“Hakkama. Why aikido, some, folks got so tightly wound up in em. (Notep: Katori [old] fashion ala Otake senior, made the MODERN blue kendo gi and hakkama de rigor.) Questions!”
Hakama certainly are an interesting question in the budo. Why use them in the Japanese arts? They are the “pants” of that dress style. The Judo, Karate, junior Aikido folks wearing the white pants are in their “underwear” so I’ve been told. But why use hakama? I suspect the real reason is why not? Maybe “because the chicks like them” or some other reasons. They have meaning depending on which art or line of an art use them. Like Gradings, there is no universal governing body out there to make them mean the same thing for each art. I can speak to Aikikai aikido and Kendo I suppose, so here goes.
The Kendo federation, after the second world war saw a lot of the new students showing up in their Grandfather’s old dress hakama. The Japanese didn’t have a lot of money then.
Funny how it’s changed over the years, you now find that to do a 6 or 7dan iaido grading you more or less are required to show up in montsuki (big fluffy sleeved things with family crest) and to be really keen, a hakama with horizontal as well as vertical pleats (to show that you have just taken a new one right from the package). What any of that has to do with skill, I don’t know. It does show you’ve got money, or are willing to spend big to get a grade.
The official explanation I’ve been given is that “it shows you have self respect and respect for the art.” I dunno. I do know that the stuff is expensive, as is a “real” shinken and, combined with the often required trip overseas to grade, it does separate the rich from the poor, or perhaps the “credit carded” from the rest.
If you use rank to gain respect, or money to use respect, combining them surely brings double respect yes?
The thing is, neither kendo nor jodo use montsuki, the actual requirement for uniform in the federation is, matching top and bottom colours (white, black or blue for iaido, blue or white for jodo or kendo). The uniform should be clean, cared for, mended if needed. No requirements for fancy pants or tops. Still, I was told a while ago that while montsuki is not required, just try to pass without one.
Yes, virginia, there are lazy judges.
In the Aikikai, there are no belt colours and hakama generally means shodan or above. Still, there is variation. I was told by my sensei that in his other club, the women had suggested that menstrual leakage onto white pants was a potential problem. The discussion ended with women wearing hakama at 3kyu, men at Shodan. The hakama is coveted I suppose like the black belt is coveted, as a symbol of rank.
Yet I’ve heard a lot of instructors say to their students, “You want a black belt, (a hakama) go buy one. Just don’t complain to me when you’re beaten up at the next seminar. You see, in most arts other than iaido, you get to defend that belt colour or claimed rank. Sort of a self-fixing problem really. You want a high rank symbol, no problem, but you gotta wear it.
Me, I was quite happy not to be tripping over the damned thing while learning Aikido. In Iaido it was useful for tucking in the sword, in Jodo, I tend these days to wear a Korean Kendo hakama. No belt and velcro, on and off a lot faster. Hey, I’m one of the old ones and high enough in rank that nobody bothers me. Laughs at me sure, but that’s fine. I just rip my velcro at them.
The big difference between iaido and aikido with hakama? No pants means you can just hike the hakama leg up to pee.
He he, oh and kendo guys still don’t wear anything under, like kilts, even if they’re supposed to.
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Seito Bugei Juku 