The Slow and the Small

Running a very small adult program these past 25 years has helped me understand one of my personal goals, to try and understand karate instruction prior to 1900, a time when everything was small and personal.

When we were driven in our training to prepare for our sho-dan, that pace was fun, always pushing yourself as hard and as far as you could go. I'm sure at that time that was what I thought the goal of an instructor was, to have a group that could move at that pace forever.

Reality however becomes very different.

Of course we don't live on a small island and all our students are not in walking distance from our program. Today even for a small program students may have to fly home from working in another state, deal with late work hours, or frequent times when they're not available for training from work.

What I've found in the last quarter century, except for a year when there were just two of us training regularily, the rest of my classes have never had the same members there two classes in a row. That doesn't mean the group has quit, but that they're adults who have to balance many issues to maintain their training.

As an instructor you prepare for a class with a specific lesson plan in mind, and then often depending on which students are present, may or may not be able to use it and have to flow to plan 'b'. I find in time my lesson plan isn't for a class but what I focus on for a quarter of the year at a time, and find a way to touch that training over that period again and again.

I've experienced the death of a very good student and then over the next year the departure of most of the older group members, perhaps taking the experience to adjust their personal goals, each of which training over 15 years.

Then the program slows, the most seniors training at a more and more advanced level till slowly new members feret out the existence of the dojo, and suddenly you're in a beginning adult program.

Students really are the ones who control what you can do in a program. As an instructor you can only teach those who are willing to train. You have no control over how they deal with life's ever present reality, the fact that everything else in life is conspiring to stop your training, you can only always be there and teach.

Then slowly over 5 years, as you and your senior students focus on the group, you shift from a white belt program to build towards shodan instruction.

Which is where most of my program is right now.

Begin the shift to dan drilling studies, working on principles behind technique application, working on a very different range of drills for new movement flow, laying the ground work for dan training, and you're still moving at slow speed.

Balancing the groups needs, you most senior students needs and your own desires.

And knowing under the best of circumstances, if no corners are cut, it will be another 5 years before the program fully engages the training you enjoy most.

The program is small and personal, the instructor must go slow meeting the students needs foremost.

Helps one gets older and slower I guess, but for the upcoming joy when fists will collide and the arts potential can be realized.

The smaller the program in fact means the slower the instructors wishes are realized.

If long ago you were an instructor and have one student, if their time passes for any reason and you have to begin again, consider the slow of that instructors flow.

More from "The Sword & The Mind"

 

More from “The Sword & The Mind” written by Yagyu Munenori
Page 67

Three Types of Beat

You and your opponent striking each other simultaneously – that is one kind of beat.
Striking the opponent from below as he raises his word – that is another.
Striking the opponent from above as he lowers his sword – that is still another.

We consider being in tune bad, being out of tune good. When you and your opponent are in tune with each other, he can use his sword better; when you are not, he can’t. You must strike in such a way as to make it hard for your opponent to use his sword well. From below or from above, you must strike without keeping time with your opponent. In most cases, allowing yourself to be in tune with your opponent is no good.

Slow Beat versus Quick Beat;
Quick Beat versus Slow Beat

If the opponent moves his sword in slow beat, you must move yours in quick beat.
If the opponent uses quick beat, you must move your sword in slow beat.
Hear again, you must use your sword so that you will be out of tune with your opponent. If you allow yourself to be in tune, the opponent will be able to use his sword well.

An accomplished No chanter chanter off beat, so that an inexpert drummer cannot play the drum well as accompaniment. If an accomplished chanter is coupled with an inexpert drummer, or an accomplished drummer with an inexpert chanter, it should be difficult to chant or play the drum. When the same is done in a sword fight, it is called the art of slow beat versus quick beat, quick beat versus slow beat.

When an unaccomplished chanter chants slowly, an accomplished drummer will not be able to play the drum quickly, however lighthearted he may try to be. Again, when an accomplished chanter chants lightheartedly, an unaccomplished drummer will be left behind, unable to play the drum.

An accomplished bird-spearer shows th ebird his spear from a good distance, making it sway gently, and when close, quickly slides up to the bird and catches it. The bird, enchanted by the swaying rhythm from the spear, flutters and flutters his wings, trying to fly away, but unable to do so, ends up caught. The point is to stay out of tune with your opponent. Out of tune, you can step in. You must contemplate even things like these.

from The Sword and the Mind

 

The study of karate takes place on the dojo floor, or the spot outside where true training occurs. Karate does not have a vast tradition of sharing the strategy and tactics to make the training work in conditions extremis. For the most part it probably consists of oral tradition shared between instructor and student, and tactics studied on the dojo floor.

With the exception of the Bubishi (which is of Chinese origin) and a small selection of various instructors concepts, there is not consistent body of knowledge to consult.

Allow me to quote from “The Sword & The Mind” written by Yagyu Munenori translated by Hiroaki Sato, Published by Overlok Press in 1985.

A brilliant collection of Japanese sword lore, on the tactics involved. While written for the sword, the principles apply to all confrontation.

Consider in all things there is a first move, an opening. Or the passage that follows beginning from page 68 in the aforementioned work.

“Understanding the Startup Rhythm”.

In dancing or in chanting, if the performer doesn’t know the startup rhythm, accompanying him will be impossible. In swordmanship, too, there is something like a startup rhythm. You must correctly grasp how your opponent may use his sword and what tactics he may employ in order to see his ultimate intention. When you do, you are like a ‘No’ dancer or chanter who is well acquainted with the startup rhythm. Once you know your opponent’s moves and behavior well, you can work on him freely.

Six Approaches

1. Strike back as the opponent strikes.

2. A difference of three inches.
[Mitsuyoshi; “When two combatants face each other with swords crossed, the victory is said to be with the one who manages to move his sword forward thre inches ahead of the other.”] {victor smith – this does resemble the technique of Motobu Chokoi. Watch the following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmUEDqqj8hQ at exactly 3:50 you’ll see the crossed arms before a contest, straight out of Motobu’s own book.)]

3. Steal within a distance equal to the opponent’s height.

4. Mark the opponent’s elbows when he olds his sword in the upper position.

5. When a ‘wheeling’ moves is employed, mark that part of the sword grip between the two fists holding it.

6. A distance of three feet. [Mitsuyoshi: “You must concentrate on moving close to your opponent so that the distance between the tip of your forward foot and that of his is three feet or less……If it is further thatn three feet, you won’t be able to strike your opponent with your sword."]

These six approaches must be learned and explained orally in actual exercises with oyour master. So they are not detailed in writing.

If despite your initial feints and double-dealing, your opponent remains unalarmed and sticks to his waiting stance without making the first assault, you must steal within the three-foot distance, and move close to your opponent. When, when he cannot contain himself any longer but takes an attack stance, allow him to make the first strike, and while he is doing so strike him. Unless your opponent strikes first, you will not be able to win. And unless you learn not to receive a hit when your opponent strikes, you cannot allow him to strike at you. You must train hard to master these things so that you may fearlessly move close to your opponent, have him strike at you, and win. This is the attitude known as sen-sen (initiative above all).

Four Other Approaches

1. Taikyoku, or “great deception,” [Mitsuyoshi explains that kyoku, deception, is a technique of winning that lures the opponent to strike frist by showing an apparent weakness.] along with “initial’ moves’. To be orally transmitted.

2. Zanshin, or “maintaining presence of mind at all times.” Applicable in both ken and tai stances. [ken – attack stance, tai – waiting stance] To be orally transmitted.

3. Dodging the short sword by a foot and five inches. [a “foot and five inches” refers to the width of the shoulders but the meaning of the phrase is not clear.]

4. Ken-Tai in taking an initiative. Remember to hold your body in an attack position, your sword in a waiting position.

Not one of these can be mastered without having it explained in actual exercises with our master. These approaches are difficult to explain in writing.

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Yagyu Munenori lived from 1571 to 1646. These words to back over 300 years but they remain relevant in today’s studies. I have experienced them on the floor with my own instructors and agree they must be lived not read. Still they point towards an important level in our arts.

Instructor III

It was in 1985 I started thinking seriously about what it should take to develop an instructor.

I was about 10 years into my own study and had to move from Scranton, Pa. to Derry, NH for work. The prior 6 years I had continued my own training, developed a program at the Scranton Boys Club and brought students to Sho-dan in my program. I had both competed and in turn ran a number of successful youth karate tournaments. I also trained as hard as I could with different friends in many arts.

Almost immediately moving to Derry, I restarted my program at the Derry Boys and Girls Club. Beginning anew I made some structural program changes to the program, using some of the additional experiences I had acquired from my friends, not to create a new system, but a new way to approach developing Isshinryu karate-ka.

It was at that time I started thinking about what should be required in developing an instructor. I had read of the JKA’s International Instructor school training, but there were no details and I’m sure I had a very idealized version in my head. I understood it involved more than just the study of karate and came to think of it as subsidiary training and knowledge to scope the development of karate training.

One does not sit down and develop an instructor training program, such a program should obviously be the product of many instructors and disciplines, as well as many decades of study. What I did though, was look at the library I had begun to acquire and wonder what would make sense to pull together to provide as study and work material for an instructor trainee.

My wife, Maureen, assisted and together we pulled together a wide range of material, including anatomy, physiology, history, etc. The end result was a very thick volume and with the assistance of a friend was reproduced and bound, and shared with my friends.

Everyone agreed it was a valuable effort of material useful in instructor development.

Today I cannot find my copy, I know I have one somewhere, but I have accumulated too much and no idea where it may be. I’ve contacted several of those I gave copies too, but alas, they likewise no longer posses it, or can find it.

There are important lessons there. Books alone do not make an instructor. I had no need of my copy because I had all of the source material at hand, to use when I need it.

If a training program had been developed with the book then it may have retained a purpose. But that wasn’t my intent at that time.

Of course this was before I knew of the historical antecedent of the karate instructor’s manual, the Bubishi, which is a text on medical matters, anatomy, strategy, technique, etc.

A valiant effort for 10 years training, but there were many lessons to come.

Technical note: This was written listening to the Velvet Undgerground ‘Heroin’.


I later did locate those instructor manuals I created. You can find more information here:
https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2011/05/best-karate-manuals-you-cant-read.html

And a friend did put a book about karate together for me from my writing.
http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2020/02/isshin-writings-on-martial-arts-and.html

Instructor II

I was a spanking new black belt in 1979 when Charles Murray left his church and returned to the USAF. I was left with the small youth karate group he had started and a church that wasn’t interested in my continuing the program. Over the summer I continued to hold classes at nearby McDade Park and worked with the Scranton Boys Club to begin a karate program.

While I had stood before a class and taught, I quickly discovered being a karate instructor was far different. Except for the few students who joined the program from the Church, the new students who started mostly left over the next three months. I was teaching at the pace I had been trained, that of preparing for Sho-dan examination, beyond most of the students initial abilities, and the class size quickly dropped.

I wasn’t just teaching, but getting uniforms, patches and learning how to teach young people. I also had no one to turn to for advice. My original instructors were many hours away from me, there was no one else in my area doing Isshinryu, and the other programs there were not a source for me to draw upon.

Thankfully I had a resource to draw upon, my wife. She trained with me, initially down in Salisbury, Md. And her background was a physical education instructor, though she was coaching swimming and diving through the Scranton YMCA at that time.

She explained to me a great deal about teaching young people, mostly to understand how to ‘hear’ what their abilities were and to begin teaching to those needs, and many other details about being a teacher. The largest shock was to come when she shared some of her college texts on coaching junior high school girls swim teams. I found material about coaching and teaching a specific sport more advanced than all of the karate books I had found, and to this day nothing has really changed that either.

Now I was teaching for only one reason, to keep practicing Isshinryu myself, in turn I only taught the Isshinryu I studied, just at a more appropriate pace for my students. It was then, and would always be the study of Isshinryu karate, not a game program or a babysitting program. Games such as various sorts of races would be incorporated, but my original instructor also did the same with his adult classes one or two times a year, just to keep one’s mind fresh and open.

I think the biggest lesson I learned was my pre-conception if you offer a Karate program all the teenagers were going to flock to it. That was not the case and never has been. The Boy’s Club isn’t a cool place to go when you mature, and most often you get the younger students. I learned a great deal how to listen to the students needs.

Among the lessons I started learning (all of which are only the most general rules):

• Students train for their own reasons, and when those reasons change they leave. Frequently they are your better students. The instructor must keep their distance when that happens and focus on those who are training.
• Students who have the most difficult time as beginners frequently are the ones that learn most, having learned how to overcome they can progress further. Conversely, those who are most natural beginners don’t have to learn how to work, and later when the studies become more difficult, not having learned how to learn just move on to something else.
• Young women frequently are much better beginning karate-ka than young men. In kumite they are also often better fighters.
• Friends that start together, often progress together, but then leave together.
• As students progress into advanced kyu training, you need to work to keep their intermediate studies from backsliding.
• As students progress into advanced training, mistakes in earlier kata crop up with astonishingly frequency, perhaps 30% of them make the same mistake in the same kata, all of which they studied the same way. It leads me to question if there is a physical tendency in some nervous system to interpret their training into something new.
• Tournaments only appeal to a small percentage of your students. Among the reasons, cost, time involved for the families and the fact that young people get lost in the overall tournament scene. I held 3 youth only tournaments drawing good crowds from NE Penna, charging only $5.00 to compete, and made sure every young person left with a certificate of attendance. Many years later returning to Penna. I had many karate-ka coming up to me thanking them for that gesture helping them remain involved in their own programs.

Among the biggest lessons was my original purpose. The Sho-dan primary focus must be on their own training to progress. I had unlimited time as my wife was coaching swim teams every evening, so in addition to two Boys Club karate classes a week, I sought out other places to train, from people I would compete against in tournaments. I made many friends had many hard workouts, learned a lot, but still continued to focus on my Isshinryu too. Tournament competition in kumite, kata and kobudo was the best way to focus on my Isshinryu having to train myself. Training the kids started me focusing on small details they needed and in turn helped me in my own practice.

The other side of training hard with several other instructors was you learned what they were teaching. I never intended to learn their systems, but my studies in Tai Chi, Chinese arts, Shotokan, Shorin Ryu, Goju Ryu, Tjimande, Aikido and more (I had lots of friends) gave me some scope of what existed outside of Isshinryu (frankly a whole lot of good stuff in their own right). I was competing against the instructors or their students, and many others, and learned the value of pushing yourself to exceed the best.

In turn I was able to apply that, age appropriately to my students. I can only say this in 30+ years of teaching I’ve never had a student in the program let me down and when called to always rose to the occasion. I’ve also found in some small way this had an impact on many of their lives. I was only teaching Isshinryu, but they were learning that they could learn, which should be the only reason adults share with youth as teacher, as coach or as supportive parent.

During that time from 1979 to 1984 I was learning hard how to improve my own ability, and it came down to attention to small details such as Stance and focus, as much as anything. I began to consider all I was learning and challenged myself how I could prepare my Isshinryu students to do better Isshinryu.

Of course in all these issues I had no one to turn to, no one with my same experiences. I had learned that as an instructor the one person I must listen to is myself. That lesson was hardest.

Video suggestions from my friends

I recently solicited suggestions for favorite videos from a network of friends who I periodically share my ongoing video research. The internet is offering an incredible wealth of martial references to view.

There is no right answer as to what is best, except your personal choice, but my friends suggestions, serious, playful and even beyond, are worth watching.

Kushanku – Nishime Sensei http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzRmm0r_fAE
Kushanku – Shimabukuro Zenpo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV_eO7IsiaY

Taiwan 1964
01 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyh8V3oFNhg
02 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ongkf4x8TIs
03 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VSvQSP_smg

Yaraguwa no Tonfa Nakamori http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN-KbmtJTWY
Karate de Okinawa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJdIDtB04vk
Nihanchi Katsuhiko Shinzato http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DEVYxsihlE
Sanseiru – Tohyama Seiko http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdVd4sYcXOE

Nao Morooka – Shitoryu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8muL3fsDnF0
Okinawan strengthening – Takemi Takayasu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yA-WuPkR8w

Megadeth – Holy Wars the Punishment Due http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d4ui9q7eDM
Aikido Shoji NIshio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH0-IyJPsyc
Wansu Kata – Uechi Sensei http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyJBYI4CM2w
Taiwan theater martial arts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnFA6G_Pf7k

Five Deadly Venoms Part 5 of 11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3txIR6gpHjU
Unsu Michael Milon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mT21GhQyio
Yanqing Tui http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85tdZYkMQWI
Misuquan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ3i0ss2wQI

Drive: Battle Scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiTh-6pkytE
Ginchin Funakoshi Kihon Kumite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FxRfd_0mYs
Gijushihio by Dave Piehota http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGANY4NbpA

Seisan – Shimabuku Tatsuo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyUMPjddzZc
Seisan – Kanei Uechi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh2GL0T6pm8&NR=1
Seisan Bunkai – Isshinryu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmjfp4Sspss
Chinto Bunkai – Isshinryu Mark Radunz http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BInQrXugKGU

Sueyoshi no Kon Dai – Murakami Katsumi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgK0KbZS714

Wu xing ba fa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvAPmVSW44Q
Silat golok Seliwa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAoPEJUBL2w
Heroes of the East – Crab Vs Crane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUNg4ZjEW-I

Meitetsu Yagi – Seienchin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x9TDyr3eEw
Suparinpei – Miyagi Anichi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDgpNzVerkQ
Kyudokan Jion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMwlmc9L9nI

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Among the more serious contributors to the internet sharing you can always view Patrick McCarthy’s video sharing at http://www.youtube.com/user/mccarthysensei and Mario McKenna’s video sharing at http://www.youtube.com/user/bechurin .

May these offerings bring you a great evening.

Instructor I

Another day and more unsolicited email messages show up in my inbox. Several Martial Arts organizations marketing groups are always trying to sell me information about becoming a better instructor. Of course from what I teach and how I teach it they information is useless to me, except to keep me current with the latest martial school trends. I do pay attention to try and understand the landscape, always watching and thinking.

I started my own program almost immediately after reaching my sho-dan in Isshinryu. Unequipped for the role of course, I had never studied karate to become an instructor, I only wanted to learn karate and get better. As events shaped my karate experience I began teaching to remain an Isshinryu practitioner, and had to work to define what my program would be.

For one thing I started out teaching a youth program through the Scranton Boys Club, for free. My program was the first one to bring girls into the Boys Club for membership. As I learned how to be an instructor, the hardest way, I tried to focus what I wanted my program to represent and settled upon trying to move into a pre-1900 approach to individual training. Always the most important focus was that between student and instructor.

In my past 30 years of teaching, perhaps in some ways I’ve succeeded. In other ways I was way ahead of the bell curve, such as seriously teaching a youth program, years before it even became a reality on Okinawa. Back in the days when everyone thought I was out in space training youth, almost all telling me I should be spending my time with adults to do real karate. I tried to tell them what the future would hold if they wanted to keep their programs going, but few thought I was serious. Of course today there are very few commercial schools in any art that would be open without the income that their youth programs generate. Then again my focus wasn’t money, for I’ve never charged for my instruction. My payment was being allowed to continue training and I’ve been very well paid at that.

I plan to do a series of articles on my personal insight into instructor development. Not to guide other programs, but to share with my students in what we practice.

Still to begin I think it very important to realize that ALL of us, trying to link our programs to the karate of the past must realize, what we’ve turned into is very different from Okinawa’s origins. Very different!

Karate pre-1900, as far as I’ve been able to piece together, was before the dojo, perhaps just a back yard or an empty field or clearing in the forest. I’ve been unable to piece together much information about how many students an instructor had, how frequently they trained, what their drop off rate may have been, and without information to discuss those items is mostly speculation.

Karate pre-1900 was a walking student population. The student(s) lived a walking distance from the instructor. Of course in that world time, the populace walked, there weren’t cars, or much other available transportation. Walking distance might be 10 miles for the most possessed student, but still I suspect a neighborhood type of distance in many cases.

The stories seem to indicate that unless it was from a family or friend obligation, a prospective student had to work to be accepted. That might represent being turned down repeatedly, or having to present oneself for many months showing one’s true interest before being accepted. It suggests a small student population that worked very hard to be accepted, and in turn willing to stay training.

Just supposition, but for a successful instructor today (defined as one who keeps their school open for years), with thousands of new students, who didn’t stay even to sho-dan, for the handful who move into fuller training, I’m sure those older instructors would look askance as to what a good instructor meant.

I’m not suggesting right or wrong, just the world keeps turning and change happens (entropy is the universal champion after all). But it is difficult to truly consider the modern instructor an inheritor of the older traditions.

The body may move the same, and the same steps must pass in a students studies, but the wrap around of today, hardly allows an instructor to focus on their program in the same way as when there were a handful of students.

The change of course is world wide, and includes Okinawa too. Can you consider any pre-1900 instructor would have considered running a world spanning organization with students they never taught, as a part of their art?

Trying to understand the trends of the past are useful to help us shape our art and our responses to guide our students into their own futures.

In my case I had to work out how to develop a youth program for a small group of students that would require between 7 to 9 years of training to qualify for sho-dan, and then of course they would leave us forever, and separately develop an adult program that is I believe very close to what a pre-1900 model of training may have been.

I will continue exploring what developing an instructor should represent in subsequent posts.