Going from Gendai Budo to Koryu

The vast majority of people practicing budo today are training in gendai budo. These are loosely defined as schools that were founded after the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan in 1868. The first gendai budo, Kodokan Judo, was founded by Kano Jigoro based on his training in the Tenjin Shin’yo Ryu and Kito Ryu jujutsu schools, and then refined through a tradition of fighting open challenge matches against all comers.

Kano Shihan molded his Kodokan Judo to be suitable for teaching in Japan’s new public education system as a way of preserving and handing down the teachings of classical jujutsu to future generations. This required tremendous reworking of how the jujutsu was taught and transmitted. Kano was inspired by Western ideas about education, and, as a result, he transformed the old school jujutsu into a system that could be taught to large groups with a clear ranking system that is as objective as he could come up with. Kano’s system starts with techniques, then adds randori (sparring), a system of competition, and finally kata for learning the more subtle aspects of the art, as well as those many parts that aren’t suitable for use in a sporting environment.

Mifune Kyuzuo (left) and Kano Jigoro (right)

Budo schools in Japan up to Kano Shihan’s time were generally small and focused on personal instruction. Their culture discouraged the open teaching of their skills and required loyalty to the school. Transmission in these schools is primarily kata based, and the skills are practiced with lethal intent rather than any thought of fair competition, where everyone goes home healthy and whole afterwards. Gendai budo generally take a sporting view of things - everyone is equal and equally armed.

Learning koryu isn’t like learning gendai budo. Instead of a sporting environment based on fair play and safety, koryu assume that everyone is heavily armed and that “fair” means a big gathering where people often drink too much and get in fights. This makes all the difference in the training atmosphere. There is nothing sporting going on. It’s serious learning, and making mistakes can hurt. Students coming to koryu budo from gendai budo have some mental adjustments to make. They have to get over the idea that a “fair fight” is in any way a good thing and start thinking in terms of maximizing every possible advantage.

The oldest koryu, arts like Takenouchi Ryu, come directly from battlefields. Others come from more peaceful times. But, even during the Edo period, Japanese cities were filled with people carrying weapons who were happy to use them. All koryu work hard to transmit hard-won understanding of what it takes to survive fights that are usually asymmetrical. There is no assumption that things will be fair and everyone will have the same weapons. In fact, outside of kenjutsu schools, the assumption is generally that things are not fair and that your training partner is not armed the same way you are.

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Starting with the assumption that things aren’t equal changes the nature of training tremendously. It’s all two person kata, which sounds easy because you know the techniques ahead of time. It’s anything but that. In Shinto Muso Ryu, you start out with a 128 cm (roughly 4’) staff, facing a swordsman with a sword that is a little more than a meter (40”), and the person with the sword is a senior teacher who is cutting to hit you. They’re not cutting somewhere in your vicinity. They are cutting 7 cm (3”) into your head. If you don’t move, it’s going to hurt. All of the training is like this. The margin for safety is always tiny. If you don’t move enough, you’ll get cut. If you move too much, you’ll leave an opening that the teacher will exploit and cut you.

The kata are prearranged only as long as you do things correctly, keeping any potential openings closed. Once you have a basic understanding of the kata, if you leave an opening, then your partner is likely to exploit it. (I’ve written about this elsewhere.) The fact that your partner is going to attack any openings you leave during kata practice takes the training to a new level. If you don’t do it right, you will get hit. No one’s being malicious. The goal is to make the training intense and stressful while teaching good ma’ai and timing.

Ideas such as “fair fights” and “good sportsmanship” evaporate like a snowball in a supernova. Some of the first kata taught in Araki Ryu Kogusoku are training to assassinate someone while unarmed. These were training systems for military attendants who might be ordered to do anything their superiors thought necessary, including assassination. The founders and inheritors of these systems would agree with the idea that “if you somehow find yourself in a fair fight, there is something seriously wrong with your strategy.”

Shinto Muso Ryu, for example, provides a good view of the assumption that people are asymmetrically armed. The ryuha and its affiliated arts include a variety of weapons: jo (a short staff), sword, sickle with a ball-and-chain, police truncheon, and cane. There are roughly 142 kata in the entire system, and yet in only seven are the training partners armed equally. Every other kata assumes an asymmetrical encounter between people armed with a variety of weapons. Nothing sporting going on here. It’s survival. Training margins are miniscule, and if you make a mistake, you’re likely to get a nasty bruise at a minimum.

Students going from gendai budo to koryu budo are learning not only new skills, but new ways of thinking about encounters, strategy, and tactics. They are transcending the limited realm of “fair competition” and “sportsmanship” and entering a world where unequal encounters are possible, and assumed.

Special thanks to Jacques Vorves for editorial support.

The Budo Bum is an interview with Peter Boylan lead by Simone Chierichini, editor-in-chief of the The Ran Network.