Buddha by Pond 

A Way Out of the Overload

How do we simplify? There's a welter of information, advice, techniques, schools and every imaginable video tape available on the market to answer that question for you. In making a selection from this movable feast you'd want to take into account the background and credentials of the person offering you a way out of the overload. That's assuming you didn't just throw up your hands in exasperation and walk away from the task entirely.

I recently encountered a credible voice amidst the tumult. Richard Machowicz was a member of the U.S. Navy Seals. Having left the service he continues to work in the field of personal protection and teaches an intensive workshop in Southern California as he trains to become initiated as a Buddhist monk. That's a pretty strong curriculum vitae for cutting through the crap, wouldn't you say?

Richard Machowicz has written a book, Unleash the Warrior Within, which may serve as a modern day karateka's Guide to the Perplexed. Machowicz is a reductionist in the sense that he's an advocate for "thin slicing," the term Malcolm Gladwell popularized in his best-selling book Blink. Thin slicing allows a person to rapidly assess a novel situation and identify the important, noteworthy elements in that situation that need to be addressed first as it unfolds. The emphasis is on the word "rapidly."

I've written at length in other posts about Budo, the aspect of martial arts training that introduces a meditative and aesthetic counterbalance to the havoc of combat. This post will look, with Machowicz's help, at the other end of the "Bu stick", the end occupied by bujutsu, the techniques and doctrine of close-quarter combat.

Machowicz's most important contribution, in my opinion, is his emphasis on target practice. Rather than getting bogged down in what to do, the trainee would benefit enormously if instead he or she was very clear about what to hit. Once that decision is made, the body does what it must to get a successful outcome. This simple fact is often overlooked in training where, just like with the smorgasbord of self-help books, the trainee can get bogged down in a worry of waza.

Machowicz reminds us that most vital targets are on or near the midline of the body; eyes, nose, throat, solar plexus, groin, instep of the feet. Our main targets will dictate how we move and what weapons we use. Such advice is useful even for the trainee who is interested primarily in tournament fighting or dojo sparring, with personal protection being somewhat less of an interest. Of course the eyes, throat and groin are off limits in most tournaments, but maintaining an awareness of the opponent's midline as well one's own serves the trainee well in developing concentration and effective choice of weapons (forefist, knife hand, spear hand, elbow, foot, knee, etc.).

Taking this approach to training, the novice can make significant progress from the get go. The more experienced trainee can also find refuge in this simple approach. Rather than involving ourselves in complex motor plans that lead to nowhere, we can get out from under the overload of choice by simply selecting a target and using the weapons best suited for striking it. Simple to say, not so easy to do. But worth the effort to practice. Gambatte kudasai! See you in the dojo!

Leaf in Yard 

The Fog of Will

Suki = a chink in the armor, a psychological weakness. Doubt.

The trainee must believe in his or her ability to win in a life threatening situation. The trainee must begin to believe that he or she can and will survive a violent encounter because they’ll do what’s necessary, come what may. To achieve this strength of belief the trainee seeks to eliminate excess baggage and change his or her self-perception from one that coddles doubt to one that embraces action. Shugyo, intense training, strips the trainee of excess baggage (doubt) by bringing him or her to the brink of failure and, there and then, allowing for the choice: stop or continue? By continuing, the trainee builds not only physical strength but a mindset that will not shrink from a challenge.

Choosing to continue is often easier said than done. Through the rigors of training, the trainee comes to recognize that there are certain trip wires, or limits, to persistance that recur with dismaying regularity. Many of these limits have been self-imposed. These trip wires constitute the main enemy to progress and are the suki, the chink in the armor, that the trainee must continually engage and correct.

Engaging these walls of inner resistance, the trainee begins to realize that the battle will not be won via the products of intellect. Instead, victory more often arises from the fog of will, the unthinking commitment to persistance. Will's closest advisor is not the intellect but the intuition. Intuition is the result of experience. Shugyo provides the opportunity to experience both victory and, more importantly, defeat. By tasting defeat in the harsh but caring confines of the dojo, the trainee lives to train another day, a day enriched by the insights taught by failure. By returning to the dojo after defeat, the trainee builds the mindset necessary to prevail. It is somewhat ironic that failure is the necessary ingredient for success. More important than failing, of course, is the will to persist once failure has been encountered. While planning is essential ("If you fail to plan, you're planning to fail.") life is often indifferent to the schemes of the intellect. Best to make careful plans AND to train the mindset of "persistance through resistance" that whole-hearted shugyo produces. Gambatte kudasai! See you in the dojo.

Senpai Tomoko, Kayo and Yumi in California 

Beauty and The Beast

The Japanese word yugen connotes the sense of subtlety as it relates to beauty. According to Donn Draeger, author of many books and articles on the history of Budo, the definition of yugen includes such ideas as “suggestiveness,” “charm,” and “dynamic stillness.” Draeger writes that “the essence of yugen lies in beauty and gentleness, the tranquility and elegance of a performance executed in a serene manner. Yet it is not enough to witness and learn about yugen from others,” Draeger observes. “Yugen is thoroughly understood only through one’s own sustained efforts.”

What do beauty and gentleness have to do with karate-do?.

Entering the Seido dojo, the trainee enters the realm of budo first and foremost. Technical development and the use of aggression are addressed, of course, but the primary mission of Seido is the trainee’s personal development. Strength, flexibility, power and coordination are all highly valued physical attributes but if they are put in the service of brute force, domination and fear they fall short of moving the soul and the spirit to its fullest expression. How then, does the trainee minimize the presence of fear and the impulse to impose force while training, at the same time, to maximize physical powers and the very ability to impose force? Two answers to the question of beauty and the beast come to mind.

The first is the “exercise” of courtesy, rei in Japanese. Demonstrating courtesy may be as demanding a practice as any physical regimen found in the dojo. It is certainly a pervasive component of Seido and demands the trainees attention. Through attention to courtesy, the trainee is able to enter into a fuller communion with others. Courtesy requires interaction with another or with others. Through the power of affiliation, nurtured by simple courtesies and acknowledgements within the dojo, the spirit is charmed. This is one reason why traditional formality is emphasized in a Seido dojo. Such formality, done with a humble attitude absent the fussiness of Emily Post, charms the spirit and elevates it at the same time. It encourages a gentleness.

The second “exercise” is kata and, more specifically the kamae, or presentation. Kata is often the source of much consternation for the trainee. The movements of the kata seem strange and ineffectual at first and there is a lack of appreciation for why these “things,” the kata themselves, need to be learned. Adding to this stress is the fact that the trainee’s performance of kata is constantly being judged by the instructor. The trainee is always aware of the instructor’s watchful eye in the dojo. There is a reason for such watchfulness. The instructor is attending to the trainee's state of mind as expressed through their movements and the intervals between the movements, the kamae. Many newcomers to a traditional dojo are slow to see the interplay between movement and stillness. Their first goal is to learn how to move adroitly, and well it should be. Yet as the trainee progresses he or she comes to understand that the kamae (sometimes referred to as stances or "dachi") have as much, if not more, value with respect to their inner development . The ability to maintain equanimity in the face of challenges is widely perceived as the hallmark of self-mastery. Circumstances should not be allowed to gain such a grip on the mind and emotions of the trainee that it disturbs their sense of composure. Of course, this is easier said than done. Kata practice, with its periods of intense action and seeming stillness flowing one into the other, is the perfect occasion for the trainee to experience the meaning of "yugen." The process is an internal one. Yet after much practice the inner equanmity within the violent action seeps out to the surface and is visible to the instructor, if not to everyone else in the class. Dynamic stillness, indeed, becomes apparent.

Sustained effort is the path to all accomplishments. Equanimity is the flower of your effort. Gambatte kudasai! See you in the dojo.

Bird of Paradise 

Take It On

Many critics of Traditional Martial Arts (TMA) base their criticisms on the training methodology of the “old school.” Kata and pre-arranged partnered sets, they say, don’t prepare the trainee for anything “real.” The approach of TMA, they continue, is based on assumptions about an attack that just don’t stand up to what happens in a real close quarter confrontation. No one, for example, would ever punch from the chamber position, nor would anyone ever assume a zenkutsu dachi before initiating an attack.

Of course, these critics are right. Artifacts of TMA training such as the chambering of the hands or feet and the assumption of a particular stance prior to attacking have no place in a fight. What these critics overlook, however, is that such artifacts aren’t intended to address fighting any more than a Marine’s parade drill is intended to produce marksmanship.

The intention of kata practice or partnered rehearsal of punch-block-kick combinations is the development of unit cohesion and the production of a heightened motor control that, in turn, improves conscious awareness. This kind of practice seeks to avoid setting off the blind brainstem reflexes that are programmed to “kick in” during a real threat situation. Provocation of the brainstem reflexes, however, is exactly what TMA’s critics militate for. That is, they're all for going “live” during training.

Why not train the brainstem reflexes if they are in fact the ‘cavalry’ that will save your life while the rehearsal-based martial artist gets dragged off by the enemy with his or her hand frozen in chamber position?

The first and simplest answer is that reflexes don’t need to be trained. They are, by definition, reflexes. It would make as much sense for you to train to sneeze. In a similar vein, when a loud sound goes off close-by, people will either automatically duck to avoid or perk their heads up to see what’s happening. These two options, flexion or extension, are built into the nervous system without any conscious oversight from the trainee. They would come to your aid even if you didn’t want them to. Reflexes can grow dull without periodic challenges, it’s true, and a round or two of kumite with a partner whose skills are better than yours on a periodic basis will suffice to recalibrate those rusty reflexes. But recalibration is not ‘training.’

Those advocates of “live” practice often speak of the “emotional” or “psychological” aspect of violence and propose that their method prepares the trainee for that aspect by replicating it in the training hall. Studies of soldiers and first responders show that during a real “stress event” the heart rate goes through the ceiling, the mind fills with fear and fine motor skills are rendered inaccessible. The “live” fighter wants things to get as hairy as possible in the training hall in order to be familiar with the chemical cascade and emotional fog of violence so that he or she won't freak out when the real thing happens.

David Grossman, a military psychologist and author of “On Violence” disabuses the advocates of “live” training of their proposition. Simply put, nothing can prepare the individual for what happens during real live combat. There is no way to train for it in its hellish entirety.

Those who wish to train for “the octagon,” know in the backs of their minds that, no matter how brutal things get, they’re not fighting to the death. The referee will step in to prevent that. The cascade of chemicals that kicks in during real combat doesn’t get activated in the octagon. Reality is of a different chemical order than practically every other alternative. The military knows this. It’s one reason why it spends so much time and effort establishing unit cohesion in the recruits rather than subjecting them to virtual realities that, while persuasive, aren't convincing. When the shit hits the fan group cohesion is more likely to spare your life, not some hypothetical immunity to the effects of terror. As for those who say that Special Forces train in authentic simulations, well, that's as may be. But training for the Octagon or other No Holds Barred events while stressful are still a dollar short of combat reality.

The benefits of placing your system, physical and psychological, under acceptable amounts of stress should be clear. The trainee needs to experience the sense of being out of his or her depth to become acquainted with the signs of panic and learn simple steps to de-fuse it. Panic is the enemy. It is good to know the enemy and how the behaves prior to engagement. A good Traditional Martial Arts school, like Seido Karate, can provide these encounters with uncomfortable, even frightening, emotional states in an environment constructed to help the trainee navigate through those choppy waters and avoid physical and emotional shipwreck.

The dojo is a place where the trainee comes to express humanity in the service of change, not reinforce his or her natural barbarism and resistance to change. Facing one’s own capacity for egoism and smallness is still a challenge worth taking on. Gambatte kudasai! See you in the dojo.