Some thoughts inspired by “Limits of understanding in the study of lost martial arts” by Eric Burkart, Acta Periodica Duellatorum, Hema studies at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds July 2016.
There is a basic difference between the Western and Eastern arts when we turn to the written records. While some Japanese manuals exist, they are from a much later era than the western books. I’m speaking of actual manuals here, an attempt to convey technique in text and illustration, as opposed to simply listing kata names. For this reason alone it is possible to think of Western medieval arts being recreated today after hundreds of years of interruption in their practice.
Burkart speaks of several problems in the process which he calls “limits to understanding”. First, the cycle of practice-technique has vanished (that break we just mentioned). The fighting culture of the past is also gone and with it the assumptions that filled in the gaps that exist because, while the techniques are described, the concepts behind them are gone, and if the concepts are written down, the practice that gave them life is gone as well.
We were talking about this very idea of practice and concept last evening. In the Japanese martial arts we have many books discussing the concepts of budo. Musashi, Yagyu, strange tengu-types in the woods and hundreds of modern masters have written about things like Mushin and Shu Ha Ri and all manner of other goodies that are claimed to result from practice of the kata.
Readings of these books create lots of Meaning Masters, Definition Doges and Terminology Tzars but most seem to have what one could call the “stink of Zen”. Like a rich Pastor in his Televangelist Palace, they say all the words without having the practice to understand/embody what they mean.
Recently my class has been asking me to practice with them, to set the exercises that let us understand these concepts, to teach the secrets of “getting in there first” and other things. I had to admit last evening, after a couple of pints, that I haven’t a clue how to do this. Whatever I know comes from practicing the kata. Sure I’ve read the books and spout the concepts but honestly, the books only give me names for the things I know. They give me names for the things I don’t know too, but those are hollow, meaningless sounds. Even if the books tell me what those sounds are supposed to represent, I remain clueless until I discover the meaning in the practice.
I suspect that is a major reason kendo started early in the Edo period, after the chance to learn this stuff “by doing” in the wars was gone. I suspect, but my limited experience of kendo may mean that I am wishing for the easy way, the pill that fixes it all, as much as my students. Or perhaps a couple of decades of sports competition have given me some insight, maybe the hands-on arts of aikido and boxing have taught me a bit about reading my opponent. The thing is, one can in fact, learn these concepts from kata, provided the kata are taught in levels and provided they are partner kata.
In iaido we say that you are slightly better than your imaginary opponent for many years, but eventually, in order to learn the important lessons, he has to become slightly better than you. Lovely sentiment, how many out there can create an imaginary opponent at all, good or bad?
We are talking, basically, about reading your opponent, about knowing what he’s going to do next, where he’s going, and being there. What the old guys do in Kendo when they go ever so slow and smack the kids on the head. The secret training for this? It’s not being an old man, it’s being an old man who has spent his whole life trying to read his opponents. It’s having more hours of practice under your belt than your opponent.
For some things it doesn’t matter what art you’ve done, as long as you’ve put your time in. In class I presented two or three different ways to hold the sword, saying “which is stronger”. The “old karate hand” actually made pained noises when the bad ones showed up. The beginners couldn’t see as well. No secrets, really, just practice. Just knowing “that one doesn’t work when I try it”.
Perhaps the Western folks are not as crippled with a lack of text on concepts as they may feel they are. I suspect most of the population of 1550s Germany had no more clue than we do. The concepts are just labels for things learned while practicing. They have to be “embodied” through practice before they become “a thing”.
Burkart says this knowledge is lost forever, that Western fight books are the fossil remains of a dinosaur. He mentions the theory of hermeneutics which, nutshell-like, states that in order to understand something we make assumptions. Whence come these assumptions? From our life experience, so to understand the old fight books we fill in the gaps with our (modern) experience.
Is it possible to do otherwise? Can we ever arrive at a pure understanding of a medieval martial art, continuous practice or not? Who could confirm our pure understanding? What would such an understanding mean anyway? What does any understanding of history (archeology) give us anyway? That the aboriginal population of Australia got there 15,000 years earlier than previously thought means what, exactly? Will it change the racist attitudes of anyone? Strengthen modern land claims? Provide better bragging rights?
The world begins with my birth and ends with my death. The past has meaning only in relationship to my existance now. I may be curious as to the “real” fighting arts of the past but it is my curiousity that gives that knowledge meaning. Man is truly the measure of all things. THIS man, to each man.
So why bother? I return to the question of why study martial arts and I must assume there is a trans-historical, trans-cultural benefit of some type, or the Eastern arts would not have survived. It is true that they have changed, our Eastern arts are probably as far away from pure medieval arts as the western arts, yet they still exist. What value did society find for them through the years as the assumptions changed?
Why do you practice?
Seito Bugei Juku 