“What should we focus on this evening?” the sensei asks. In a good mood, he solicits some input from his students. “More kata,” a junior member of the dojo replies. 

BY DAVE LOWRY 

AT THIS POINT, three responses are possible. One, the sensei can agree with the junior and, hearing no other requests, proceed with kata practice. This tends to indicate that the dojo is a club, with members participating in a democracy. That might be nice, but it’s not the hallmark of a place devoted to serious budo training. 

Two, the teacher or senior students can tear into the junior: “You don’t ever give your opinion before the seniors!” In this case, the junior is humiliated, and he and others get the idea that the dojo is some kind of para- military organization where there’s an obvious pecking order and any deviation will result in chastisement. 

Three, a senior or the sensei will very quietly, perhaps with a smile, say, “Don’t speak out of turn,” and then look at the seniors to get their comments on the plan for the day. The junior is corrected, but gently because he probably knew what he did was wrong as soon as he did it yet spoke without thinking. Chance are he will be grateful — for the correction and at the understated way it was administered. He learns a lesson without being embarrassed unduly, and the seniors see how a junior is properly set straight, steering his attitude without crushing his spirit. 

THERE’S ANOTHER LESSON to be learned by the junior and the senior. It is this: Much of the training and learning in a dojo is indirect and subtle, and it must be grasped by those who wish to benefit from it.  

The junior must, as soon as he enters the dojo, activate his senses. He must turn on his observation and analysis skills. Learning karate-do doesn’t begin after the warm-ups. It’s ongoing whenever a teacher or senior is present. In the dressing room, the senior keeps his clothes in a neat pile, taking up as little space as possible. That’s a lesson for the junior. He sees the senior being mindful, aware of the space around him. He intuits there’s more here than just a fellow karateka being courteous. 

The seniors set the attitude in the dojo and must constantly be aware of it. The juniors must constantly watch, trying to get the messages that are being broadcast. Both must be aware that little of what’s most important will be obvious or blatant. 

This is where the fiction of martial arts training conflicts with reality. In fictional depictions, the dojo is a place where “wisdom” is distributed with fortune-cookie aphorisms. Indeed, some places try to jam character lessons into their practice. Such establishments will sit down their young students and lecture them about how it’s cool to be honest or brave or loyal. 

I’ve spent time in many dojo. If any of the sensei there had given one of these “Little Samurai” lessons, I’d have probably laughed or wondered if the teacher was having some sort of mental break- down. You don’t affect a student’s character in such a way. You do it through a slow process, guiding instead of forcing, demonstrating correct behavior instead of demanding it. The junior should expect to expend a lot of energy trying to read between the lines of what he experiences in the dojo and in the behavior of his seniors and his sensei. The teacher isn’t going to say, “Heads up, here. I’m going to teach you a lesson.” The lessons are part of the teacher’s daily life; he’s showing you all the time. As a student, your job is to see that. 

“EVER NOTICE how your sensei is never more than an arm’s length from a weapon?” I was asked, not long after I’d begun training, by a professor of Japanese history who knew my teacher and was a frequent guest in his house. In fact, I had thought just the opposite. Swords, real and wooden, were never on display in my teacher’s house. 

The professor, though, told me to look more closely. The sensei kept a strong steel pen in his pocket always. When he was sitting at the dinner table, there would be an iron tea kettle nearby. Letter openers, pocket knives, screwdrivers — as I began to watch him, I noticed that there was always something sturdy within reach. That one conversation with the professor taught me a lot, not just about seeing that my teacher was mindful but that the real lessons were to be had when one knew how to look. 

Is Japanese budo unique in this oblique way of sending and receiving messages? Certainly not. It’s probably true, though, that this kind of teaching and learning is more developed and common in traditional Japanese culture. That’s probably because pre-modern Japan was a place where everyone shared a similar perspective on the world. In your dojo, there are people from many ethnic and religious back- grounds, hailing from diverse places. In old Japan, everyone was pretty much the same. Just as you don’t need to verbally or openly express certain ideas within your family, in the dojo of old, the shared understanding of things was taken for granted. 

Your job as a student of the martial arts is to me de menai, to “see the things that cannot be seen.” How’s that for some fortune-cookie wisdom? 

Dave Lowry has written Karate Way since 1986. For more information about his articles and books, visit blackbeltmag.com and type his name into the search box. 

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