How are the martial arts learned?
How are they passed to the next generation?
In studying the Japanese martial arts, often in a classical
manner, we often come across the concept of isshi soden- meaning direct transmission.
Isshi soden: The
complete transmission of a school’s methods and principals of movement, often
passed to a select few, or a direct heir in the martial arts.
Far from a relic of the samurai age, this concept is vital
in understanding the possibility of how the martial arts are transmitted.
How are the martial arts learned?
Certainly there is a physical aspect to the ‘arts. We can explore philosophy, spirituality, and strategy, but being physical, martial arts are practiced and learned through physical interaction. This kind of transmission is what most people think of regarding the martial arts.
Copy the moves, practice the moves, and refine the moves,
the idea of shu-ha-ri. Put in the time and dedication to build a base. This
base in the Japanese martial arts is known as the kihon, the foundation of
movement, and certainly every martial art, regardless of school, style, or
tradition has these foundation moves.
They are the moves, the building blocks that teach distance,
timing, and rhythm- how the art you are studying does things.
In the martial arts, these are the things that you can see
with your physical eyes, and copy physically, but they are only half of the
transmission.
This is where many students stop in training- make sure
in your own martial arts journey that you don’t stop at this point in the
training.
The second half is feeling, which is why one needs to train
under a teacher, under a master, to have a chance to experience and capture the
feeling.
When a martial arts technique is done correctly, there is a
feeling behind it, and if one is able to truly experience this feeling, one can
use the feeling in applying the technique. One half of the martial arts is
being able to do the techniques, the other half is allowing them to be done to
you correctly, accepting the outcome, so one can (try) and capture the feeling.
Isshi soden is where the martial art you are studying has
both of these parts given and transmitted to you, with the ability to at least
reach an understanding of the experience and feeling.
Which is why, isshi soden, also implied training one to one.
One to one in that the teacher, the master, the one
transmitting it, needs to be working with every student, physically working
with them, not academically teaching.
Both sides need to be experienced.
Finishing with a question.
An honest question.
In your own training, in each class at the dojo, are you
working on or at least trying to be open to the experience? Allowing techniques
(waza) to be performed on you without trying to counter, resist, or interject
the ego?
Each class is a chance to be receptive to being open, to a
possibility.
See you on the mat!