have a relaxed spirit.

So now here comes the big question:

"Does it work?"

Zacky Chan Version 3.0

The mountains are my body,
the clouds are my thoughts.

 How's that for wisdom? When I took these pictures it was a real "Whooaaaaa ... duuuuddde." moment for me.

 I've been foibled by the blogging gods over and over again trying to put a first entry in over the past couple days, and so now you're getting a very very condensed version of what I imagined. Screw it, look at these interesting pictures I took on a week-long hiking trip from Tateyama in Toyama Prefecture to Kamikochi in Nagano, drink your preffered blog-reading-beverage, and read some ramblings about my recent transitions and thoughts on martial arts.

 First off, I have left my old job working as an assistant language teacher with the JET Program at Sakurai High School in mid-smalltown Kurobe to be a children's eikaiwa (English conversation school) teacher for Peppy's Kids Club in small city Toyama City. This means I moved from the rice paddies to the grey concrete blur to work for less pay and reduced vacations for a job that's 100x more challenging ... oh yeah, and I work nights so I get to go to aikido once a week maybe instead of three to four. But things couldn't be better!!! They also couldn't be worse. That's just the nature of existence, there is only the now, right?

But seriously, everything is just mountains and clouds.

 And here's my friend.

And his friend. They were cool and liked to drink beer. They saved me from realizing my week of "purity" and bought me a very expensive tallboy Asahi from one of the mountain huts.

 Anyway, everything is different now.

The old thoughts aren't interesting anymore, the don't make sense anymore, the images, the smells, my clothes even, it's all dead history.

The beautiful thing about the New, is that you can't really expect what it will be, and if it really is new, it will be accompanied by new feelings. This is really how you know something is new. It's that easy! You just do it! Right?

Well, not ... really. Our mind, the tool that it can be, categorizes and starts inserting all kinds of opinions on the matter ... which becomes more your habits and tendencies than that new experience itself. For example, your at a festival seeing something you've never seen before and it's great with all these new feelings, but then you start to think ... which is stupid ... "Oh, I know how to make this better" or "I know what this is" or you say some stupid joke that is half-relevant you heard but your friends probably haven't. If this occurs long enough without being checked, then you'll just have a long history of you masturbating all over these passed up new chances. And that's not all that cool.

There's got to be a better way.

Most likely, between the abstract polarities, you find yourself in your specific situation, which is amazing and completely independent and new in and of itself. So, let's get specific here. Concerning this blog, and myself, I will be writing about being an American living in Japan, because that's what I am, Zen and Taoism and mythology because that's what I'm interested in, teaching foreign language, because that's what I spend a lot of my time doing, and then of course, like a giant masterpiece standing in the center of my grand cathedral, exists ... martial arts ...

What an extremely difficult thing to describe.

 A lot of my time is spent on this topic of "martial arts", and I think that goes for a lot of readers here too. It is a beautiful kaleidescopic mandala we form together at "martial artists", with all different kinds of styles and beliefs and directions and histories ... including all our brothers and sisters in the past who punched the air and moved around through imaginary opponents and liked it. One of the particularly interesting things about the "martial arts" that I like to think about is the timelessness of it all. Someone centuries ago may have been doing these same movements and thinking these same things. In a way, we can excuse ourselves from the modern world by engaging in such activity, which is cool! But we do exist now, and are an integral part of the modern world of October 2011. In this respect, we have some very interesting trends in the "martial arts." (I hope the quotations aren't bugging  you, because I must persist until the end of this entry).

We have UFC cage fighting featuring mixed "martial artists", and people practicing "martial arts" who have never encountered violence in their life. The great disparity between "martial artists" leads us to one very big question:

 "What are the Martial Arts!"

And then we have the emergenceof the blogosphere, an electronic voice translated through 0's and 1's given to all with access to a computer with an internet connection.

So let's get talking!

Well, actually that might be enough for now. We certainly don't need to solve the Problem right here an now. Rather, let's discuss over months or years of snipits of discussion. We're so very far from the end anyway.

If I could make one last comment though ...

Recently, there has been great debate over what constitutes a "martial artist." A lot of the people I tend to side with, but don't totally agree with, accuse some of not embracing the "artist" side of the equation. For example, UFC fighters are only just that, and can not be considered "martial artists". But lately I've been looking at the other side of the phrase. I'm comfortable calling myself and artist in my practice ... but martial? Am I martial? Are you?

It's all just mountains and clouds ... and flowers.

I happily look forward to more conversations with you all. Thank you for reading.

How Far With the Knee?

This has been my number one demon-question that has haunted me throughout my martial arts experience:

How far forward should we be in a front stance? So the knee is still behind your toes? Your knee is just over your toes? Or past your toes?

In the early stages of Hawaiian kenpo, I was told that in a bowstance, your knee should be over your toes so that if you look down, you can't see your toes (if I'm remembering correctly). I didn't question it much, and I think this would make for the knee being just over the toe.

Then, in tai chi chuan, is where I really ran into trouble. At first, I couldn't find a clear answer, and so began asking my teachers and training partners, and looking at pictures of tai chi chuan masters to see what they were doing. From pictures, I got a wide variety of answers, basically finding enough to conform to each of the three choices. The stances that were far over the knee looked a little too dependent on muscle strength and more committed than I thought fit with the ideals of internal Chinese martial arts I was aiming for. The forward stances that were far behind the knee looked a little too empty to me, as if the person is just standing there instead of being "involved" in their tai chi chuan. (However, this perception is potentially flawed in many ways when considering true tai chi chuan. Nonetheless, it's what I thought and felt.) But then the stances with the knee lined up with the edge of the toes looked balanced and strong enough for me. I began experimenting with my training partners and teachers, and we quickly noticed that if our knees were past the toes at all, we could be easily pulled over while practicing fixed-step push hands.

So there it was, the Golden Answer! You should always have your knee be lined up with your toes in a front stance all the time, because if you were over you were susceptible to being pulled over, and if you were behind your toes, you weren't in as strong of a stance you could be.

But then I started doing aikido in Japan. In one of the very first movements I learned where you do tenkan (tenkan undou?), a movement where you start in a front stance, step forward with your back foot and pivot to swing your other leg back, and back and forth thus alternating your front leg stance with each swing. I was mindful of my earlier found knowledge, and always had my knee perfectly in line with my toes. But from the very first second sensei saw this, he told me to lean forward. I hated it, and ignored it while practicing when sensei wasn't looking. The problem is being in a front stance is a regular thing in aikido, and we practice the tenkan undou every single night with pairs. For months and months, actually probably a whole year, every single fricken time, sensei kept saying, "Motto mae! Motto mae! More forward! More forward!"

Actually, the really frustrating part seems to be that there always seems to be a differing degree of leaning forward depending on the movement. When in your initial ready stance, hanmi, your posture, or kamae, seems that your knee should be behind your toe. When doing the tenkan undou, you should be past your knee. When practicing with a ken (wooden sword) or jo (short staff), you should be far forward(?) It seems to be different in every posture, and different every time I look and ask. The other night, I asked one of the senior ranking students about how far forward the knee should be, and he said forward enough so you cannot see your toes. Well, I go that far, and then everyone tells me to go farther. So that answer didn't help me much, except that it doesn't seem to have such a specific answer, and must be felt and adjusted appropriately to each situation. You may be wondering now, haven't I gone straight to sensei and asked this question? The answer is no, actually I haven't. I've thought about it a few times, but I just haven't had the perfect chance yet. Perhaps its something I need to keep working out for myself. Honestly, I envision being frustrated with another ambiguous answer.

Anyway, so what do I do now? Always motto mae. Nanto naku, I've changed, and now if I'm committed to action with an opponent, I love being more forward in a front stance.

Why have I made this change? Well ...

Perhaps we need to look at some misnomers I've had with my bias against the front stance:

First, I thought that it made me susceptible to being pulled over. Perhaps that is true, but if someone is really giving me a good pull, I'm not going to be able to nullify it just because my weight is back a bit. So, if I'm really being pulled, I should go with it, and go forward with a movement that can put me in the advantage and the opponent in a disadvantage. Perhaps this is one thing to consider: My earlier decision made in tai chi chuan was largely based on fixed-step push hands scenarios were one has to protect against the threat of small pulls to get you off balance, but this scenario does not mirror all movements in the martial arts, and cannot define all-applicable perfect stance.

Second, I thought being forward made it hard to evade to the rear. This may also be true. If you are in a rear stance, you can certainly move easier to the rear; but that's not the direction I usually want to go. After years of practicing, I've finally realized that by going backwards, you may have nullified an attack, but you haven't given yourself much of an advantage. Instead, I would rather move directly towards an opponent if he is waiting, or counter to the side while still moving forward if the opponent is initiating the attack. This is actually a misnomer I've had about aikido. I've thought that it is a reactionary, passive, evasive, and confrontation-avoiding art. Perhaps these adjectives can be used from time to time to describe motions in aikido, but so can action-initiating, aggressive, and invasive to a certain extent. There are moments of contact and times when you are pushing against an opponent in aikido, but only done so if you have the advantage; be it leverage, momentum, or a particular angle.

My third point is connected with the second, which is, leaning too far over the knee makes you only able to move forward effectively. Actually, though it isn't the best stance for moving back, I think it allows enough movement back for me considering it's forward advantage, which started being mentioned in the paragraph above. I want to move forward, take my opponents space, and deal with it however is most necessary. I can't help but think of Bruce Lee's philosophy in this question. Bruce Lee certainly favored a forward stance, and even advocated having is back heel off the ground so that his leg acted as a spring to further enhance his forward mobility. Certainly, Bruce Lee used techniques that were not only forward strikes, and did so sufficiently in his forward stance.

This question has haunted me ever since I stepped in the dojo here in Japan, but I've finally acquired enough legitimizations to convincingly practice the forward stance sensei wants me to. I think the largest motivation that has turned my opinion, is more of a "monkey-see, monkey-do" phenomenon. My sensei is the same height as me, and may be a few pounds heavier (due to a small pony keg he's working on thanks to a love of sake), and I would bet money I could outlift him in any excercise in the weight room, but he has a strength and power that absolutley dwarfs me. He practices with a great ferocity as well as softness, that is utterly dominating. When he does a technique on me, I go exactly where he plans for me to go. When I do a technique on him that isn't perfectly in line, I cannot go further without excerting all of the muscle strength I have to try and out-muscle him. This is not due to his muscle power, but the powerful stances and balance he has and uses in his techniques.

I may not have The Golden Answer to the knee question, but I have a shiny one that's keeping my attention now.