Give a man a fish...

The other day I was reading one of the few blogs that I find interesting on the Internet--very opinionated, but honest, obviously heartfelt, and written by a karate practitioner who trains seriously, with little interest in self-aggrandizement. I may not do it justice by trying to summarize the intent of the blog post--I'm sure I can't--but to me it bemoaned one of the seeming shortfalls in a society where everything seems to be at our finger tips, particularly information, that in turn has led to a culture of expectation and entitlement, and how this has all spilled over into the dojo, affecting how we learn karate and more importantly how we expect to be taught karate. In a word, according to this blog post, students of karate today expect their teachers to regularly "feed" them.

I think there's a lot to this. And yet it reminds me of something one of my senior students once said, jokingly, in response to a question she was asked by a junior student: "If you have to ask, you're not ready to learn." I say jokingly, because one might argue that this is precisely the moment when someone is ready to learn--when they are asking the right questions. When I'm teaching kata, I will frequently ask students if they have any questions. More often than not, they will say, "No, just have to do it more." To me, that's probably a very honest response; they don't know enough to know what questions to ask. Once the questioning starts, however, it seems to me that it's my job to "point the way." It's my job to at least explain the principles, to explain why one is being asked to move in a particular way, why one way is better than another way.

Mike Clarke sensei goes on to relate a wonderful little story that Miyazato sensei told him about two fighting birds he once owned. You can read the story for yourself--It's titled "Post 500..."--here: shinseidokandojo.blogspot.com/  You might also find it instructive to poke around in the archives of this blog a bit while you're there. Anyway, Miyazato sensei then makes the analogy to karate training, saying to the author, "If I give answer, you go home and forget; better you learn for yourself through training." Tough love.

But I wondered, as I read that: Are students likely to find the answers? Is that why the Internet is filled with so many outlandishly ridiculous and unrealistic examples of "bunkai"? Are all these people teaching themselves? What is the role of the teacher? Is Miyazato sensei implying that anyone can find the answers with enough training or that each individual's answers, though different, are all correct? Why do we have teachers if the extent of their instruction is to suggest that we find our own answers? Isn't the teacher there, in some sense, to shorten the journey, to share what they have discovered so that the student will surpass the teacher at some point? What would happen if I turned on my GPS and asked Siri for directions and she told me, "I'm sorry, but if I told you how to get there, you'd soon forget, you'd never learn how to read a map. Better to figure it out for yourself"?

Perhaps I'm overstating the case, finding fault where there is none just to make my own point. I'm sure the analogy is not meant to suggest that Miyazato sensei didn't teach or try to "point the way." But so often, I think, there is an implicit paradigm associated with learning in the karate dojo that suggests that one is not training hard enough if one has to ask questions. Do the kata 10,000 times and then you will understand, Grasshopper. Or, don't ask any questions until you have done the kata 10,000 times. But what's to prevent the charlatan from using this clever sort of cover for his own ignorance? A teacher is there to teach--to at least point the way--to explain the principles. If they don't know something, perhaps it's better to just say, "I don't know." If I give a man a fish, I may just whet his appetite for more. He may ask me how I got that fish, and I'll have to show him how you go about catching fish. He may end up being a better fisherman than me, but when asked, he'll say that I once gave him a fish and taught him how to fish.

In the shadow of the teacher

The shrine in the Barn Dojo.

I was watching an interesting video the other day, though perhaps interesting isn't the right word for it. In it, a very senior karate-ka sat in seiza at the feet of the teacher, An'ichi Miyagi, who sat above him in a folding chair. The student was interviewing him ostensibly about training in the old days under Miyagi Chojun sensei and who knew what katas and who taught whom what kata, but what really came through the interview was a sort of unabashed self promotion and a less disguised bashing of Morio Higaonna. It reminded me of a game we used to play as kids. It was a variation of the traditional game of tag, I suppose, because you "tagged" the other person by stepping on his or her shadow. It's actually kind of interesting in that it adds another dimension to the game. You have to not only make sure you avoid all of the other players, but in turning and dodging and weaving in and out of obstacles, you have to be aware of your shadow as well. And your shadow moves as you move; that is, sometimes it's behind you, sometimes it's alongside of you, and sometimes it runs off in front of you.

I'm not exactly sure why I thought of all this, except that I know it had to do with shadows in a metaphorical way. So often, it seems to me, students want to sit in some teacher's shadow, and in doing so, they want to make sure that their teacher's shadow is bigger than someone else's shadow. I suppose this is the whole lineage question. But why do students think that they can bask in anyone else's glory, by association, simply standing in someone's shadow? The extent of one's knowledge or understanding of karate can only be measured on the dojo floor. It's something personal. I'm reminded of Plato's Cave. What if the shadow you're standing in (and it might even be the shadow of "the world's greatest karate master") isn't the real thing?

With Choboku Takamine and
Seikichi Higa senseis.

This video was sort of funny and sort of sad at times, and I found myself wondering what point there was in putting it on the Internet. "Who taught Miyazato" or "Who taught Morio Higaonna"  this kata or that kata, the interviewer asked over and over again. "I teach," An'ichi Miyagi would answer. So-and-so didn't know that kata, he would add, or so-and-so had no "understanding" of that kata. I think the point that the viewer was supposed to take away was that the student, kneeling at the foot of the master, had found the source. He was legitimizing himself by proximity to the real source. Everyone else was not the real thing.

We have guilt by association, so I suppose we also have its opposite, something like legitimacy by association. But then again, neither one is really true, is it? And I am making no judgment here on what An'ichi Miyagi knows or what Eiichi Miyazato knows or what Morio Higaonna knows. Personally, and this is probably obvious to anyone who has read any of my ramblings, I'm not a fan of any of their ideas on bunkai or understanding of Goju-ryu. In my experience of training in Okinawan dojos, they teach hojo undo, junbi undo, kihon, kata, and various forms of kiso kumite and yakusoku kumite. Very little bunkai of classical kata is taught--though this seems to be changing in recent years--and if you don't teach the bunkai to the classical kata, it is very difficult to practice the principles upon which Goju-ryu is based. My teacher once said to me, "Don't follow me. Follow Goju." The teacher points the way. But it is each individual's journey. The only things that lurk in the shadows are paper dragons.