This month we interview Jeffrey M., Brooks director of Northampton Karate dojo in the United States. As an instructor, Jeff believes his students need a practice that rewards them, inwardly and outwardly, with the natural result of their efforts: health, inner stability, good relationships with others, a sense of responsibility for one's own life and of shared responsibility for the world around us.
This month we interview Jeffrey M., Brooks director of Northampton Karate Dojo in the United States. As an instructor, Jeff believes his students need a practice that rewards them, inwardly and outwardly, with the natural result of their efforts: health, inner stability, good relationships with others, a sense of responsibility for one's own life and of shared responsibility for the world around us. Working extensively throughout his community, Jeff has trained thousands of people in karate, and presented his unique approach to Zen and martial arts various other groups, from inner city at-risk youth, to prison inmates, emergency medical teams, to students at public and private schools.
In this exclusive Martial Edge interview Jeff discusses the practice of "Karate and Zen as one," his groundbreaking martial arts book Rhinoceros Zen, and his accomplished career as an artist and writer. Martial Edge: Jeff, thanks for taking time out of your schedule. Tell us about how you got started in the martial arts.
Jeff Brooks: I remember as a child feeling that it was intolerable that the decent, hardworking people in my neighbourhood could be preyed-upon by thugs. I had a strong inclination to protect people, but I was not sure how to do it. By the time I was in high school, in the late 60s, the martial arts were becoming part of American pop culture. I checked it out. Once I began practicing I never looked back.
Martial Edge: When did you get involved in teaching and how did the Northampton Karate Dojo come about?
Jeff Brooks: I always felt that if I could have found the kind of dojo I wanted to train in I would have joined it. I couldnt find such a place in the US, so I was forced to invent it. I had studied half a dozen martial arts over the years before I settled on the traditional Okinawan style Shorin Ryu. I loved the vitality of this style and its practical orientation, and I wanted nothing more than to penetrate deeply into its mysteries and its potential. But I was keenly aware of some of the cultural shortcomings that had crept in to the way martial arts had been transmitted to America. There was a kind of insularity and cult-mentality that hindered the free flow of information, investigation, testing and diligent practice. These are the very qualities that allow a martial artist and a martial art to properly mature. People in martial arts in those days were often more concerned with organization-building than with training. I had a vision of a kind of dojo where the practice would be intense, the access to information would be broad, and the emphasis would be placed on the accomplishment of each member not on creating a cult, running a commercial enterprise, or becoming a well-known or important martial arts person. As obvious as this may sound to some people now, this was thinking way outside the box at that time.
Martial Edge: In the modern era, the majority of students see martial arts training as a fun way of keeping fit. How, as an instructor are you meeting the challenge of keeping the balance between traditional values and modern training principles?
Jeff Brooks: To me they have never been in conflict. Traditional martial arts are a great workout. The balance between strength training and flexibility, between endurance training and developing explosive power, between harmonizing body and mind, breath and emotion all are part of the martial arts training experience in our school. We do not have weight machines, or air conditioning, or music playing in the background. We dont need those things to achieve our objectives. In some respects they actually can be a hindrance. So in a way we do not embrace some of the appurtenances (or you might say "encumbrances") of modernity. But in another way I think a more important way we create an opportunity to encounter modern conditions in a fresh and meaningful way. In modern life we confront the distractions of our fragmented, pressured schedule and the relentless stimulation of media, vying for our attention. As a result we tend to rush through life, seeking happiness, integration, meaning and fulfillment, but find them difficult to attain. In the traditional atmosphere of the dojo we are not imitating the cultural motifs of pre-industrial Asia, but rather, using pre-industrial Asia as an inspiration, we are creating an oasis of human cultivation ferocious and peaceful, communal and deeply personal in which all members can recover their own life, the perennial human values, and go deeper every day.
Martial Edge: For the Martialedge readers out there who do not have much experience of Karate and the practice of Zen, could you outline how the two compliment one another?
Jeff Brooks: If we fail to cultivate our lives we will drift and soon decline. Without cultivation our lives are no longer our own. We may hope for the best but, subject to inner drives and outer stimulation, we hurry in pursuit of pleasure, pleasure that quickly fades, and leaves us longing, alienated, disturbed. We need a calm, clear mind to see the world around us and to discern the quality of our own actions. We need emotions that are regulated and a heart and mind that are resilient in the face of both attractions and difficulty. We need to study what helps people and what causes people to suffer. And we need to cultivate the power to act decisively and courageously when conditions demand it.
To have mental clarity in the midst of tumultuous action requires training. You will not have it automatically. To have the physical skills you need to prevail in a confrontation takes training. Reflexes and instincts, untrained, will not serve you when you need them most. Training in mental stability, awareness, decent conduct towards others and a deep insight into the way in which suffering can be stopped is at the heart of martial arts and of Zen.
Zen is not merely a matter of rejecting the world and sitting, with silent superiority, sequestered and solitary. Martial arts is not simply a matter of developing formidable fighting skills and dominating all opponents through physical power. Maturing in both of these paths, uniting clarity and courage, a dedication to benefiting others and to the judicious use of force in restraining harm, require deep training, inwardly and outwardly. The mental clarity and insight we derive from Zen meditation we can export and apply in karate training. The intensity and spontaneity we derive from karate training the elimination of the gap between intention and action for example can be imported back to the sitting cushion to create a deep experience in meditation. In this way karate and Zen can be experienced as two aspects of one reality, of one training method.
Martial Edge: Karate, in the United Kingdom especially, has suffered from internal politics in recent years with a number of high profile public spats. In your view what do the chairmen and chief instructors of these Karate organisations need to do in order to create harmony and unity in the art?
Jeff Brooks: I would humbly ask them to shut up and train. Whatever authenticity a martial art may have is derived from the quality of the practice. Whatever authority a particular teacher may have will derive only from the degree of benefit he can provide to his students. No one can wave a magic wand (or hand you, a certificate or belt rank) and declare you cool, or certify your achievement. Those things may be meaningful symbols, or not, depending on the relationship of the student to the teacher. But sought for their own sake they are meaningless. There will always be manipulative people who will prey on the emotionally needy and insecure, and persuade them that they need to get approval from a teacher. You dont. We all need teachers. Not for approval, but for teaching.
The new generation of students has to take responsibility for their own training. Pay your tuition. Respect your teachers. Learn the techniques. Practice relentlessly for ten or twenty or thirty years. Dont be servile, dont be arrogant, dont look for extra credit, just train. If your teacher tries to manipulate you or take advantage of you, move on. If your teacher is more concerned with intrigues and institution building than serving others, leave. Even if you have invested time and money, cut your losses and go. Be honest with yourself and others. That takes courage. Be clear on your goals. Fitness You can achieve it. Mental power and clarity They are yours through proper practice. The ability to protect yourself and the people who depend on you. The longer and harder you train the more ability you will achieve. But if what you want from your martial arts practice is to become important: look elsewhere. If you want to be admired, thought of as special, be revered as if you were a member of some imaginary ancient Asian pantheon of Great Martial Artists? Forget it. Its not going to happen. And it shouldnt. That wont help you achieve anything of use to anyone.
The finest martial artists I know are the most humble. You would never know they are martial artists. Many are professionals: police or military. You would never know that either, unless they were working. You do not have to be in the military or in law enforcement to be a great martial artist. But you would need the same sense of dedication, purpose, and humility. You would have to be firmly rooted in the knowledge that the real result of your efforts lies in your ability to put your life on the line year after year or in a single moment and to do right when the moment comes.
Martial Edge: At this point I would like to take the opportunity to discuss your work as an artist- something which I know we are going to come back in the future to discuss in more detail. However, in what way has your practice of the martial arts influenced your work as both writer and as an artist?
Jeff Brooks: To achieve our aims we will need the ability to persuade people. It used to be called the art of rhetoric. To be skilful in persuasion you have to be clear in your thinking, have a good understanding of the people you are speaking to, and a command of the tools of language. As a leader the ability to persuade successfully is indispensable. But it is incomplete. It reminds me of a cartoon I saw in a magazine recently. A man is sitting on his psychiatrists couch, with a knife stuck in his back. The psychiatrist is saying "Yes, Mr. Jones, you do have a knife in your back, but the problem goes so much deeper?"
There are times when rhetoric, however profound and good, is not sufficient. There are times when immediate, forceful action is required. The ability to act skilfully and powerfully to restrain harm is essential. To stop a child running into a road, or a gang invading a home, force is required. To be skilful in persuasion and in the use of force are both essential for any leader. To know which to choose and how to use them together is the price of entry for effective leadership in any public role. The qualities of character that lead to mastery diligence, humility, a willingness to fail until one succeeds, the moral vision and the sense of purpose are the same in the world of literature as they are in the world of budo. In the Japanese tradition the characters "Bun Bu" describe the ideal of cultivating both martial arts (Bu) and the arts of literature, knowledge, philosophy and rhetoric (Bun). These are, in a way, mirrors of each other.
Interviews 
This month we interview Jeffrey M., Brooks director of Northampton Karate 
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