Tradition and scientific knowledge in conflict in martial arts training
This isn’t just a problem with martial arts. I’ve seen similar things happening in other ‘training’ domains, such as during my time as TESOL (Teaching English To Speakers of Other Languages) educator—a very different context, as you will admit—where sclerotic beliefs and dogmas also tend to prevail over what science has actually learnt about the mind-body connection.
The question seems to be, what to adhere to:
traditional training methodologies
what we have learned about how our brains—or minds, if you will—and our bodies can be trained to cooperate ins the best way possible
a blend of both
Training conflicts in iaijitsu…
This relates personal training experiences, as well as observations of practices from various other ryū in which I did not actively participate.
As I wrote on the page that got you here: “There is iaijutsu and iaido. Iaijutsu is about killing. Iaido is about self-improvement. A lot of what is sold to students as 'iaijutsu' is really 'iaido'.”
Maybe instead of ‘killing’ I should have written ‘fighting’; but when you fight with razor sharp swords that usually means that someone ends up severely or even fatally inured. The Japanese iaijutsu ryū most open about this probably is Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū. Their style is efficient, lethal, does not dwell on unnecessary, frankly wasteful, flourishes, like the many variations of chiburi that other schools spend training time on with finicky attention. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with devising kata for the purpose of training the student in learning to coordinate mind and body; after all that’s what kata should be for. But what’s the point of practicing kata that have no true purpose, but merely serve as symbolic shaking the blood off a sword after a successful kill? Not in iaijitsu anyway.
The same goes for placing emphasis on learning sword cuts that actually violate the basic rules of what a proper, effective cut is meant to be. There is the concept of hasuji—also appearing with different types of spelling— which is a term that relates the coplanarity of the sword blade and its motion for an optimally effective cut. Hasuji is not just an optional extra, but essential for effective use of the sword. Correct hasuji means that at the very least at the point of the cutting edge meeting its target the vector depicting the direction of the cut (see image) is coplanar to the orientation of the sword.
In order to learn this, most practice katana will have bo-hi (see image) on both sides along the ridge of the blade. These makes the blade lighter without sacrificing strength. More importantly for learners though, they also provide an audible confirmation of correct hasuji, as they will make a sound as the blade moves through the air and they create eddies. Even the slightest deviation from correct hasuji will is instantly noticeable by the lack of this characteristic sound. Iaijutsu kata that do not not emphasize correct hasuji in every cut, preferably verified by a bo-hi sound from grooved practice swords, makes the exercise into iaido. Nothing wrong with iaido, but let’s be honest: it’s not iaijutsu. A statement such as that found on a site associated with the dojo I trained with in New Zealand, ”The terms iaido and iaijutsu are more or less interchangeable,” demonstrates just how socially acceptable it has become to ignore the distinction. As a 2nd Dan of this school, in which I trained and occasionally taught for the best part of a decade, this saddens me. I always tried to focus on the iaijutsu aspects: proper cuts; justification of kata forms; kiai, sharp and fulfilling their purpose as supporting a strike and helping to slow down the enemy; alternative chiburi that were more credible from a iaijutsu point of view than the ones included in the school’s style; whatever else I could find that was lacking.
In the end my problems with the ryū’s style made it easier for me to move, for family reasons, from New Zealand to Australia and so effectively sever my connections to the school. I never was, and still am not, content with making a cut without satisfying whistle from my bo-hi equipped practice katana, indicating that the hasuji was dead on. I practiced it again and again, until each type of cut became so engrained that even today, years afterwards, I can still do it without effort or fail. Also, the endless draws and cuts have ensured that even with my—not very fancy—real live no-bo-hi katana I can cut a 10cm+ wad of water-soaked tightly rolled newspaper without even trying hard.
Cognitive training methodology conflicts across the martial arts…
The training conflicts I was talking about above have to do mainly with a lack of being true in training to the proclaimed spirit and philosphy of the ryū in question. However, there is a broader issue of training methodology that cuts across many other, hand-to-hand and weapons-based, martial arts schools.
To begin with, I believe that it’s perfectly sensible when the late Risuke Otake wrote:
“...that which is required most in the performance of iaijutsu is speed, for this quality is the essence of any system of classical combat.”
Let’s say it like this:
A slow swordsman is a dead swordsman.
An imprecise swordsman is a dead swordsman.
A swordsman who isn’t fast and precise better not get into a swordfight.
Too much martial arts training forgets that, from a purely mind-body connection point of view, one has to figure out what’s the best way to teach precision/technique and speed. There’s a conflict here, whose resolution seems to elude martial arts trainers; sometimes because they’re immeshed in traditions that have always done things just so and no different, and therefore assume that because the methods have apparently proven to have been ‘working’ like forever, they’re good methods, and that’s how things should be done. The students that eventually become sempai and sensei will duly accept the methods, and so it continues. After all, why rock the boat and change.
Epic fail; because martial arts are not sports.
Let me rephrase that: Martial arts, by definition, are activities intended to train people to fight—with all the different philosophies and systems of ethics that got with them—but many have degenerated into sports, or in some cases into tuned down ‘style’ activities; like what happened to iaijutsu, with is self-development cousin iaido and other relatives.
So, here’s a fact from cognitive science that will probably cause most martial arts sensei to respond with a mental 🙈🙉🙊:
Teaching precision/technique has to come as an absolute unconditional first—with active discouragement, maybe even prohibition, of speed, but focusing on the precise, usually complicated movements one has to coordinate when going through the kata of just about all martial arts types and schools—and making sure that students get that right… That’s the most efficient way to train a martial artist.
Speed should be actively discouraged, until the teacher can pick out students whose technique is good enough to allow them to speed up of their own accord. Which they will. But until they get technique right, speed should be a NO NO. If they speed up and screw up the technique… Back to slow technique! Until they get it right, and then they can speed up again. Like nobody gets to hold a katana until they’ve practiced their kata to a satisfactory level with bokuto.
There are two aspects to this: mind-body cognitive and psychological.
Martial arts kata are among the most complicated coordinated body movements a person is ever likely to come across. They involve muscle control, positional control, spatial awareness, sequencing of initially completely unfamiliar movements, to name just a few biomechanics and mind-body connection elements. The best way to learn these is for a student to focus at their own pace on getting those elements coordinated.
Then they can speed up. Experience shows that when this methodology is applied for the initial, usually less complex kata, the brain actually rewires itself to be learn subsequent kata much faster and execute them with far fewer errors. They will still have to be trained in the same way, but students’ learning will speed up. They have effectively been trained to learn and coordinate their bodies better than they ever have before.
But… Butbutbut…
It’s not enough to praise, promote or even preach, precision/technique/style-before-speed.
It needs to be practiced. Practiced. Practiced. Practiced. Practiced. Practiced. Practiced. Practiced. Practiced. Practiced. Practiced.
I know: 🙈🙉.
But, martial arts teachers, know this:
Students who get kata wrong, because in a class context everything goes too fast and they aren’t ready because their brain-bodies haven’t even properly been able to coordinate their new configurations and the required movements, will take much longer than those who have a proper cognitive biomechanics basis, to acquire the necessary skills. That may present organizational problems in running sessions in the average martial arts dojo. Ryū have to battle it out in a crowded market of offerings. Slogans are all over the place. Every student in the dojo and coming in for a grading is money in the coffers. A free-for-all of martial arts supermarkets and corner stores, doing their best to sell their wares. It’s a tough gig. I get that. It’s the way of the world. Even traditional ryū are dragged into this. The best we can hope for is that martial arts ryū, especially those who try to attract younger kids, at the very least help with some life guidance, which correctly presented martial arts can give them; which sport, almost all of which is inherently ultimately about out-competing others, cannot provide.
But, martial arts teachers, to get the best out of your students, remember…
Precision BEFORE speed.
Leads to Precision AND Speed.
It develops character, provides faster cognitive and mind-body development, and almost certainly makes for martial artists with more depth and confidence.
Speed mixed in with precision confuses, discourages, and slows down the learning process.
The brain learns better when it has a greater rate of success in attempts at something it has to learn. That means you let someone try something like a complicated kata slowly, say, ten times, and they get it right, 9 times… That’s far more productive than putting them into a position where do it faster, say 50 times and also get it right 9 times. That’s because the brain is then getting it wrong 41 times. But connections between mind and body are formed by repetitions of successful trials.
Failures degrade the learning process. The notion that one learns through failure does not apply to these kinds of statistical brain-training processes. One can learn through failure of course, but that only happens in very different contexts. To apply this idea to things like martial arts training is foolish and ignores what we’ve learned about the brain.
One of the reasons why students who practice kata in private do so much better than those who don’t, is not just that they’re motivated, which they probably are, but they also can adjust themselves to their own reward system—getting a majority of trials right—and never mind the pace set by a dojo environment that may force on them speed-over-technique, which tends to be the usual scene, never mind what’s being preached.
Lastly…
Teachers must never forget that they know too much!
I know, it’s one of those statements that will cause raised eyebrows and various other expressions of incredulity.
But it’s true: the more you know about a subject, the less you actually can recall of what it’s like not to know what you know now. A consequence is that you lose the ability to put yourself into your student’s positions. Deep down you don’t understand anymore what it means not to be able to coordinate your body to perform the kata you learned long ago and have practiced like forever. Even if you’re not chronologically ‘old’—though you quite possibly are—you are ‘old’ as far as your skills in your particular area are concerned. And the old forget what it was to be young. They may have episodic memories of events in their past, but they lose touch with the deep feelings of their younger selves.
‘Old’ martial arts teachers also slow down; have a habit of replacing what once upon a time was physical effort by ingrained technique and tricks, thus actually degrading their physical condition. Skills replace exertion, which often means their bodies actually suffer. Skills, techniques and short replace effort. The body deteriorates. From what I know, the late Otake Risuke, even in old age, was an exception; doing his best to remain as fit as age would allow him—until death finally took him at age ninety-five in 2021.
Ageing martial arts teachers would do well not to take the easy way out, resorting to skills and tricks to make their life easier and generally show off how cool and masterly they are, but to battle on as if they were just starting off on their journey through martial arts. That way they may also be able recall at least a little of what their students struggle with; and in the process become better teachers.