On Koryu

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[Toby Threadgill]

Hello,

A bit of clarification is due here because there are people all over the internet who offer commentary and criticism of koryu who don't know a damn thing about them. So, ignore them and don't listen to their myths. If they're not in a koryu, they're guessing based on a book or second and possibly third hand information, likely from someone else who isn't in a koryu either.

In this day and age most koryu do not keep "secrets" or limit exposure to certain teachings because they're afraid of being publicly compromised or feel their public dissemination will somehow threaten their legendary ability to defeat all comers. Such blathering is childish nonsense. We're not sitting around in our dojo's, closing the curtains and peeking outside to make sure no one see's the "good stuff". We're just trying to responsibly preserve something in a manner worthy of those who left it to us. We agreed to certain restrictions on how this is done and accept that we are charged to maintain those restrictions.

Frequently a koryu school maintains proprietary teachings out of a sense of social responsibility or as a method to ensure that the legitimacy the arts lineage is not fraudulently compromised. In our case we teach some things that are very nasty, meant for assassination and such. It is socially irresponsible for any instructor in TSYR to teach these things to the public at large. If some wanker doesn't like that, I really don't care. Such an individual has no responsibility to the school or its heritage so his opinion doesn't get any consideration, only my scorn. Usually this type of individual is just an egomanic and emotional bully who wants to badger people into telling him something he doesn't know. An all to frequent tactic is to attack a koryu teacher claiming they don't know something in the hopes that they will divulge some proprietary aspect of their art in their defense. I don't play that game and the people that want to play that game with me can go harrass someone else. I consider them rather pitiful and unethical individuals. I have nothing to prove to anyone except my teacher and those who are on the path with me to preserve TSYR. If my ego was so out of control that I had to go public with our uchiden to PROVE how wonderful we are, I would not have been chosen for the role I now fill.

Look, no person or art has all the "good stuff". IS/IP is just one piece of a very complex and interrelated number of important skills in numerous schools of budo. I understand that in the contxt of aikido, such a skill is much more important because it resides at the center of aikido's technical foundation, but don't be too myopic. IS/IP skills manifest themselves in numerous ways that can be unique to a particular school. When someone tries to represent himself as THE authority on what constitutes ANY particular skill, I have to laugh. There are many facets of combat and in a comprehensive sogo bujutsu like TSYR, these skills are interconnected in ways that are not in other schools who have a more focused area of technical study. Few people are qualified to comment on the depth of all these various skills, but numerous Tom's, Dick's and Harry's will sit behind their keyboard and pontificate on this subject until their fingers bleed. It's hilarious.

There is no doubt that there' are lots of things people outside koryu know that we don't concern ourselves with in TSYR. But to that I say, so what! They do what they do and we do what we do. If I went off on some diatribe about how Chinese martial arts suck because their sword making and application of sword tactics are so primitive, what does that get me? One thing it does do is make me look like an asshole. The other thing it does is make me look stupid and arrogant at the same time. If you're listening to people who behave like this I think you need to ask yourself why? Are you so desperate for information that you are willing to subject yourself to someone who behaves in an arrogant or emotionally unbalanced manner? Individuals like this are "kusaimen" (stinky noodles*) Remember, if a teacher has a lot of knowledge but behaves like a jerk, don't train with him, he's still a jerk. His "knowledge" does not make him any less a jerk. I promise there's a nice guy out there somewhere who knows what the jerk knows and a relationship with the nice guy will be much more rewarding.

Regards,

Toby Threadgill / TSYR

*Kusaimen (stinky noodles)- No matter the quality or expense of the ingredients, if you mix crap into your noodles, it's all crap.

[SeiserL]

Well said.
Compliments and appreciation.

[ChrisHein]

Nice post.

[Hebrew Hammer]

I must admit I'm pretty ignorant of Koryu and what it entails...so Toby how do you define Koryu? How is it different from Aikido, Ninjitsu, or Karate or any Japanese Martial Art? Is it strictly from the Samurai traditions?

And does Koryu have things like 'closed door disciples' (actually this phrase is from Chinese arts) and contain scrolls of knowledge that are passed down the next patriarch of the ryu? Or is this also myth?

[NTT]

Koryu is experience. That means as with any martial art that you have to meet those who have recieved the teaching of the old school (koryu).
As any martial art is a set of knowledge in the martial field, koryu is the knowledge that has been transmitted with the concern of not forgetting, not changing, not witholding the experience of its founder.
Modern martial arts have many different concerns in respect with the interest of each teacher.
Koryu is about transmitting the experience of its founder and his successors.
To a question of Jose Carmona: " What is the difference between your art and other martial arts?", Imai soke of Hyoho Niten Ichi Ryu answered: "None."
When I told this story to Ikeda sensei, Ikeda sensei showed the glasses, mugs, bottles on the table and said:" Different contenants, same substance."
So if you have not a better answer and if you trully want to kow the answer, then go and practice a koryu sincerely. Practicing any martial art or koryu without sincerety is worthless.

As for criticism, I try not to go into it as it gives me no help in progressing in martial arts.

[Erick Mead]

In this day and age most koryu do not keep "secrets" or limit exposure to certain teachings because they're afraid of being publicly compromised or feel their public dissemination will somehow threaten their legendary ability to defeat all comers. Such blathering is childish nonsense. We're not sitting around in our dojo's, closing the curtains and peeking outside to make sure no one see's the "good stuff". We're just trying to responsibly preserve something in a manner worthy of those who left it to us. We agreed to certain restrictions on how this is done and accept that we are charged to maintain those restrictions. There is an ancient building technique I have studied. It is difficult to understand how and why it functions as it does, though it is undeniably effective. The pioneer of this method in America took out a patent on it in 1895 -- although the basic method had been used for a thousand years in his home country. In doing so, he explained it was not his purpose to monopolize the use of his technique just to keep it from imitators, but to control its use to prevent poor imitations from causing the poorly understood method from falling into disrepute and thus become lost.

[NTT]

Is it [koryu] strictly from the Samurai traditions?

And does Koryu have things like 'closed door disciples' (actually this phrase is from Chinese arts) and contain scrolls of knowledge that are passed down the next patriarch of the ryu? Or is this also myth?

1/ Koryu are schools created and transmitted before 1868 when started the Meiji era. They are old schools of the old age. At that time bujutsu were samurai knowledge. So it is samurai tradition. To my understanding.

2/ Wang Yang was my teacher in Chen style Tai Chi Chuan. She was the "disciple who closes the door" for one of her masters. That means she was the last one who came in time for the last harvest of her master's knowledge. In koryu, the teaching is given following the needs and abilities of the students. Those who may have more abilities may be called "closed door disciples" by those who have less abilities but in fact there is not much difference but in that each should receive what is best for him or her. It is not really a student's concern what another student gets: everyone gets according to his needs and abilities.

3/ Scrolls of knowledge that are passed down the next patriarch of the ryu may be reality. In fact it does happen but what is handed down is in fact the ability and undestanding of the teaching. In 2011 interview (http://hyohonitenichiryu.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/interview-of-iwami-soke-%e2%80%9cwe-have-to-use-swords-through-our-souls%e2%80%9d/), Iwami Toshio soke says: "Soke [Headmaster of a koryu] means the only one who has succeeded in proper thoughts and skills. We have to learn these through Soke as through a mirror; we could also say Soke is like a needle and pupils are like threads, i.e. Soke leads us like needle and threads."

4/ Any martial art should be considered as a myth until you have studied it. Myths were and are teachings. What some call myths are lies or fantasies. Meeting a myth means going for experience and adventure.

[Mike Sigman]

1/ Koryu are schools created and transmitted before 1868 when started the Meiji era. They are old schools of the old age. At that time bujutsu were samurai knowledge. So it is samurai tradition. To my understanding.
Nice post, Philippe. I personally see no overriding difference between "koryu", "traditional styles", "family traditional styles", and so on. The longer a 'school' has been in existence, technically, the more room there is for deviation from the original teachings. I know of a number of very ancient "traditions" which have deviated all over the place. The idea that someone is 'preserving' something unchanged from an earlier time and culture makes me wonder if we're living on the same planet.

As any pragmatist will point out, no robotic teacher ever produced exact robotic copies of itself. Even modern martial-arts barely get past one generation without a number of permutations, loss of knowledge, etc., slipping in. Look how many of the "direct students of Yang Cheng Fu" teach very different arts; look how many "uchi-deshi of Ueshiba Morihei" teach very different arts. Someone wants to tell me that I'm a "jerk" for thinking that some koryu isn't subject to the realities of life? I think it just got proven.

FWIW

Mike Sigman

[NTT]

The idea that someone is 'preserving' something unchanged from an earlier time and culture makes me wonder if we're living on the same planet.

Dear Mike,
This is a question that needs going into.
When I look at a mountain as a backpacker, I see the slopes and the peaks. A biologist and a geologist will see different aspects. When one looks at a koryu it is the same as for any one else depending on how far one has been in the study. What one then sees changes as one goes further along the way. So in the end, when the next Headmaster looks at the koryu he has taken in charge, what does he see? That Headmaster has been acknowledge for his correct abilities and thoughts after many years of keiko. Is it the same koryu he saw in the beginning?
When you transmit the experience of the founder, do you transmit his achievements or his founding/creating attitude?
If a koryu is considered as a center for sword research, should it come up each year with the same results? or would it present new results each year as would a science research center? Such a research center can produce each year new results and be immovable in its research on its center questions be they mathematical or biological.
One should maybe see koryu as a research center producing new results around an immovable question.
Iwami soke says we have to meet Musashi when we do keiko (practice). The effort to meet Musashi may follow the same path although each one on the same road sees the scenery differently.
There is something that belongs to my century when I practice and there is also something that makes me close to Musashi at the same time (not in terms of being that high level or else).
I think we should come up with questions to be answered by keiko more than with answers all writen down.

If we imitate a technique to the millimeter are we not cheating? If the spirit is in imitating Musashi, did Musashi try to imitate someone?

I believe that Mike and I are on the same planet. Coming up with more questions! :)

[NTT]

Dear Mike,
Your post is toughtful.
May I come back to it.

Someone wants to tell me that I'm a "jerk" for thinking that some koryu isn't subject to the realities of life? I think it just got proven.

No one thinks you are a "jerk" for thinking that some koryu isn't subject to the realities of life. The fact that you think means you undergo a process within wich you name something "realities of life" and proceed in establishing their influence on koryu. Koryu and for me it is Hyoho Niten Ichi Ryu is mainly concerned with life. Its teachings are alive as Iwami soke says. But what is the difference between realities of life and life? Life is a concept difficult to explain but everyone has something to say about realities of life. Mainly, they are what each one of us is concerned with. For some, it is driving safely a cab in a big city. For others, it may mean street fighting. For me, it is living in France after having lived in Vietnam at war. So I can say that my realities of life seem quite safe now and driving a cab too compared to driving in a country at war. Koryu is not done to answer each one's concerns about going home safe. It can respond to it but that is not its aim. Sorry! :sorry:

Should I try to prove something here? Certainly not as we have to search in the dojo and not on a forum. Should I be convinced on this forum that it would not have great value. Only the sword in hand can I find something of worth.

As any pragmatist will point out, no robotic teacher ever produced exact robotic copies of itself.

I may be pragmatic when I am not foolishing around but in no way I am a pragmatist.

The Headmaster of a school is chosen so that the koryu may go on through centuries. See this part of the 2006 interview of Iwami soke (http://lakischool.free.fr/interview%20niten%202006.pdf) :

Nguyen Thanh Thiên: Your koryu, traditional school, has inherited the teaching elaborated by MIYAMOTO Musashi and has been updated over the centuries. How do you manage to strike a balance between required evolution and the necessity to preserve the heritage of the art of Musashi, as each generation evolves and adapts to its own time?

Iwami Toshio soke: To pass on Musashi's teachings and seiho faithfully to the next generation without forgetting or losing anything, this is the tradition, this is the Japanese kokoro.

and the 2011 interview of Iwami soke (http://hyohonitenichiryu.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/interview-of-iwami-soke-%e2%80%9cwe-have-to-use-swords-through-our-souls%e2%80%9d/):Nguyen Thanh Thien: What does learning with the soke mean? (For you in relation to Imai soke and for your students in relation to you).

Iwami Toshio soke: Soke means the only one who has succeeded in proper thoughts and skills. We have to learn these through Soke as through a mirror; we could also say Soke is like a needle and pupils are like threads, i.e. Soke leads us like needle and threads.


The soke is THE one and only one to challenge the task of transmitting without failing to forget or lose anything. He has abilities that others don't have, neither you or me. The only way to check the tradition is to practice and maybe come to understand what tradition means.

The other way to check is to have been in position to see the founder and understand him and to meet the successor and be in position to understand him too. Then you can compare. But this is not possible. So saying things have or not evolved is something you cannot check out.

As you said, "any" is not the chosen one for his abilities. Evidence may seem on your side but Dogen wrote that translations of sutras better the sutras. I understand that as when you reach the heart of the matter, you attain something that does not wither.

If you are truly concerned with how koryu walk through centuries, you are welcome to study them. It is better to have studied before talking about any subject. Koryu can only be studied with an earnest heart.

I understand Toby Threadgill from TSYR in his appreciation of having to answer some questions about his study. We have the same too in Hyoho Niten Ichi Ryu: people arguing that techniques are not as they should be. This is not the way to study. It is a loss of time for the study. I am having interest in answering on this forum but it has to have some link with my study. I hope I have not offended any one and have given some people interest in koryu. We have nothing to prove, we as students have to study. :do:

[kewms]

As any pragmatist will point out, no robotic teacher ever produced exact robotic copies of itself. Even modern martial-arts barely get past one generation without a number of permutations, loss of knowledge, etc., slipping in. Look how many of the "direct students of Yang Cheng Fu" teach very different arts; look how many "uchi-deshi of Ueshiba Morihei" teach very different arts. Someone wants to tell me that I'm a "jerk" for thinking that some koryu isn't subject to the realities of life? I think it just got proven.

I think the koryu don't much care what you -- or any outsider -- think of them. I think that was Threadgill Sensei's point.

Katherine

[Mike Sigman]

I think the koryu don't much care what you -- or any outsider -- think of them.

Well there you go, then. I heard exactly the same comment from some die-hard fellow students in Aikido back in the 1970's, so you're reinforcing an old idea. Any koryu that doesn't use the Yin-Yang, In-Yo, A-Un, Five Elements, etc., as a basis to the whole system (as Aikido and every "ju" art that I know of does) may possibly be totally outside of any interest that I have, so good luck to them and good luck to you. I'm personally not so fixed in my ideas that I'm trying to convince anyone outside of them, so please don't take umbrage in regard to what I think of as clinical discussions.

Regards,

Mike Sigman

[Lorel Latorilla]

Great post Toby.

As a person who is not really interested in participating in a Koryu, I still find it an interesting thing to know and be aware about and that people who don't know much about it should not say anything about it less they put their foot in their mouth.

[Cliff Judge]

Nice post, Philippe. I personally see no overriding difference between "koryu", "traditional styles", "family traditional styles", and so on. The longer a 'school' has been in existence, technically, the more room there is for deviation from the original teachings. I know of a number of very ancient "traditions" which have deviated all over the place. The idea that someone is 'preserving' something unchanged from an earlier time and culture makes me wonder if we're living on the same planet.

What phyla of martial arts are you referring to by your terms traditional styles and family traditional styles?

I think you may be missing a point that makes koryu really fascinating if you are into such things, and that is historical significance and the irrevocable shift in context brought about by the Meiji Restoration and abolition of the bushi class.

To understand koryu I think you must understand the economics of the Edo period. These entities existed because there was a market for them. Samurai were paid stipends by the government and were given social and some economic incentives to spend a portion of their money and time building "warrior virtue." Most though not all of this picture involved combative training, for which a samurai would seek (for himself or for his sons) whatever instructor or school was within his means and appropriate to his station and ambitions.

Before the Edo period, the common theory is, these arts were judged on the battlefield. During the Edo period there was rarely a battlefield, there were occasionally duels of varying levels of lethality and publicness, and there were public demonstrations. But schools kept their secrets because they were basically trade secrets. If a young warrior was being taught a way to subtly shift his weight to draw an attack that lures the opponent into a very bad position, and he gets involved in a duel in broad daylight and pulls this trick, then somebody from a rival school is going to see that and steal the trick and devise a workaround for it. The value of that teaching has just dissolved.

And in general, the koryu were evaluated on very utilitarian grounds. "Will this school give my son power that he can use in his everyday life as a 100-koku samurai?"

Mike, I think you may be saying that the reasons for secrecy among koryu and these other arts you draw a parallel to are similar. Perhaps, but i think the criteria by which they were evaluated in their time and place may be different.

When the Samurai class was abolished in 1868, the economy changed drastically and the market for martial arts was dramatically reduced. What to do with the whole "warrior thing" as Japan pressed onwards towards the future becomes the defining question of Japan for the next hundred years, obviously. What happened to koryu at this point is something that I and others find really really interesting.

Now, I've heard Ellis Amdur describe a difference between "kobudo" and "koryu" where the former is a school that is stuck in time, whereas the latter is more of a living thing that flows through time.

But IMO, koryu are taught and transmitted today with the understanding that the only set of merits by which they can be objectively judged are gone. This means that you do them because you like them and feel like you have to. You aren't going to get many chances to feed your ego, use what you have learned in a reality that it was designed to prepare you for, get paid, have women flock to you, etc etc. The only reason to do it is because you wanna do it.

Now an interesting thing about this is that, in historical situ, koryu kept their secrets because divulging them would have direct negative economic consequences. In modern times its the opposite. Why wouldn't somebody who spent 20 years training severely in some koryu jujutsu school, while trying to make enoguh money to eat teaching english in some rural town in Japan, want to put together a two-hour DVD "Inner Power of the Samurai" and sell it? Heck productize the system and get MMA trainers to come out to your gym for two-week intensive certification sessions. Why wouldn't they indeed?

At the end of the day, some of the luminaries have made the decision to offer the outside world a bit of their knowledge. But I assume that decision is informed by their understanding of what their art was in a different era.

So what i was trying to do here was just offer some thoughts on what make koryu distinct from other arts. I'd be interested in hearing about the historical context of "family traditional systems" etc which I assume was a reference to internal chinese martial arts.

[Mike Sigman]

What phyla of martial arts are you referring to by your terms traditional styles and family traditional styles?

I think you may be missing a point that makes koryu really fascinating if you are into such things, and that is historical significance and the irrevocable shift in context brought about by the Meiji Restoration and abolition of the bushi class.

To understand koryu I think you must understand the economics of the Edo period. These entities existed because there was a market for them. Samurai were paid stipends by the government and were given social and some economic incentives to spend a portion of their money and time building "warrior virtue." Most though not all of this picture involved combative training, for which a samurai would seek (for himself or for his sons) whatever instructor or school was within his means and appropriate to his station and ambitions.

Before the Edo period, the common theory is, these arts were judged on the battlefield. During the Edo period there was rarely a battlefield, there were occasionally duels of varying levels of lethality and publicness, and there were public demonstrations. But schools kept their secrets because they were basically trade secrets. If a young warrior was being taught a way to subtly shift his weight to draw an attack that lures the opponent into a very bad position, and he gets involved in a duel in broad daylight and pulls this trick, then somebody from a rival school is going to see that and steal the trick and devise a workaround for it. The value of that teaching has just dissolved.

And in general, the koryu were evaluated on very utilitarian grounds. "Will this school give my son power that he can use in his everyday life as a 100-koku samurai?"

Mike, I think you may be saying that the reasons for secrecy among koryu and these other arts you draw a parallel to are similar. Perhaps, but i think the criteria by which they were evaluated in their time and place may be different.

When the Samurai class was abolished in 1868, the economy changed drastically and the market for martial arts was dramatically reduced. What to do with the whole "warrior thing" as Japan pressed onwards towards the future becomes the defining question of Japan for the next hundred years, obviously. What happened to koryu at this point is something that I and others find really really interesting.

Now, I've heard Ellis Amdur describe a difference between "kobudo" and "koryu" where the former is a school that is stuck in time, whereas the latter is more of a living thing that flows through time.

But IMO, koryu are taught and transmitted today with the understanding that the only set of merits by which they can be objectively judged are gone. This means that you do them because you like them and feel like you have to. You aren't going to get many chances to feed your ego, use what you have learned in a reality that it was designed to prepare you for, get paid, have women flock to you, etc etc. The only reason to do it is because you wanna do it.

Now an interesting thing about this is that, in historical situ, koryu kept their secrets because divulging them would have direct negative economic consequences. In modern times its the opposite. Why wouldn't somebody who spent 20 years training severely in some koryu jujutsu school, while trying to make enoguh money to eat teaching english in some rural town in Japan, want to put together a two-hour DVD "Inner Power of the Samurai" and sell it? Heck productize the system and get MMA trainers to come out to your gym for two-week intensive certification sessions. Why wouldn't they indeed?

At the end of the day, some of the luminaries have made the decision to offer the outside world a bit of their knowledge. But I assume that decision is informed by their understanding of what their art was in a different era.

So what i was trying to do here was just offer some thoughts on what make koryu distinct from other arts. I'd be interested in hearing about the historical context of "family traditional systems" etc which I assume was a reference to internal chinese martial arts.Hi Cliff:

Well, my comment about some of the koryu was along narrower lines than that. Take as an example Karl Friday's book on KSR, "Legacies of the Sword". The early chapters make it clear that KSR is one of the many arts, including koryu, that asserts its basis on the Yin-Yang, Five Elements, and so on, which incontrovertibly will contain the body skills of ki and kokyu development. Whatever else that koryu contains doesn't interest me, at first, until I have some idea of how well-developed or retained those basic skills are. The reason you see these cosmological pronouncemenst so early and so clearly in the literature of almost all Asian arts is that these skills are baseline skills, not some dispensable facet. My comment was along the lines that most of these arts have lost these skills (or most of them) over time, so I simply was asking whether it is a good strategy to struggle along without the actual baseline skill or whether they should try and regain it (IF they need to). If they need to regain some of the old skills, then being secretive while looking for outside information simply doesn't appear like a good strategy, at least to me. That's all I was saying. Period.

All the other things that an art may contain is interesting. But think of it like this. I studied Aikido for between 7 and 8 years, but all the things I learned were essentially wrong because my teachers didn't really have kokyu/ki/qi/jin skills.... so we were doing external (but effective to some extent) techniques. To do Aikido correctly, I would have had to go back and retrain the way I use my body, using kokyu, hara, ki, etc. My point being that if the basics are wrong, then comments about the "high level" stuff, etc., premature or off-topic.

A 'koryu' is many things that I don't understand? Fine... I don't have a problem with that. My question was only about having a secretive in-house strategy while perhaps needing to get some outside information that might change the whole art. It was just an offhand observation about a limited aspect of koryu's and other schools, not the schools in toto.

2 cents.

Mike Sigman

[Cliff Judge]

Hi Cliff:

Well, my comment about some of the koryu was along narrower lines than that. Take as an example Karl Friday's book on KSR, "Legacies of the Sword". The early chapters make it clear that KSR is one of the many arts, including koryu, that asserts its basis on the Yin-Yang, Five Elements, and so on, which incontrovertibly will contain the body skills of ki and kokyu development. Whatever else that koryu contains doesn't interest me, at first, until I have some idea of how well-developed or retained those basic skills are. The reason you see these cosmological pronouncemenst so early and so clearly in the literature of almost all Asian arts is that these skills are baseline skills, not some dispensable facet. My comment was along the lines that most of these arts have lost these skills (or most of them) over time, so I simply was asking whether it is a good strategy to struggle along without the actual baseline skill or whether they should try and regain it (IF they need to). If they need to regain some of the old skills, then being secretive while looking for outside information simply doesn't appear like a good strategy, at least to me. That's all I was saying. Period.

All the other things that an art may contain is interesting. But think of it like this. I studied Aikido for between 7 and 8 years, but all the things I learned were essentially wrong because my teachers didn't really have kokyu/ki/qi/jin skills.... so we were doing external (but effective to some extent) techniques. To do Aikido correctly, I would have had to go back and retrain the way I use my body, using kokyu, hara, ki, etc. My point being that if the basics are wrong, then comments about the "high level" stuff, etc., premature or off-topic.

A 'koryu' is many things that I don't understand? Fine... I don't have a problem with that. My question was only about having a secretive in-house strategy while perhaps needing to get some outside information that might change the whole art. It was just an offhand observation about a limited aspect of koryu's and other schools, not the schools in toto.

2 cents.

Mike Sigman

Okay. Well, from what I can tell, the most important, identifying characteristic of koryu is actually how training progresses. I've attended seminars with high-level instructors of at least two koryu jujutsu schools where it was explained to me that you start out as a young buck and they teach you to use your muscles to pick a man up and throw him. After years of that, they teach you to use his energy to have him land on the ground, then after many more years of that you might get shown how to use "aiki" or its native equivalent..

Now I can't tell you whether, in these systems, there is no aiki for the first fifteen years and then there is, or if the aiki is slowly being built or "soaked into" the student, or what. But they seem to be built around the concept of building a foundation of skills that are not aiki for a lot of years before introducing the concept.

Now what do you get if you take away the years of slow introduction and just start people out on aiki on the first day? Well, you get Aikido. Because it uses the jujutsu pedagogical system where the instructor stands up in front of his students and demonstrates techniques on selected ukes, everyone has to figure out on their own what they just saw and how to do it and everything seems to devolve fairly quickly.

One thing I have always thought of as characteristic about Japanese martial arts - not sure how true this is across the board - is that they don't seem too concerned with the role of the conscious brain in training. There are things you are supposed to do many times without having an idea in your brain about what you are doing or why in the koryu. Also, in Aikido one of the biggest hurdles for a beginner is that urge to go "wait what I am doing here, how do i do this" before activating the body to attempt a technique. When I briefly experimented with bagua in college and when my brother tries to show me tai chi its a very brain-first, think about where you are going to move next kind of feeling. Just my very humble opinion.

So what I have to say is that if you had been training a koryu, and you left after 7-8 years because it was all external muscular stuff, then in that paradigm you quit way before the part of the process where you may have been shown that what you were working on WAS foundational to internal skills.

With Aikido, I don't know that you are incorrect that the foundational basics have gotten too external and there is no smooth transition from that phase of training to the phase where internal power is developed and expressed. Maybe that's the truth to the meme that "O Sensei only accepted students who were already experienced martial artists" - because he wanted students he could drop aiki knowledge on from day one, but didn't want to put together a ten-year program for building external / jujutsu building blocks for beginners.

Or maybe your idea that Aikido basics should be reworked so that kokyu / aiki are "baseline," foundational skills is actually revolutionary and not obvious.

[kewms]

I'm not sure I'd use Ueshiba Sensei or aikido in general as a paragon of internal arts teaching... By all accounts, teaching skills were not his strong suit, and there's been lots of discussion here about the *lack* of a coherent teaching approach (internal or external-focused) in most branches of modern aikido.

An important thing to remember is that the phenomenon of the massive seminar with 50-100+ people is very very new. Koryu were always taught in small groups. Pre-war aikido was always taught in small groups. Small groups allow much more hands-on instruction, much more customized instruction, and much more direct feedback to the students.

Katherine

[Cliff Judge]

I'm not sure I'd use Ueshiba Sensei or aikido in general as a paragon of internal arts teaching... By all accounts, teaching skills were not his strong suit, and there's been lots of discussion here about the *lack* of a coherent teaching approach (internal or external-focused) in most branches of modern aikido.

Is this a reply to me? Because you seem to think I am saying the opposite of what I meant to get across. Sorry for the confusion.

[Ellis Amdur]

Speaking for myself: Neither of the koryu I studied (and am fully certified to teach) had in their curriculum "baseline" skills.
[LIST]
However, the physical movements are such exquisite vessels that I can fully imagine that some generations back, they were an explicit part of the study.
Having learned some small modicum of these skills has virtually transformed my traditional practice, without any discernible (external) changes in the kata

Also, records indicate menkyo kaiden in 5-7 years in the Meiji period. It is my belief and experience that koryu training takes far too long, because many teachers, greedy for power and status, withhold information or drag out the teaching.

I'm not arguing with any of the above posters, most of all Toby. I keep some things in house, some things secret from my own students - at least until a certain level. BUT - my research indicates that "koryu," back in their founding years were far more prosaic, often an exchange between skilled individuals from other schools. (Brothers rather than parent/child relationship). I'm currently undertaking such an exchange where I teach a wonderful martial artist Araki-ryu and he teaches me BJJ - we each have the experience of being utterly humbled by the other within the course of an hour and a half. The striking thing is that his sword work is among the best I've ever seen in the ryu, within a period of less than two years. (Sadly, I cannot claim the same equivalence in my BJJ).

I'm holding nothing back and he's picking up with both hands. (And ironically, that is making my sword far better). The grasping process I see in all too many koryu results in eternal students, chafing like Prince Charles, waiting for mummy to pass on to her eternal reward. This dynamic being nothing I want a part of, I find myself fully agreeing with both Mike and Toby.:)

Ellis

[Flintstone]

I'm holding nothing back and he's picking up with both hands. (And ironically, that is making my sword far better).
Being a layman in the matter, I do not think that's ironical at all.

[Toby Threadgill]

Hi,

A couple of comments.

Speaking for myself: Neither of the koryu I studied (and am fully certified to teach) had in their curriculum "baseline" skills.
[LIST]
However, the physical movements are such exquisite vessels that I can fully imagine that some generations back, they were an explicit part of the study.
Having learned some small modicum of these skills has virtually transformed my traditional practice, without any discernible (external) changes in the kata

Ellis and I have discussed this many times and this has been my claim all along. Many koryu embraced some form of internal body training but the implementation of these skills was probably quite diverse. The problem is trying to define what represents a "baseline skill" if you are not intimately familiar with the school and its technical heritage. As an example, imagine someone outside Komagawa Kaishin ryu defining what a students "baseline skill" must be without being intimately familiar with the school's curriculum and tactics. I find this sort of thinking arrogant sophistry. Anyone making such a proclamation can't know what they're talking about because they don't have proper context to make an informed opinion.

Also, records indicate menkyo kaiden in 5-7 years in the Meiji period. It is my belief and experience that koryu training takes far too long, because many teachers, greedy for power and status, withhold information or drag out the teaching.

I'm not arguing with any of the above posters, most of all Toby. I keep some things in house, some things secret from my own students - at least until a certain level. BUT - my research indicates that "koryu," back in their founding years were far more prosaic, often an exchange between skilled individuals from other schools.

I absolutely agree with Ellis on this and so would my teacher. I started training with Takamura sensei 1986 and trained intensely with him until 1995. I progressed from shoden to joden gokui in this 9 year period. This represented my assimilation of the majority of the TSYR technical curriculum. When I started I was not a beginning student but a competent practitioner with a decade of broad experience in martial arts. It might also be accurate to say I was a bit of a fanatic.

In the Edo period many of the famous budoka mastered their study in about the same period of time but these men were not beginners either. They were usually highly trained professional warriors. The founder of Shindo Yoshin ryu was highly licensed in 5 different traditions by the time he was 32 years old, holding terminal licenses in Tenjin Shinyo ryu and Jikishinkage ryu.

An interesting thing to note is that many of the most famous Edo Period budoka living in Tokyo trained in dojo's almost literally down the street from one another. During a historical research visit to the National Diet Library in Tokyo, budo historian Shingo Ohgami and I were able to pull up Edo Period maps of Asakusa. By examining these maps we realized how close all the famous dojo's of the period were to one another. Evidence indicates the members of these dojos were socializing and/or training together. For instance, Matsuoka Katsunosuke while a student of Tenjin Shinyo ryu was also training in Hokushin Itto ryu with Shusaku Chiba, and why not. The two dojo's were literally next door to one another. A similar story is true for other budoka like Sakamoto Ryoma, Shigeta Ohbata, Sokaku Takeda, Yoshida Kotaro etc.... So Ellis's contention that koryu training was often occurring between skilled practitioners from different schools is not mere speculation. It is supported by a great deal of hard evidence.

Now, it could be argued that in these modern times it takes longer to master koryu study because we can't devote the time or intensity to study that Edo Period practitioners did. I find this to be an accurate observation, but there are definitely instructors out there who hold back teachings in an effort to maintain power and status. I have seen it up close myself. It is a shame but it is also an all to common fact in all martial arts traditions regardless of origin.

Takamura sensei saw the passing of all his knowledge to be a sacred duty to his ancestors. He did not hold anything back from his students but instead inundated us with information when he determined we were ready for it. He confided to me several times that his biggest fear was that he would die before he had successfully passed all the wisdom of his teachers forward. ( Imagine hearing that and then receiving a menkyo kaiden from the man? Talk about pressure.... )

So sure, many koryu have been neglected and their mokuroku compromised to one degree or another. Others have been the victims of egomaniacal leaders whose arrogance has led to teachings being interned in a grave, but koryu are very diverse entities and must be evaluated on an individual basis. Many survive as vibrant and living windows into budo's past. In my experience, generalizations about koryu by armchair experts are mostly flawed and paint such an utterly distorted picture that they should be viewed with intense skepticism, if considered at all.

Toby Threadgill / TSYR

[Thomas Campbell]

Now, it could be argued that in these modern times it takes longer to master koryu study because we can't devote the time or intensity to study that Edo Period practitioners did. I find this to be an accurate observation, but there are definitely instructors out there who hold back teachings in an effort to maintain power and status. I have seen it up close myself. It is a shame but it is also an all to common fact in all martial arts traditions regardless of origin.

Takamura sensei saw the passing of all his knowledge to be a sacred duty to his ancestors. He did not hold anything back from his students but instead inundated us with information when he determined we were ready for it. He confided to me several times that his biggest fear was that he would die before he had successfully passed all the wisdom of his teachers forward. ( Imagine hearing that and then receiving a menkyo kaiden from the man? Talk about pressure.... )

So sure, many koryu have been neglected and their mokuroku compromised to one degree or another. Others have been the victims of egomaniacal leaders whose arrogance has led to teachings being interned in a grave, but koryu are very diverse entities and must be evaluated on an individual basis. Many survive as vibrant and living windows into budo's past. Toby Threadgill / TSYR

Nicely stated. It is true that in other martial arts aside from the koryu, teachers have deliberately withheld instruction in material/skills essential to the effectiveness of the art even from their own students, as a tool of manipulation/favoritism and out of fear of a student becoming better than the teacher (Chinese martial arts are replete with stories of this). This is obviously different than withholding material from non-students, or timing the instruction in particular skill sets to the level and understanding of individual students or disciples--which however may be interpreted by people outside the school as a tool of manipulation or an indicator of the teacher's insecurity.

[Cliff Judge]

In the Edo period many of the famous budoka mastered their study in about the same period of time but these men were not beginners either. They were usually highly trained professional warriors. The founder of Shindo Yoshin ryu was highly licensed in 5 different traditions by the time he was 32 years old, holding terminal licenses in Tenjin Shinyo ryu and Jikishinkage ryu.

How often would a trainee attend training in those days? Was menkyo kaiden in 5-7 years in part a result of the fact that student and instructor would meet for a couple of hours a session, many times a week?

[Ellis Amdur]

Cliff - I really don't know the answer to that, personally. But, consider this: I have a student who can only train with me every six weeks or so. But he is getting very very powerful. Why? First of all, because he's a very strong martial artist already (see Toby above), and because whatever I teach him, he actually practices - a lot. For example, I showed him a method of doing proper body organization for every cut in Araki-ryu. When done properly, one is absolutely silent. If you do it wrong, your foot thumps (this is easy to do - doing it right is hard). So when he tucks his babies in to bed, he does 1/2 hour beside their bedside every night. If he wakes them up, he's doing it wrong.

I'm in Greece now, where I go twice a year to teach. I really had my doubts about this kind of long-distance study-group teaching, but my students in each ryu practice many times a week. They are getting the core information, so their progress is pretty good. To this extent: I'm making a video archive of the kata of Araki-ryu. I taught a set of new kata, and one man, in particular, over the course of four days (six hours a day) got good enough that I used him as tori in some of the filmed kata.

I've told the story before, but my instructor in Araki-ryu trained as the only student of a bunch of old men. Sometimes, he'd be off to the side, doing suburi, and one of the old guys would call out: "Hey, look at this." And they'd show a kata he'd never seen before, once, never show it again, and refuse to explain it. He'd go home and work on it, using his little brother as a crash test dummy. He got menkyo kaiden in eight years. (He went to their home every weekend.

So 5 - 7 years? How hungry are you? How attentive are you? How hard will you work?

Ellis Amdur

[Janet Rosen]

So when he tucks his babies in to bed, he does 1/2 hour beside their bedside every night. If he wakes them up, he's doing it wrong.


...and presumably gets immediate negative feedback from the wife as well :)
In all seriousness, your post is a wonderful example of the distinction between teaching and learning, and of how the student's responsibility for his learning makes all the difference in the world.

[Fred Little]

I've told the story before, but my instructor in Araki-ryu trained as the only student of a bunch of old men. Sometimes, he'd be off to the side, doing suburi, and one of the old guys would call out: "Hey, look at this." And they'd show a kata he'd never seen before, once, never show it again, and refuse to explain it. He'd go home and work on it, using his little brother as a crash test dummy. He got menkyo kaiden in eight years. (He went to their home every weekend.

Ellis Amdur

Hey Ellis

That is indeed an interesting line to walk: "No sensei, I wasn't showing Araki-ryu to outsiders, I was just using my little brother as a crash test dummy!" Glorious method, and one can hardly argue with the outcome!

FL

[Mike Sigman]

Many koryu embraced some form of internal body training but the implementation of these skills was probably quite diverse. The problem is trying to define what represents a "baseline skill" if you are not intimately familiar with the school and its technical heritage. As an example, imagine someone outside Komagawa Kaishin ryu defining what a students "baseline skill" must be without being intimately familiar with the school's curriculum and tactics. I find this sort of thinking arrogant sophistry. Anyone making such a proclamation can't know what they're talking about because they don't have proper context to make an informed opinion. The "baseline skills" were so obviously defined that there's a whole cosmology built around them. The Yin-Yang thing; the Five Elements. And so on. Even Tohei has a separate ranking system for I.S. abilities because they are so obviously easy to break out from the martial aspects of a martial-art. I assume, though, that we're talking about something quite different (talking past each other) ... I was talking about what the Asian martial-arts refer to as "internal strength", etc.

Incidentally, just to note in passing once again, the current discussion is something aside from my original observation along the lines that as a survival strategy, being secretive in a world where secrets can be helpful .... well, it's a survival strategy with some holes in it.

2 cents.

Mike Sigman

[Fred Little]

The "baseline skills" were so obviously defined that there's a whole cosmology built around them. The Yin-Yang thing; the Five Elements. And so on.


Mike --

Not exactly. Even if one accepts the premise that the baseline skills were widely described and explained in terms of Yin-Yang theory, the Five Elements (or in some schemes Four Elements, in others, Six Elements), the Six Directions, the Three Secrets, the Four Mandalas, the Three Kayas, or some combination of the above, that doesn't mean that the cosmology was built around the baseline skills. It only means that the cosmology was widely used as a means to catalog and explain the "baseline skills.":

Moreover, the development, organization, and ever-finer articulation of explicit relationships between principles and phenomena animating the macrocosm (the sun, the stars, the sky, the ground, in short, the entire surrounding universe) and those animating the microcosm (the body and all in it, in short, the entire surrounded universe) is, as best as anyone has been able to work out, most pronounced in systems that arose in the roughly the middle of the first millennium, but didn't really achieve their highest degree of development and expression until almost the 18th century in Tibet.

Were baseline body skills described in terms of philosophical and cosmological terms for over a thousand years? Sure. Did the cosmology arrive as a direct outgrowth of baseline body skills and then get applied to the world outside the human body? Don't be silly.

Even if I know for a fact that you have seen a really big white whale and agree that its flesh was pearly white, that doesn't mean that what everyone calls "pearly white" is built around the precise qualities of the flesh of the whale you saw.

On the broader question of koryu, last night I was reading about the Shrine at Ise. The point of the passage was that many traditional building techniques and characteristics from very early Japanese practice have been retained by the practice of tearing down the shrine and rebuilding it every 20 years. This doesn't mean that the current Shrine at Ise is exactly like each and every one of its predecessors. It does mean that the tendency toward "drift" has been counterbalanced by an institutionalized process and a (pick your word: concretized, instantiated, reified, physicalized) exemplar continually (re)constructed by that process so that as much information as possible is retained and all decisions about the incorporation of new materials and methods are in the hands of someone or someones with the fullest possible understanding of (and deepest possible obligation to) the tradition, such as it may be.

Some choices may be "assimilate new information and methods or die." Other choices may be "reject new information and methods or be assimilated to them and day." Case-by-case, system-by-system, some choices are successful, some are not. Darwin sorts it all out eventually, sometimes with an added dash of Gould's "punctuated equilibrium." No worries there.

Best,

FL

[Cliff Judge]

On the subject of internal skills, have we done these arguments already:

1) internal skills are internal skills,

vs

the internal skills in one art may be different than the internal skills in another art

2) ten years of external skills can lay the foundation for later development of internal skills,

vs

ten years of external skills is a "waste of time" because you could have just been working on your internal skills for those ten years.

I think this has a bearing on the discussion of koryu secrets and whether it is best for them to stay closed.

I think if you arrive at some type of internal power after a decade of training in something special, you may be forgiven for feeling that your internal power is distinct and superior to the internal power that somebody achieved by practicing some other way.

Maybe its not really possible to "patch" a system that has lost its internal skills by studying some other system?

The thing about koryu is, that they have that hinge point in history where they became antiquated. By "antiquated" I mean they no longer exist in their own time and place. Its not that modern koryu practitioners don't have the ability and actually the duty to discover the teachings of the ryu for themselves and make themselves into the type of warrior the ryu was designed to produce. Its just that events can no longer happen which fully validate or invalidate the teachings of the ryu. The information that flowed into the ryu and informed its syllabus before 1868 is irrevocably more important than information flowing into it afterwards.

This is why you hear of ryuha that basically choose to die out and why Mike's concept of a "survival strategy" is kind of a non-sequitur. For a lot of practitioners, the integrity of the teachings is more important than the survival of the organization.

[Mike Sigman]

Were baseline body skills described in terms of philosophical and cosmological terms for over a thousand years? Sure. Did the cosmology arrive as a direct outgrowth of baseline body skills and then get applied to the world outside the human body? Don't be silly.


Tsk, Fred. "Don't be silly"? That's not like you.... I hope. ;) I don't want to extend this part of the discussion unnecessarily, but you should be aware that the idea of the human-body embodying the universe and vice versa is/was a pretty well-established idea in China. Hence some of the neat drawings depicting the human-body, the stars, etc., all as one thing. There's actually a pretty compelling argument that the 'baseline skills' are part of religious practices going back through Buddhism to Hinduism. The curiosity is not how far back the religious and cosmological associations go, but how long essential body skills maintained religious connotations. Think about Tohei's description of the time he and O-Sensei were on Hawaii, Tohei was drunk and hungover and how O-Sensei thought of Tohei's 'unliftable' trick in terms of kami and Tohei thought in terms of sinking his middle.

But no, it's not "silly" to consider that the universal cosmology was heavily tied into aspects of 'baseline skills' in the human body.

2 cents.

Mike

[Mike Sigman]

This is why you hear of ryuha that basically choose to die out and why Mike's concept of a "survival strategy" is kind of a non-sequitur. For a lot of practitioners, the integrity of the teachings is more important than the survival of the organization.Given the examples I've seen of a number of martial-arts, including koryu, that have lost simple internal-strength skills, I'm reluctant to lose sleep over a few martial-arts voluntarily stopping with the implication that they had truly been able to maintain the art without loss/attenuation over time. Maybe, but probably not. In the greater scheme of things a few small systems aren't going to be determinative. There are some large, thriving systems that have some body-conditioning techniques I'd love to find out about (involving the 'baseline skillset').

The technical skillsets, as interesting as they may be, are somewhat suspect in terms of completeness in Asian martial arts that are supposed to be based on the all-encompassing internal-strength skillsets, but which don't have them anymore or in which "internal strength is just a partial add-on". As I caveated, of course, any art that was not based on internal strength is apart from what I was talking about. Arts that were based on internal strength, though, didn't do it partially... you tend to be either in the game or not in the game, sort of like pregnancy. ;)

2 cents.

Mike Sigman

[Fred Little]

Tsk, Fred. "Don't be silly"? That's not like you.... I hope. ;) I don't want to extend this part of the discussion unnecessarily, but you should be aware that the idea of the human-body embodying the universe and vice versa is/was a pretty well-established idea in China. Hence some of the neat drawings depicting the human-body, the stars, etc., all as one thing. There's actually a pretty compelling argument that the 'baseline skills' are part of religious practices going back through Buddhism to Hinduism. The curiosity is not how far back the religious and cosmological associations go, but how long essential body skills maintained religious connotations. Think about Tohei's description of the time he and O-Sensei were on Hawaii, Tohei was drunk and hungover and how O-Sensei thought of Tohei's 'unliftable' trick in terms of kami and Tohei thought in terms of sinking his middle.

But no, it's not "silly" to consider that the universal cosmology was heavily tied into aspects of 'baseline skills' in the human body.

2 cents.

Mike

Mike,

When you phrase it as "heavily tied into" rather than "so obviously defined that there's a whole cosmology built around them" then you get around what I would characterize as "silly": privileging what you call "baseline skills" as the primary, if not sole, basis from which the cosmology is drawn.

There are other "baseline skills" applicable to other fields of endeavor that, from the perspectives of those fields, are more important than the physical applications on which you focus. For example, if you look at recent popular press on the construction of "memory houses" as a learning tool, and then you look back at Taoist and Buddhist modes of constructing a mandala (or earlier Indic modes of constructing a yantra, to expand on your brief argument above), then one such instance with regard to "baseline learning skills" is strongly suggested, if not apparent. And this is just one example of a great many differing frames of reference and application.

I would argue that the cosmology as a whole needs to be treated more as a useful metaphor than a precise mathematical description. The looseness of metaphor provides an opening for broader applicability across multiple fields, as well as more flexible basis for precise and detailed understandings within differing fields (all distinguishable, but still related cosmos) in which it has been deployed. Over time, those descriptions coexist, sometimes happily, sometimes jostling each other (or in Buddhist-speak "are mutually conditioning") and further understandings arise from those interactions. In the literature, this is also called "social learning" and "the development of social learning communities."

If I split this into an overly simple binary construct, as opposed to the collective process of "social learning," the kind of thing you're up to is developing "embodied knowledge." Leaving either side out, or privileging either side as the substantive basis (very different than treating a given field as a somewhat substantive but still incomplete basis) is where I would argue the silliness comes into play.

Go back far enough (or find a sufficiently religious society) and everything has religious connotations. In this regard, the baseline skill set in which you're interested is one of many baseline skill sets. The strength of the microcosmic-macrocosmic theories of East Asia is as much the universality as any particular specificity.

Which takes us to the very old argument about "the one and the many." As a matter of practice, we choose a way in because we have limited time and resources. As a matter of theory, we needn't over-emphasize either approach as complete.

And that's likely to be all the heavy thinking I do for the next six or seven hours. Work calls and I'm now obliged to go squeeze blood out of stones and make too few lemons into a nice batch of lemonade.

Best,

FL

[Fred Little]

Mike,

One important caution: if you succeed in developing the baseline skill of constructing a memory mandala and successfully deploy it while sitting at a blackjack table in Reno, don't be surprised if you're escorted from the casino in fairly short order. :D

FL

[Mike Sigman]

Mike,

When you phrase it as "heavily tied into" rather than "so obviously defined that there's a whole cosmology built around them" then you get around what I would characterize as "silly": privileging what you call "baseline skills" as the primary, if not sole, basis from which the cosmology is drawn. Hi Fred:

Well, at least I phrased it as a justifiable (or arguable) debate, rather than proposing that any other view is "silly". :straightf

There are other "baseline skills" applicable to other fields of endeavor that, from the perspectives of those fields, are more important than the physical applications on which you focus. For example, if you look at recent popular press on the construction of "memory houses" as a learning tool, and then you look back at Taoist and Buddhist modes of constructing a mandala (or earlier Indic modes of constructing a yantra, to expand on your brief argument above), then one such instance with regard to "baseline learning skills" is strongly suggested, if not apparent. And this is just one example of a great many differing frames of reference and application. I see your point, but I'd argue that just because some people have begun to see the value of the "internal strength" discussion, all has not been laid openly and clearly to their eyes. I.e..... it's not quite as simple as a lot of people have begun to relievedly sigh and think possible. ;)

I would argue that the cosmology as a whole needs to be treated more as a useful metaphor than a precise mathematical description. I think it's very important to understand that these early people were laying out, as closely as they were able, a very precise depiction of the universe as reality. In other words, the cosmology was not an understanding couched in vagueness... it was as precise a "Theory of Everything" (T.O.E.) as they were capable of. The looseness of metaphor provides an opening for broader applicability across multiple fields, as well as more flexible basis for precise and detailed understandings within differing fields (all distinguishable, but still related cosmos) in which it has been deployed. Over time, those descriptions coexist, sometimes happily, sometimes jostling each other (or in Buddhist-speak "are mutually conditioning") and further understandings arise from those interactions. In the literature, this is also called "social learning" and "the development of social learning communities."

If I split this into an overly simple binary construct, as opposed to the collective process of "social learning," the kind of thing you're up to is developing "embodied knowledge." Leaving either side out, or privileging either side as the substantive basis (very different than treating a given field as a somewhat substantive but still incomplete basis) is where I would argue the silliness comes into play.

Go back far enough (or find a sufficiently religious society) and everything has religious connotations. In this regard, the baseline skill set in which you're interested is one of many baseline skill sets. The strength of the microcosmic-macrocosmic theories of East Asia is as much the universality as any particular specificity.

Which takes us to the very old argument about "the one and the many." As a matter of practice, we choose a way in because we have limited time and resources. As a matter of theory, we needn't over-emphasize either approach as complete.

And that's likely to be all the heavy thinking I do for the next six or seven hours. Work calls and I'm now obliged to go squeeze blood out of stones and make too few lemons into a nice batch of lemonade.

Best,

FLFred, the next time we get together at a bar, remind me of this conversation and I'll try to go over the many items that support my thesis. If nothing else, let me remind you that calligraphy (see Abe Sensei's interview), Noh, traditional dancing, Tea Ceremony, and a number of other things that precede current culture, used all or portions of I.S. basics. That didn't happen as individual happenstance... that's too improbable... it was part of a broader culture in which the 'baseline skillset' was the place to go.

2 cents.

Mike Sigman

[Rennis Buchner]

Also, records indicate menkyo kaiden in 5-7 years in the Meiji period. It is my belief and experience that koryu training takes far too long, because many teachers, greedy for power and status, withhold information or drag out the teaching.

In our ryu there is an example of this as late as the 1930's with one individual joining the dojo in May of 1935 and getting menkyo kaiden from the soke in October of 1938. In our case it seemed to be the generation or two of teachers after this that, after the war, hooked up with some of the various umbrella federations and suddenly locked down and more or less stopped giving out paper work almost entirely. The few that did would only do so after decades and decades of training so now next to no one is actually licensed or knows the full mokuroku.

For what it is worth,
Rennis Buchner

[Aikibu]

Wow! Great Thread. Thanks Everyone. :)

William Hazen

[NTT]

I see that koryu licences have changed in the way they are now given. It seems titles are given much later and some regret it is so.
I wonder if the meaning of the koryu titles has not changed in such way that they are given much later or even not given at all.
Maybe now, one can see that the focus is on the deepening of the lessons and not the extensive knowledge. If one goes for the depth of the lesson, why care about knowing all the curriculum when the main teaching is in the basics.
The change in attribution of koryu titles may be for business but also maybe for deeper reasons.
I believe one can give a more subtle image of koryu titles.

[Ellis Amdur]

Phillipe, not necessarily. Perhaps you are right. But such "deepening" presupposes some sort of spiritual path as opposed to nit-picking (your toe is one millimeter too far to the left - a quote of an iaido teacher to a high ranking koryu man who joined that particular school).

Best
Ellis Amdur

[NTT]

Indeed, millimeter practice is a good joke! and a bad time to spend in the dojo!
It only shows what such a person sees or does not see. But for those who are in martial arts, practice is about living technique. That means sweat and a good laugh from time to time.
For myself, I hate millimeter kamae although there is also millimeter positionning when the sword comes down. But that millimeter is always changing as the sword comes down.

Should one think of koryu on the basis of such misunderstanding? For me koryu is living technique. Always changing.

[Marc Abrams]

Indeed, millimeter practice is a good joke! and a bad time to spend in the dojo!
It only shows what such a person sees or does not see. But for those who are in martial arts, practice is about living technique. That means sweat and a good laugh from time to time.
For myself, I hate millimeter kamae although there is also millimeter positionning when the sword comes down. But that millimeter is always changing as the sword comes down.

Should one think of koryu on the basis of such misunderstanding? For me koryu is living technique. Always changing.

Philippe:

Interesting perspective. My very limited understanding is that the oath that is taken is in regards to the tradition, so that the people are living embodiments of a traditions that have essentially remained unchanged for hundreds of years.

Marc Abrams

[NTT]

Philippe:

My very limited understanding is that the oath that is taken is in regards to the tradition, so that the people are living embodiments of a traditions that have essentially remained unchanged for hundreds of years.

Marc Abrams

Marc:
As you said "essentially remained unchanged". What does that mean? Essentially? Does a ryu with the character of "river" remain unchanged when one cannot go into the same river twice. Or even once?
When I meet my master, his teaching changes every time, due to my study and due to his study. But does the change in the teaching mean the art changes, I doubt it because it would mean that the art revolves around me or my master's study. I believe art changes as well as every thing in this universe. Well, art as an art should change. Dogen wrote that even the mountain flows, that mastery does move on. In other words, he considered that translation of Buddhist texts are an improvement which is not the common belief.
The soke of a koryu has to keep alive a tradition which means it has to live its own life (evolve) and respond to today's questions and keep the ability to answer next generations questions. But it should gard the experience of the founder as an entire and complete entity. This requires the abilities of a soke and is not accessible to common students. That is why I do agree to your words and take it for myself:My very limited understanding
Marc Abrams
Millimeter practice is only a state of Shu-Ha-Ri. It helps discipline the body and mind but discipline is not all.
In the tradition of my koryu, we study seiho and not kata, "flowing of energy" and not form.
Koryu teaching lives and as such evolves without memory loss, or at least minimum. They are not dinosaur skeletons! :)
That may be illustrated by the saying "The Wheel of Law" or "the Wheel of the Teaching". It rolls on according to the ground it meets but stays unaltered as a weel or circle.