 Meik Skoss continues his talk with Sawada Hanae who has been training for nearly 70 years. She holds the hanshi certification from the All-Japan Naginata Federation, and teaches both atarashii naginata and Tendo-ryu in Tokyo. Meik Skoss has been a student of Sawada Sensei in Tendo-ryu since 1976. This interview was conducted on December 9, 1996 at the Shinjuku Naginata dojo.
Way of Teaching
Sawada Sensei: I was taught a very long time ago by Chiba Sensei, who taught in the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras. He would say, "There is a hibachi, right?" Well, actually, let's use the example of this cup, instead. There is a cup here, right? We, the teachers, see the cup from above. Those who can't yet do the techniques see the cup from down here, from the bottom. They don't even know the distance between the bottom and the top. Only those looking down from above can understand certain points. Other people, looking at it from below, cannot really understand the shape of the cup or its essence. Therefore, only doing something a little bit in the martial arts does not really mean you have done it.
Furthermore, training once or twice a week for ten years or so does not mean you've actually trained for that period of time. If you figure it out, you really have only trained four times a month. Sometimes you miss a class. But, even assuming you came to every lesson, if you count the hours, it still only comes to four times a month, not a full year of practice. So if you practice once a week for ten or twenty years, you haven't really practiced very much. You may not even have practiced for five years, once you add up the actual hours.
Meik Skoss: So an instructor must be able to perceive a student's actual level, as well as the top and the bottom of the cup?
SS: That is what you must do. Plus, you have to train yourself and polish your skills, over and over again. So, even when you're giving commands as you're leading the group, you have to do so as though you're facing each person individually.
Also, the Kata, the correct form, must be there. You cannot understand it in parts. But you must understand not only the form, but also what is happening in between the forms, the whole time. For example, those people over there are having problems striking the lower leg, so I have them practice just striking the legs. I tell them to strike the shins in different ways and places. But I don't sit just quietly and tell them how to do it. I show them. And when I show them how to do it, I have to do it right. When I show them, I get in there right away, and "Wham!" take the shin. I can do this because I've done it over and over again. It is not something that can be learned right away.
From our perspective as teachers, whatever budo you are talking about, they all have a common thread. We can look at a person and see if he or she is by themselves, looking self-important. If you train with a snobbish attitude, we will see it. If you are training from your heart, we will see that, too. We praise those who work hard by letting them know we know they did just that. Those who say, "I did great today, I am so good at this," receive no praise. We're concerned with the expression of the spirit. Unless you reach that state of mind you will never excel.
You have to be able to both do both parts, shi and uke, win and lose. You can't do either one alone. You are able to practice because you have a partner. You can't say you are good at it until you can have a kind of spiritual exchange, a give-and-take with your partner. You just think that you are good.
I teach by calling up someone's spirit. Whether I'm teaching them kata or something else, I call up their spirit while I teach. If you don't do it in this way, it never becomes the real thing. It ends up being just a pose.
I have noticed a difference between pre- and postwar martial arts instructors. Not only in training practices, but in thought patterns, too.
Today's instructors are different. You could say they're simply on an escalator. Once they get on it, they automatically get carried upward until they become an instructor. This is not how it worked for us. We had to practice very hard everyday for a very long time until we reached this point.
Only after you have practiced, and practiced hard, every day, morning and night, can you fully appreciate the value of a martial art. You have to train not only when you are here in the dojo, but even when you are home. You have to train always.
Way of Training
MS: These days, many instructional books and videos are available. What do you think about people using such things to learn new techniques?
SS: A book will prove or verify what you have already learned; it will help you understand what you can already do. It is not to copy from. You don't look at a book, do the form and then ask what is wrong. You look at the book to show yourself what you've already learned. But it isn't like that these days. People look at a book, copy the form and say they know how to do it. But this is not budo. It is merely mimicking the forms.
MS: Tendo-ryu focuses on kata practice, but we all also practice atarashii naginata, which includes matches. What is the importance of shiai for martial arts training?
SS: You have to test your forms through these matches. Just doing the forms and saying to yourself, "I did it," isn't enough. I always tell my students they have to practice the forms and they have to actually strike people in competitive bouts to be able to understand the art. They may practice striking when they train by themselves, but these "strikes" may not actually connect. They won't know this unless they are in a match. They may practice hitting a lot, just by themselves, but they simply can't understand that the form alone is not going to work in a match. Competition very rarely follows form and it's not wise to think that it will.
So, as we do naginata techniques, we go straight forward. In the beginning, we have the fundamentals. You should just go straight forward with these. Your opponents will be alert and you can't depend on them to just stand there while you strike. You have to be able to make split-second decisions and attack based on these decisions. It doesn't do you any good to strike late. I always tell you not to stick too closely to your opponent.
When you train or compete, what should your aim be? One time I came back from a demonstration at Kashima Shrine with you and Kuroda Sensei, and I remember you saying then that the object is not winning, it is "not-losing." I'm not sure what you meant by that. In my case, I don't want to lose. I hate losing. But up until now, I have had very few decent matches. What should I be feeling when I train, when I use the naginata?
You should train by noticing when and where your partner is open. Or about how they are not open at all. You should be thinking about how to strike the opponent where they're open. Matches are tameshiai, a mutual testing or trial. You are testing each other.
MS: By testing, you mean testing yourself?
SS: Of course. You aren't there to test the other person. You are doing it to teach yourself. If you want to know what the goal is, it is to become "empty" and to do naginata without actually thinking of anything. This doesn't mean to just stand there and do nothing. But you can't understand this until you do it.
If you don't become empty of desire or conscious thought, you can't do it. Just thinking about how to do something isn't it. Considering how to excel isn't it. It's nothing but doing it over and over, until your spirit enters into it and your body does it naturally, without thinking about anything. It's not something you understand merely by hearing about it. It is something you must do and realize yourself, with your own body. There's no other way.
MS: So I shouldn't be thinking of winning or losing at all?
SS: You hate losing, right? But only through losing can you understand what it means to win. But you only know about winning. You need to lose and then examine your mental state. You have to realize, "Ah, this is what it feels like to lose." Then, you must do the same thing the next time you win. If you don't know what it feels like to both win and lose, then you cannot win. If you can't lose, you can't win. This is a very important thing about martial arts.
In naginata, people are wrong who think they won because they were able to do this technique or that. That is only striking someone. Being able to face your opponent's spirit with your own and then win, though, is not something that's picked up in a mere ten or twenty years of training. It is not an easy thing to do. This is something one understands only after practicing every day for many years.
These days I have one student who is a little bit arrogant, so I am always mad at her. She has no empathy at all for the spirit of her partner. She believes she is superior and acts as if she's the only one who knows anything. This just shows that she can't do it. Unless you and your partner reach the same level, then you can't do the technique properly. You might have good technique, but if you fail to understand the spirit of your partner, then you are doing nothing but the outward form. When you stand together, you have to help your partner. If you don't help, then your partners will never improve. They will always remain at their current level.
MS: So you mean, pulling someone up?
SS: Yes. This does not mean only from outside, with the form. Rather, you must pull them up by their spirit, from the inside. The atarashii naginata training method called hikitate geiko literally means training to pull or raise someone up. But no one here does that. This is because they are strong enough. Though they think they're helping to pull each other up, they're really just fighting each other, not helping.
It seems to me that, in the Ueshiba style of aikido that I have practiced, there is an overemphasis on blending, or matching, and not enough concern given to what I suppose one could call "reality" in a combative situation.
When you speak of matching, if your kokyu, or breathing, does not match then you do not match. You are thinking merely of form, aren't you? But in order to do aiki, both your spirit and that of your partner must enter into play and then come together. When you study aiki, this is what you are studying. What you are doing is not. You think only about winning since you hate to lose. Only by losing, again and again, can you know what it is to win. Aiki can only be understood through repetition. You have to do it over and over, not thinking of your own winning. This is the same thing the student I mentioned above is thinking: "I am strong. Everyone else is no good." This isn't the case. If you can reach the point where both you and your partner become strong together, that's when you'll have something to say. Only then will you understand what is meant when we talk about aiki. "I am strong. Everyone else is no good. I hate losing." This is not martial arts. You only become strong through winning and losing, over and over again.
The martial arts aren't about winning. There's a sort of give-and-take, winning and losing, all thanks to the partner with whom you train. Only through this give-and-take can you excel in budo, can you make progress.
There are people training with children, who sometimes allow the children to hit or throw them, aren't there? If you can't do this, both you and they will never make progress. It's useless if little children think they will always win. So, when you train with children, you must become just like a little child. When they try techniques, this must be accepted and you must react as though you have really been struck or thrown, no matter how small the power. Then this becomes training for you, as well. It is obvious that, if you used your full strength, you would win against a small child. But you have to allow them to hit you sometimes. You must allow them to be proud of striking you, of winning against you. You must help them build their spirit. Then you will get training, too. And you will become a better martial artist. If you always win, and everyone else always loses, you are not really doing martial arts.
MS: You must train in this manner? For example, in the case of Tendo-ryu, you must perform uke's role with that spirit?
SS: Yes, that's right. It is, then, basically the same as hikitate training. You must look at your partner. When she strikes straight forward, you must be ready for this. If you are afraid and strike out first, this is not training-it in no way pulls the other up to a higher level.
So, as you can see, martial arts are not at all simple. Until you reach that state of mind, where you can train selflessly, you have to thoroughly study many techniques and principles. This involves training with many people. To train with only one person is wrong. If just two of you always train together, you will never be any good.
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