Lesson 5: Love to Ukemi

For the past week, I've been in what you could generally call a frustrated mood. Just a constant hum of discontent, and I honestly see no clear reason why. I miss my girlfriend, school is boring, I had a really good time this last weekend. Maybe it's in the moon or something. I've been doing all the right things all week and being good, but it's only slightly waned. I've started reading a few aikido books, as well as information on uchi-deshi situations, which is where students live at a dojo with other students and a teacher for maximum aikido practice time. This has made me painfully envious. Here I am in Japan, and all I can squeeze out are two practices, while people living within hundreds of miles of my old home are practicing 7 days a week with highly ranked teachers! I have an eerie feeling my time is limited in Japan, and it's time to get down to it.

For now I train two nights a week, but they will be the fullest two nights I can possibly experience. Most black belts put much attention to folding their hakama (part of the aikido uniform for black belts), so I have started doing the same with my gi and white belt. One or two other students are always there before me, so I'll show up a bit earlier. But the real way to take advantage of the time is to love your ukemi! When two people practice aikido, one is the tori (the one who throws the opponent) and the other is the uke (the one who is thrown). Ukemi is rolling, and should be done when you are the uke. I know that the uke has just as important of a job as the tori and blah blah blah ... but despite my knowledge, I have found myself blanking out or just "rolling" through the fall without paying attention. Now, I am spending much more focus on what is happening when I am the uke, and performing an effective roll. One of the senior students mentioned to me I needed to make my ukemi farther to escape better, and I noticed that I had been somewhat lazily performing them, and not keeping my eyes for a next attack. This small part has changed my aikido greatly. I am loving ukemi. All of my unwarranted frustration just enables me to look more sharply into being thrown. LOVE TO UKEMI!

My sensei and two other senior members who are there everytime love doing aikido way too much to only do it two days a week, I can just see it. So I finally, very subtley and discretely, went up to the one student who I talk with the most (and may go hiking with soon) and said, "You know, practice has been great, and I love these two days a week we come here to practice, but ummmm, I wish there was some other oppurtunity to get some more time in. I practice by myself often, but if there was some other way to practice more with people, I just think it would be more fun. ... Do you practice more?"

He quickly and honestly replied that he does in fact do aikido with the sensei and a couple other students in the next town over on Wednesday and Saturday nights. I said, "Oh, wow, cool. I'm so jealous." He mentioned that maybe it would be hard to get there by bike, as he knows that's how I usually get around. I said, "Not really." The discussion moved to hiking. I thought about pecking again more on the extra training topic, but if it's one thing I intuit, its that Japanese sensei do not like being bugged about this kind of stuff like extra training or testing, especially from gaijin... though surely they could appreciate honest enthusiasm. Perhaps they can smell fresh young meat to be thrown around, and if nothing else, they could use someone for repeated ukemi ... and since I LOVE UKEMI now, what could be better?

We'll see. Wish me luck.

Holy Crap Again!

The "unbendable arm" is a structure of your arm that is supposed to be unbendable (I came up with that definition myself), and I have been told that you should be able practice your aikido while always maintaining this unbendable arm. I've also heard of a version of this referred to as one's "bridge", where your elbows bend at about 45 degree angles. WELL, I just realized that you should do this in Tai Chi Chuan too! Or at least my version of the Long Yang form. For maximum effect in Tai Chi Chuan, you should always maintain the unbendable arm! The only parts where it is weird is during punches, but I think it can still be done with maximum power. Also, Jade Lady Works the Shuttles is a spot in my form where my right arm bends much more, but maybe I should adjust it to work with this theory. One more point of contention is parts where your arms are almost fully extended. But for you martial readers who practice Tai Chi Chuan ... what do you think! I think I'm right. Which probably means I'm also wrong.

Whatever, I'm just glad I did strange looking movements in my apartment while reading martial art books instead of playing soccer and going to the bar.

Wow, that's an interesting thing to say. Maybe the readers should know I have a history of playing Magic the Gathering and reading Moby Dick for fun.

On another serious note, this picture came up on the first page of a google image search of the "aikido unbendable arm". Finally we found the true identity of this aikido technique!

Holy Crap!

After an hour alone with my bokken and jo (wooden sword and short at staff) I just realized that most of the movements I have learned with them are trying to get you to do a proper irimi at the smallest angle while directing your center towards your opponent.

!!!

Last night I was just reading a part in a book about aikido called, "It's a lot like dancing", where the narrator Terry Dobson had been training with O'Sensei for a long time and had refrained from asking a question about aikido technique, as it seemed to be a bit of a pet peeve. That is until one time, when he coudn't take it any longer, and asked his question. O'Sensei waited through a long silence to say something to the effect of, "Why don't you figure it out?"

Pieces of a Puzzle: Japanese and American culture

Today I had a realization that seemed to explain my birth into modern day American culture as well as having a strong interest in Japanese culture.

Spiritually inclined, yet dissatisfied with the forms of Christianity I have seen, which are most common in my home of the United States, I have always searched out foreign satiation for my "higher" questions. To this point, I have found religious and cultural stimuli from Japan the most enticing, and for that reason may possibly be an explanation for my presence here in Japan now.

However, since arriving here to this mecca, I have run into a myriad of disturbing and contradicting information. There are so many cultural quirks that may have seemed cute, funny, or silly at first, but have really started to reveal themselves as great defects in a society. The seeming lack of personal interaction, the constant fear of shame, conditioned conservatism, endless work-loads, extra obligations, etc.

I have approached reading the book, "Bushido: the Soul of Japan" by Inazo Nitobe with a great amount of reverence and awe, but have finished without the Answer. It was one of the most illuminating books I have read on the connections between martial arts and Japanese culture, but alas, it contained many contradictions and incongruities that have only given me more questions.

What is it with these contradictions and incongruities? Why doesn't it make sense? Right now?!

Well, I don't know. But I did figure something interesting out today:

(please forgive and ask questions about any generalizations you find unwarranted)

Western culture, and American culture to be more specific here, generally fosters it's population to be independent, and ennobilizes "free-thinking" and individuality. It's religions (most often Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), however, seem to give strict black-and-white answers to spiritual questions, and asks for a blind faith which in my eyes inherently limits it's follower. This is an interesting difference between American culture and religion.

Eastern culture, Japanese to be more specific, on the other hand, seems to do the complete opposite. Socially, it chains it's population with so many rules and limitations that it most often fosters subordination to the group and it's leaders. Spiritually though, Buddhism and Shinto blow the cosmos open to individual interpretation and urges its followers to find one's own individual enlightenment.

I realized this today when I found that I have been fighting an uphill battle by struggling to get my Japanese high school students to form their own opinions and volunteer in class, as well as my own battles in trying to find answers in Japanese metaphysics.

I seek the beauty of individual thinking and spiritual mysteries. Perhaps they are not Japanese or American, Eastern or Western, boxing or Aikido, quesadillas or sashimi.

I leave you with this excerpt about Bushido written by Inazo Nitobe in his book, "Bushido: the Soul of Japan":

"Having no set dogma or formula to defend, it can afford to disappear as an entity; like the cherry blossom, it is willing to die at the first gust of the morning breeze. But a total extinction will never be its lot. Who can say that stoicism is dead? It is dead as a system; but it is alive as a virtue: its energy and vitality are still felt through many channels of life-in the philosophy of Western nations, in the jurisprudence of all the civilized world. Nay, wherever man struggles to raise himself above himself, wherever his spirit masters his flesh by his own exertions, there we see the immortal discipline of Zeno at work.

"Bushido as an independent code of ethics may vanish, but its power will not perish from the earth; its schools of martial prowess or civic honour may be demolished, but its light and its glory will long survive their ruins. Like its symbolic flower, after it is blown to the four winds, it will still bless mankind with the perfume with which it will enrich life. Ages after, when its customaries will have been buried and its very name forgotten, its fragrance will come floating in the air as from a far-off, unseen hill, 'the wayside gave beyond';-then in the beautiful language of the Quaker poet,

"'The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.'"

Lesson 4: Really! One Movement!

Sorry to already make a repeat in the lessons, but I'm afraid it may happen from time to time. Tonight it's about making things into one movement. Tonight we were working on iriminage, and it was during omote (to the front) where this concept really appeared as a little demon. I think it's more common to practice ura (behind), at least for beginners, but tonight we were shown a version of omote I hadn't seen before. Against a shomenuchi attack, you slide to an irimi movement putting your arms up below their strike, but then draw them back, and then one more time in their direction. There's a lot of back and forth action to make it one movement but it doesn't mean that it can't be done. From my small experience, it seems you make your movement before contact is made. In katatedori movements (wrist grabs), you first learn to execute the movement after the aite has grabbed your wrist, but if you watch the higher belts, often the will do the whole movement before their wrist can be grabbed. I think that comes into play in iriminage omote which I experienced for the first time tonight.

Not ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku ...

But iiiiiiiiiccccccchhhhhhiiiiiiiii.

For bonus info on lesson 4, during the winter time I would rarely make one drip of sweat. However, as it is late spring, I am already sweating buckets. I can't wait until the real Japanese summer hits in July and August. I can't even imagine sweating anymore. I better remember to bring my hand towel, or my partners will never want to train with this slimy gaijin.

Seppuku: Ritual Suicide

Here we will talk about another topic from the book, "Bushido: the Soul of Japan," which has been introduced in a previous entry on Gaijin Explorer called "Thoughts on Japanese Etiquette." Below is an excerpt from "Bushido: the Soul of Japan," on the topic of seppuku, traditional Japanese suicide as practiced by samurai. As a matter of fact, it is an excerpt from another book called, "Tales of Old Japan", and notes the account of a foreigner who personally witnessed a seppuku ritual. After reading much about Japanese culture, this is the first such account I have ever come across.

"We (seven foreign representatives) were invited to follow the Japanese witnesses into the hondo, or main hall of the temple, where the ceremony was to be performed. It was an imposing scene. A large hall with a high roof supported by dark pillars of wood. From the ceiling hung a profusion of those huge gilt lamps and ornaments peculiar to Buddhist temples. In front of the high altar, where the floor, covered with beautiful white mats, is raised some three or four inches from the ground, was laid a rug of scarlet felt. Tall candles placed at regular intervals gave out a dim mysterious light, just sufficient to let all the proceedings be seen. The seven Japanese took their places on the left of the raised floor, the seven foreigners on the right. No other person was present.

"After the interval of a few minutes of anxious suspense, Taki Zenzaburo, a stalwart man thirty-two years of age, with a noble air, walked into the hall attired in his dress of ceremony, with the peculiar hempen-cloth wings which are worn on great occasions. He was accompanied by a kaishaku and three officers, who wore the jimboari or war surcoat with gold tissue facings. The word kaishaku, it should be observed, is one to which our word executioner is no equivalent term. The office is that of a gentleman; in many cases it is performed by a kinsman or friend of the condemned, and the relation between them is rather that of principal and second than that of victim and executioner. In this instance, the kaishaku was a pupil of Taki Zenzaburo, and was selected by friends of the latter from among their own number for his skill in swordsmanship.

"With the kaishaku on his left hand, Taki Zenzaburo advanced slowly toward the Japanese witnesses, and the two bowed before them, then drawing near to the foreigners they saluted us in the same way, perhaps even with more deference; in each case the salutation was ceremoniously returned. Slowly and with great dignity the condemned man mounted on to the raised floor, prostrated himself before the high altar twice, and seated himself on the felt carpet with his back to the high altar, the kaishaku crouching on his left-hand side. One of the three attendant officers then came forward, bearing a stand of the kind used in the temple for offerings, on which, wrapped in paper, lay the wakizashi, the short sword or dirk of the Japanese, nine inches and a half in length, with a point and an edge as sharp as a razor's. This he handed, prostrating himself, to the condemned man, who received it reverently raising it to his head with both hands, and placed it in front of himself.

"After another profound obeisance, Taki Zenzaburo, in a voice which betrayed just so much emotion and hesitation as might be expected from a man who is making a painful confession, but with no sign of either in his face or manner, spoke as follows:-

"'I, and I alone, unwarrantably gave the order to fire on the foreigners at Kobe, and again as they tried to escape. For this crime I disembowel myself, and I beg you who are present to do me the honour of witnessing the act.'

"Bowing once more, the speaker allowed his upper garments to slip down to his girdle, and remained naked to the waist. Carefully, according to custom, he tucked his sleeves under his knees to prevent himself from falling backward; for a noble Japanese gentleman should die falling forwards. Deliberately with a steady hand he took the dirk that lay before him; he looked at it wistfully, almost affectionately; for a moment he seemed to collect his thoughts for the last time, and then stabbing himself deeply below the waist in the left-hand side, he drew the dirk slowly across to his right side, and turning it in the wound, gave a slight cut upwards. During this sickeningly painful operation he never moved a muscle of his face. When he drew out the dirk, he leaned forward and stretched out his neck; an expression of pain for the first time crossed his face, but he uttered no sound. At that moment the kaishaku, who still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the air; there was a flash, a heavy ugly thud, a crashing fall; with one blow the head had been severed from the body.

"A dead silence followed, broken only by the hideous noise of the blood throbbing out of the inert heap before us, which but a moment before had been a brave and chivalrous man. It was horrible."

Well ... what do you think?

Seppuku was a legal and ceremonial ritual that was performed when a samurai wished to "expiate their crimes, apologize for errors, escape from disgrace, redeem their friends, or prove their sincerity." To my knowledge the ritual is perfomed as is recounted in the passage above, and as you may have noticed, seppuku is not just stabbing yourself in the stomach with a knife to die, but the ideal follows that you would cut across your belly from left to right, and then upwards making an L-shape incision. To do so without a sound and with your eyes open was of the noblest kind, anything less would reveal weakness. An interesting thought is that by opening the bowels, one reveals to it's viewers the person's true virtue; one can judge the purity and honesty of a man by literally seeing his guts.

I wonder how many thousands or millions of Japanese have committed seppuku in history.

I have read widely on this subject, and Mr. Nitobe's writing is certainly the best I've come across. For those curious for more information, I highly recommend you to read his book, "Bushido: the Soul of the Samurai." I take fancy with so many traditions from Japan, perhaps more so than any other culture in the world, but I do not understand seppuku. I can conceive to try to understand a human's suicide, but this one of seppuku that was so highly revered and institutionalized by feudal Japan reveals nothing of merit to me. Thoughts of the story of Abraham from the Bible pass through my mind. Abraham, the man who was asked by God to kill his own son, which was carried out until the last second when God said that it was not necessary and the task was merely a test of his faith. In all honesty, what the fuck? It is said that wisdom of Japan is not wisdom to acquire but experience to feel, and the same could be said for Christianity, and so I may never penetrate the Greatness of these acts of killing. And you know what? I think that's fine. When I think of bushido, I think of purifying oneself to experience higher levels of existence through right conduct in our seemingly dirty and chaotic world. I have grand images of loyalty and honor; loyalty and honor to the life I am lucky enough to have. I will honorably follow my life to the end, but that end will not be of my own hand.

Lesson 3: Bokken

Tonights lesson will include a bit of a book review of Dave Lowry's, "Bokken: Art of the Japanese Sword." (Bokken refers to the wooden model of the Japanese sword, and not the more commonly known steel katana, though the bokken was used as training for use of the katana by samurai in Feudal Japan) This was one book included in an indulgence of Aikido books from Amazon the other night and was first to be received. At first when I was reading I found a few good ideas, and then many many problems. By the end, I was very dismissive about it, but couldn't blog about it until I had some questions answered by, or at least asked to, my Aikido sensei.

For a positive start to the book, I admire Mr. Lowry's devotion to maintaining the integrity to the style of suburi (the way of the bokken) he practices: Yagyu Shinkage. He writes:

"The only aid the individual can bring to the budo he follows is to set aside his personal predilections and desires, and attempt to pursue it with a pure heart, staying as closely as possible to the course set by those who've gone before him. Through study, through interaction with his seniors, teachers and masters, and of course, through incessant and selfless training, he must make the effort to comprehend the true meaning of the budo, and to follow it unswervingly."

Now, as a matter of fact, I highly disagree with his opinion that belittles creative exploration by the individual and raises the "ancient teachings" to an untouchable status. However, for writing a book on such a topic, this belief may be to the author's advantage. So in this case, I appreciate this attitude. I happen to like that Mr. Lowry also begins most of his points by highlighting what "the wrong way to practice is", which I think helps his writing. For example, before explaining his experience in authentic suburi, he explains that 99% of what untrained and unread people know about the Japanese sword stems from Japanese Samurai films from the 1960's, which is of course not true suburi. One more point of his I appreciate is his constant reminder that kendo is not just a bunch of physical techniques, but that it is a way of self-cultivation. By balancing these two factors, we find true personal growth.

Besides those three points, I have much to disagree with in "Bokken: Art of the Japanese Sword." First of all, I'd say in the majority of the pictures of himself with the bokken, he appears to be off-balance or contorted! Two things that, as far as I know, are big no-nos in Japanese martial arts. I couldn't help but notice this when I first flipped through the book before reading, and within ten seconds of handing the book to my Aikido sensei, he said the same exact thing. My other discontents refer to specifics of positioning.

First of these is how he holds his bokken. Mr. Lowry says that a proper grip has one's pinky curled UNDERNEATH the end of the bokken. This, he says, is used for maximum mobility. A picture of this grip is shown below.

In our Aikido class however, our bottom hand fully grips the bokken, with the pinky wrapped around the base as shown below.

At first I was extremely surprised by the first option shown in Mr. Lowry's book, and when I tried it I thought it felt extremely weak. In fact, when I was taught to hold the bokken, it was the pinky you wrap around first, as it is the key factor for strength when gripping something as such or making a fist. When I asked my Aikido sensei, he said he had seen this before, but that we certainly practice it the second way in our Aikido class. I asked my Aikido sensei why we do it that way and ... all I can remember is it had to do with shiho nage ... !!! Bad student. I guess the detail was important enough to convince me at the time, but not substantial enough to make me remember exactly what it was? Crap, I'm sorry to the readers and myself.

Next, is a problem with his hips. When in a front stance after finishing shomen-uchi, (straight cut forward) he says to keep your hips directly and squarely foward. However, in our style of Aikido, we point our hips in a forty-five degree angle. By doing the second method in Aikido, you get a further reach, as well as ideal angle to slice. If two partners (or enemies) are standing face to face in Mr. Lowry's stance and do shomen-uchi, the swords would come down straight on each other and it would not be possible to easily deflect your opponent's sword or find the smallest angle to avoid your opponent's attack and strike his center. With the Aikido stance, you have the ability to find that smallest angle to strike your opponent. Also, the Aikido stance seems to me to be more stable and more mobile. It looks to me like the differences in a traditional front bow stance with your hips forward, and a natural fighting stance with your hips turned forty-five degrees. This problem here seems absolutley ridiculous to me.

Next is the angle of the sword when raised above your head. This however, is a question I still have a problem with after talking with my Aikido sensei. In Mr. Lowry's book, he says the proper position for the bokken when it is above your head is to be perfectly parallel with the ground (although in many of the pictures in his book it is draped behind his back). This is actually the way that I have believed to be correct for a while, but after talking with my Aikido sensei, he prefers to drape it down towards his back. Now, this focuses upon one of the lessons I learned tonight which is that there are quite a few seemingly contradictory theories in Aikido that I'm learning. My Aikido sensei that draping the sword towards your back relates to an open hand technique called ... (I don't know! I have not learned the name yet, but it is the technique where you are sitting, raise your hands to a shiho-nage like semblance, and then throw your opponent to one side). Anyway, he showed me that to do this properly, your hands follow the motion of the bokken in a manner that would drape it down your back, BUT, this contradicts what he has said about shiho-nage in that you need to always keep your hands in front of you, as if they go too high or far back, you lose strength. I have a problem with this explanation, and I don't like my Aikido sensei's way of draping the sword down his back. If anything, it makes more sense to me to follow the way of modern kendo, where the sword is tilted up at a forty-five degree angle. This way, it requires the least amount of time and muscles to effectively complete a cut. Anything slower would get you killed with a real sword is my take. While kendo is often criticized as focusing on quick hitting movements instead of a more realistic slice one would make with a real katana, I don't see how this way of holding the bokken in kendo compromises it's ability to slice. Anyone who practices the bokken is very welcome to make a comment on their particular way and it's reasoning. I don't feel comfortable with the answers I've found thus far.

These were the three logistical problems I was able to ask my Aikido sensei about: grip, hip direction, and bokken positioning. As for other problems I have with the book, he makes no reference to connecting the bokken to one's center. In our Aikido class, there is a huge emphasis on the connection between our center of balance and positioning with the bokken, but in Mr. Lowry's book there is no attention on this, and much of his seemingly bad posture is a result of him holding the ken to far back or to one side. This lack of connection makes for unbalanced and weak technique in my eyes. Instead of a constant balance and strength you attempt to achieve in Aikido or Chinese internal arts, you get on-and-off sporadic strength in bursts. Also, he does not mention once how the Japanese sword was used for cutting, which effects many techniques. The katana was not used to chop or hit, but to slice. Of course, this is a book about bokken and not katana, but this is one origin that needs attention I think, as it directly effects techniques of the bokken away from simple hitting or chopping.

For me tonight, the biggest moral of the story, is that Mr. Lowry's style of practicing the bokken in Yagyu Shinkage is different from that which I practice in Aikido. One is not necessarily "right" or "better", but used differently for different effects. Perhaps the biggest difference is Ueshiba Morihei's development of the bokken to work perfectly with all open-handed techniques in Aikido.

This is all I will say on this issue for tonight, as the epitomies and arguments could last for many more pages and books. But perhaps there is an issue to ponder here concerning two different views of the martial arts: First, should we follow our teachings unswervingly as Mr. Lowry states, or second, should we actively and creatively work to innovate techniques towards new refinement.