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Some Traditional Ideas Revisited The Principle of Gentleness The principle of gentleness is explained in brief as follows. Victory over the opponent is achieved by giving way to the strength of the opponent, adapting to it and, taking advantage of it, turning it, in the end, to your advantage. Here is an example. When a stronger man pushes me with all his might, I will be beaten if I simply go against him. If, instead of opposing his pushing, I retreat more than he pushes or turn aside the direction of his pushing, he naturally leans forward through his own pushing, and loses his balance. If utilizing his pushing strength, I apply a certain technique on him, it is quite easy to make him fall, as he is losing his balance. Sometimes he will fall merely, if I turn my body skilfully. This is one simple instance of how, by giving way, a contestant may defeat his opponent.
Therein lies principle of gentleness. Curves and Circles
What Western brain could have elaborated this strange teaching, -never to oppose force by force, but only direct and utilize the power of attack ; to overthrow the enemy solely through his own strength, -to vanquish him solely by his own efforts ? Surely none ! The Western mind appears to work in straight lines ; the Oriental, in wonderful curves and circles. Yet how fine a symbolism of Intelligence as a means of foiling brute force ! Much more than a science of defence in this jiujitsu : it is a philosophical system ; it is an economical system ; it is an ethical system, (indeed, I may say that a very large part of jiujutsu training is purely moral) ; and it is, above all, the expression of a racial genius as yet but faintly perceived by these Powers who dream of further aggrandizement in the East. Lafcadio Hearn, Out of the East, 1895
According to Kano, the word judo had two connotations. One is judo in the wide sense and the other one is judo in the narrow sense. Judo in the narrow sense connotes that form which has evolved from the ancient military art of jujutsu. Kano stated : "Although Kodokan judo begins with the randori and the kata, unlike jujutsu, it is based on the principles of physical education and lays stress on the harmonious development of body muscles. The principle described as the way to use body and mind most efficiently is indeed the great principle of humanity. It is a moral doctrine." In other words it is judo in the wide sense.
Kano's ideals of judo and education consisted in "perfecting one's self and benefiting the world. He wrote : "In order to perfect myself, I do not for a moment forget to be of service to the world[..] I will dedicate my future activities to the service of society and for this purpose I shall strive to build up my character and form a firm foundation for my life.
The second principle of Kano's philosophy of education was "the utmost use of one's energy or, in short, the maximum of efficiency. What Kano called energy did not simply imply physiological energy or physical vigor, it connoted the "living force" including both the spiritual and physical aspects of life. From M. Maekawa, Y. Hasegawa, "Studies on Jigoro Kano, Significance of His Ideals of Physical Education and Judo", Bulletin of the Association for the Scientific Studies of Judo, Kodokan, 1963.
10th Dan Holders Yoshiaki Yamashita (1865-1935) was the Shihan's assistant from the very founding of the Kodokan. He is the first one to have been awarded 10th dan by Kano himself, in 1935.
Kaichiro Samura (1880-1964) entered the Kodokan in 1898. Head of judo section of Butoku Kai 1889. Promoted 10th dan in 1948.
Kotaro Okano (1885-1967) entered the Kodokan in 1893. He was promoted 10th dan in 1967.
Charles Palmer (UK) OBE, president International Judo Federation 1965-1979.10th dan 1997.
A Question on Judo Kata Gone Astray - Part One -
I was told by an American magazine editor that he had been told by several internationally ranked coaches that “if you’re interested in winning Olympic-level competition”, then “Kata is a waste of time”, and “that as a coach you’d do better to get the players to lift weights, run, and do Ran-dori with top-flight people”. “Kata” these folks maintain, “is what you do once you get old”, “not what you teach Olympic hopefuls”. The editor asked if I would disagree.
The statements seemed to be only from the standpoint of the coach of Olympic players, as though the players don’t count, and cover such a range of problems that I would have to give a long-winded answer. I could have given a rude very short answer, maybe what it deserved, but here is the long answer.
I will start by stating that I also think that if you are only interested in winning Olympic level competition there is no imperative to practice Kata If there is a use for Kata is another thing. I’ll have to come back to the many uses of Kata later, and even explain what I think Kata is. For the time being when I use the word Kata, I will just talk about what I will later call the listed Kata. That is the eight, nine or however you count them, from the Ko-shiki-no-kata on to the more modern Kata.
Maybe I should have started by trying to find out what is meant by “winning Olympic level competitions”. I may be wrong but as I think there is only one Olympics, the meaning must be medals at the Olympic Games, but does it also mean that just taking part in the Olympics is not good enough or that getting medals in World International or lesser competitions, etc. that bad? What about grading competitions?
Many people I know are proud that they took part in an International contest without even winning a medal. Some even, are proud that they were unofficially allowed to take part in squad training for International matches. Even taking part in other lesser competitions, inter-club etc. can be a matter of pride for some people that had to put in a lot of work to be able to do so. I’m sure those coaches, no matter how much pressure they are under to get medals, cannot mean that people not getting those medals have no place in Judo.
If we, as individuals, are only interested in winning Olympic medals, most of us would give up straight away as we must know what a small percentage of a percentage chance there is of that. It is good that we non-Olympic-medal-winners do not do this and try our best to improve, and get somewhere near our full potential. Our potential is something we should continue to work towards and so we should stay in Judo.
Lazy people, can and do, make the thought that they will probably never get a medal, one of their excuses for not doing the practice our (non-Olympic) coach, suggests and are all too ready to accept any low target of skill or grade. It maybe many people do not improve because they do not want to put themselves at risk of embarrassment, and think it is better to be a big frog in a small pool, and not go for the big pool and find they are really only a small frog.
Our coach, may not be able to influence our nature but he would probably tell us it is almost impossible to know for sure what we are capable of, and we should simply keep on trying, and enjoy (if that is the word) training while we can.
Apart from Kata, what other things are not needed for the aim of getting a medal? You do not need a grade. I can’t see anyone saying another country’s competitors should not take part in the competition as they don’t have a proper grade! You do not need to know any Japanese terminology. You don’t even need to know many techniques. Logically speaking if your one throw is good enough there is no need for any Katame-waza or other throws. Contest rules do not state that we must go into Ne-waza if the throw does not score Ippon. It would be interesting to hear from the Olympic coaches what they think is the minimum number of techniques needed to win those medals.
We must not consider just the Judo side. Many things in modern life are unnecessary for medal winners, reading, writing, music and such, I’ll let you make up your own list of things not needed to win medals. What kind of Olympic medal winners do we in Judo, and society, want then? Is it a mindless fighting machine, that must be sooner or later, when it shows the slightest sign of lack of success at winning medals, be thrown aside, never to be seen again? What kind of C.V. would this person have if he or she then tried to get a job? These questions of qualifications not directly applicable to Judo apply to other sports as well, for example, does a runner really need to have a university education?
We can look on the Olympic Medal Winners as the very top of a great pyramid. I’ll have to say something about the rest of the pyramid later, but while we are here at the top, looking down at the support, I would like to ask the coaches another question. What is the minimum number needed in the pyramid, to have a hope of producing one medal winner?
To get back to training the hopefuls. First of all there is a need to develop a Tokui-waza, that is a favourite (the most suitable) technique. The coach should be able to help with the selection of the main throw. It may be that the person joining the national squad, at say 18 years old and say second-dan, may be advised to drop the throw that got them to the position they are at. Many times we see that the student has blindly mimicked the technique of someone they admire, and it may not be the technique they should be working on. This advice may be hard for the coach to give, and it may cause upset for the student but the student must learn to trust the coach, and invest time and effort for the future.
The coach giving this advice, hopefully, may have enough experience and insight to be able to make this selection, but if there is a doubt the coach should try to be a little more scientific and have some kinds of tests to find out what is best for the student, that is what suits the student’s psycho-physical habits, build etc. One way is to get the student to go through the Nage-no-kata. In the listed Nage-no-kata the throws are carried out on the right and the left, and the coach may find out, for example, that the student is a natural left-hander and not the right-hander they seemed to be up to then. More likely the coach may find the student has a facility for a throw he would never think of trying in Ran-dori, let alone in Shi-ai.
To take a step backwards, I have seen contestants put at a great disadvantage because they had not had to contest against left-handers, so I think it is good to have a mix of right and left handers in a training squad. If there doesn’t happen to be a mix like this, an alternative would be to get some of the right-handers in the squad to train as though they were left-handers. Of course they will have needed prior training to do this. So once again Nage-no-kata would be helpful.
Once a Tokui-waza is sorted out how does the student carry out the practice of a hundred thousand times that we were traditionally told we need (See T.P. Leggett’s article “The Cherry Tree”). Most of us think this training must be carried out in Uchi-komi.
I note that this is not even mentioned above in the statements by the coaches! Most people, even after they have done the 100,000, still find at times they sometimes have trouble with their Tokui-waza and have to “go back to basics” and this basic can be found in Kata. Jigoro Kano said that Kata is the grammar of Judo, Ran-dori he said was the composition.
In the initial statement, it was said Ran-dori with top-flight people is what is recommended instead of Kata.I have never seen any alternative to Uchi-komi and Ran-dori as the main training methods both for the top competitor and the hopefuls. I’m not sure if the statement means that this is not so in some places. Anyway, it looks like we are caught on the horns of a dilemma with the statement. If it is good for the student to do Ran-dori with top-flight people, it sounds like it is a waste of time for the top-flight person. This I do not believe to be true, in a session of Randori, there are many ways of preventing anyone wasting time, and I’m sure the coaches don’t need me to remind them of those ways.
One way would be to develop techniques that would not be powerful enough to be, at the moment, used against other top competitors, and where do I suggest this person find the other throws that should be tried, yes, in Kata. As mentioned above the top competitors could train on the wrong side (left instead of right or visa-versa). If players only uses their Tokui-waza, no matter how out classed their training partners are, they may form a false sense of worth of their Tokui-waza, and get a rude awakening in top class contest. This wrong use of techniques is, I think, like a battleship using its’ big guns to sink a fishing boat. So you can see I think versatility in throwing techniques is a desirable aim. As we have touched on squad training, brings me to another question for the coaches, what is the minimum number in the elite squad to produce Olympic medal winners? Weight training I think has its’ place in Judo training. We are still talking about medal winners in the Olympics and the squad of elite trainees that have some skill and are controlled in their weight training by a good coach. Where I think weight training is not good is when it is introduced before the player has enough skill in Judo techniques.
Some players, without a good coach to steer them, make what they think is a new discovery, that it is quicker and easier to develop brute strength than it is to develop Judo skill. These people do have a little success in the lower grades but unable to give up their discovery, never get anywhere near their potential in Judo.
With the physical-strength we need in Judo there is also a need, for specific strength and flexibility that can only really be developed by the movements (throws, Katame waza, including escapes from hold, etc.) with-the-weight-of-a-human-body. These movements cannot be carried out in the same way with weights. Even the training carried out with ropes and pulleys, which is better than weights on a bar, cannot exactly mimic lifting, pulling or pushing a human body about.I have seen a brave attempt made to find an alternative to a partner with the use of a weighted manikin, but even this was no where near the real thing. It’s strange we hear lots of talk about weight training for strength, we don’t hear the same amount said about flexibility do we?
Running as a cardiovascular exercise is good and has its’ place in Judo, but like the weight training cannot replace doing Judo.
I have seen students, having discovered running, seems to be less demanding than Judo, get carried away with training at running till they can run a marathon distance, yet still get puffed out on the mat. So it must be running and Judo are different in some way. The altitude of these people, bad in Judo gets carried over to running, and the running falls well short of what a real runner would have to do. These people kid themselves both in running and Judo by trying to dodge the real hard grind that must be done in all things.
Weight training and running, apart from being used as supplements for Judo, can be used as a break from the grind of Uchi-komi, Randorii and Shi-ai, and this is another use of Kata. At least this break is still Judo so “keeps their hand in”. Having gone through all the training, having been led through the steps of contest, and having won the Olympic medal what happens to this person? I have seen them retire from contest, and as contest is the only thing they know, from judo in general.
There was a saying in feudal times in Japan that the lives of the Samurai were like the cherry blossom, very beautiful but alas they don’t last long. Do we think it should be the same with the Top contest person? I hope not. I hope these people have been given some general training in Judo, including Kata, and a lead into coaching skills, before they get to this water shed, so they can stay in Judo without feeling too lost among the ordinary “bods”.
… Better still they could become a coach. (To be Continued in next issue)
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