Jodo last evening, we started with the partner kihon and got about a third of the way through. Not really technical correction, but “mindly” correction. Mostly it was to re-emphasize the importance of tachi in jodo. I seem to remember a story that at Shiriashi Hanjiro’s dojo there was a fellow who did all the tachi all the time. The famous jodoka that we know didn’t hold the tachi until about five years. This is something that all the sensei mentioned at the recent seminar, that tachi is something to be worked on. Without a good tachi, there is no good jodo.
What is the role of Uchidachi? It’s to teach, there is no question about that. So learn how to be a good tachi. In the first kihon, honte uchi, the basic riai (principle) is distance. Each repetition means you line up at issoku itto no maai, one step distance. Can jo reach the face of tachi? Jo will never know if tachi leaps backward the moment jo starts moving. A good tachi waits until jo has almost touched them before shifting back a minimum distance. Tachi gets practice in judging the attack (or gets hit in the face) and jo sees the target. Very simple. Check point? How far do you have to step back to re-establish the one-step distance?
The second kihon, gyakute uchi, is a hit to the side of the head. Tachi puts his sword up on the centerline so that jo sees where that is, and steps back to maintain the distance with each strike. That is the defence, but does that step back come with jo’s step forward? No, leave the target there for a while, then step out of danger at the last moment. This makes jo courageous and trusting. Jo is afraid he will hit you, he is afraid you won’t be able to get out of the way. Teach him to trust that you are better than he is. If you’re not, you still have the sword in the right position to defend yourself.
Hiki Otoshi Uchi is the third kihon. Here tachi can adjust the distance to help jo out of some technical problems. Tachi will stretch the distance, stand a bit further away, if jo tends to drop his hand or is afraid of hitting his hand on the sword. Tachi can crowd in a bit if jo tends to lean forward, forcing jo into a better posture.
These are simple things, but they require that tachi be involved in the process, not just ho-humming along to get some exercise. I offered to run a situp, pushup class if that’s all we are doing. There are more efficient ways to build fitness than doing jodo kihon.
“If uchidachi knows what shijo is going to do can’t he mess him up?” Sure he can, it’s easy, but that’s not uchidachi’s job. He knows what is going on next so that he doesn’t get hurt, and so that jo can “unload” on him. In other words, jo tries to hit tachi, tachi knows he’s going to try and so moves to keep safe. There are three arts in the kendo federation, iaido teaches you how to hold and swing a sword. Kendo teaches you how to deal with variation and allows both sides to try to hit each other in a “chaotic” situation. Jodo provides a middle ground, where you can work on technique through a large number of attacks and defences with both a sword and a stick, which, frankly, is much more complex than a sword. Two ends and all that, a sword only has one end.
You’ve got to walk before you run
We did a bit of kata at the end of the class, and somehow the topic of gradings came up. During the last grading it was suggested that we were going to do the rotation system for 4dan and up. In one of my rare moments of dictatorial decisionmaking I instantly said no. The reason being that I’m not at all interested in making the 4 and 5 dan gradings twice as difficult as they already are. Have your partner, practice the kata (that you know are required) with that partner for months, before the exam. We want to see perfect technique, we want to see the two of you doing the dance correctly. We want to see if you can teach this stuff by knowing exactly how it goes.
We do not want to see if you can do all that with two strangers you’ve met the day of the exam. The rotation system requires that you instantly, during the first kata, balance the demonstration between you. If one side overwhelms the other, that’s a fail point. If one side collapses in fear, that’s a fail point. If one partner is too short or too tall, and you can’t handle that, if one partner is southern style and one northern, and you can’t handle that…. you get the picture.
You must learn the kata before you can start going into the next phase, which is to change them at need. With jodo this takes a long time, years. Jodo is not Niten Ichiryu, with Niten you can learn the kata in about ten minutes, then you can start to “unload” on your partner and try to hit each other because you know what’s happening and how to deal with it.
Now, lately on the internet I’ve seen a couple of bloody heads attributed to Niten Ichiryu practice. This I am not very pleased to see. 1. It will cause problems from the “it’s not safe” crowd. 2. Seriously? There should never be a bloody head in a kata, it’s a kata to avoid just that. Slow down, walk before you run. Blood on the dojo floor during kata doesn’t mean you’re tough, it means you’re careless. Save the bloodletting for competitive budo, like MMA or boxing. I’ve left lots of blood on the floor, sometimes through accident (Carole…) and usually through getting tagged in boxing or TKD or self defence classes. I may still have tooth marks on my back from 1987.
Jodo is too complex to think about messing around with timing and speed and distance during a kata, until you have years of experience wearing the dance into your bones. Like the number of years it takes you to get to 5dan.
And then you have the opposite problem, which is to break out of the kihon. Yesterday I had the tachi put down their bokuto and hold out their hand so that jo could touch it in kaeshi tsuki (a thrust). I held it high and heard “that’s not the right height”.
You understand? At some point, like maybe 5dan, the kata become a trap. If you think you know a martial art because you can repeat the kata really, really well, (maybe even be allowed to teach it) you risk becoming nothing but a wind-up doll. You’re a one-trick pony and that trick only works, if it works at all, once. The next time I reach out and tap you on the side of the head to knock you over and there you are, your little robot legs waving in the air until the spring runs down.
You can’t fight with kata, especially if your opponent knows what you’re going to do next. But you can stand in the way of an approaching jo and move only when it’s dangerously close. You can wait until a sword cut is fully committed and then, only then, move out of the way.
If you can do that, what is there in life that you can’t handle?
Seito Bugei Juku 