Rationales for Training

I’ve written about intensity in training and the role pressure testing can play in personal development, but what about the cultural aspects of older martial arts? They are fascinating, inspiring, and important — but secondary to the mental and physical components of training.

Malaise. I am finding I do not appreciate most koryū from a purely social perspective. The current culture surrounding older martial arts is not the rationale for my practice. I do not believe martial arts are supposed to be historical preservation societies, or continue to exist because of their value solely in those regards. Some older martial arts preserve important historical perspectives on combat, philosophy, and culture and I do find that interesting.¹

I do not believe surviving or new ryūha are interesting or important because they do that. I believe instead that the purpose of martial arts groups are to teach certain forms of combatives, independent of whether they have been surpassed by technological advances, because of their benefit to develop human potential, in terms of fitness, athletics, psychology, discipline, perception, stress management, etc. Those qualities or benefits can then be used by combatively minded people in modern times, in that martial arts is ultimately about combat.

In that some groups have very academic minded people, or people without a general level of fitness or mindset needed as prerequesites for the above, they are not martial arts but instead a form of theatre or dance, except that dancers and actors often have fitness and mindset, attempting to embody an idea or character strongly in their performance. Just watch the samurai face so many western budoka try to adopt, consciously or unconsciously, during their practice.

I do not have great interest in participating in a Japanese version of period re-enactment. In some ways, that is exactly what I did not like about western budōka like Don Angier or others who really wanted to get every period detail correct, as if they were samurai themselves, or people talking about yamabushi to no end – in Angier’s case and others, I think it is a defense mechanism because they synthesized their own martial art to feed certain psychological deficiencies, regardless of their physical skill.

I can respect people who get all the details right, but I don’t think they are better as martial artists for doing so. They need to still cultivate their skill in a manner that could be applied to people who are not their students. So many koryū practitioners are unwilling to even do light sparring with bogu and shinai with people not in their own group. Donn Draeger said sparring was too dangerous in koryū, but he had done judō and kendō also, so had ample opportunity for randori and shiai. It is too dangerous to try portions of kata full power, full speed — but Draeger also had a level of power and speed beyond what you will find in most people today.

Ultimately, the ryū are different competing approaches and methodologies. If people train in multiple koryū, they should do so within a single family (if they changed teachers or groups within a broad stream of Shinkage-ryū or Shintō-ryū) or disjointly — in the Edo period, one might learn one ryū of spear, one of sword, one of grappling.

But people did test what they practiced during the Edo period, in grappling and gekken (the latter with a variety of weapons, there are famous sword versus spear matches on record and they did not think it was too dangerous to attempt). We should also test what we practice.

The cultural perspective is important to respect and get right, but it cannot be the rationale for practice. If one is tested, and learns from the experience, one knows more than before. If one cannot hold up to other approaches, and does not learn from the experience in some way — what path exactly are we walking?

So, for me, koryū as a form of historical preservation doesn’t hold much interest in of itself, despite my interest in history and culture. I do not believe keeping the historical context and details just so will allow you to resurrect an approach at some time in the future if you do not also have ability in our own practice, today. So often koryū becomes what I might call toryū (stopped/killed flow/transmission).

I have no interest in that.

End Notes