recruitment

[ulvulv]

In number of exponents, jodo is quite small, Kendo attract the biggest crowd and iaido is in between. Being a relatively new budo outside of Japan, it must be one of the most marginal japanese martial arts in the west. From koryu-purists, iaido and kendo has received quite a lot of bashing for a claimed lack of battlefield application, being bastardized wasa from "the bad old days".

Still jodo, being a rich and complex ryu, attracts very few people. How is it possible to change this, and get a larger number of exponents, without sacrificing quality or changing the systems martial/didactic tradition?
Do you think that jodo-taikai and the use of dan-grades has stimulated the development of jodo?

I have seen that many clubs consist of a few greying senior enthusiasts, with a small and everchanging group of very young people, who enjoy a couple of years doing some exotic oriental moves before getting slammed by the iron rod of adult life. :p Maybe tetsubo should be added to the curriculum?:D

[J.T. Hurley]

Plan #1 More teachers. Enough teachers to cover every wannabe student.

Plan #2 We redefine "Jodo" to be inclusive of new ideas and methods, allowing it to evolve past the teacher shortage.

Plan #3 I go back to reading and playing with broomsticks.


I think I'm going with #3 for now....

[Meik Skoss]

Questions that arise: If one changes the art, then does one still study the art that led to the original interest? If extrinsic rewards are important, why would one want to study a koryu which, by its very nature, is very conservative and does not really have a lot to offer its exponents besides the intrinsic satifsfaction of training? Lastly, why would a increase in the number of people studying or practicing jodo be "good"? Is more better? Or might it be worse?

Mr. Hurley, there is also a Plan #4: move to a place where there's a qualified instructor in the art one wants to study?
In school? It is not that hard to transfer.

Got a job? Get another one.

Family? Mmmm, that can be a stopper. Talk to them.

And, for those who really, *really*, REALLY want to train, get on a plane or ship and GO TO JAPAN!

I guess it depends on how badly it is that one wants to train in a particular art or with a particular instructor. There are some folks who think driving 35~45 minutes is too far. Others drive over 2.5 hours. Some people, who are *really* hungry, commute by plane as often as they can. (Fortunately, their wives are more than a little understanding. Yeah, I'm talking about YOU, John!)

[Joseph Svinth]

While training generally doesn't come to you, you don't even have to move all that far from home if you don't want to. For example, reasonable quality instruction can be obtained in Metro Seattle, Metro Toronto, Metro NYC, Southern California, Honolulu and assorted towns in between.

[SEAN CHEN]

I think on this one I'll have to agree with Meik that having a greater number of students may not necessary be a good thing. Here are my views:

Unlike modern gendai-budo systems, the Koryu of Jodo(although) modified to make it a little more learn-able for the modern man still requires direct training with a competent teacher or senior student. If student enrolement rises and there is a lack of teachers or fairly senior students available to act as Uchitachi, then lots of the riai would be loss or mis-interpretated and bad habits would then develop.

In my dojo, there are only my sensei and his brother who is our most senior sempai. It takes alot of effort for them to work their way through 4 of us in the dojo one to one or under their direct supervision. As a result, not all the kata sets are covered in one session and sometimes they have to sacrifice their own training to teach us. Therefore, my sensei admits only genuine students to keep numbers down.

Selection in Koryu has to be stringent as the information handed down is priceless and exclusive. Even at a beginner's level, lots of attention has to be given to the student as kihon is the building block to the ryu's techniques. If student enrollement swells. lots of time would be wasted on people who just show up for a couple of months and then leave only to be replaced by other wannabes.


Therefore I am still at the opinion that numbers be kept small.
Having more competent teachers is good ideal etc etc..but a luxuary. Remember its soooooo difficult to be a good student and its even more difficult to attain the status of a teacher who is charged in handing down a tradition in as close to the original form. So I see very little chance that we could suffenly have an inflow of experts.

Sean

[Andy Watson]

In agreement with Meik and Sean, I would like to add that my impression on jodo in Europe for example consists of a membership resembling a pyramid but more closely shaped to an interstellar wormhole: lots of people of the lower grade (with a fantastic turnover or new students/one year-students leaving) and a very slim stream of people who are seriously training and passing through the grades.

My feeling of the reason why is that our training and instruction is not (here comes the key word) PROGRESSIVE. By this I mean that there the teaching/learning structure is not suited to initiate the right amount of forward progress (or depth) along with arming the student with new skills (breadth). We seem to do a bit of each in such a disjointed way that one compromises the other.

For example (and I will critisize our dojo to show that I am not casting aspursions on others) we will get relative newbies to train again and again and again doing forms 1-3 and then one day they will go to a seminar and learn tanjojutsu!!! For one day! Or we will teach them a koryu form - just one.

I believe the problem here is that the rough framework that the teaching faculty is providing would work if it was applied to a student base who were training very regularly and actively pursuing their learning rather than hoping for it to be served up on a plate. It is a Catch 22 situation though: the student doesn't feel he is making much progress and so doesn't apply himself very fully.

The only way I can see progress in jodo as a major body (at least in Europe) is to lay down better guidelines for setting up a teaching format. I'm not talking about how you present the training, I'm talking about adopting the system which we seem to see acceptable for applying to infants - setting achievable, time based targets and providing the tools/teaching to achieve the targets.

I could spout on all day about this but I think I'll go home now. I look forward to the continuation of this discussion.

Best regards

[Earl Hartman]

The main difference between what are normally referred to as gendai and koryu arts, it seems to me, is the difference in emphasis on the attempt to accomodate the individual feelings of the student. This difference is also much more pronounced when the Japan-not Japan angle is thrown in.

In traditonal Japanese arts of any kind, the student is expected to mold himself to the demands of the art and not the other way around. The value of the arts in training people in traditional Japanese cultural values (which are primarily based on a certain sense of the individual and his relationship to tradition) lies not in what they are, precisely, but in how they are taught and learned.

In the West, we tend to view things from the angle of how they benefit us and how they will be useful in helping us achieve our goals, whatever the might be. Our view is essentially utilitarian, with ourselves in the center of the equation. So, if an art doesn't seem to be what we want, we either attempt to change it to suit our needs or we go on to something else. This desire is normal for anyone, Japanese or American, but the goal of training in traditional Japanese arts (or one of them, anyway) is to disabuse the trainee of the idea that his individual wants and desires are of any particular value. To put it in a extreme way, the individual exists as a vessel to carry on the tradition, which is paramount, rather than the tradition existing for the benefit of any one person.

This seems to be extremely oppressive, and from the Western point of view perhaps it is. However, if a trainee does not believe that his teacher knows what he is doing, why is he there? If he thinks that he knows a better way to train, all that really means is he thinks he knows more than the teacher. If he thinks that, he shouldn't be training.

Of course, submerging one's self in this way is extremely difficult for anyone, Japanese or Westerner. However, it has been my experience that only by disabusing oneself of the belief that one's own feelings and desires are of supreme importance that one's mind becomes clear and uncluttered enough to really receive the tradition and understand the wisdom of doing things in the traditional way. Once this happens, the trainee is on his way to making the tradition really his own. The peculiar and interesting thing about all of this is that in this process, contrary to what a Westerner might think, a person's art finally becomes really an individual expression in a really true sense only after he realizes that his own small wants and needs are not that important.

Because of this, I think that attempting to change the teaching of traditional jo (or anything else) in order to attract new students and spread the art widely is fraught with danger. Basically, the koryu approach has always been quality over quantity, and I hope it stays that way.

Also, I don't think that this is necessarily a black-and-white koryu vs. gendai thing. It really depends on your teacher.

[J.T. Hurley]

I do, in fact, commute to train in my chosen art. That art, however, is Aikido. :)

Most Aikidoka consider Jo training to be important to the art, not to mention a lot of fun. Aiki-jo is, in that sense, a living, breathing, popular jodo tradition, but it may not be Jodo.

Working from videos and books to learn may not be Jodo, but it is jodo.

When my s/o and I cover our respective wooden weapons in Funoodles and bap each other over for the head it sure as heck isn't Jodo, in fact it isn't even jodo, but it is fun. And it's a great way to learn why Hasso no Gamae gives amateur swordsmen nightmares. :laugh:

Now, I'm not going to claim any of this is Jodo, or that it is koryu, or that it's traditional. I only claim that it's what I do. I don't claim mastery, qualification to teach, lineage, formal training, or any connection to a formal school. That doesn't take away from the fact that I'm one of many people engaging in the study of a fascinating weapon.

I'd jump at the chance to study under a certified Jodo instructor. I'd love to *become* a certified Jodo instructor. I won't, however uproot a happy life here to go study on a mountaintop somewhere. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen.

In the meantime, I don't do partner practice yet anyway. :D

[Joseph Svinth]

Earl --

You can work for various employers (the government is chock full of them), and receive similiar mental training. You get paid a salary, too.

[ichibyoshi]

There's a lot to be said for arts that don't actively seek new members, that work from the old-fashioned, "the right people will themselves find their way to the dojo".

Of course you need a base of advertising to let people know that your art exists. And of course you need to do regular enbu so that interested members of the GP can see the art first-hand.

But past that, why would you want to do more?

Kendo associations around the world are now so large that those at the top of the pyramid often have a hard time getting their own regular training in, let alone the extra training required for competition or gradings. The administrative demands become such that these pioneers often have to be happy facilitating others' learning, rather than pursuing their own. Every now and then they probably stop and pine for the old days when there were enough people to train well, but not so many that they were locked in meetings at every major seminar.

When it gets to that stage, of course the satisfaction of success and seeing the art flourish is a wonderful pay-off.

But I would say, why rush to that point? Let it grow by itself. Unless of course you enjoy the admin and managment side of the things.

[renfield_kuroda]

The flip-side to the 'koryu students will find their way here' argument is that: they don't, and many arts die/are dying out.
Also, in these modern times are there are fewer and fewer full-time martial artists. Most of us have other commitments, like a job and family, and therefore there is less transmitted from teacher to student anyway.

Niina-gosoke makes a clear distinction between members ('kaiin') who are free to study as rigorously/loosely as they see fit, and his students ('deshi') who get schooled koryu-style and are expected to make a deeper/stronger commitment. Even then out of 250 regular kaiin, there are but a handful of deshi.

Regards,
renfield kuroda

[Andy Watson]

I must say I agree with Ben.

I have never been one for supporting the move of the British Kendo Association to get more members. I would prefer it if each discipline just worked at improving the quality of it's members and if recruitment came into it at all, enough to ensure the art doesn't die out in this country.

If the BKA exceeded more than 2000 members then I don't see how we would manage it without outsourcing a lot of the admin work - then it becomes a professional organisation - then a business - then money get's in the way of the art....

Also seminars would become more and more like a mass production facility (sadly this has affected karate for many years in this way).

Oh dear.

[renfield_kuroda]

I agree, which is the main reason why Niina-gosoke established NPO Hougyoku-kai as a Non-Profit Organization. There is always a certain amount of admin even with 200 or 20 users; getting practice space, filing for sports insurance, etc. but as an NPO it is NEVER about the money, and it's much easier to separate the organization (admin, office, etc.) from the martial arts. Also nice that as members we know exactly where our fees are going, and all have a voice in the governance of the organization.
Not easy to pull off; running an NPO seems inherently more difficult than running a business, but for the long-term benefits to the arts, it's well worth it.

Regards,
renfield kuroda

[ulvulv]

"If the BKA exceeded more than 2000 members then I don't see how we would manage it without outsourcing a lot of the admin work - then it becomes a professional organisation - then a business - then money get's in the way of the art...."

Then split Bka in three or two more selvgoverned sections. It will take some time before jodo and iaido passes kendo in membermass. Anxiety for organizational overload should not stand in the way of development.

Who am I to speak, in this frozen and forgotten nation we have the breathtaking number of six danholders in jodo. It is not so hard to have the full overview here.
:p