Balance in Kyudo

From the Zen Sekai - Japan 2 @ 70 blog. About the author's search for balance in his kyudo practice. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

 

The Quest for Balance in Kyūdō: More Than Push and Pull

In the stillness of the dojo, a single arrow flies. To the outside observer, it may seem a simple act—draw the bow, release the string, let the arrow fly. But to the practitioner of Kyūdō—the Way of the Bow—it is a profound meditation on balance.

Balance is the silent master in Kyūdō. It speaks in whispers, not in shouts. It is not just the physical symmetry of right and left, push and pull, but the harmony of inner and outer worlds, the unspoken conversation between body and mind, effort and surrender, practice and pause.

The Body: Divided, Yet One

At the heart of Kyūdō is the Yumi, the asymmetrical bow. Already, balance is challenged. Unlike the symmetrical bows of Western archery, the Yumi demands a different kind of equilibrium. In the draw, there is not just pull with the right hand and push with the left, but a spiraling expansion of energy—Nobiai—a dividing and yet unifying of forces. The elbows extend outward in opposite directions, and in that division, unity is born.

Balance begins in the Ashibumi—the stance. Feet planted shoulder-width apart, stable like mountains, yet not rooted like stones. The knees remain soft, the pelvis gently tucked. The shoulders must be low, but not collapsed; open, yet not tensed. In the Daisan, the arms rise, and tension begins to accumulate—but it is a natural tension, like a bowstring waiting to sing. It must never become stiffness.

Here, balance is found in paradox: tension that supports relaxation, structure that births freedom.

The Mind: Focused, Yet Free

If the body seeks balance through form, the mind seeks it through stillness. Yet this stillness is not blankness. It is the Zanshin, the remaining mind, the lingering presence that follows the arrow long after it has left the string.

Focus is essential. In Kyūdō, every breath, every blink, every step is a point of concentration. The mind must attend fully to the task at hand. And yet—here again—we meet paradox. That very focus must be free of attachment. The matomae (aim) is precise, but the archer must let go of the desire to hit the target. The kaiken-chu, the release, is cleanest when it arises without self. The archer disappears; only the arrow flies.

To aim with all your heart—and yet not mind where the arrow lands. That is balance.

The Rhythm of Training: Effort and Rest

Too much training, and the spirit hardens. The body grows weary, and the joy fades. Too little, and the body forgets the form, the breath, the center. Balance must be struck in the rhythm of practice itself. The bow does not reward aggression; it responds to rhythm, timing, and sensitivity.

The seasoned practitioner knows when to practice and when to walk away. When to focus on Kihontai—the foundational body movements—and when to simply draw the bow and breathe. There is a time for technique, and a time to let the technique dissolve into presence. 

 

Learning in Martial Arts

At the Shugyo blog, there is a good article about how we learn in martial arts training. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

It can sometimes be very rewarding to teach beginners as they have few expectations and biases and are a mostly empty cup to fill.

Putting your brain into the student mindset

Those of you who have been living in my eyebrows for the last few years will know that my budo interests have been steered towards improving budo coaching through some shallow dives into sports coaching theory. These dives have taken me past the colourful coral gardens of ZPD, scaffolding, the GROW model and other interesting underwater features. These have been very much focussed on the role and workload of the coach/teacher/dojo leader and has treated the receiving side as a pretty much homogenous mass of pink jelly that responds to the occasional blast of sound vibrations or poking with a sharp stick.

This year I have so far spent just over 9 weeks in Japan doing a lot of training in Ishido Sensei's dojo, and a little in other dojos. Something that occurred to me in my latest journeys was a noticeable difference in the responses of students with regard to feedback from various teachers. This hasn't been isolated to Japan; once it came to my interest in Japan I started noticing it in the UK and Europe as well.

Before I jumped into writing this, I did some light academic research looking at various articles on the subject of corrective feedback in coaching. I have extracted a few lines from the articles that I found relevant and interesting to just set the scene. These are not only useful for the student but also a superb set of pointers for coaches as well:

The Organization of Corrective Demonstrations Using Embodied Action in Sports Coaching Feedback

"However, unlike classrooms and medical internship discussions, sports coaching is a bodily affair; there is no “talking through a subject” to get the job of these settings done. Errors then are not a matter of what one knows but what one does. Error correction is a matter of showing the athlete(s) what they did wrong and showing them how to do it right. Talk is an instructive guide on where to find the action, but re-enactment is the central part of this setting’s instructional work."

Five Principles of Reinforcement

"Coaches should strive to use only reinforcement – mostly the positive kind – to shape player behaviours."

"Nonetheless, if you say “well done” when the athlete has not performed the skill very well, it’s false praise, and the odds are that the athlete will know it’s false praise. It’s tough being honest sometimes, but if you have built a supportive but challenging climate and you support your players striving to improve, then you’re in a good position to give honest feedback." 

...

[⚠️ Suspicious Content] I noticed in particular in Japan that the older students tended to skip the disappointment and acceptance stage. They might spend a bit more time improving their comprehension by asking for more detail and confirmation. 

In both Japan and Europe though, the younger and often more talented students seemed to need to go through a disappointment stage and a protracted emotional acceptance stage, sometimes asking for evidence or proof to back up the feedback.

I should add that I have always encouraged the people who have asked to learn from me to be sceptical (I'll come back to this sceptical mindset subject a bit later) of everything including anything that I have taught. This disappointment stage though isn't what I mean; it's an emotional reaction based on a range of the following mindsets in the student:

    "I thought I was doing it right and you're telling me that I was wrong."
    "I have devoted so much time to doing it this way and now you're saying that I wasted my time."
    "You could have told me this sooner."
    "You're being inconsistent in your teaching of the subject."

In one example of this, while I was in Ishido Sensei's dojo recently, there were quite a few other visitors there from Europe and China. One visitor, who will remain anonymous but is a very skilful and dedicated iaidoka from Europe, was training a notoriously difficult seated okuden kata. They were doing it with a lot of speed and fluidity as is appropriate for okuden. After a short while, Ishido Sensei came up to them and explained that they had misunderstood the kihon (basic version) and showed them what they should be doing. The visitor worked on this for a while but was having difficulty achieving "satisfaction". Of significance though was the surprise, or even shock, on the face of the student that what they had been training turned out to be incorrect. When they took a break during training I heard them express disappointment in themselves and were clearly confused. 

And I get it! This person had been instructed a certain way a few months previously (I think by Ishido Sensei) and they were now being told this was wrong. Had the koryu changed? Had they misunderstood the original instruction? 

Trying to resolve the question, had the koryu changed, takes us down a different road that I don't want to explore at the moment in any detail; suffice to say that any instruction will change in time; the teacher's perspective and level changes, the student changes - change is inevitable and we should be always mentally and physically prepared to accept that change. As is the motto of iaido, tsune ni itte, kyu ni awasu (be in the moment, adapt to the situation quickly).

This isn't limited to non-Japanese budoka either. I have witnessed many times even in Ishido Sensei's dojo, Japanese students making sounds of exasperation or disappointment when being told that they were doing something incorrectly, or that there was a "better way". There would then be a period of non-aggressive "arguing" (by this I mean, the student was trying to establish why they were being corrected) and then, after some time, they would then accept the advice and try to implement it. 

 

Happy Fourth of July!

My favorite 4th of July Video:

 

 

Budo Beneath the Surface

Peter Boylan, whose excellent Budo Bum blog I regularly read, is now posting on Substack. Please pay him a visit.

He recently had a post about the essentials of Budo practice, beneath what we see on the surface. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

Budo isn’t all about throws, chokes, joint locks, controls, thrusts, strikes, cuts, and parries, though those are the visible elements. They are what happens when the principles of budo are applied in physical conflict situations. However, there are lots of other things that can happen in combative situations if you’re applying the principles. All effective budo teach movement, timing, spacing, rhythm and strategy. If you control the spacing and timing in a conflict situation, you may never have to use a particular technique. You may create a situation where you are able to simply walk away because your adversary decided they were in a lousy position to launch an attack.

Shinto Muso Ryu Jodo and Kodokan Judo have very different physical techniques, different strategies of dealing with conflict, and different ways of organizing the body. The notions of effective spacing are very different, as are the ideas about movement, rhythm, and timing. In either one, when practiced effectively, you learn to control an adversary from the moment of connection rather than waiting for contact. Before you touch, the instant you become aware of each other, connection is established. Sumo is famous for this. All the posturing and staring at each other before the tachiai is about reading the opponent and trying to destabilize them mentally and emotionally before the start of the action.

I look at Shinto Muso Ryu and there are only 12 basic techniques from which more than 60 kata are built. This makes me wonder, why do we need 60 kata to practice 12 techniques? How many ways do you need to practice applying kihon to be good at them? Before you’re even halfway through learning the kata, your techniques are going to be solid and effective without you having to think about them, so what are the rest of the kata for?

The kata are for teaching you the important bits. The techniques are great, but they aren’t the most important part of what you’re learning. There are important lessons about the essential principles of spacing and timing (ma’ai 間合, which can refer to either one). Spacing and timing is many times more difficult to master than any of the techniques, and far more important. If you don’t understand spacing and timing, the odds of your technique working are small. Understanding spacing is a basic requirement for knowing which techniques can be applied. And timing, as the old saying goes, is everything.

As you move through the kata, you’re introduced to a variety of distances that you learn to be comfortable with. The distances being explored vary from well outside the issoku itto no ma, or “one step one cut” spacing, to being so close to your partner that you are nearly standing on their toes. That seems like the opposite of where you want to be if you’re wielding a big stick, but if you’re not comfortable at close ranges as well as long, you’ve still got a lot of learning ahead of you. Conflict happens at all ranges, and sometimes the safest place to be is right next to your opponent. Spacing in conflict is fluid, so there are numerous kata devoted to moving in and out of the various ranges.

 

 

 

Wu/Hao Style Taijiquan

The 'other' Wu style of Taijiquan.

 

Cook Ding's Kitchen 20th Anniversary

Today is Cook Ding's Kitchen's 20th anniversary. I began this as a place where I could find things that I found interesting, and would know where to look for them again.

So far there have been over 2.6M views of over 2500 posts.  

The "skill stories" of Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu) particularly resonate with me, especially the story of Cook Ding, whose attentiveness to his job led to his enlightenment.

Below is the story of Cook Ding.

Prince Huei's cook was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand, every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of his knee, every whshh of rent flesh, every clink of the chopper, was in perfect rhythm — like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, like the harmonious chords of Ching Shou.

"Well done!" cried the Prince. "Yours is skill indeed!"

"Sire," replied the cook laying down his chopper, "I have always devoted myself to Tao, which is higher than mere skill. When I first began to cut up bullocks, I saw before me whole bullocks. After three years' practice, I saw no more whole animals. And now I work with my mind and not with my eye. My mind works along without the control of the senses. Falling back upon eternal principles, I glide through such great joints or cavities as there may be, according to the natural constitution of the animal. I do not even touch the convolutions of muscle and tendon, still less attempt to cut through large bones.

"A good cook changes his chopper once a year — because he cuts. An ordinary cook, one a month — because he hacks. But I have had this chopper nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints there are always interstices, and the edge of a chopper being without thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness into such an interstice. Indeed there is plenty of room for the blade to move about. It is thus that I have kept my chopper for nineteen years as though fresh from the whetstone.

"Nevertheless, when I come upon a knotty part which is difficult to tackle, I am all caution. Fixing my eye on it, I stay my hand, and gently apply my blade, until with a hwah the part yields like earth crumbling to the ground. Then I take out my chopper and stand up, and look around, and pause with an air of triumph. Then wiping my chopper, I put it carefully away."

"Bravo!" cried the Prince. "From the words of this cook I have learned how to take care of my life."

ZhuangZi (Lin YuTang)  

 

 

The Ego in Martial Arts Training

Below is an excerpt from a post at Budo Journeyman, regarding the ego on display (or not) in martial arts training. The full post may be read here.

 

Way back in the late 70’s or early 80’s on a bleak Saturday afternoon in Yorkshire I was attending a seminar in Wado karate with a Japanese instructor, who, for the sake of this article, I will call ‘Sensei N’.

He was pretty much fresh out of Nichidai university and had been in the UK a short while. I hadn’t had much exposure to him on the larger courses, as, being one of the more junior Japanese Sensei, he was usually relegated to teaching the lower kyu grades; while we spent all of our time with Suzuki Sensei. But for this course in Yorkshire, it was just him on his own.

(In the near future I will use Sensei N. as a springboard for another piece to be released at a later date).

He did a really comprehensive, well-constructed lesson and his English was good enough to get across what he needed to communicate and he always did it with a smile. His own techniques were crisp and assured, as you would expect from his years of university karate.

At that time, he had a particular thing about footwork, and drilled us in stance-shifting, up and down the room and explained how important it was for Wado karateka to be light and smooth in movement.

But, on this day there was one incident that for me was to have a big influence on how I viewed what we were doing with our karate and how we related to other people. Something bigger than just a set of technical notes.

A model of humility.

Towards the end of the session, he called us up one at a time to spar with him. Bear in mind that this was in front of the entire class. I watched closely as he very calmly out-manoeuvred his opponents, who were, to some degree, being slightly deferential towards the Sensei, not that it would have made any difference, he was more than capable of dealing with what they had to throw at him.

Then came my turn.

In my mind I felt it would be disrespectful to not present myself in the best possible light; not because my ego demanded it, but because the situation demanded it. There was no space for ambiguity.

In a sparring situation like this, it is important to dig into your reserves and you also have to draw upon your toolkit. At a basic level, here was a problem that had to be solved – respectfully and appropriately.

The fight started out well enough; some good solid exchanges flowed both ways. Then, I must have spotted that he favoured a left stance, and so I went for a footsweep (ashibarai). It wasn’t a full-on take-down sweep, more of a calculated tickle; something I had used many times before, a set-up, if you like.

I honestly thought he would read it, (was he laying a trap for me?) But no, temporarily he was wrong-footed and the sweep tipped him ever-so slightly to his left, and for a nano-second he locked up to readjust his balance; to which I saw my chance and connected with a gyakuzuki; right distance, right timing – but, what had I done?

I had less than half a second to come to the thought that can be summed up with, “Oh no, I’m in for it now!”

I expected him to power up the gears and turn me into mincemeat. (After all, I had been brought up on stories from my seniors where certain Japanese Sensei had broken bones if they thought for a moment that the Westerners were getting uppity).

Had I overstepped the mark? I had the audacity to lay a technique against the respected Japanese Sensei, and was I now going to pay a heavy price?

To give a little background on the cultural dynamics.

International judoka Neil Adams, in his autobiography wrote about randori in the Kodokan in Tokyo, when he was only 16 years old, where he came up against an elderly, highly-respected 9^th Dan Japanese Sensei, and for a second, he was absolutely sure that he had the old geezer bang to rights. But… his coach, Brian Jacks, shouted ‘Adams…No!’ and so he held back.

Obviously, I wasn’t there, but part of me wonders about that story. If that oldster was a Kodokan senior, probably someone who had rolled with Mifune Kyuzo, having seen what the elderly, fragile Mifune could do (through films on YouTube), part of me wonders if the hothead Adams would have been humbled by his interchange with this Kodokan master? Adams said that he heard that if you come up against one of these old guys, the tradition was that you let them have their way and almost ‘throw yourself’.

Yorkshire - What actually happened.

I expected Sensei N. to adjust his determination settings, move the dial to 11 and give me a lesson in pain. I had the cheek to strike the respected Japanese Sensei, and was now going to suffer the consequences.

But no… he paused and then said, ‘nice technique’ and continued exactly as before, no change of speed, no great urgency to ‘get one back’. I know, if he wanted to, he could have taken me to the cleaners. Instead, one simple encouraging comment, then business as usual.

I had plenty of time to think about his response and, in my mind, the simplicity and the humanity behind the choice that he made, the course of action he chose to pursue (or not to pursue) proved the measure of the man, here was someone who was comfortable in himself. Total respect from me.

 

Tae Kown Do Knockouts

Deep down, who doesn't enjoy spectacular knockouts?

The Rising Phoenix

Who among us hasn't had their regular practice shattered by the events of our lives? 

 Some of us never recover. The rest of us pick up the pieces and figure out a new way to carry on.

Maybe we must find a new teacher or even a new martial art.

Or start a new school.

Over at Kenshi24/7, there was a recent post describing how a job change led to the author founding a new kendo club, so that he could continue his own practice.

Below is an excerpt. The full post may be read here.

 

Back in 2014 I wrote how I made a deliberate change in my kendo life by deciding to focus on asageiko more. I had attended morning keiko since about 2009 (well, 2005, but that wasn’t few-and-far between and doesn’t count), but I went full-morning-mode in 2014 (Mon, Wed, and Fri: three times a week). After  my daughter arrived in 2017, my after-work kendo life mostly stopped and, instead, I focused almost entirely on asageiko and work sessions. 99% of my kendo at this time became kihon based. 

When the pandemic struck my asageiko sessions dried up and so, after a year, I decided to take matters into my own hands and began (starting February/March 2021) running my own morning sessions. When my usual asageiko re-started (in 2022) I decided to keep hosting my sessions as well… which meant some weeks I was doing asageiko every weekday. On top of that, I had my normal six keiko/week at work, and the occasional degeiko or Eikenkai session and what have you. Oh yeah, and I was constantly taking my students to shiai as well. 

Needless to say, I was doing a LOT of keiko. A lot. 

Sadly, this period of my life has come to an abrupt halt. 

I started working in my current school in autumn 2008. Almost immediately I took over the running of the kendo club and, for the last 17 years, through rain and shine, good times and bad times, I have been at the helm. I’ve taught hundreds of students, some of whom have gone on to pass yondan and godan. 

It was with a sad heart that on the last day of February this year I was told I was being transfered school in April. This is something that happens to all public servants in Japan, but I had been told – due to the uniqueness of my position – that a move would be highly unlikely. 

Still, I had actually expected a move to happen eventually, perhaps in the next three~five years, and had already had some schools (with good kendo clubs + near my home) in mind. Anyway, after the order came, I had to wait another week to find that the school I am being moved to is not only super far from my house, but the kendo club there had been shuttered, seemingly due the impact of the pandemic (no teacher to guide them through). 

Due to the distance of the school, my normal asageiko sessions have become almost impossible to attend (I can go during test seasons, days off, and the like). Added to that, I can’t run my own sessions anymore  because all my asageiko friends work in central Osaka. The number of weekday keikos I could do from April, because there is no kendo club in the new school, went from ten down to two (evening sessions at my police dojo).

My kendo life was turned upside down in an instant. 

At this point I had two choices: 1) wait for four years and apply for a transfer (that’s the minimum time you have to do before putting in a request)… but even there is no guarantee the school will even let me go (I’m a good teacher!); or 2) re-boot the kendo club. 

There was a kendo-jo in my new school… but the question was, given the current state of the kendo population amongst young people in Japan, could I even recruit any students? 

Once I knew what was happening and where I was going, I immediately set to work: within a day I already knew that there was an almost unused kendo-jo in the new school, which was a good start. It was communicated almost straight away (teachers have networks of colleagues – remember we all get moved around) that some kendo-crazed teacher was en-route to posses it.  

Arriving on April the first, the subject of kendo came up immediately, with many of my new colleagues taking an interest. I discovered almost immediately that the club that had been there for more than 50 years folded just prior to the pandemic. The kendo teacher that had been there retired a long while back and, with no replacement sent, the students ran things themselves for a few years. Due to this, over time, numbers sunk very low and when the pandemic hit it – and with nobody to lead them – the last nail was struck. 

My first job was to check out the condition of the kendo-jo and what it was being used for. I was pleasantly surprised to find the dojo, although bare of any ornamentation, was in very good condition. At least, the floor was. Bogu and various kendo bits n’ bobs had been left discarded in the storage areas and nothing was really kept in order. Usage wise, the baseball club used it when it was raining, and the music club used it for the odd concert. Hmmm, I thought. 

So, what does it take to start a kendo club in a public high school in Japan? Well, in the spirit of sharing my kendo experience with you, let me give you a brief rundown. 

Part one: get some members 

If I was to start a new club I of course needed students. I created some posters, stuck them up around the school, and waited. My new school has a rule that you cannot start a new club up without collecting ten interested students. Considering the downward spiral of kendo population in Japan of late, I had little confidence I could manage, so I was more than a bit concerned. On the very first day I went to put up posters – even before I put my first one up – a second year boy came to find me and ask about joining: “I heard about the kendo teacher in [my previous school] is famous, everyone knows about him” he said! 

Within a week I had collected enough students to start a club, more than enough. My final total was 15, which is three times more than my old school managed to gather this year. Go figure.