Kagami Biraki, West LA 2005 

Shibumi

In the dojo, what ISN’T said is often as important as what IS said. To most of us who’ve been raised in the USA, the reticence we encounter in the dojo can be off-putting. American society is very “content” oriented. Our legal contracts, for instance, run for pages and pages. Everything needs to be spelled out. In “context-oriented” societies there is far less reliance on such a literal approach. Much more importance is placed on the relationship between the two parties entering into an agreement, for example, than is placed on the contents of that agreement itself. Essentially, the relationship creates a context. Everything flows from the relationship. It would be considered rude in such societies to ask for confirmation or proof of each other’s bona fides before agreeing to a meeting. The decision to meet in the first place conveys all that needs to be known.

The Japanese word shibumi is applied when describing something that is “just so.” By that I mean something that has neither too much nor too little of precisely what is called for in a situation, whatever the situation may be. In the discipline of mathematics, a proof that is simple but explains much is called “elegant.” In physics too, incisive theories of cause and effect are referred to as elegant. Elegance is a suitable English equivalent for shibumi. The word conveys something that is timeless, refined, potent and somewhat reserved.

Our Seido practice can cultivate our perception of shibumi. Much of this is done through context. Saying less rather than more is part of the context of the dojo. A trusting relationship, in this case trusting silence, precedes any change in perception. Much of your training can be explained in a didactic manner, but such an approach loses a valuable element of the practice; introspection. There is a time for words and a time for silence. The traditions of karate-do and Zen suggest that, in terms of personal growth and understanding, trusting silence is the more valuable approach of the two. In terms of its ability to ignite your curiosity and propel your practice, a non-answer is often exactly the right response to a question.

Gambatte kudasai! See you in the dojo. Osu!

Idyllwild, 2005 

Hone o oru

This Japanese expression has two basic meanings. The literal meaning is to break one’s bone(s), as when falling from a height. The figurative meaning is “to try harder.” That is, to try so hard that one’s bones break.

Undertaking bonebreaking work is a core value in a classical Japanese dojo. Passage through such an ordeal presents the karateka with new insights into his or her kokoro, or heart-mind-spirit. These insights often serve to diminish the strangle-hold the ego had held on the mind prior to the ordeal. Contrary to popular belief, diminishment of the ego does not render a person ineffectual in the world. In fact, the smaller the purchase your ego has on your life, the more able you are to access highly functional energies and insights that a too-strong ego would deny. A person with a strong bond to kokoro places confidence in something beyond the small self of the personality. This bond provides the strength to prevail when other’s, more rooted in their own egos, fall by the wayside.

Kaicho has often spoke of this aspect of Seido training, the aspect of managing the ego. It is Kaicho’s belief that this encounter with one’s own ego (defenses, projections, delusions) is the fundamental “fight” that the true karateka wages, and that hard training is the path to ultimate victory. Thus, we in Seido don’t “train for” some tournament of upcoming event, as much as we “train through” the continual, “bone rattling” battles we have with the ego.

Gambatte kudasai! See you in the dojo. Osu!

Grand Canyon National Park 

The Five "S" Process

When I trained at Honbu I used to keep one of the towels reserved for cleaning the floor at the end of class close by me so that I could sop up the sweat that gathered in puddles on the floor beneath me during waza practice. During one such class, I took advantage of a momentary break in the training to clean my space with the towel. When I was finished I lightly tossed it toward a support pillar on the main floor of the dojo for later use. “Don’t throw!” Kaicho yelled. “Place down on floor.” He seemed very annoyed with me for my oversight. Needless to say, I never forgot the lesson: tossing or idly placing anything in the dojo was not acceptable behavior for a Seido karateka.

In large organizations around the world, managers are confronted with two important considerations: efficiency and effectiveness (quality control). How, they ask, can their employees be encouraged to become more efficient and effective? There have been many approaches to answering this question. One of the most effective originates from Japan and is called “The 5 ‘S’ Process.”

The 5 ‘S’s are: Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu and, finally, Shitsuke. Loosely translated, these stand for organization (tidiness), orderliness, cleanliness, standardization of methods and, finally, discipline. Regarding the first S, Seiri, this relates to taking out the trash and other things that no longer serve a purpose in the workplace. Seiton, or orderliness, is slightly different than Seiri. It refers to putting the things that ARE used in the workplace back in their proper place when they’re not being used. Seiso means that everyone cleans up, not just those whose job it is to do that. Everyone is a janitor. Seiketsu refers to the creation of rules for how to clean up and a routine to make sure it gets done. Shitsuke, or discipline, is the commitment everyone makes to practicing the first 4 S’s all the time.

Of the 5, Shitsuke is the most important. Without everyone’s commitment to always abide by the first 4 practices, bad feelings can arise. People start to notice if they alone are the only ones keeping the shop clean. Resentment of those who don’t chip in starts to creep into the workplace and to interfere with the work itself.

Shitsuke, discipline, is a core value in the Japanese culture. It is conveyed to every child from the first moment of their schooling experience to their last. The closest equivalent we have to it in American culture is “team spirit,” or perhaps the sense expressed by the famous motto of the Three Musketeers: “All for one and one for all!” Still, these only approximate the intensity of feeling the value of shitsuke holds for the Japanese.

In Seido we practice the 5 S’s every time we enter the dojo. We all work to keep the dojo clean and we all have (or should have) an idea of how things are to be done. Everyone participates in the process, and we are all committed to doing the best we can. This practice not only helps to keep the dojo clean and student morale even-keeled, it establishes a way of life that we can take into our jobs. Though it may seem like it doesn’t make a difference in the “dog eat dog” atmosphere American culture, practicing shitsuke slowly and surely distinguishes you from your competitors. People notice the difference. Shitsuke, the commitment to best practices, separates you from the ordinary precisely because of your close attention to the ordinary. Gambatte kudasai! See you in the dojo. Osu!

Kyoshi T. Pastrick 

Seido and The Shadow

Not long ago in Rome during a Master’s Tennis Tournament something remarkable happened. In a tightly contested game, American Andy Roddick challenged a linesman’s call on a ball hit by his opponent. The remarkable thing about this incident was that Roddick argued against his own interest. He insisted that the opponent’s ball had landed inside the line and that he, Roddick, should NOT be awarded the point. Spectators applauded as if they’d witnessed a miracle. Imagine! Sportsmanship in a professional sporting event.

Such adherence to the principle of “fair play” is especially remarkable in this day and age, when the broad culture places a higher value on winning at any cost than it does on playing by the rules and planning for the long term. According to geneticists and anthropologists, however, it was always this way, and will always be thus. In Dark Nature, naturalist Lyall Watson states that the study of DNA and the genes it codes for shows that there are 3 rules that all living things abide by. Rule 1 is, be nice to insiders. Rule 2 is, be nasty to outsiders. Rule 3 is, cheat a lot. By adhering to these 3 “commandments”, the genes of an organism have a greater chance of making it into the next generation. That trip alone is the objective of every living thing. The articulation of these 3 rules makes a powerful case for doing whatever it takes to succeed.

The problem with living by those 3 rules, though, is that such a life is completely directed by unconscious programs and allows no room for choice. In such a world, Andy Roddick could never have the ability to question the “rightness” of the linesman’s call. He would have no choice but to follow the dictate of Rule 3: cheat a lot. The fact that he chose to override Rule 3 and advocate for a new order suggests that another world is possible beyond that of mere survival.

Throughout history, humans have perceived the possibility of something beyond “the selfish gene“, as Richard Dawkins called it, and have struggled to bring that vision into existence. We have fought for new “games” or societies, with new rules. In these societies insiders are scrutinized and outsiders are made to feel welcome. Cheaters are shunned. Because of the power of our genetic programming however, the creators of these new rules are usually reviled in their own lifetime as traitors to the status quo and the old ways continue undeterred.

We cannot deny our selfish “nature.” But neither do we have to embrace it unquestioningly. Wisdom traditions around the world acknowledge the interplay between the fight for survival and the fight for choice. The Chinese culture even created a logo, if you will, for this interplay between the old and the new. The yin/yang symbol illustrates the sage acceptance of two powerful forces interacting with each other, the shadow and the light. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, asked, “How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a shadow?” Both facets of existence, light and shadow, are necessary to maintain balance and order at the new, conscious level of life. Acknowledging the shadow can prevent it from taking over while we are busy pursuing the light. As the old adage says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.“

As I’ve written in previous articles, the budo tradition in Japan came into full flower with the emergence of the “sword that heals” as a counterweight to the “sword that kills.” By envisioning a new order that acknowledged both tendencies, the budoka entered into greater harmony with life. An admitted assassin in his youth, Musashi matured in his later years and adopted this new approach, one that did not require murder for success. His substance was only enhanced by his awareness of the shadow.

Kaicho has spoken and written often about the values of the karateka. By emphasizing these values, there is a tacit admission of the power of the shadow, the blind rush to prevail over others at any cost. As karateka, we take upon ourselves the difficult task of balancing the two forces within ourselves. For instance, we practice skills that are meant for conflict, yet we subscribe to the ideals of peace and harmony.

The genetic program to be nice to insiders, nasty to outsiders and to cheat a lot is powerful. The quest for a life of conscious choice is just as powerful. Achieving a greater harmony that encompasses these two forces is never easy. It never will be. Gambatte kudasai! See you in the dojo. Osu!

Santa Monica Beach Training, 2005 

Waza and The Green Room

“On this day he had lived with that feeling, with death breathing right in his face like the hot wind from a grenade across the street, for moment after moment after moment, for three hours or more. The only thing he could compare it to was the feeling he found sometimes when he surfed, when he was inside the tube of a big wave and everything around him was energy and motion and he was being carried along by some terrific force and all he could do was focus intently on holding his balance, riding it out. Surfers called it The Green Room.” - Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden

Let’s be clear; our sparring in the dojo in NO way, shape or form compares with the reality of combat. There was a time in Japan centuries ago when the opposite was true, when sparring in the dojo was intimately related to the reality of death. Live swords were used and the possibility of dying by the sword hung over each adept. As you can imagine, the use of live swords prompted intense zanshin, much like that described by the soldier in the above passage.

Absent the use of live swords or fights to the death, how do we train zanshin in our pedestrian, workaday 21st century world? Should we all become surfers and through that gain entrance into The Green Room? I don’t believe that’s the only way, though the thought of “catching a tube“ does seem pretty cool. Should we all become soldiers in battle? Obviously not. Instead, I believe the best way for a karateka to enter The Green Room is through waza.

Waza is a very old term in the Japanese language. It’s supposed to designate technique in the realm of the arts. All arts. Fully defined, waza means “a gesture or act that has a profound meaning or is done with a significant intention; the act of doing something knowingly.”

The sense of this word may not be fully conveyed by its definition. In the context of traditional Japanese culture, waza is a means or method of achieving unity, harmony, and the full integration of thought and action with spirit. It’s the fusion of the self (ego-based) with the universal principle, The Green Room. In previous articles I’ve written about shugyo, as with the swordsman drawing his sword 10,000 times within a 24 hour period. Such practice leads to a short-circuiting of boundary awareness and allows for the possibility of an entirely new understanding of self to emerge. This is an example of integrating thought and action with spirit. Such a practice presumes that one has in oneself the potential to enter into resonance with the principle that rules the universe.

Shugyo is not something we can undertake every day. But waza is! Every time we come to the dojo we can set our intention to the sincere practice of basic technique. By training the non-abiding mind, mushin, through waza we can wear down the habit of incessant ego-boundary awareness and enter into resonance, zanshin, with the principle that rules the universe. Call it The Green Room or chi, or The Force or Super-String Physics, the intuition of a power beyond our rational mind has been part of the human experience for as long as humans have been on earth. The desire to resonate with that force has played a large role in our journey as humans, and perhaps in our journey as karateka.

Returning to the definition of waza given above, a crucial point needs to be made. It is this: while waza is an act undertaken with significant intention it is NOT a means of achieving a pre-conceived end. In other words, waza is not yet another form of manipulation by ego. Waza is a journey without a self-determined destination. It is a game in which we are not making the rules. This “unpredictability” releases us, even if momentarily, from our addiction to the fiction of having control over Life. When we release that addiction, we’re in The Green Room. Gambatte kudasai!

See you in the dojo, dudes!

Osu!

West LA Seido Dojo 

Monkey see, monkey do

Chi gyo ichi nyo is a familiar expression in the dojo. The word chi means knowledge. Gyo means doing, or action. Ichi nyo means inseparable. Action and knowledge are one! Acting without adequate knowledge or understanding is a constant source of frustration and problems. In our lives we are often busy and active, without really understanding the basis of our actions and their full impact. Some people study karate without knowing why they are really studying. In class they do the techniques without understanding their purpose, and so they lose much of the benefit.”

Mindless, conditioned behavior occurs on all levels of life. A single person or an organization of people can act mindlessly. Patrick McCarthy, hanshi, and author of many books about the origins of karate, offers a useful parable describing the process of mindlessness and the dangers of leaving conditioned behaviors unexamined.

“Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage hang a banana on a string from the ceiling and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all the monkeys with ice-cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the monkeys are sprayed with ice-cold water. Pretty soon, when yet another monkey can’t resist trying to climb the stairs, all the other monkeys aggressively try to prevent it.

Now, turn off the cold water, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and immediately wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. He tries again and is attacked again. He realizes that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer too, takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Replace a third monkey. The process will be repeated. Two of the four monkeys attacking the new member have no idea why they’re not allowed up the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. Why not?

Because as far as they know, that’s the way it’s always been around here!”

Chi gyo ichi nyo. Develop both the will to examine your assumptions and the courage to discard erroneous beliefs. Karate-do encourages the student to examine their assumptions about life. Moreover, true karate-do IS the experience of a mindful life. Where karate and zen come together, mind and action are one and the same thing. Ken zen ichi nyo. Sword and mind are one! So say the masters. This is not something to believe. Its something to experience. Practice is essential. Gambatte kudasai. See you in the dojo. Osu!