From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
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Tag: General thoughts
Rank Is Not Competence
From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
I have been traveling to train in Japan over 50 times over the last 23 years. I’m what you can call a “Jurassic ninja”.
But yesterday for the first time I forgot my belt on the mats. I left it right after Nagato sensei’s class and it made me think on the value one attaches to this piece of fabric and what does rank really means.
Luckily for my ego, my friend Joe Maurantonio message me that he found it and put it on the big koi at the entrance of the dôjô. And luckily I didn’t forget my key of the dôjô so I got it back.
To see my belt lying on top of this huge koi fish* was quite symbolic. As you know we have created with my friend Shiva from India a Bujinkan website** for online streaming and in the past three years we have recorded all the training themes (weapons, ryûha) from the end of the 80′s until the beginning of the Juppô Sesshô cycle (2003).
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For that I see myself as being quite competent. But is it true?
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Theoretical 応答能, ôtônô, (competence) is shown by the belt. On the mats it is easy to look good as everyone expect you to be good: “he is Jûgodan, so he must be good”. This is an illusion, a twisted appreciation of reality, and a true cognitive dissonance*** because they judge you on the omote (what people think you are) and do not see the ura (what you really are).
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Outside of the dôjô the attacker has no clue about who you are in your “dôjô cocoon” and when he comes at you he has no doubt about the outcome of his attack. Unlike what we often see on the mats, he is 200% Tori and sees you as a full Uke. No belt, no rank. There is only reality.
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Forget the Matrix; there is no blue or red pill, or any plug to download competence in your brain; there are only many years of hard training. Rank is not competence and a belt doesn’t do the training for you. If we witness that everyday in our lives and in the dôjô, the majority tends to forget it. Whoever we are, whenever you are in Japan you are only a student and not a teacher. My brother Pedro explained it nicely in a recent FB post, please read it****. Pedro explains that there is only one sensei, Hatsumi sensei. If you believe yourself to be a 先生 sensei maybe what you call sensei is only 浅才 sensai (a lack of ability).
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In each class you can see those “sensai teachers” teaching their lack of understanding to their partner instaed of training. They often train with a kyû belt or a young black belt. These “buyû” have no 武勇 buyuu martial prowess, they are simply 不優 buyuu badly skilled!
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Their 自信 jishin (self-confidence) is 児真 jishin (childish reality).
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These sensai teachers are the perfect illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect*****:
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“The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes. The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self.”
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The more unskilled they are and the more they believe in their own value. They train fast in order to hide their incompetence. They inflict pain to their partner thinking that the more pain they give, the more skilled they are. Don’t get me wrong, to inflict pain is ok but why doing it when it is unnecessary? They hide in the back of the dôjô (far from sensei) to teach their own 無能, munô (inefficiency) to their victim of the day.
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Over the years I have tried to tell them not to do it, but it proved to be useless as they are only listening to themselves and do think they are good. Maybe this is why I have so many high ranks teachers disliking me. A few years ago two guys came to Nagato sensei and said: “sensei we don’t understand” and Nagato sensei answered: “you don’t understand? then go back home!”. They still come to Japan and train with him regularly. But if he can say that, as I am not Japanese people consider me wrong, arrogant or incompetent.
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But how can it be different?
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Each time they come to Japan they are promoted. This persuades them of their own value. They have no doubt. When they return home to their worshipers (no one forces the students to pay the training fee) believe their teacher is good because the “Japanese Shihan” give him a higher rank. This is a vicious circle.
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Another reason for their wrong behavior is that the “ranking race” stops at the Jûgodan level. So these “unskilled individuals” will eventually get to this rank. And having the same rank will consider themselves equal to you. I recently experienced it as a freshly promoted Jûgodan corrected me on a waza I have been training when he was still wearing pampers!
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There is no shortcut to experience! 応答能 ôtônô, (competence) is acquired through time and the belt you wear is only a piece of fabric. Rank is not competence it is a trap for your ego.
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So please enjoy your next training as a true 学生 gakusei (student) and don’t forget that being a gakusei means to 学 (learn) 生 (life) and that it is the chance that Hatsumi sensei is offering us.
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* koi fish: the Japanese bass. For some reason there is a huge stuffed koi in a glass box at the entrance of the dôjô. Maybe a ninja bass, who knows.
** www.koimartialart.com gets about 1500 visits per week. All the dvds from www.budomart.com are available in online streaming. We did that to serve as a “Bujinkan library” of all the waza in order to help the teachers and the community to remember the general forms. A video is always better than a written text as simultaneity is visible. This is not the case in a book where everything is linear. Disclaimer: these are my interpretations and they are not “official bujinkan” material.
*** cognitive dissonance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
**** Pedro’s post: “Gisei” you can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/pedro.fleitas.5?fref=ts
***** Dunning-Kruger effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
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Henka: A Poetic Strangeness
From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
We often use the word “Henka” 変化 when referring to an adaptation of a given waza. But this word is more than it seems. I remember Sensei explaining once that in a Ryûha, a henka is described as a part of the level considered. A henka in a school is like another way of doing the same technique but respecting the 法 hô, principle of the original waza.
The dictionary gives different meanings: “change” or “variation”; but also the meaning of “transition”, as if a henka could be the passage from one technique to another. When one studies a Ryûha he is often surprised to see that the “official henka” links the waza from which it is created to the next Waza coming right after it.
Apart from these “official henka” the word in general refers to the ability to apply a prinicple of action to different situations. The Kanji 変 Hen alone has the meaning of “change” but also the meaning of “strange, curious, funny, unexpected”. When I first joined Sensei’s teachings at the London Taikai of 1987, I had no clue about anything, but even less the word henka. But I do remember vividly that each technique he was doing seemed “curious” and for sure totally “unexpected”!
Many Bujinkan practitioners do not know enough the basics and fundamentals of the art to produce correct henka, but I noticed that things are slowly “changing” and every time I meet bujinkan practitioner in Japan or abroad I can see a positive evolution in their understanding and performance. Like many of you I don’t speak Japanese but I keep digging in my dictionaries in order to understand Sensei’s budô better. As he wrote in his book “unarmed fighting techniques of the Samurai”, it is important to understand the meaning of the names of the waza.
Hatsumi sensei is not only a fantastic martial artist, he is a philosopher of the martial arts and his teachings can be applied in our daily lives. Like Monsieur Jourdain in Moliere’s theater play, we do henka everyday without knowing it! The Bujinkan is teaching us to adapt our lives to the situations and people we meet, and we are adapting our actions in permanence without really being aware of it.
The world of henka is endless but first you need to know your basics correctly. If “hen” means many things, this is also the case with “ka”. Ka, 化 is the “action of making something” i.e. the perpetual change, the perpetual adaptation. But written differently: 下, it is “under” meaning that change lies under, invisible to our senses. Creating a henka is the action of moving something from the invisible world to the visible and sensitive world.
In my opinion this is the real lesson of this world of henka taught by sensei. Funnily, the suffix 課, ka as a stand alone also means “lesson”. This is a lesson we learn by adapting our lives to reality. It is close to the sentence we all repeat before and at the end of the class: “shikin haramitsu dai komyô”; as each action taken brings a lesson to learn from. And often the lesson is unexpected, therefore it changes the regular understanding of henka 変化 into henka 変課 .
Seeing the world differently is the strength of 歌人 kajin, the poet who plays with the words in order to manifest the beauty that lays hidden invisible around us. I have the feeling that Sensei has transformed us into 変歌人 henkajin, eccentric poets ; or to be in the mood for the kunoichi taikai beginning in a few days into 変佳人 henkajin: unusual beautiful women.
Thank you Sensei to make us 変化仁 henkajin, men of change and adaptation.
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Yama Michi
From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
In a recent and interesting article Dan Ordoins quoted Emerson: “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Thank you Dan this sentence made me think a lot!
What does it mean for a Bujinkan practitioner? How can we manage it own trail while obeying to our master?
In my opinion it is possible if we rewrite it as follow: “once you have acquired the necessary knowledge and reached the jûgodan level it is not anymore necessary for you to go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”.
In japanese 山道 yama michi (mountain trail) gives this idea of difficulty of trekking but also the importance of 道 michi or dô (the path, the way.
Therefore “leaving a trail” is creating your own taijutsu and this can only be achieved if you reach the level where it creates itself.
In a private discussion with sensei a few years ago, he told me that all jûgodan were turning into little Sôke…and that it was good because it meant that he had been able to transmit the essence of ninpô.
This is this essence that matters but it can only be found if you have a guide, a master, a “sensei” to teach it to you.
Without a real sensei, without the be respect and obedience you owe him there is no way you can “leave a trail”.
Bujinkan is about survival, so choose wisely your next step.
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Japan Trip April 2012 – Diary
From Shiro Kuma's Weblog by kumafr
I came back yesterday from a fantastic trip and I hope you have been able to share with me the things I trained in Noda.
I have been asked in Japan why I was writing so much*. It is to share with the community some of the knowledge we get in Japan with Sôke and the shihan. I hope it will help you to wait for your next trip.
These texts* and these pictures are my attempt to give a fair image of what is happening in Japan. This is why I have added many pictures to these texts.
I took many pictures and not all are good but please see them as a training documentary. Pictures being forbidden during training, you will mainly have pictures taken before and after the class. As today someone asked me to put a link here to access the pictures uploaded on facebook during my trip you will find them below:
The first album contains the first 10 days (over 500 pict):
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3395318174028.144619.1601937800&type=3
and the second one only the last day (around 100 pict):
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3464131334314.145724.1601937800&type=3
Enjoy and comment them if you feel like it.
*All the texts in this blog were uploaded in April. If you want to read them again, click on “April 2012″ in the home page and they will appear.
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