|
Submission To Authority In The Koryu
By: Peter Boylan
Published: Journal of Japanese Sword Arts
VOL 11/11-12 # 105 Dec, 1999 Pages 27-29
A lot of people have have been questioning the way submission to
authority works in koryu in Japan. The most common assumption is that it has to be similar to the way things are in North America. In North
America, questioning authority is similar to breathing. We grow up doing, and we naturally thing others do to. We do it everywhere, even,
though not nearly as much as in other places, in the dojo. Without any experience to counter this, we assume that koryu dojos in Japan are a
lot like gendai dojos here.
If you are one of the people who believes this, then I am afraid that you are utterly mistaken. This is not like submission to authority in
North America. Many people have related stories about things that have happened in their budo experience where they just kept their mouth shut
and kept training, rather than questioning the rightness of the teachers. In a koryu dojo, even the thought of questioning the sensei is
not acceptable.. Participation in a koryu in Japan demands COMPLETE submission to the authority of the sensei. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY YOU
WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE DOOR!!!
That cannot be stressed enough. Koryu in Japan are not culturally conservative
traditions. At their most liberal, they are merely reactionary. In the dojo, you shut up, do what you're told, and love it. The only other
option is to leave.
That's it. Admittedly, the teachers are not gods. They make mistakes and I have a few bruises to show where they misjudged what I
was ready for. Of course, I have a lot more that are from me not paying close
enough attention to what was going on.
In some of the modern arts such as judo (which I practice) and kendo (which
I don't, yet), there is a lot more room for individual activity because they
are no longer styles, they are more like umbrellas under which millions of
people can train together. I drive some of the sempai crazy in judo because
I use a lot of techniques that are not part of the local "style" of judo. Thankfully, the senseis have always backed me on these issues. But in
the modern style dojos, there is room for disagreement.
There is no such room in the koryu dojos. You do what the teacher indicates, and you do it yesterday. No, there are not a lot of overt
displays of authority, but few are needed. We bow in, and we bow out. Everyone knows who is in charge, and who isn't. The highest
ranking person present is in charge. If that happens to be me (has happened on a
couple of bizarre nights) than I'm in charge, and we only practice the most
fundamental techniques, because I don't wish to overstep MY authority. My teachers tell me whether I did anything wrong or not later.
What most people outside Japan don't realize is the degree to which total submission to authority is considered a mark of maturity in Japan. When
I first came to Japan, I was teaching junior high school here, and I was appalled at how little actual thinking goes on in Japanese schools, or
in Japanese society at large, for that matter. Students learn to do what they
are told, or they drop out of school (something which can be done while
still "technically" attending). There is no place in Japan for people who
do not submit to authority. That is the social system (I realize that I may
be over-exagerating this, but not by much). The top companies are the ones
that submitted to the authority of MITI and did what they were told. When MITI made mistakes, the banking system was used to bale out those
companies that ran into problems because they followed directions.
Which is the other side of the coin here. You submit utterly to the authority in the dojo. In return, the authority accepts absolute
responsibility for you. Most Americans won't tolerate those extremes. However, once you submit to that authority, you realize very quickly
that there are reasons for the total submission to it. To put it in blunt,
modern military terms, THIS IS BOOT CAMP. Granted, it is boot camp run on a
500 year old paradigm, but it's still boot camp, and camp and koryu have a
lot in common.
They are both training you to go out onto the field of combat, and come back
off of it in one piece. For that, you have to be aware of the smallest details, you have to be able to use your skills without thinking about
them, and you have to be able to react to a given order without question. That
last part is, I think, semantically equal to "complete submission to authority." Koryu training, while utilizing anachronistic weapons, is
still training the individual for combat under any conditions.
One last thing about the required submission to authority in koryu. It's not as hard as you think. When you know nothing about what is going on,
it is not difficult to shut up and follow directions as well as you can. In
addition, everyone, gaijin and Japanese occasionally makes the mistake of doing a little thinking, and trying something based on that thinking.
Almost invariably, you are wrong, and you get smacked down in the dojo.
Usually this is for your own, immediate safety. Otherwise it is to prevent
you from trying something foolish at a later time. If you can stick it out,
you learn that there are deep reasons for doing things the way you are doing
them, and so you stop questioning that authority, even in your own mind.
This usually happens about the same time you begin to understand some of the
reasons for doing things the way you do. After that, it is not a matter of
questioning authority, but of trying to better understand it. Once you understand it, they give you a menkyo. But that takes a while, and I'm
not there yet.
Before anyone conjectures about what training in Japan is like, they should come train here. The culture is so radically different from what
you are used to that you cannot imagine it. Everyone who comes here goes through a process of discovering that it is not at all what they
expected. Things don't work like you think they should. You have to
experience Japan to appreciate it. I know this sounds elitist, and Diane Skoss took a lot of heat for her article declaring that the only
way to study koryu is to come to Japan, but she is right, and it is.
Once you have been here for a while, you can go back to your home country and train on your own. You may even be given permission to teach.. What
you are training will be koryu. What you are teaching will not be. Americans in America
will not give the total submission required.
To study koryu you must give total submission to authority. Your only recourse is to leave the dojo. There are no other options. Anything
else is not koryu. |
