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Thread: Training In Japan Isn't What You See In The Movies

  1. #1
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    Default Training In Japan Isn't What You See In The Movies

    I had a great time visiting some of my teachers in Japan recently, and wrote a blog post about it. I find training in Japan to be so different from what people expect think it is that there is little relation. Now the one caveat is that I'm writing about koryu budo here, and not gendai budo, where the training has been heavily influenced by the nuttiness of the militarist era of the 20th century.

    This is also the chance for the senior guys around here to slap me up side the head and tell me I have it all wrong. (Hi guys!)

    http://budobum.blogspot.com/2013/10/...ou-see-in.html
    Peter Boylan
    Mugendo Budogu LLC
    Fine Budo Books, Videos, Clothes and Equipment Direct from Japan
    http://www.budogu.com

    Find my Budo Blog at http://budobum.blogspot.com/

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  3. #2
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    Really good blog post, Peter.
    I'd think that these people you train with, who have been training for decades and attained high rank, are doing it for love of the art, not because they're on some kind of ego trip. Especially with koryu, where nobody ever gets to "own" the art - only to be a vessel which bears the art to a new generation of practice. You can't have an inflated ego or be on some kind of power trip and do that. What it does take is dedication, self-honesty, hard hard work, and passion for the art and the way of life.
    I'll bet that a lot of the people you train with are school teachers or college professors, engineers, businessmen, and other hard-working professionals and family folk who have incorporated budo into the fibre of their lives. They are Normal People who do unusual things.
    Cady Goldfield

  4. #3
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    Training in my dojo. Well, in Tokyo, actually. Here in Nagoya Sensei usually sits in a folding chair.
    Josh Reyer

    Swa sceal man don, žonne he ęt guše gengan ženceš longsumne lof, na ymb his lif cearaš. - The Beowulf Poet

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    I would disagree. After nearly 5 decades of Budo I would say there are more ego trippers in Kobudo. A visiting foreigner is not party to what goes on behind the scenes. Many people have tried to sidetrack me over the years from what I felt was my true and honest path, obligation to my sensei/sohke. Most of the gendai guys just want the community thing. Train and go home.

    Don't want to disillusion anyone but watch your back.

    A menkyo kaiden once said to me, "Don't expect to much of us. We are only human".

    The main thing is try to put your own goodness in and it works out.
    Hyakutake Colin

    All the best techniques are taught by survivors.


    http://www.hyoho.com

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    I wonder whether there's a correlation between the martial intensity and amount of hard physical work, and the degree of ego (or lack thereof). In my experience, albeit limited, with a koryu bujutsu, there was definitely a lack of inflated ego among the students. It was just a lot of very hard, dedicated physical and mental work. No one felt they were anything more than vessels and stewards of an art for a generation.
    Cady Goldfield

  8. #6
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    That's commendable. I made the mistake of looking at the clock once. Big mistake! That's where the gendai helps. Two practices a day, all day Saturday/Sunday. Carry that attitude over and it pays off of wanting to improve and it pays of. A lot of the ego comes out when that word 'succession' pops up. I have seen a Shihan comment on someone's performance and they can't take it. The help, criticism, hard work is to help and should be accepted in that manner.
    Hyakutake Colin

    All the best techniques are taught by survivors.


    http://www.hyoho.com

  9. #7
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    Yeah. Just so. All sorts and just, well, all sorts ... Good, bad, indifferent; just folks; but reputations are, more or less, deserved, too.

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