#6255 Wed May 4, 2005
I have a relatively unusual outlook on change in martial arts that arises from two specific factors: the length of time that I've been teaching and the global spread of those who have learned from me.
I began my teaching work in 1969 and, in the course of it, have taught on both coasts and in the north and south of the United States, for seven years in Israel, and in Massachusetts since 1987. For the five years I taught on the U.S. West Coast, black belts on the East Coast were in less frequent teaching contact with me. For the years I was in the south, the same could be said of those in the north and the west. For the years I was in the north, it was true of the south and the west.
For the years I was in Israel, everyone in the U.S. had less frequent training opportunities with me while the Israelis and nationals of other countries got lots of my time and attention. Since I left Israel, those who trained with me who went on to Germany, Sweden, England and other countries, as well as those who remained in Israel, have had only a handful of opportunities for direct physical training with me.
Even while I've been in Massachusetts, those who had trained with me in Pittsburgh suffered from fewer direct training opportunities.
Given all this diversity in both time, space and contact, I have had a lot of experience related to technical or system "drift".
Let me give three examples:
I received a DVD of all the Isshinryu empty-hand katas from one of my overseas black belts who I have spoken to and corresponded with on a regular basis but who I haven't actually _seen_ in almost a decade. He and I are a half a world away from each other, schedules and costs have made frequent meetings impractical. The last time we were together was for an intensive stretch of training that lasted nearly two weeks. Among the things I showed him was how to use the spiraling power in Isshinryu. This was supposed to be only for black belts but I can see that he is "showing" it in his kata performance in ways that I normally keep hidden. This means that, if one were to compare his performance of a kata next to mine, his looks like a mild variation from "standard". In a public sense, this represents a drift from a standard wooden-man, vanilla version which is what I usually teach. It is, however, part of the inner essence of my practice.
I received a VHS tape from one of my Dotokushin-kai black belts, reviewing the entire karate curriculum from white to black belt. In the years since he had been an inner student, he had significantly "shotokan-ized" a lot of the Shito-ryu/Kamishin-ryu/Tetsuken-ryu kata and techniques. They now had a much more dramatic -- tournament-winning -- kata look rather than the more practical, down-to-earth but less flashy original techniques and kata. This was a large drift from the original form but the spirit of his practice and teaching was still the same as mine. If I were to perform in a "shoto kan-ized" way, then our vanilla versions would still look the same. Unlike most drifts, the originals could still be derived.
When I teach Baguazhang, I recognize when a person has not only gotten all the form and the practice but has also received the full transmission. At that point they become "graduates". I first began teaching Bagua openly in 1975 in California. I lost touch with one of my graduates there around 1981. Two years ago, he resurfaced and contacted me. He had been practicing daily since he had originally learned from me and was deeply dedicated. It as quite a treat and special occasion when we were able to meet again after all those years. I invited a number of Bagua graduates and masters of other systems to join me in meeting him and sharing both practice and memories. When he performed his sets for all of us to see, it was clear that the sets were related to sets that I teach but that, over the years, he had added and subtracted specific "technical" elements to suit the needs of his ongoing work. If one saw us performing the identical sets side by side, one would note many "technical" differences. What everyone commented on, however, was that the principles of his performance and, more importantly, the spirit of his performance were completely identical to what they were used to seeing and feeling from me. This "formal" drift, which appeared quite significant, was actually inconsequential.
Since it is a key idea in both my own training and subsequently in my teaching that one must make the martial art one's own and not just become a shadow of one's teacher, I felt (and feel) really okay about these and other examples of drift from what one might think of as "my teaching". In fact, I think I would be disappointed if things like this didn't happen. For me it would mean that what I taught was dead and hollow and not living. Shadows are, by their nature, insubstantial and rote copying of external appearances, however faithful, is still devoid of the true substance of the practice.
Tatsuo Shimabuku had more handicaps in teaching than I have had. For instance, he taught a lot of people with whom he did not share a cultural or linguistic base. (To the best of my knowledge there was/is not a single American soldier "first generation" student who was/is fluent in Japanese, Chinese or Okinawan regional speech.) He would often find himself in a position like someone teaching a blind man how to paint like Rembrandt. This was nowhere more true than in teaching American servicemen. On top of this, he rarely got to see again most of those he taught once they left Okinawa.
There is a lot of drift in Isshinryu as a whole: drift on Okinawa itself, drift from individual teachers and their organizations. Luckily, Isshinryu is a system strongly grounded in principle and it is easy to test/demonstrate whether one is following the principles or not. I can't help thinking, based on my own experience, though, that the value of the spirit of the practice far outweighs the technical shifts and additions/subtractions that can be found throughout the Isshinryu world.
Regards,
Jim Keenan
Dotokushin-kai
Isshinryu Karate
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