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Nathan Scott
8th November 2000, 01:33
Hello,

In the Ikkajo book (AikiNews; pg.11), Kondo S. address' the subject of Daito ryu secretiveness.

He writes that "it is said that Takeda Sokaku S. never taught the same technique twice", for fear of being reversed on. He apparently scolded Tokimune S. for being soft hearted when he would show a waza more than once.

Tokimune S. is quoted as saying "If you teach the same technique twice, the second time your students will figure out how to reverse it and defeat you with it. For that reason, teach something different the second time."

Kondo S. goes on to quote Tokimune S. twice more:

"If you teach people the true techniques and the next day they leave the school [tradition], then all of the secret and oral teachings of Daito ryu will flow outside of the school [tradition] and be known to the general public."

"Out of a thousand pupils, teach the true techniques only to one or two. Make absolutely sure of those you choose, and to them alone teach what is real. There is no need to teach the rest."

I find these quotes extremely insightful to the attitudes held by Daito ryu and I suspect other ryu-ha of the time. Some may find it harsh and unwarranted, but I believe that this attiutude was more the norm than not then.

Interestingly, this ties in a little to the "seminars" thread we had going. You'd really be up in the air trying to figure out what was real (and how to perform the techniques) if you were to have attended a training session (seminar) back then, eh?

There's been a big difference on attitudes towards teaching openly since then.

Regards,

Earl Hartman
8th November 2000, 03:25
This makes perfect sense in more ways than one:

1) If your life depends on your art, you are going to make damn sure that no one who might become your enemy will get it.

2) Not all people are worthy of the art. Why teach it to someone who will not respect the tradition?

3) It is your duty as the inheritor of the ryu to make sure it gets passed on properly.

In any case, it represents a frame of mind which has a lot to recommend it. It is also (getting back to an old and very UN-lamented thread) why some people on the inside are considered snobs by those on the outside who want in on their own terms.

Earl

Richard A Tolson
8th November 2000, 06:57
I understand this philosophy and would not condemn it at all. Their art, their rules.
However, I must ask a few questions based on this idea:
Why waste money on books, videotapes, or seminars that will not teach you the Daito-ryu real deal? Why should anyone who cannot dedicate most of their time as an Uchideshi in Japan waste their time studying an art that will never be revealed to them? If all that is made public is Daito-ryu Jujutsu, why not just find a good jujutsu school that will at least deal with you openly and honestly?
Glad I didn't waste money on the book!
Just some thoughts.

MarkF
8th November 2000, 12:41
This also shows paranoia, acute egoism, and acts of a coward. More, it, and I am only going on the quotes posted in Nathan's post, that either students from all around are going to bombard the school, ask to be on "the inside," or people are going to ignore the whole of it, as so little is real and true, or DR will get what they want, and very few will ever learn, so what's the point of entering a lottery of sorts? While this may have been true of Sokaku's father (he left Tokimune alone at the age of nine, to fend for himself, with a war going on within walking distance of the house. Of course one has to believe in the inherent truthfulness of the son).

While passing an art "properly" is a matter of opinion or degree, it in no way guarantees it will be, even if only taught to the few. Discounting the more obvious frauds of DR, there are more people with these "secrets" than could possibly be trusted as the "one or two (this also means that more than one will learn, almost guaranteing that twice the number of people who shouldn't know, will)."

But I will agree with Nanthan on what it reveals. It reveals a time long ago when it may have been necessary. Hoever, this was probably only true, at the time before Sokaku, when life was a little more entertaining. But then, there is little confirming this, and today you get a large side order of guesses, with only a few cooks knowing how to cook well, and even with Kondo now as the chef, someone has to make the salad.

Mark

Mark Brecht
8th November 2000, 13:08
Mr Tolson,

Why waste money on books, videotapes, or seminars that will not teach you the Daito-ryu real deal?

Unfortunatly there are many individuals out there who falsely claim to have have teaching credentials of a certain ryuha. To back up such redicioulus claims they use all kinds of litrature trying to provide info and knowledge from these books to look authentic and legitimate. For such individuals it really does not make a difference if what they trying to copy off to sell as theirs is real or not...

Why should anyone who cannot dedicate most of their time as an Uchideshi in Japan waste their time studying an art that will never be revealed to them?

I think the level and depth of knowledge and insight of an art should only be transmitted according to the comitment and dedication of the student... If you do not want to or can not go all the way, than why should you be allowed to get it all??? Also, a person must have been trained and prepared properly, otherwise receiving the teachings without being ready would be a waste anyway...

If all that is made public is Daito-ryu Jujutsu, why not just find a good jujutsu school that will at least deal with you openly and honestly?

Hm, because it seems to be very hard outside of Japan already to find even teachers who provide you open and honestly with their backgrounds and claims. It will be even harder to get open and honest information on the techniques and principles they are teaching...

Nathan Scott
8th November 2000, 17:55
Hi all,

I can't argue with your observations.

But I would submit that I think the "literal translation" printed in the book could have been explained a bit more to avoid misunderstanding. I think that the statements are basically what was meant, but could use some qualilfication.

First off all, I really don't think that groups like Daito ryu or other traditional minded schools are trying to "teach" through mediums like books, videos, seminars or demos. As I mentioned in the seminars thread, these mediums are designed to introduce the art to those that might be interested in training. If you think your going to learn TSKSR ("Deity and the Sword"), Shinkage ryu (2 book set on sword techniques) or Yagyu Shinkage ryu ("Heiho Kadensho") through books, demos or pirated video tapes of classes that they knew were being taped by visitors, your dead wrong.

Mr. Skoss has stated examples in which YSR has clearly made efforts to be very protective of the art; even in the writings of Heiho Kadensho. There are many branches of YSR in Japan that have splintered off from the mainline. But I wonder how many of them have the full transmission of the art (as Yagyu Nobuharu [thanks Earl - typo] Soke has of the mainline).

If you have these books, you may as well throw them away too if you were hoping to learn their art, because they didn't write them in hopes of teaching you their art through a book.

However, that does not mean that everything in these books is incorrect or worthless. There is good history in there, and the techiques for the most part *do* work if you already have some related experience to draw from. What I see presented in these books are fundamental ideas and movements. What is probably left out in most cases are the proper context in which they would be applied, advanced variations etc.

However, by reading what Kondo S. writes in his introduction to "Ikkajo", it sounds like he documented the Ikkajo series of the Hiden Mokuroku exactly, for the purposes of preserving the historical accuracy. While Ikkajo could be argued to be a core principle of DR Jujutsu, it is only one principle that consists of only 30 out of 118 of the Hiden waza, and 30 out of some 3,000 that DR claims to contain. Kondo S. seems to be comfortable with revealing the very first part of the DR Jujutsu curriculum to the public in this book.

So while you might never get the deepest teachings and application of technique when studying a ryu-ha like this, I would still maintain that it is still a worthy pursuit. For example, I have not reached the highest levels of initiation in Shinkendo or our Aiki Buken (based off of years training and lack of a "Menkyo Kaiden"), but have no problem applying what I've learned and discovered so far in practical applications. Perhaps some major doors will open later on, but in the meantime I can't say that I feel cheated.

But each person has to decide if the older traditions are what they're looking for in an art.

Regards,


[Edited by Nathan Scott on 11-08-2000 at 01:04 PM]

Earl Hartman
8th November 2000, 18:56
Nathan:

Just a minor correction: Yagyu Sensei's personal name is Nobuharu, with a "b", not Noguharu, with a "g", as you have written. Probably just a typo on your part, but I thought I would point it out.

Also, regarding secrecy, another example: the densho of the Nagao Ryu are written in a synthetic script specific to the ryu which is not Japanese. The language used is, essentially, a code, with arcane symbols used in the place of standard Japanese characters. This script is totally incomprehensible to anyone who has not been initiated into the inner secrets of the art (or who doesn't have the official Nagao Ryu Decoder Ring).

It is my opinion that the main reason the secrecy of traditional schools is incomprehensible to practioners of more modern arts, or, should I say, people with a modern, democratic frame of mind, is because the aims of traditional arts and modern arts are radically different. The following is a generalization, to which there are of course exceptions, but I think it is accurate in its main points.

Traditonal arts teach real fighting methods. It is true that these methods might be considered archaic and perhaps have no relevance to the modern world (I don't believe this, but there are those who do). In any case, the main purpose of the older arts is teaching people how to fight. In this environment it is important to keep secrets from potential enemies. The spiritual development that occurs during training serves this goal and is not an end in and of itself that can be divorced from the acquisition of practical skill. Also, traditional schools are usually small and somewhat idiosyncratic organizations which are based on close personal relationships between members. They thus defy easy categorization.

The modern arts, on the other hand, have been developed for the specific purpose of instilling a certain spirit and acting primarily as vehicles for "self-improvement". Their goal is, essentially, moral education, however one may define that. They have also been formulated more or less by committee and are run as large bureaucratic organizations. In Japan, at any rate, their goal is to serve as vehicles for training large masses of people according to a standardized curriculum. Thus, there is little or no place in them for secret or hidden techniques, at least in the traditional sense. If one's purpose in training is a vaguely defined kind of moral and spiritual education to be achieved through vigorous physical exercise, the practicality of the techniques learned, is, essentially, beside the point.

The other thing to consider is that the inner secrets of any art, however they are defined, require a context to understand. My Nagao Ryu teacher said that he would reveal the hiden of Nagao Ryu to students on their first day at training. Seeing the horrified look on my face, he laughed and said that it didn't really matter; having no frame of reference, they didn't know what he was telling them, and since it had no significance, they either forgot it or simply couldn't understand how to make use of it. Thus, it is as though they never learned it at all. No blood, no foul.

Also, a lot of so-called secrets turn out later to have been extremely fundamental things that were out in the open and right under your nose from the beginning, but, looking for more secret, cryptic, arcane, and "cool" stuff, you couldn't see them or make use of them.

Anyone who has ever tried to teach anything knows how difficult it is. The plain fact of the matter is that you don't want to spend your time teaching people who have not got the stones for the long haul, or who are dabblers or window shoppers. Out of 10 people who start kyudo, for instance, I am lucky if I get one that sticks to it for any length of time. It takes too much effort to teach someone who is not going to repay your dedication to his or her education with equal dedication. So, you hang back and see who is going to make it through the inevitable shakeout. After that, you can get down to really teaching.

Finally, I was always told that budo is not something that you are taught, it is something that you learn. There is a big difference between the two, and someone who is interested in learning, as opposed to getting taught, will eventually be rewarded (if he has found the right teacher).

Earl


[Edited by Earl Hartman on 11-08-2000 at 01:03 PM]