In Koryu, You Can't Question Sensei. Can you?

In correspondence, Ray Ballisti said:

“The way in which pupils have to strictly follow the soke is dangerous for a democratic point of view in which different ideas can be discussed. In my dojo we are allowed to compare different techniques and choose the one which is more consistent with the laws of physics, or at least to keep the koryu tradition but being aware of the different possibilities. “

I think that outside Japan there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how healthy iemoto type organizations function. There are groups in Japan where the soke’s word is law and there are no discussions or dissension of any kind allowed. These are not healthy iemoto organizations.

Iemoto groups organized around a soke 宗家 are structured after a very old family or clan organizational model in Japan. The idea was that the core of a family passed down from father to eldest son in an endless progression. Younger sons were allowed to establish bunke, or branch households. This structure was copied for many other cultural entities in Japan, including etiquette, tea ceremony, and classical dance. The oldest iemoto organization still in existence is the Ogasawara Ryu school of etiquette and mounted archery, dating to sometime in the 1200s . It’s still active and overseen by the 31st soke, Ogasawara Kiyotada. For something to last 850 years suggests that the structure is pretty good.

The idea that students have to strictly follow the soke in koryu stems, I think, from projecting western ideas about interaction, reputation, and respect on a non-western system and culture. Many koryu are essentially iemoto systems, some to the extent that the ryuha is named after the family, such as Tamiya Ryu, Takeuchi Ryu, Tatsumi Ryu, and others, and the leadership of the ryu is passed on through familial descent. Others use the title soke, which is literally written with a character 家 meaning “family, house”, for the leader even though it is not held within one family, but passed from generation to generation without concern for family relationships. The various branches of Hasegawai Eishin Ryu, including Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu and Muso Shinden Ryu, are examples of this.

In Japanese culture, it is considered highly inappropriate to display any sort of dirty laundry or internal dissension to outsiders, whether they be outside the family or organization. You always show a united front—this rule applies to groups as small as the nuclear family and to organizations as vast as Toyota and Hitachi. Regardless of your personal opinions, and regardless of what you may be arguing internally, to the rest of the world you show only unity of mind and spirit. If you can’t do this, you’ll be hamon 破門, banished. To display internal disagreements to outsiders is a cardinal sin in Japanese culture, and that goes for koryu budo groups as well.

This does not mean that disagreement, debate, and heated arguments don’t happen. They are going on all the time. I worked in some massive Japanese conglomerates during my time in the auto industry, and this was as true there as it is anywhere in Japanese society. We had endless internal debates, some of which were brutal and vicious. Outsiders never heard about these. The reputation of the organization is essential to its survival. If people see that your group’s members aren’t mature and respectful enough to keep internal disputes internal, they’re going to avoid any kind of entanglement with the group. That’s a clear social rule.

In healthy koryu there are all sorts of discussions, debates, and disagreements. You just won’t ever hear about them. Those kinds of things are family matters not to be shared with outsiders. This is true even with groups as amorphous as Shinto Muso Ryu (SMR), which doesn’t have a soke system. Instead certificates of menkyo kaiden, or complete transmission are issued. Each menkyo kaiden holder has complete authority to issue the same to their students as they see fit. Because of this, there are a lot of different lineages of SMR around today. You will rarely hear any senior practitioner make negative public comments about another, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Japanese menkyo kaiden say a negative word about another publicly.

“Publicly” is the crucial word here. We are all students of Shinto Muso Ryu and therefore all somewhat connected, because people outside of the ryuha naturally lump us together as a single whole. We don’t criticize other practitioners in public, even when we vehemently disagree with them. It’s part of the responsibility that goes with membership in the ryuha. I have seen teachers who can barely manage to spit out each other’s names in private, sit together with smiles and small-talk, making jokes and being pleasant to each other the entire time they are together. Nobody outside the group needs to know how they feel about each other. Once the doors close and the window shades are drawn though, the knives will come out. People will cheerfully share personal opinions of the most negative sort when they trust that it’s only family around.

This is a long lead-up to say that in any healthy koryu there is plenty of debate about how things should be done. Not by beginners (which I would define as anyone with less than 5-7 years of practice), but by people who have demonstrated through sweat and effort that their understanding is solid and that their questions are coming from a place of knowledge and experience. Beginners are expected to be quiet and respectful while they learn enough to ask useful questions. My experience is that non-Japanese students ask a lot of questions that are best answered with “Keep practicing and it will become clear.” Japanese students are often uncomfortable asking questions, even after they’ve reached a point where it’s reasonable to ask them in the right circumstances. Non-Japanese ask questions before they have earned that right.

The right circumstances for asking a question are almost always after practice over a cup of tea or—the usual Japanese preference—a cold beer. There is a practical reason for the beer. A lot of Japanese social rules are automatically relaxed once you’ve had a drink. It becomes acceptable for juniors to put their ignorance on display and question their seniors. Even in-group, you don’t do something that could be seen as challenging your teacher during the lesson. Training time is for training. Beer time is for questions.

This changes as you gain more experience and respect within the group. I can go to my teachers and ask questions about why we do things and how we do them, and end up in a complex discussion of tactics, physics, and strategy. I can even, politely and respectfully, challenge my teachers. And then there is keiko, where we get out the sticks and go after each other. If, by some miracle, I have an idea that Sensei hasn’t already worked through and found all the problems in it, he might say “Let’s try it.” I can’t think of an occasion when this has not ended with agreement that the way Sensei is teaching works, but I suppose it could happen. Shinto Muso Ryu is over 400 years old. A lot of people have trained it and tested it in that time, so the likelihood of me finding something new is pretty small, but it could happen.

Even within Shinto Muso Ryu there is room for variation and exploration. I attended Kaminoda Sensei’s gasshuku for many years and over that time, he taught things in different ways. It was clear to me that even at his level, he was still exploring the depth of the ryuha and discovering new things. He wasn’t changing it, he was working within the structure of the ryuha to learn more about it. He knew as much about Shinto Muso Ryu as anyone alive, and he was still exploring. We were lucky enough to be able to follow him down those alleys and see what he found as he found it.

What we didn’t do was talk about his explorations and changes in emphasis in public. In public, we demonstrated things the way he wanted them demonstrated because he was the respected leader of the group, and his example was therefore the one to be emulated. To do otherwise in public would be disrespectful, insubordinate, and a good way to get asked to leave.

It’s not that asking questions is forbidden in healthy koryu, it’s that you have to earn the right to ask questions through training, and you have to do so when it is appropriate. Asking pointed questions and putting your teacher on the spot is always bad form. So is asking questions before you’ve put in enough practice to know if practice will provide the answer without bothering sensei. Don’t ask the question while sensei is teaching a group, because in Japanese culture, that feels like an attack on the teacher and is perceived as disrespectful. Wait until a quiet moment to ask your question. Even better, broach the subject outside the dojo in a way that gives sensei the time to think about your question and give a measured response.

Koryu budo are culturally Japanese, with leadership dominated by native Japanese. You can ask all the questions you like, and try all the variations you like, you just have to do so in a Japanese way.

Special thanks to Jacques Vorves for editorial support.

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