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Thread: Meik's comments on solo waza training from Jo Forum

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    Default Meik's comments on solo waza training from Jo Forum

    The following quote is from http://www.e-budo.com/vbulletin/show...threadid=21369
    I wanted to move a portion of this topic here for discussion as it appears to be more fitting for the sword forum and I think this attitude is quite common and should be examined.

    To add a little context Meik was talking about training in MJER, MSR, and Iai in general and whether or not there was any benefit to jodo training. The entire post was kinda long, so I clipped it, but encourage you to read the entire post at the link above to avoid context issues.

    NOTE: In all fairness it is possible that Meik meant his comments specifically to reference ZNKR Iai, but that isn't clear from the post.

    Originally posted by Meik Skoss
    But for to spend a majority of one's time with an imaginary aite is, errrr... uhhhh... I will try to be polite... not so helpful. Partners are necessary for a reasonable practice. Check the curricula of most koryu to verify this fact -- they don't spend a lot of time playing with themselves.

    Hope this helps.
    Wow. That seems patently offensive to me for some reason. An awful lot of foisting your own ideals onto another system in order to judge it. Particularly the bit that implies that those who do solo waza are "playing with themselves".

    Tell me Meik, or anyone for that matter who tends to discount Iai based solely on it's emphasis on solo waza. How do you propose to learn an art which focuses primarily on cutting with the draw if you do not use shinken or at least iaito? If you propose using shinken or iaito for paired practice, how do you propose making it safe? I would posit that there simply is no other good way to transmit the techniques without a heavy emphasis on solo waza.

    Why do you feel justified in ridiculing another koryu based on it's training methods? Would you be upset if I did the same?

    For instance, is it ok for me to discount kenjutsu training because the majority of time is spent training without live blades?

    Is it ok for me to ridicule the Jo guys for inefectual training methods? After all the Jo man is never in any real danger. Your opponent isn't using live steel and isn't trying to actually kill you. He's also locked into a set pattern of movement.

    Is it ok for me to say that the tameshigiri crowd is wasting there time cutting? In tameshigiri, the opponent never moves and the practitioner is never in any danger of being cut?

    My purpose here is not to start a flame war. I don't believe any of that bunk above. I don't make claims about the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the training methods of other systems. It was included purely for examples sake. Playing devils advocate if you will.

    I don't mean to single out Meik in particular but this post rubbed me particularly wrong. I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Skoss as a matter of fact, but the attitude expressed above pops up over and over again online.

    Bringing this up here is probably a mistake(Rocking the boat. Impudent whelp. How dare you question one of the budo gods... and all that. What was it Tony called me... ah yes Silly Little Man) I'll acknowledge that in advance, but I think this is the kind of thing that Mr. Lowry was talking about in his recent article here on E-budo, and I think it is a valid topic for discussion.

    So without further ado. Discuss
    Last edited by Charles Mahan; 7th October 2003 at 14:39.
    Charles Mahan

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    As a kendo-ka, I'm the wrong guy to respond, because obviously a prefer a "partnered art." But I'm not sure Meik is foisting his own idea on the system; from my reading of Draeger - and Meik is definitely in Draeger's camp, non? - partnered kata practice is THE method of transmission in Japanese martial arts. (Certainly others have made this point, too.) Solo practice does indeed play a part, but the partnered kata practice is across the board they way they did things in Nippon. I think that's what he's saying. If he's a little flippant about it, well, *shrug.* Blow it off, Charles, I don't think he meant it to be taken too personally.

    I am sympathetic to your views. One thing I think I disagree with Lowry on is that he feels (according to his e-budo article) that the Koryu Snobs come under attack from the Gendai Prudes; but I tend to think it's the other way around. Rather than the KS drawing criticism from the GP, it's the GPs who are proud of their art, show it off, and then resent being told by KS "well, that's not really how the samurai did it; what you're doing is not authentic."

    I respect both camps, though obviously I am firmly in the GP end. There are issued of compartmentalization and authenticity that need to be resolved here on an individual basis. And, as has been said before, I think most of this disagreement occurs 1) on the net, and not in person and 2) in the west, and not Nihon.

    My two euros! Your thoughts?
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    I'm sure he didn't mean it personally but this attitude is prevalenet especially from Draeger and company, and is I think worthy of discussion.

    I respectfully, but firmly, disagree that partnered practice is THE method of transmission. The one and only. Except no substitutes. I don't doubt for a second that it is the predominant method in many if not most koryu, but not in iai. Name one Iai koryu that does predominantly paired exericises as the core of their curriculum. Not a Kenjutsu koryu that happens to do Iai. An Iai koryu.

    There is a fundamental technical challenge to learning to fight from the draw that pretty much dictates solo waza for the majority of training. Iai is about cutting from the draw. As such, you must learn to begin the cut with the sword still in the saya. How can you practice this if you do not use a sword with a saya? Considering the potential lethality of paired exercise with even Iaito, can anyone make a rational arguement that we should be training paired exercises with iaito? Certainly not shinken? If not those tools then what?

    Bokuto are fundamentally unfit for iai as they lack a saya. Oh sure there are plastic saya these days, but that would required adapting the curriculum to modern circumstances which is something Koryu are not especially inclined to do. Also a bokuto with saya is not really going to be an effective training tool. Heck at some level an iaito isn't really appropriate. Shinken simply work different than either.

    Most koryu iai do in fact have paired exericise. That's not the issue here. Meik even acknowledges this in his post. He did not take issue with the lack of paired exercises. He has flippantly, as you say, expressed ridicule for arts with a predominance of solo work.

    Again I think this is a wider issue than just Meik's comments. I would argue that the attitudes I am commenting are not strictly limited to the internet. They appear in various written references as well. I would also suggest, although I would admittedly have a hard time proving it, that the attitudes are inheritted from the inidividuals instructors. Who inheritted from their instructors and so on. I suspect these prejudices go back a couple hundred years or so. I think they come up online rather than in person, due to a fundamental human desire to avoid conflict. While it is easy to tell someone their art is a joke in a written form, it's a lot harder to do it to someone's face. That doesn't change the underlying belief.
    Last edited by Charles Mahan; 7th October 2003 at 15:51.
    Charles Mahan

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    I'd submit that you're learning to fight other people about as effectively as I'm learning to fight with a real sword in kendo. Namely, not very.
    Neil Gendzwill
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    Meik certainly doesn't need me to pipe up for him, but for those who don't know he also studies Yagyu Seigo-ryu battojutsu as part of his study of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu.

    Eric Baluja

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    Default We are all missing the point

    Instead of sounding like the mature budoka I know we all are, we are starting to quibble like some weirdos at a Mcdojo. We all know that solo waza practice and paired practice are essential for any of the arts, and that some arts do more of one or the other. Big deal. The real question to ask is are you getting what you expected?are you learning? And are you helping to carry on a tradition and in some way helping it to grow? Everything evolves to some degree, otherwise it does not survive, and so is true with our budo, wether it be koryu or gendai. Koryu and gendai then are really irrelvent. What's relevant is that we do the best we can everyday in our training to make it the best we can and help it along it's way of enlightening the world. These are just my personal thoughts, and no encroachment on Osensei.
    Gary MacMullen
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    Default Love the pic

    That's a beutiful pic, and a gorgeous dojo. Nice tenouchi too!
    Gary MacMullen
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    The photo is from the Koryu.com entry on Yagyu Seigo-ryu. It was taken at Phil Relnick's dojo.
    Eric Baluja

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    Ok then a new thought for consideration. Is it acceptable to publicly disparage other arts for not training the way you do? Is it acceptable to denounce the training system of another style in such a public forum? I'm not talking about the McDojo down the street training with dangerous weapons or in a fradulent manner. I'm talking about other koryu.

    Sounds like the answer may be yes from a lot of folks. Certainly seems to be the prevailing attitude anyway.

    If you believe the answer to this question is yes and that me and others who find it offensive should get a life and come to grips with the inadequacies of our respective arts, would you be comfortable saying it to my face? Or to my instructors face? Or to his?

    Should online correspondence be held to a lower standard than in person conversation?
    Charles Mahan

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    Originally posted by Charles Mahan
    Ok then a new thought for consideration. Is it acceptable to publicly disparage other arts for not training the way you do?
    I don't know about disparage, but certainly we can have a discussion about what is the emphasis of each art, why they train the way they do, what they learn from that training.

    If you believe the answer to this question is yes and that me and others who find it offensive should get a life and come to grips with the inadequacies of our respective arts, would you be comfortable saying it to my face? Or to my instructors face? Or to his?

    I wouldn't use those terms, but I'm willing to discuss what you're learning and not learning, and what I'm learning and not learning. My kendo teacher will be the first to tell you that we are not learning complete swordsmanship. It may or may not surprise you to find that I don't care - I find kendo in and of itself to be sufficient for my goals. I certainly hope you aren't surprised to find that kendo people think you are not learning complete swordsmanship, either.
    Neil Gendzwill
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    Default Respect

    If we noble gaijin wish to profess that we practice budo and try to some degree emulate (not entirely) the samurai, then we need to give each other a modicum of respect and use of decorum. It's well known that to the samurai respect and honor were paramount, even to those considered your enemy. Especially if the enemy had some degree of skill equal to one's own. We really need to desist with this apparent infighting of budoka. It presents the wrong image to others not a part of our group and gets us compared to that Mcdojo we all abhor. There are different styles, different interpratations of the same style and whole plethora of other variations. On that we all agree. But again, that's irrelevent. Any art worth it's weight, if practiced dilligently enough and with the right attitude will produce results, either for oneself or the art. This is turning into a ridiculous political squabble, what we called chicken%$# in the Navy, and should be concluded post haste. Then of course there is always the old recourse that the samurai actually used: fight and see who lives.
    Gary MacMullen
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    Talking Hayashizaki Ryu?

    Originally posted by Charles Mahan

    Name one Iai koryu that does predominantly paired exericises as the core of their curriculum.
    Hayashizaki Ryu?

    I remember seeing an iaijutsu video...probably Hayashizaki Muso Ryu (Nihon Kobudo Series, so it's the real stuff), where they are wearing LONG LONG swords in the belt, but actually begins the kata such that you are leaning shoulder to shoulder against the other person in tatehiza.

    I would "surmise" that the aite gives you the "cue" by moving, and you sense from that physical contact shoulder to shoulder that it is "time" to move...

    But honestly, not being an initiate, I have NO IDEA what they are doing other than the thought "how the #$%#$% did they draw something that looks like a nodachi from THAT close???"

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    This is a "No True Scotsman" argument. No Koryu uses predominantly solo training techniques, but Iai does, therefor Iai koryu are not "true" koryu.

    The question is what mix of solo versus partnered practice is best. We could get some historical data on when solo Iai practice came into vogue. I have read that the Tosa (Eishin-ryu) and Satsuma (Jigen-ryu) samurai were well regarded. How did they train? What were the success rates and reputation of various samurai based on period and how they trained?

    Without this information, we will just have to duel it out, but who gets choice of weapons? Anyone out there need a Master's thesis?
    Last edited by Jack B; 7th October 2003 at 17:37.
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    Originally posted by gendzwil
    Ok then a new thought for consideration. Is it acceptable to publicly disparage other arts for not training the way you do?
    I don't know about disparage, but certainly we can have a discussion about what is the emphasis of each art, why they train the way they do, what they learn from that training.
    That seems reasonable enough, but I'm actually talking about saying this like what was mentioned above in Meik's post. Again I don't mean to pick on Meik it's just that his example is handy. That is clearly not a discussion about the emphasis of each art.



    It may or may not surprise you to find that I don't care - I find kendo in and of itself to be sufficient for my goals. I certainly hope you aren't surprised to find that kendo people think you are not learning complete swordsmanship, either.
    Doesn't suprise me at all. Doesn't bother me what people think. I have my own thoughts. I don't post some of them because I do not wish to offend others. That's what this thread is about, not that everyone should know and love all things iaido. It was supposed to be, and hopefully still is, about the limits of what things are acceptable in public discourse. I'm not asking for the moderators to step in and remove offensive posts or anything. Just trying to establish the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.

    Neil, I'm guessing based on your response that you did not find anything offensive in Meik's post?
    Charles Mahan

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    Default Re: Hayashizaki Ryu?

    Originally posted by DCPan
    Hayashizaki Ryu?

    I remember seeing an iaijutsu video...probably Hayashizaki Muso Ryu (Nihon Kobudo Series, so it's the real stuff), where they are wearing LONG LONG swords in the belt, but actually begins the kata such that you are leaning shoulder to shoulder against the other person in tatehiza.

    What you saw on a video is hardly conclusive of what the regular training curriculum of Hayashizaki ryu is like. Are you asserting that most of their training looks like this? I have seen a video of MJER two man forms being performed with iaito. Can I then draw the conclusion that MJER is predominantly 2 man waza with iaito?

    Could have been a small set of waza in the whole system and one which they only trot out for special events for all I know. Could have been a demonstration of the bunkai for a waza that is normally performed solo.
    Charles Mahan

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