Of Iaijutsu And Character

When I started Iaijutsu a decade and more ago, I had very little idea what I was getting into.  I thought I was just learning to draw and cut with a katana, something I had always wanted to learn.  I would add in some physical training and a little Japanese of course, and maybe - possibly - a trip to Japan.  

I assume that many people start martial arts in the fashion:  a whim, a thought for a hobby, something to fill the time.  And for many, I am sure that is what it becomes and remains.

For some of us though, it ends up becoming a lot more.

I could not have really defined the changes for you - the real changes - in a way that would have been meaningful.  In class, we train the entire corpus of our style again and again.  Soke - our headmaster - acts as if our time here is short (as it is) and so we train the entire series over time, from "entry" level to "advanced" techniques (in quotes of course, as even entry level has layers within layers).  One learns - first brokenly, then with greater confidence - as the practice and training shifts to another series.  One practices at home - first brokenly, then with greater confidence - only to take the practiced techniques back to class.

On and on it goes.  Training after training.  Year after year.

Over time of course, the nature of the practice and improvement changes.  As the years have rolled on, my sensei has directed me to work on different specific areas:  the fact that one shoulder is higher than the other when I sheath (noto) -which took me 10 years to correct, the fact my hand is slightly in further out at the initial cut than it should be, the fact that I need (always, always, alwyas) to get lower in stature.  In a way smaller and smaller subunits are focused on even as one continues to practice forms and larger series.

The reality - one that I scarcely admit but cannot deny - is that with Iaijutsu, we are practicing techniques that have been passed down for 420 years with one purpose:  combative application.   Iaijutsu (as opposed to Iaido) retains its original combative effectiveness.  This is not a dance that we are performing:  there should lie before our mind's eye an opponent who is reaching for their sword with hostile intent or have even drawn it  and are coming in..  We must interrupt, defend/block, and attack.  And our techniques are only meant, as Soke  says, as building blocks.  Life never happens the way the kata is practiced - there are no "textbook" attacks - and so we must learn to improvise and connect and string together.

Bearing the thought that  I could actually, if I have to, do considerable damage is one I do not take lightly at all - I, who belief myself to be one of the most inoffensive of men.  It has been said - and rightly - that martial artists are the least likely individuals to actually get into fights because they understand the damage that can be done.

And one learns other things as well:  respect for the dojo, sensei, and others; the practice and trial of any interest of practicing something again and again alone and in silence; of learning to receive criticism and correct mistakes and understanding that this is not the end - there will be a new thing to correct after this one.  Soke has referred to our art as a Lifetime practice:  We will never arrive at the point that we are perfect.

For all of this though, I still had missed one critical change in myself - something so subtle and profound that I did not grasp it until reading someone's else's words, I received illumination.

It will probably come as a surprise to no-one that among the elements of my somewhat oversized library, I have a reasonable collection of materials on Japanese history and martial arts, a combination of old works and modern works covering almost every aspect of Japan to 1877.  Among them, in a more modern book called Flashing Steel by Masayuki Shimabukuro and Leonard J. Pellman, I found the following comment on the nature of training in the martial arts that - once again - took my breath away:

"Society is simply a collection of individuals.  Social ills, like crime and drug abuse, are merely reflections of the combined failings of the individuals who comprise society.  Laws cannot reform society and cure its ills, they can only punish violators.  Society is like our collective shadow.  If the shadow is bent and twisted, no amount can straighten it out.  Only by straightening ourselves does our shadow also straighten, and then it does so effortlessly and automatically.  So it is that reform must start with individuals and spread through society.  It is a grassroots process in which part of us is either part of the disease or part of the cure."

What is the critical change that Iaijutsu has wrought in me?  It has changed my character.

I have learned to consider my words and actions more carefully.  I have learned to be more patient and more humble.  I have learned that improvement comes only from endless training and I have learned to accept the fact that while ultimate improvement is possible,  immediate improvement usually is not.  I have learned personal reserve where I needed it.  I have learned to pay attention to the smallest details in action and presentation.

In perhaps small ways, I have gained more awareness of the environment and situation around me.  I have learned that anger leads to reaction, and reaction leads to confrontation, and that confrontation seldom has the impact or outcome one believes it will.  I have tried to embody in more of my life the symbolic meaning of drawing the sword (nukitsuke)- when you have made a decision, act immediately and without hesitation - and the symbolic meaning of sheathing the sword (noto) - to have no regrets for what you have done and to take complete responsibility for your actions.

In other words, without realizing it I found I was on The Way.

But the words of Shimabukuro and Pellman struck me. In being on The Way, in "straightening my shadow", I am informing and changing my own character and the extent that I change my own character - my own "shadow" - I am adding a beneficial presence to society.    And if there are enough beneficial presences in a society - enough "straight shadows" - that has impact.  

But I can only change my own shadow.  I am the only one that can make my posture more straight.  In training, sensei can consistently remind me to pull in my lower back and pull down my shoulders, but I am the only one that can actually do it.  I am the only one who can learn to memorize the way my lower back feels when I am in the correct position.  Only I can remember that position and do it over and over until it becomes second nature, and then move on to another improvement.

A lifetime challenge of improvement with acknowledgement that while we may always improve, we will never arrive - either in iaijutsu or in character. 

This is The Way.