Hullo.
I am reading with interest the other posts regarding koryu, tradition, and effectiveness. I have been thinking about how this applies in my own practice, and absorbing how it applies in others'. Some thoughts I hope will generate responses:
Toby Threadgill seems to have a position which is very close to my own. When I read the Takamura article in Aikido Journal, it was like someone with the words and the ideas I could not put together put them together, with authority, for me. I think (Toby?) that the Takamura-ha considers themselves a gendai application of koryu concepts and principles. I think many may not consider this"koryu" in the strictest sense of the term.
Takamura said he changed the Shindo Yoshin ryu to better adapt to the realities of modern violence. In that most koryu are documented as changing and adapting to different circumstances from Sengoku, after and thru the Edo period and to the modern era, why does change and adaptation seem to signal a loss of koryu status for many people?
Earl Hartman seems to state that koryu and practical application, (as he or someone else put it succinctly "koryu= ass-kicking" ) no longer go together, and that to claim koryu status by erroneously thinking that what you do with a sword is effective, or to try to give what you do the aura of being effective by claiming koryu, is missing the boat entirely. Indeed many of the koryu pioneers (Diane Skoss, Dave Lowry, etc.) either plainly write or imply that training for combative application is no longer the purpose of such training, instead there are many other (more important?) benefits to be had.
My question is this: Are we not in some way betraying the traditions that the founders fought, spilled their own and other's blood, and killed and died for if we reject that these traditions need to be effective? No one argues that koryu were first and foremost created to give each particular ryuha the edge on the battlefield. Practical effectiveness was what they were all about, as well as psychological strategies for dealing with combat/survival stress (the all important mindset that we talk about). I am sure there were many ryu that were founded and then turned out almost immediately to be miserable failures because the first generation could not fight and died trying.
We talk about the koryu being anti-competition. Gekken? Taryu shiai jujutsu? the old mixed weapons matches that were fought? These were all koryu schools that only later turned gendai combat sports. When battle lacked, they sought to test their skills against other ryu in "less lethal" duels. Karl Friday writes of his own teacher Seki as being made to go to other schools for matches before earning licenses. We seem to applaud the martial vigor of such action, and read with delight the accounts of the old jujutsu masters challenge matches, but then decry such competition as being injurious to the koryu tradition. Perhaps the LACK of competitive spirit and testing ones skills against others in matches (or even in real confrontations in the proper forum (military, etc.) is injurious to the continuing vitality of the koryu tradition?
I understand that weapons, etc. are different today. But I mean in terms of intent and combative spirit. Earl has implied what would happed if the police he trained in kendo with in Japan might had to apply their "totally unrealistic vis-a-vis real swordsmanship sport" in a real fight, even if it was just body mechanics, combative intent, "impact" etc. I don't think most train koryu that way. If we train with the idea that these are cultural traditions with little but social , maybe spiritual relevance today, are we not betraying the intent of these arts?
Rambling , I know, but I would love to hear the opinions of others on this.
Kit