Foreplay, Lack of Commitment & Knowing when to Pull Out
Foreplay, Lack of Commitment & Knowing when to Pull Out
The Key to Understanding Kyojitsu Tenkan Hou, and Good Taijutsu
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
One source of amusement for me is going onto youtube and watching martial arts videos. I tend to be a bit harsh on myself in terms of martial arts and sometimes it is good to see that there not only is a whole lot of people who are so much worse than I have been since my acne cleared up, but also there are legions of people who have no clue at all that the videos they are watching are so bad.
But while most of humanity is determined to watch more of Jersey Shore than anything by The Bard, there are a few who wish to achieve a greater sense than most. For them I write this blog.
Take a look at the following video clip. If you can't tell by yourself, trust me when I say it is horrible. By the end of this blog, I hope you can start to see why it is so bad and start seeing martial arts and self defense movements in a new light.
What is wrong with this clip? At its base is the fact that the self- made teacher showing off on the internet goes into the technique like an 18 year old who has convinced the prom queen that he has run out of gas in a deserted part of the county. Like the teenager seeking to pull himself through puberty, he wants only to get to the good part, "The Main Event" if you will. More experienced folks find out that everything up to "The Main Event" is just as important, if not more so, than the thing young men all obsess over.
One of my students once commented to his partner that the partner was too direct and he should do things more like how I did, which he said was like a cat playing with its prey. Later, I was pondering over what he said in confusion. I consider myself pretty direct and do not add extra moves. I am more into, "Wham, bam, thank you Ma'am" rather than try anything fancy or do more than what is needed. Another student once commented that in my class, if things weren't over in three moves or less you were doing it wrong. I think his assessment was pretty good as to what my goal in taijutsu is, so I was confused with the analogy of the cat playing with a mouse.
I think that the comment about playing with my prey comes from the fact that I have been taught that the play that goes on before the technique is very important. I do not go straight into trying to apply a technique, I aspire to emulate my teachers in Japan that would insure that everything was set up perfectly before they moved into a technique like a lock or a throw. Call it (be)- fore play or whatever, if you watch true masters and watch for it you will probably see that there is a lot of angling and setting things up before the big, flashy throw or whatever. The greater the master, the more subtle it may be. But it is there.
Here are two photos of me doing the first move of what we in the Bujinkan call Ura-gyaku, a simple wrist twist and considered one of the fundamental techniques we have. In the first case, I exaggerate a bad example. Please note that my attention is focused on the hand and I am oblivious to whatever his right hand or any other limb might do to me. The guy grabbing me is stable and ready for anything while I try to jump on the technique instead of dealing with everything he might do to me.
The second photo is an example of what I try to be like. The amateur might not notice unless it is pointed out, but in this case I have laid a lot more of the ground work for what comes later. My attention is not monopolized by the technique and I stand ready to deal with any attacks that might be launched. I have moved my body when I was grabbed to pull myself away from the other hand a bit and pulling the arm out so that the grabber's structure is slightly off. He is not rooted like a good striker would like to be and it is difficult to move or achieve anything with power with the slight breaking of his balance. In Japanese this is called kuzushi, and is not exclusive to the Bujinkan arts. The pro sets up kuzushi before he tries to apply a technique. The moron tries to apply kuzushi while applying the technique, if at all.
If there is no kuzushi and the other guy won't let you have it, then the master keeps his options open. The next two photos of me show how I am able to hit in various ways from the opening move of Ura-gyaku. If the wrist lock is not there, the master does not get flustered and instead flows into something else that is possible to pull off. In other words, the master of taijutsu shows an admirable lack of commitment.
Take a look at the video again. Perhaps now you can see that as soon as the guy showing off starts to try the technique, he is along for the duration. If the guy hadn't been so nice and compliant, then he really would have been in trouble. Maybe you can pull this off it you totally surprise someone, but that is a gamble and I don't see masters gamble when they don't have to. They would rather defer committing to anything until the situation just right for a move appears in front of them, maybe with a little help.
When I say that the guy would have been along for the ride if his student hadn't been so nice, I mean that once he committed there was no real way he could have pulled out of the move and either jumped back or flowed into yet another technique that was better suited. Even after a master has started to apply something, he is not so set in his ways that he is committed to something and can't pull out. Knowing when to pull out is a very important skill for the taijutsu master. A very obvious case is when someone is doing a complicated ground fighting hold only to look up and see the other guy's friends coming at them. There are cases of people getting the shit kicked out of them when they try this sort of thing. But it is also a form of mindset when people cling to a technique instead of keeping the mental attitude that it can be abandoned in favor of something better.
In short, to have good taijutsu, you need to set things up, not jump quickly into something and be able to give it up and flow into something else if it does not work out. I use the term "Foreplay, lack of commitment and knowing when to pull out" but the Japanese term might be best said as, "Kyojitsu Tenkan-ho."
"Wait a second," people are screaming right now, "that isn't what Kyojitsu is all about!" Oh really? Do you speak Japanese? If not, STFU while I explain.
There are many, many mistakes we labor under from the folks that first brought the art to countries other than Japan. People still think that the ninja used straight swords, that the ninja were an oppressed class of mystics, that we do techniques based on feelings expressed by five elements, etc. The first translations of Kyojitsu Tenkan-ho were also flawed. The most common translation of the term is, "Substituting truth with falsehood." Well…… not quite.
To digress for a second, the game of translating for the Japanese can sometimes be amusing. Not everyone who are eager to translate should be allowed to do so, but if you do translate people tend to think that you have some special knowledge beyond the ken of mortal man. So, a lot of folks who want to make their living off of teaching jump forward when something is said in Japanese and later try to hustle folks for their classes and seminars. One night, a person like this was "translating" for Soke Masaaki Hatsumi when Soke said in Japanese, "The problem is that so many people think that Kyojitsu Tenkan Ho is about fooling people." The 'translator' just looked at Hatsumi like he had just said, "The problem is that so many people think that the sky is blue" and did not translate it into English. This is how deep the problem is, that people can't even conceive that it is not really about fooling someone else, but rather the other person reacting to the wrong attack.
Let us look at the phrase itself and each word in it to try to understand another possible meaning.
Lets start at the end. "Ho", or more correctly "hou" (法) is a Kanji (Japanese character) that means "law". It can be used in terms of legal law, or physical laws. So we can take it to mean that it is the way things are done and is what we have to work within.
"Tenkan" (転 換) is composed of two kanji that mean "revolve" and "convert" respectively. The best translation for them together might be, "convert, divert." In essence, one thing gets taken out of the front window to be placed in the storage room while something from the storage room is placed in the window. I can see how the idea of "substituting" came to be believed, but there is a subtle difference in the meaning. In Tenkan, something that existed goes away and something that was in the background moves to the front to replace it.
Kyojitsu (虚実) is going to be the word that gives most people fits. Many Japanese to English dictionaries translate it as "Truth or falsehood" but having worked with it in Japanese, there is a deeper meaning sometimes.
First of all, take a look at the following site and its definition of kyojitsu. Its definition is quite different from what we are used to.
http://www.kendo-guide.com/kyo-and-jitsu.html
Japanese is a language that sometimes does not translate into English without subtle nuances. This is part of the reason why all the folks I worked with who translated for a living tended to drink heavily.
Kyo (虚) does not mean lie or falsehood by itself. Instead it means "empty" or "void." When combined with other characters such as "gi" (i.e. "Kyogi") it can mean deception or untrue. But when you combine it with "Kokoro" (心) which can also be pronounced "shin" and means either heart or mind, you do not get "deceptive heart" or "lying mind". Instead you get, "open mind."
Think about that for a second. What is an open mind? In short, it is a mental state where a person has emptied their tea cup in order to receive more. The mind is open for any new potential. So, what if we think about kyo as that state where the emptiness is waiting to be filled?
Contrast this with Jitsu (実) which can mean truth, but tends to be nuanced more toward the idea of being real. Yes, truth and being real are closely related, but in this case we are talking about something that is the opposite of potential. Combine it with the kanji for power 力 and you get 実力 "Jitsuryoku" which means "actual ability." Those of us that study Japanese past the beginning lessons are used to "Jitsuryoku tests" which determine if we can actually use the language or not.
So is Kyojitsu "truth and falsehood" or might "Potential and actual" be a better choice?
So, what if we look at Kyojitsu Tenkan-ho as meaning, "The rotating between the potential and the actual"?
One of my teachers in Japan often told us that we should never put more than 70 percent into any technique. The other 30 percent was left open to deal with anything that might come our way, either attacks on us or being able to add in other attacks. Total commitment to one move is too much and leaves us open to surprises, changes and openings that develop in an instant in the midst of the fight. So, if we only put 70% into a punch, we have 30% on deck ready to launch.
So, instead of thinking that Kyojitsu means that you fool the other person, try thinking it is more about the other guy focusing on something other than what becomes the actual attack. When people think of kyojitsu being about fooling the other person, they think that they have to throw fake attacks to divert attention for the real one to succeed. A fake attack is something that has no intention or real probability of success. It can work, and has it's place, but it limited.
During World War II, the allies built a phantom army, composed of inflatable tanks for the Axis to spot and men running around with radios making as much noise as a few divisions of men, knowing that the Germans would pick it up. They managed to convince the Germans that the landings at Normandy were a feint and that the real attack by the phantom army led by George Patton would be at Calais. It worked wonderfully, and that is what people think of when they think of kyojitsu. That army had no potential and was not really a threat to the Germans had they ignored it. As I said, it worked but it is a limited definition.
Now lets look at the Stosstruppen, which translates as Storm Trooper. The term is most famous for the group formed by Hitler, but in World War I they were an elite army that pioneered infiltration tactics. That is to say, they would strike out against the enemy in their trenches along a wide front. When they met heavy resistance, they dug in and slugged it out. But those that found little to overcome pushed forward. The reserve troops were sent to the front not to reinforce those meeting resistance, but to continue the flow of those pushing forward. It was a wildly effective tactic and almost completely countered the advantages the Allies had with their early use of tanks.
Like water, they flowed along the path of least resistance, moving around stones placed in their path and refusing to stay still. For kyojitsu tenkan ho, we too must be like water. I am not saying that the phantom army approach does not work or have a place, but if that all you think kyojitsu tenkan ho is about, your view is limited.
It is easy to see the lack of this attitude in certain drills. Some Bujinkan drills have the attacker, I'll call him "A" throw a punch or try an attack. "B" then tries a counter to the attack. "A" then counters the attempt and ends up defeating "B" in some way. When working with a lot of people, I find that the first attack by "A" is not really worth trying to avoid. They are only thinking of the counter to my defensive move and there is no potential for the attack to do much to me. However, when I work out with some folks, I know that I have to avoid the first attack or they will be wiping me off the wall behind me.
To my mind, the counter to the defensive move is the least important aspect of the drill. The ability to change from a real attack to another real attack is the important skill being strengthened. That first attack must be an actual attack, but then it must flow away and be replaced by what had been a potential attack.
Instead of determining what you will do, you leave your mind open to see what openings and chances present themselves in the chaos and jump on them. The teacher that told me not to put more than 70 percent into a technique also joked that no one was able to read what he was going to do because he had no idea what he was going to do until he did it.
This is a very important mind set. Instead of thinking that you have to set someone up to be fooled, you have to be able to take advantage of the situation faster than they can react to the changes from Kyo to jitsu. In that way, they will be concentrating on the wrong attack, the one that eventually gets them.
This is difficult to see from the outside. Lets say a master is starting a wrist lock. His partner starts to resist the lock. At that point, the master snaps off a strike to the neck, then goes on to finish the lock. Most people viewing this would think it is merely a matter of softening up the other guy with strikes before resuming the lock. But in reality, when the master encounters resistance he drops the lock to the 'potential' category and uses the most effective attack he has on deck- the neck strike. At that point, most people would forget the lock and focus their entire attention on the strike they just got to the neck. So now the master has a partly completed wrist lock that is again out of the other guy's sphere of attention and so that now becomes a valid technique with a great chance of success. The big difference is that there is judgement going on, with go/no go points at each step along the route. If the neck strike failed to attract enough attention to stop the resistance, the master would not repeat the neck strike but flow into something else that was possible, like maybe a throw. The moron would just keep trying to flail away with strikes trying to make the wrist lock work. He clings to the wrist lock attack, where as the master does not hold onto it, but rotates it back to a potential stage instead. The master lets the opponent choose the technique that will defeat him, the moron chooses what technique he will try.
There is a saying passed down in the traditions of the Bujinkan that roughly states, "Those that think that the technique comes from ‘me’ close their ears to the voices of the gods." This isn't really all that esoteric. We can take this to mean that if you determine that you will do "technique A" then you will try to do it, even if other techniques better suited for the situation appear. Yes you should try to do the technique in class that the teacher showed, but you also need to keep your attention open.
Think about the reactions to strikes in this context. There is some silly stuff out there about the use of kyusho (weak points) to affect someone else. Some of the stuff is really silly, requiring the right time of day, knowing if the other person’s toes are flexed or not, etc. The simple truth is, you don’t know how the other person will react. I know someone who kicked someone up between his legs, lifting him off the ground a short distance. When the guy came back down, he turned to his partner and said, “Did you see what that bastard just did?”
If you hit someone, they might fly backwards, they might bend over and they might not seem to react at all. You can’t be certain of any reaction. If you cut someone’s legs off, they might not be able to chase after you, but some of the things people do on PCP and other drugs is truly bizarre. Sometimes things will work, sometimes they won’t and sometimes you will need to adjust to what happens. After hitting someone, the masters in Japan seem to take a half beat to determine what the reaction was and how best to adapt what they do. They go with whatever is given them. And if there is no reaction, they don’t get flustered and just flow into something else.
Training with kyojitsu tenkanho is one of the reasons that having a good partner is so important. The role of the partner in class is to help you advance. Far too often, it gets into a pissing contest with passive aggressiveness or they just don't care enough to try to help. When you work out with a good partner, they give you the exact situation you need to pull off the move. It is the most natural thing to do and so you can flow into it if you do the move correctly. Assholes tend to make you do something unnatural to do the technique. They try to justify it as their efforts to push you and teach you to overcome resistance, but most of the time it really is because they are scared about their penis size.
When you tell people that they are supposed to practice omote gyaku, the partner knows what you will be doing and can set up a resistance before you even start to move- and some assholes do. In the military, if I expect an attack from a certain direction I will try to mine the route and set up ambushes. If I lead a patrol and start to encounter mines, my first thought is that maybe the enemy knows we are coming by that route and that they might have more set up. By setting up a counter to omote gyaku because he knows that what you will try to do, the asshole partner is training you to ignore the messages that resistance tells you. Like the minefield, a resistance to a particular technique should set off alarms and make you realize that he knows what you are trying. The asshole partner wants you to train yourself to go through the minefield instead of going around it. That is not what you should be building as a habit. As soon as you see that a wall has been built on one path, you find another. Like water, you flow to the point of least resistance. A good partner will not throw themselves like a Ron Duncan uke, but they won't push back or anything like that while you try things out. If they were to push back, then there are other things you can do. By resisting one move, people set it up so that they practically throw themselves into another if the partner is able to see and take advantage of it in time. We do have more than one technique for most situations and some of them are designed to be used if your partner resists another. The asshole gives you the choice of either doing something other than what the teacher has shown or train yourself to always try to bash down walls against an aware and prepared attacker.
In short, people that try to resist techniques by muscling and such are complete dicks and should be avoided as partners. A good partner won't go over in a throw unless you actually do it right, but they set themselves up to give the exact attack appropriate for the throw you are supposed to be working on. You need a good partner to practice kyojitsu tenkan ho. In fact, I sometimes think a good partner is almost as important as a good teacher. I differ from many who think you should always try to grab a new partner to deal with new body types. I like to push myself and work with new folks, but when I shell out my money to train, I want someone I know who will work with me to help myself improve and not stand in the way of my training. Sad to say, but there were a lot of complete dicks and completely clueless visiting Japan when I lived there. I don't think the situation has changed or differs from what you will find at a seminar. A good partner, when you find them, should be treasured.
I hope I blew some people's minds with this blog. I hope I caused confusion, bewilderment and maybe a few tears. If so, I did my job. I look forward to seeing all the people that will try to talk like they knew this all along. Until now, only a few folks I know had gotten this translation of the term and new way of thinking about it. A quick search of the internet shows that everything I can find written about kyojitsu tenkan ho in the Bujinkan is about fooling people instead of them reacting to the wrong attack. Thinking about this will take a short while. Implementing it will take years. If you have labored under the impression that kyojitsu means that you have to fake someone out it will take even longer. The two things that might help soften the blow to your ego is that 1- you can start now instead of waiting years to begin and 2- you will soon become better than the guy in the video clip.
(My thanks to Jason and the others for helping with the photos.)
This blog is not safe for work. And if you don’t want to challenge what you think you know about Kyojitsu Tenkan Hou, then maybe you should go elsewhere. I am not trying to make friends with this, but instead trying to help those that see crap and think it is good.