justsu and do arts (combat and way)

[Wuyizidi]

Wuyizidi: Of course you are right about Chinese words and Chinese character words used in other languages like Japanese and Korean. I was rather wondering about the habitual usage of the word "koryu" in Japanese language - it seems that in English, "koryu" is often used as a noun, but I've not heard anyone use it that way in Japanese (but on the other hand, I am not a practitioner of such arts here).

In general, I get the feeling that "do" is just the norm now, and "jutsu" is for a very small group of maniacs who feel special and unique
Oh, and also video games and comics - "jutsu" is definitely preferred in those.

Traditional Chinese culture (and Japanese I imagine) is extremely hierarchical in that only the big disciplines, ones that has direct impact on the welfare of the natural or manmade world can be called Dao or Big Dao, everything else is Xiao (small) Dao. To be Da Dao it has to be conceptual, involving principle that can explain and guide things. Xiao Dao has no theory, just a collection of manual techniques for accomplish certain tasks (craftmanship, not engineering). Even Zhuangzi himself mocks swordsmanship as mere craftsmanship (jutsu): http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/delight-in-the-sword-fight

The basic sense is that big (important) people focus on big dao (government, economics, military strategy, etc), small people focused on small daos. So adding Do to these discipline is really a stretch

Agree with you about what is happening: in the case of martial art at least, it seems convenient that jutsu became dao at the moment when that type of jutsu became obsolete jutsu. With its original purpose for existence gone, previously ancillary benefits are now claimed to be the true high level reason for doing it. In the meantime a small voice asserts the not entirely incorrect claim of it still having some practical relevance (in a small set of very specific use cases).

When firearm technology became advanced enough to threaten not just the sword but the way of life that goes with its mastery, the samurai class forbid further development. Later, when the country was forced to reopen, and swords lost its place once and for all, the samurai hanged on to the same motto they used for banning the guns: "only the sword can polish the soul".

If we're honest with ourselves, what sword to fighting today is like abacus to computing. Yes, if ALL the modern technologies goes away for some reason, the abacus will do what it was designed to do. But that would be a rare scenario indeed. And an abacus does not have even a fraction of the computational power of a digital computer.

At the end of 19th century there was a crisis in masculinity in the advanced western world (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/arc ... ts/383563/). First it was the worry that men have lost their vigor as technology has replaced so much of physical labor, that there's an epidemic of neurasthenia (male counterpart to the Victorian female hysteria). Then there's racism associated with colonialism, the conquered are said to be effeminate, child-like, etc. This gave rise to a renewed interest in physical culture. And it spread to Asia as well, as conquered (or people in fear of being conquered) became obsessed with regaining the manly vigor and national character. Judo, Kendo, and even modern yoga (http://yogacritiques.org/reviews/mark-s ... 20practice) all came into being around this time, and latched onto those ancillary benefits as main reason for its continued existence. So this is these arts' way of reacting to change in the larger world.

Here's a link with more info on koryu: http://www.koryu.com/

[edededed]

Interesting stuff, thanks for the reply Wuyizidi.

Do you think that, the difference between "dadao" and "xiaodao" was one of the factors that influenced martial artists to also blend their fighting skills with philosophy (Daoism, Buddhism, etc.) and medicine? You know, so that they could be a part of "dadao" as well?

You are right about obsoleteness - especially for the cold weapon arts, it will be hard for our generations to produce a Yang Luchan, Dong Haichuan, or the like. Certainly, almost noone practices martial horseback riding (as Wu Jianquan, etc. did) - too much trouble for too little benefit, I guess. People do hang on to the old ways for better or for worse - in Japan, there are still quite a lot of abacus schools, for example. (One of the (only) advantages that abacuses still have is that one can also train to "use an abacus" in one's head, and thus gain the ability to do quick arithmetic without any physical tools. I guess that teaching children to do math in binary ("Shift left! No, shift right!") would not achieve a similar result...)

I've been in Japan for almost 13 years now, and still have never tried any Japanese koryu martial arts I just don't like the rigid rules (reciting dojo mottos, uniforms, lots of ritual, etc.) and pseudo-military group mentality (everyone does everything together at the same time) of JMA in general, to be honest. I also just don't like exercising barefoot, either...

[Finny]

I've been in Japan for almost 13 years now, and still have never tried any Japanese koryu martial arts I just don't like the rigid rules (reciting dojo mottos, uniforms, lots of ritual, etc.) and pseudo-military group mentality (everyone does everything together at the same time) of JMA in general, to be honest. I also just don't like exercising barefoot, either...

Funnily enough - most of those attributes are characteristics of the gendai ('do' hahaha) arts developed and introduced to schools to militarise the population.

The koryu dojo I attend has no 'dojo motto', no specific uniform per se, and is very informal in between the formal reigi beginning and ending training sessions, which takes all of a few minutes. We often have young children running around, and the majority of practise is quite relaxed - a few people are practising in the limited space available, some seniors or the shihan are usually watching (or involved) to provide feedback, and the rest of the students are spread out into the corners chatting and watching. It's a very 'family' like atmosphere

And on the 'do' vs 'jutsu' language issue - the couple of times i mentioned to acquaintances that I was studying 'kenjutsu' I received confused looks and quizzical 'huh?'s and resorted to just using 'kendo' or 'budo', at which the confusion on their faces would clear, and be replaced by the polite mask of interest.

[edededed]

Interesting that you say that, Finny - as to be honest I've no experience in koryu Japanese arts. Still, I would expect more of those rigid, pseudo-military, uniform aspects to be strong in Japan (maybe less in Okinawa?), because of the expectation - nearly everyone who I tell that I practice martial arts ask me about the uniforms, the kyu/dan levels, etc., and are baffled when I tell them that there are none.

(People just like uniforms and uniformity and ranks here - not just for martial arts - it's just amazing how karate uniforms were adopted so fully that way, etc., even to Okinawa.)

I like what you describe, though - although I wonder if it is more Westerners who have decided to keep the jewels and discard the baggage than the state of koryu bujutsu in Japan (the MA magazines here do seem to show koryu bujutsu folks in similar attire (judogi or hakama-type) to mundane budo folks ); although like CMA it may also depend on the school/ryuha. (If I could ask, what ryuha do you practice?)

[Wuyizidi]

You guys may like this new anime series Dressed to Kill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_la_Kill

Until they mentioned it in the series, I somehow never made the connection that the characters for "uniform" 制服 are also the same ones for "dominate/subdue". It makes a lot of interesting critiques about culture of Japanese school system.

In terms of practicality of traditional martial art: A big part of the attraction of empty hand fighting skill is this primitive appeal: that strip away of all our 21 century tools and other artificial things, we can dominate another male rival with our bare hands. Every man like to be thought of as a good fighter. If we look at this objectively, what are the chances most of us would find ourselves in such a situation? If we're talking about self defense, we need to start with having a good job, living in a safe area, not marrying a violent spouse, not associating with others who get into trouble with law, not engaging in illegal, high risk activities ourselves, having home protection systems, having firearms, etc. Once those are taken care of, as fascinating as those zombie apocalypse fantasy scenarios are, how likely are they really?

It's simple: all else being equal (each type of skill is being used the way it is meant to be used): weapons skill of any era beats empty hand skill of that era, pre-20th century weapons get beaten by weapons that comes after. So what are we really doing spending so much time on ancient empty hand skills?

So in a way we are all doing Dao to some degree right now - we practice it just because we love it. It's important when we find heroes or something we love. That attraction points to what our soul values, qualities that we wish for ourself. That hero is really an ideal version of ourself. Hopefully this is what we're doing, instead of merely indulging in adolescent masculine fantasy about mastery and domination in an unthinking way

For myself, when I look at high level skill, I just think "human beings are amazing". So the pursuit of high level martial skill is about pushing the limit. That's why I study Taiji - I don't care about its self-defense aspects for all the practical reasons mentioned above, so I might as well try to do the hardest one, and if I never master it, it makes no practical difference. I don't care so much about which martial arts where they chase after power and hardness, because no matter how strong and hard you are, you still can't beat the deadliness of simple weapons (ex. knives). Whereas in the high level martial arts, in addition to being able to generate big force, there's also training so we can move with freedom and spontaneity, being able to skillfully manipulate all opposing forces with ease and grace - qualities that are still missing in modern weapons.

If I were in Japan I'd try to visit these 2 traditional schools:




Finally yes, people in smaller dao always try to associate with bigger dao. But in the case of Xingyi, Bagua, and Taiji, the theories do explain and guide every aspect of practice. In fact the names Bagua Zhang and Taiji Quan most likely given by high level nobles and intellectuals who practiced them. I don't think in those cases it's contrived at all. One thing non-native speakers may not realize explicitly is that in China, if something is only external, it's considered low level. External is physical, literal, practical, it's about usage. Internal mean intangible, mental, spiritual. It's about theories, principles, underlying mechanisms that operate and control the ten thousand surface phenomenons.

So part of the attempt for reaching that 'dadao' status is always saying this art is both external and internal. Here you can sort of tell who is really that way and who is sort of reaching. For example, if you do xingyi, taiji, and bagua, you will automatically get the qi gong benefits, as internal martial art seamlessly integrated qi gong practices. Contrast this with Tongbei. The larger Tongbei systems has many qi gong practices. But those are separate from the fighting skills, not in any way affect / integrated with each other.

A simpler example is yoga versus running. Running we can say is like external martial art. If you step onto a treadmill, plug in your music and video, and occupy your mind with what you're watching/listening to, you will get majority of benefit of running. You can't do that with yoga. Yoga is a true mind-body integration exercise, where you are literally pushing yourself to your extremes. If your mind is absent from this, you'll miss a huge part of benefit - that of using this physical straining to train your mind to be calm, of observing your habits, tendencies, and preferences (which way you like to fold your arms, which foot tend to have more weight, which of the three corners of the foot has more weight, which of the three arches of the foot are collapsing, etc) that all add up to imbalances that now matter now that we are at our limit.

So one way we can gauge how much dao is in an activity is how much and how direct the benefits of the practice get carried directly into all other areas of life. When something is truly Dao, the key point is practicing that makes everything you do better. It makes everything in your life better by changing the person for the better - deepen your understanding of the world, teaching you better ways to interact with it. For example in Taiji: my teacher once described robustness as a measure of how easily external forces can change you. If we really take that to heart, then we would examine how often we get really irritated in daily life: how deep and wide is our mental root - is our purchase on the ground of sanity so shallow and narrow, that even smallest provocations can push us off the balance?! Things like that...

[Finny]

I like what you describe, though - although I wonder if it is more Westerners who have decided to keep the jewels and discard the baggage than the state of koryu bujutsu in Japan (the MA magazines here do seem to show koryu bujutsu folks in similar attire (judogi or hakama-type) to mundane budo folks

Hehe yeah - hence the 'per se' in my post.. we do wear uwagi and hakama, just not of any specific kind/no logo etc.. nothing like the kyokushin guys with the same gi with logo at the breast. Certainly no training in plain clothes, although I have seen a shihan supervise training wearing a suit, while recovering from injury/surgery (but that was supervision of course, with instruction included, but no real participation)

But it does seem to be a defining difference between the koryu and gendai JMA - much less rigid formalism, there is no yudansha/mudansha bowing and scraping and "ossu" type discipline. I remember reading somewhere Ellis Amdur (who I think is still a member here.. certainly was on eF, and could comment from a position of far greater experience than I) describing the discipline of a koryu dojo as more akin to that of a wolf pack (conjures a cool image that's for sure haha) - when the alpha wolf wants the pack to stop, they do, without being ordered to. But as you said, very much depends on the school - I've seen some that have more formalism in training, others with less.

although like CMA it may also depend on the school/ryuha. (If I could ask, what ryuha do you practice?)

Seems like most all koryu wear uwagi and some form of hakama, although some jujutsu ryuha do train in judo/karate style gi/pant combo. From what I gather most folks don't want to declare publicly which school they belong to, until they're authorised to establish themselves publicly - but I would think if I qualify that I am absolutely a junior and can't comment on the technical aspects of the school it shouldn't be a problem.. I practise TSKSR

[edededed]

Wuyizidi: Hmm, I never noticed that 制服 also means to "subdue," either, nice find! Checking, it looks like Japanese dictionaries give that other meaning, too - but I would imagine that that meaning hardly is in the popular conscious now. I wonder about the etymology of the word (i.e., was the word first created and used in Japanese?), but the school system can be criticized in a similar vein with others words, too, like 勉強 ("study" in Japanese, but "force" in Chinese) and 稽古 ("learning" in Japanese, but "examining old" in Chinese). A weird modern characteristic of Japanese education is the whole 文系 ("humanities-type") vs. 理系 ("science-type") thing, where students have to choose one or the other for the last two years of high school. It seems that mostly girls choose "humanities-type", which means that they learn more English, history, classical Chinese, and biology (huh?), while mostly boys choose "science-type", so they get to learn chemistry, physics, and more math. Lots of people ask one, "are you humanities-type or science-type?" but I never understood why it was so important until last year...

But you are right about the reasons that we practice this stuff - we all have these ideals about how we wish we could be, and these practices seem to match them quite well, even if the goals are quite high and difficult to achieve to be honest. Attempting to follow the dao, I think, is also beneficial as it provides a sort of coherent view of everything, that can even fulfill a role similar to that often fulfilled by religions for other people, but without gods or dogma.

Finny: Cool, that's a really old school! Your school sounds like a lot of fun (I can't really imagine any JMA school wearing just T-shirts or bright blue jumpsuits a-la CMA styles to be honest). I hate pseudo-militarism and group-think, so rigid formalism and the like just really turns me off! One cool thing about Japan, though, is the high percentage of people (well, compared to other countries, especially in Asia) to practice some kind of martial art (usually JMA, of course). I've no colleagues doing koryu styles, though - the closest would be Ryukyu karate, which often comes with "kobudo" training (i.e. sai, etc. weapons).