HITTING THE MARK

 by Phillip Starr

In kyudo (Japanese archery; “the Way of the bow”) the object is quite dissimilar to that of Western archery. The beginning of archery in Japan is prehistoric. The first images picturing the distinct Japanese asymmetrical longbow are from the Yayoi period (ca. 500 BC – 300 AD). Although the familiar katana is associated with the samurai (and sometimes referred to as the “samurai sword”), the bow was the original weapon of the warrior class.

The changing of society and the military class (samurai) taking power at the end of the first millennium created a requirement for education in archery. This led to the birth of the first kyujutsu ryūha (style), the Henmi-ryū, founded by Henmi Kiyomitsu in the 12th century. The Takeda-ryū and the mounted archery school  of Ogasawara-ryū were later founded by his descendants. The need for archers grew dramatically during the Genpei War (1180–1185) and as a result the founder of the Ogasawara-ryū (Ogasawara Nagakiyo), began teaching yabusame (mounted archery).

From the 15th to the 16th century, Japan was ravaged by civil war. In the latter part of the 15th century Heki Danjō Masatsugu revolutionized archery with his new and accurate approach called hi, kan, chū (fly, pierce, center), and his footman's archery spread rapidly. Many new schools were formed, some of which, such as Heki-ryū Chikurin-ha, Heki-ryū Sekka-ha and Heki-ryū Insai-ha, remain today. During the Edo period (1603–1868) Japan was turned inward as a hierarchical caste society in which the samurai were at the top. There was an extended era of peace during which the samurai moved to administrative duty, although the traditional fighting skills were still esteemed. During this period archery became a "voluntary" skill, practiced partly in the court in ceremonial form, partly as different kinds of competition. Archery spread also outside the warrior class. The samurai were affected by the straightforward philosophy and aim for self-control in Zen Buddhism that was introduced by Chinese monks. Earlier archery had been called kyūjutsu (the skill of bow), but monks acting as martial arts teachers led to creation of a new concept: kyūdō (the Way of the bow).

Kyūdō practice, as in all budō, includes the idea of moral and spiritual development. Today many archers practise kyūdō as a sport, with marksmanship being paramount. However, the goal most devotees of kyūdō seek is seisha seichū, "correct shooting is correct hitting". In kyūdō the unique action of expansion (nobiai) that results in a natural release, is sought. When the technique of the shooting is correct the result is that the arrow hits the target. To give oneself completely to the shooting is the spiritual goal, achieved by perfection of both the spirit and shooting technique leading to munen musō, "no thoughts, no illusions". This however is not Zen, although the Japanese bow can be used in Zen-practice or kyūdō practised by a Zen master. In this respect, many kyūdō practitioners believe that competition, examination, and any opportunity that places the archer in this uncompromising situation is important, while other practitioners will avoid competitions or examinations of any kind.

Unlike Chinese, Korean, and Mongolian bows (which are rather short), the Japanese bow will run from 84” to 97” in length. When I visited Japan in 2016, I saw several young ladies dressed in kimono and carrying very long silk or cotton bags, which contained their bows. They would take the subway trains to their classes and nobody thought anything of it.

And unlike Western archery, the primary object of kyudo is not necessarily to hit the mark (“bull's eye”). It is an art steeped in ritual and every aspect of it is pregnant with meaning. Zen-like in its approach, the focus is on strengthening, forging, and tempering the spirit. Each movement (including the steps taken to the spot from which the archer will shoot, nocking the arrow, and virtually everything else) is perfected and polished for its own sake. It is said that when the mind is ready, the arrow will release itself. In time, accuracy comes naturally.

It is rather the same in all forms of budo. However, we Westerners tend to focus too much on hitting the mark rather than perfecting each tiny movement. In our forms, we often rush through to the end, thinking something like, “There! I finished that form.” But the truth is far different. We did not take time to gently polish each movement, to experience and “taste” it. We hurry, like a child in a candy store...filling our mouths with so many candies that we can scarcely taste any one of them. Each candy (and movement) must be savored...delicately at first. Like the arrow in kyudo, accuracy will come along naturally.

A HIGHLY ADVANCED FORM?

 By Phillip Starr

In the system of gong-fu that I teach (Yiliquan), there exists a training routine that is very similar to a form; it must be memorized and practiced relentlessly. However, it isn't listed as a proper “form”, per se. There are no punches, blocks, or kicks of any kind in it. It's translated name is “Nine Steps Form”, although it isn't really regarded as a form.

Jiubuquan (the name of the set) is made up entirely of fundamental stances and basic footwork (steps). It's taught during the earliest stage of training in Yiliquan and drilled repeatedly even into the senior stages. There's hell to pay for a senior who's forgotten any part of it, too.

It's fairly short – only 25 movements (on each side) but repeated practice fosters the development of stability, balance, and agility...all essential ingredients for acquiring real martial skill. But there's more to it than the aforementioned items...

To perform the set skillfully requires that a student “move from the dantien (in Japanese, tanden)”, which is a special skill than absolutely must be mastered. Moving from the dantien is the ONLY way in which the entire body – from the crown to the heels – can move as a single, integrated unit. This is a very powerful way of moving, much more so than the usual method(s) that feature “broken” forms of movement wherein the limbs move independently of the rest of the body.

Moreover, to acquire and maintain stability in any given stance or when moving, proper breathing is essential. Unless one knows how to breathe correctly, balance and “root” are all but lost. Repeating this routine over and over will (unconsciously) teach a student how to breathe in the right way. Although they're taught how to breathe in the right way in the very early stages of training, constant training in Jiubuquan “cements” it so that they don't have to consciously “think” about how to do it.

Does your chosen martial discipline have a similar training routine?

HAVE FAITH!

 By Phillip Starr

My teacher, sifu Chen, struggled to teach me the various zhan-zuang (post standing) postures as much as I struggled to do them correctly. I did my best to imitate the posture that he demonstrated. “Like this”, he said. He glanced at me and immediately stepped in front of me.

“No”, he said as he adjusted my hands, elbows, and hips. “Ah...better”, he muttered. “Stand like this every day for twenty minutes.”

After the adjustments he'd made, I felt very uncomfortable. TWENTY MINUTES? I thought that what he asked was nigh on to impossible. And he noticed my apprehension. “Yes”, he went on. “At least twenty minutes. Longer is better, too. It will help you develop your gong-fu skills a lot. It helps in many ways that you don't understand yet.”

And so I did it. I didn't altogether understand the whole concept but I had faith in my teacher and what he taught me. It would be some time before I came to realize the profundity of what he gave me that day and many other days. But I believed in him. I had faith.

This is perhaps the most important element of learning martial arts. If you lack faith in your teacher, you probably won't practice as he tells you. And if that's the case, you can easily miss your goal by a very wide margin.

In the East, it's a given that the student have absolute faith in his teacher and that the student will do whatever the teacher tells him to do. Sometimes what he tells you to do is very tedious and boring; at other times, it can be downright painful. But in the East the student will do it, regardless. Westerners are often (perhaps even usually) less apt to do this. They want to know “why.” And to a traditional teacher, that's nothing short of an affront to his authority. His “answer”, such as it is, may often be quite painful.

Sometimes, perhaps even much of the time, what he teaches will seem a bit incomplete. This is very common in traditional teachers. They may want to test your resolve; to see if you'll strive to dig deeper to more thoroughly understand what they gave you. They also understand that what a student learns by digging deeper is more broadening, more meaningful than if it was simple “spoon-fed” to them. That said, I have found that many Western students almost insist on being mollycoddled and “catered to”, believing that since they've paid good money for instruction, everything should be openly given to them. But the teacher knows better. If the student really wants to learn, this is how it should be done.

But it requires faith. Without that critical ingredient in the relationship, the recipe for real learning is incomplete.

ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS

 by Phillip Starr

What's the first thing you do when you set out to bake a cake? If you're like me (I know almost nothing about the subject...), you first determine just what ingredients you need. If you leave out only one item, God only knows what you'll end up producing but the odds are good that you wouldn't necessarily want to eat it! It's the same in the study of any given martial art. You need the right ingredients...

• DETERMINATION (Strong Spirit): This is of the utmost importance but one that is often left out of the recipe. Having a strong spirit means never giving up; it means overcoming any and all “obstacles” that appear, regardless of how insurmountable they seem.

  

• COURTESY: True courtesy comes from the heart. It is not simply a series of empty gestures or hollow words. Believe it or not, practicing genuine courtesy (at all times!) will impact your training.

  

• FAITH: Having faith in your teacher is essential. You must have faith in what he or she teaches. He's been where you're going.

  

• OBEDIENCE: You must adhere to the instruction given to you by your teacher, even if it involves discomfort or inconvenience.

  

• DISCIPLINE: You must train regularly (and bear in mind that 90% of your practice is done outside of class). If your training is “hit-or-miss” you're just spinning your wheels and getting nowhere. Worse, you're opening yourself up to injuries that will only further hamper your development. Maintain a strict discipline.

  

• AN OPEN MIND: You're going to be introduced to new ideas, customs, and attitudes. Don't approach your training with a closed mind. Keep it open so that you can fully absorb new information. Avoid harboring preconceived notions about any parts of your training.

  

• PATIENCE: This is perhaps the one ingredient that is most often missing in Western students. To learn and develop new skills takes time. There's no way around it and no short-cuts, regardless of what some hucksters will tell you. Trying to hurry often ends in injury, disappointment, and frustration.

  

Like baking a cake, if you use all of these ingredients you can produce a very delicious and beautiful cake. If you leave out any of them, the end result will be less than desirable.

"“ENEMY OUT THERE...!”

 by Phillip “Pete” Starr

I squared off against my training partner, bringing my hands into the familiar fighting preparation positions and adjusting my stance so that I could quickly move in any direction with ease. My teacher walked up and asked, “Why your hands like this?” He slapped my forearms gently (unusual for him). I explained that one hand was a guard, to be used to ward off incoming attacks and... “No!” he grumped. “Enemy out there!”, and he pointed his finger at my opponent.

My lack of understanding was more than a little obvious. He grasped my wrists and pulled them a bit towards himself. “These are weapons! Use them against your enemy!” I was still a bit confused. Didn't I need to protect myself; be concerned for my own safety? After all, my classmates weren't particularly concerned with controlling their blows when it came to practicing with the only non-Chinese person in the house.

I was still confused but I made it through class intact (which, one some days, was a real challenge). I sat at a small dinette table in my teacher's kitchen, sipping a glass of tepid water (he didn't like to drink cold water because he considered it unhealthy) as he tried to unscramble my brain. “Don't stop enemy's attack”, he said as he executed a series of brisk blocking movements. “When you do this, you give him another chance to hit you. Maybe you block the first and second attack, but he keeps attacking and soon he will hit you.”

“So when he attacks, I shouldn't...block?”, I asked. Now things were getting really confusing. “NO!”, he replied. “Do not block to stop his attack.” He raised his arms and hands into his fighting position. “If we fight, I only want to crush you. I don't think about myself. My mind is to you; my energy is to you, not to me.”

Okay. I was starting to get a handle on this. He explained that the arms are used either to establish a “bridge” between myself and my opponent, or to attack directly. He considered “bridging” a part of my attack; an entry for an attack. Actual direct blocking was another story. He motioned for me to touch his head and as I did so, he snapped up a sharp, focused block. I winced in pain and quickly withdrew my arm. “Block is for attack”, he explained. “Hurts enemy's arm, he stops for a second...this is when you strike him.” So “blocks” were also forms of entry. They weren't intended to simply prevent the opponent from hitting you.

This same concept was explained to me again many years later by Master Seiyu Oyata (10^th dan, Okinawan karate). “There are no 'blocks' in karate”, he told me. “Block” is to attack your enemy's arm or leg. He made sure that I understood by having me execute various forms of attack. Each time he blocked, it was as though my arm or leg had been struck by a steel bar! A single block would have been enough to stop me in my tracks, which would give him ample opportunity to deliver a lethal counter-attack. His blocks weren't “muscled through” as if he was swinging a ball bat; they were focused and sharp.

My kung-fu teacher, Master Chen, preferred the use of “bridging”, which is done without much force and enables the practitioner to quickly enter his opponent's “defense perimeter” and control him long enough that a finishing technique could be quickly applied. Bridging is common in most kung-fu styles and is easily seen in southern forms such as White Crane, Southern Mantis, Dragon Boxing, and so on. It is also present in the neijia forms of taijiquan, xingyiquan, and baguazhang, although not necessarily as readily visible.

In speaking with Oyata sensei, I determined that using “blocks” as forms of entry/attack changed the rhythm of one's forms. He smiled broadly and nodded. In executing a particular karate kata, for instance, most practitioners perform the movements in a regular, steady rhythm...kind of like One (block, pause), Two (strike, pause), Three (block, pause), and so on. This doesn't train them to utilize the blocking techniques correctly.

Instead, it be something like OneTwo (block and strike immediately), Threefour (ditto)... it certainly changes how the kata feels! And learning to maintain a stable stance, correct body shifting, and all of the other elements of effective technique will take some time to learn. Oyata explained that this is how kata were intended to be practiced as opposed to “waltzing” through them like rhythmical dance steps.

My energy, Master Chen explained, was to be extended towards the enemy rather than withdrawn. The objective was, he explained, to strike HIM rather than withdrawing part of my mind and energy in worrying about myself. Miyamoto Musashi (renowned as the “sword saint” of Japan) said that when facing the enemy, one's sole objective is to cut him. Period. One's spirit, energy, and sword are directed towards the enemy, not withdrawn.

Most people, when they perform a movement that shifts the weight rearward or steps back, tend to withdraw their energy and spirit; they have little difficulty extending when the weight or movement is forward, however. This is an error. Regardless of where you shift your weight or step, the energy is to be constantly directed TOWARDS the enemy! There is no “retreat” (in fact, the use of that word is frowned on in the practice of yiliquan). There is withdrawing (because energy is still directed towards the enemy although an adjustment in the weight or movement is made) but there is no “retreat”, which infers a sort of running away from the enemy...giving him a fine opportunity to cut you down.

In kendo, for instance, higher-level practitioners can readily feel when you withdraw your energy or if your spirit wavers. At the instant they detect such a thing, they attack without hesitation. In a split second, the bout is over. It's the same in karate or kung-fu. Remember my teacher's words...”ENEMY OUT THERE!”

THE END OF THE ROAD?

 By Phillip Starr

Some of you may have asked yourselves, “What happens after I learn all the techniques and all of the forms? What then?” It's a legitimate question because if you stay on the path of one art long enough, you'll eventually reach what seems to be the end of it. There are no more techniques to learn, no more forms...

I once had a student who, after he'd accomplished learning every form and technique that I teach, wanted more. “No more spoon-feeding”, I joked. “Now it's time for you to learn what they have to teach you. Go back and perfect them. Each one.” Sadly, he could not. He simply wouldn't “eat” on his own and he went elsewhere. What a tragic waste!

The same kind of situation occurs when a student and teacher become separated for one reason or another. This separation is by no means the end of the road...at least not to one who is determined to learn and willing to put forth the required effort.

I have been separated from my teacher(s) for a very long time but their words continue to teach me. And I continue to learn from the forms they taught me. Even now, after training for more then five decades, I have “Aha!” moments when I discover what my sifu REALLY meant when he said a particular thing.

There's always more learning to do. The (martial) path may be rather narrow at some points, but new discoveries are there, waiting to be found...underneath the flora that's hiding them.

FORM AND DANCE

 by Phillip Starr

Have you ever noticed that many (perhaps even most) kung-fu forms, with the exception of taijiquan, tend to move much too fast? The practitioners seem to be hurrying through their set(s), as if they're overly-anxious to finish it. They blaze through their forms at high speed and each individual movement seems to melt into the next movement before it's been fully completed. And although they seem to be moving in fast-forward, the power of their techniques is severely lacking...like the guy who claims that he can hit his opponent 10 times in one second. He demonstrates what he believes to be masterful skill and manages to beat the clock but none of his techniques would have landed with enough force to even redden his opponent's skin! Cute but not really martial art.

Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum...enter taijiquan. Usually performed at a much slower pace to encourage students to feel and develop certain body movements (which they would likely never develop if they began learning the form at top speed), relaxation, and other facets of the art, they very rarely encourage their followers to move beyond this stage.

It's essential to bear in mind that the form is, after all, a self-defense situation involving multiple (imaginary) opponents, armed and/or unarmed. If you plan to survive, you must be aware of certain important points:

• Combat is never rhythmical. It doesn't maintain a nice, even beat like disco. If you plod through the form at the same rhythmical pace, you're training yourself to respond to actual attacks in the same manner. And if you do that, a real violent encounter will turn you into a common breakfast food very quickly...toast.

• Of course, real attacks don't occur in slow motion...

• You WILL respond to actual combat conditions IN THE SAME MANNER in which you train. Always bear this principle in mind.

  

Each form has its own rhythm. That's how they're intended to be practiced.