Niju Kun Part 2
by Dan Blackmore
31 Mar 2015
In Part 1 of my interpretations of O’Sensei Gichin Funakoshi’s Niju Kun I discussed four of the principles. For this piece, I will look at the following:
- First you must know yourself. Then you can know others.
- Spiritual development is paramount; technical skills are merely means to the end.
- You must release your mind.
- Misfortune comes out of laziness.
First you must know yourself. Then you can know others.
Strong karate comes from a connected body: the arms, legs, hips, torso, and head must be in sync to perform an effective action. Each individual trains to acquire this body connection, no matter their shape, size, or levels of athleticism and flexibility. Everybody has their own set of strengths and weaknesses. As you train independently and with partners, you learn which techniques and tactics work best for you and your body. Knowing your weaknesses allows you to focus on reinforcing or supplementing them in your training. Self-improvement is good, but it is also important not to lose perspective on what changes have occurred that brought along the improvement. For example, was it a change in your tactics, your form, or in your body conditioning/flexibility that improved your performance? By discovering and recognizing the reasons for your own improvement you can begin to detect signs of vulnerability in others. Knowing why something had failed for you in the past will allow you to apply pressure to an opponent’s vulnerability, giving you the advantage. In the context of training with partners, the intent of applying pressure in this same way is to allow the partner to discover his/her own vulnerabilities for future improvement.
This principle reminds me that although we need the benefit of training with our student peers, progress cannot be measured against others; it is measured against oneself. It can become easy to judge others, but unless called for, doing so holds little benefit for anyone. It is more difficult to judge yourself, but understanding your own strengths and weaknesses helps you to focus your training and to form a stronger base from which to offer constructive criticism when called for it. People need to make sense of things for themselves and to organically discover what they can get out of karate. Although intentions may be good, calling out your fellow students on flaws or areas of weakness often comes out as being condescending. The best way to help out your fellow students is to respect them by allowing them to discover things for themselves. You accomplish this by improving yourself and by being on-target and appropriately swift during partner exercises. If you must verbalize, acknowledge successes, rather than what needs improvement – “Ah, good, you caught me on that one!” or “Nice kick!” Poor targeting, timing, connection, or distance are things that don’t need to be verbalized because you will come to know yourself whether a technique or tactic you employed was good. No need to beat yourself up over every little flaw you come across within yourself, but be mindful of things that keep recurring. Keep training under the guidance of your instructor and senior students, and work with your peers to round you out as you improve – to me, this is how Shotokan training works.
Spiritual development is paramount; technical skills are merely means to the end.
Training karate is more than just repeatedly practicing blocks, kicks, punches, and kata. Imagine a dojo where there is only body conditioning, kihon drills, technical perfection of kata, and no discussions. Such an environment may encourage a feeling of isolation in each student. Interests will wane and students will attend training less often, until they won’t return at all. The ones that do stay form a tunnel-vision about their art. Attitudes get more extreme about what body types and levels of toughness or aggressiveness are required to “get good” at karate. Asking questions or proposing alternatives are seen as an affront to the knowledge and experience of the senior students and instructors, and is often discouraged – “Just get back to doing the drill!” Focusing only on the physical motions will eventually leave practitioners unfulfilled and under-prepared. We need something more.
A dojo must feed the mind and spirit along with the body. The keyword is “spirit” – it is a general term that can be applied to many different things, but it represents the feelings of confidence one has for him/herself. A healthy sense of self-confidence is paramount to attempt to accomplish anything. Further, a healthy self-confidence tempers successes and failures so that our ego doesn’t inflate too large when we succeed, and that we are not discouraged from continuing to move forward or from trying again when we fail. It is for this that the physical aspects are far less important, because they can always be worked on at any point, but the attitudes one forms for oneself and towards the art can have much larger impacts on the individual outside of the dojo. Let me put it this way: interchange the Shotokan techniques that we train with Aikido, or Judo, or anything, but maintain the dynamic of the dojo and keep the same individuals. Over time we will learn the new skills if we keep at it, but will we change as individuals? Are the techniques that we perform what determines the kind of people we are? Of course not – the dynamic established in the dojo acts as a framework for relationships to form and interactions to occur among students and teachers. This framework influences the way in which people develop their spirit in the dojo, and their self-confidence outside of it.
You must release your mind.
Releasing your mind comes two-fold: first, as we train and perform karate, we must be able to calm our thoughts, and second, we must always be ready to learn. A calm mind is crucial for good karate. If we spend too much time and concentration on trying to analyze the position and timing of every muscle as we learn a technique, and exhaust every tactical possibility that may lay before us in a fight, we end up not moving well at all, and most often with a slower reaction time. Engaging the mind while performing karate adds an extra step in the process and diminishes the chance to imprint the physical motions to your body. If you were to try to consciously control every motion of your stride while walking, you might end up tripping over your own feet. Likewise, if you were to spend time in a fight trying to form a scenario in your mind and then analyzing your opponent to find the opportunity to act the scenario out, you might end up being caught off-guard instead. There is just no time to engage the mind while performing karate! The mind must be used to reflect upon one’s training and exercises after their completion, when we have the time to do so. While in the moment of executing an action, we cannot pause to think. Like crossing a road, if we choose to hold back and not cross it, we’re safe, and if we choose to cross at a good opportunity, we’re safe. We’re not safe if we go partway, then pause to analyze our decision or to judge how well we are crossing the road because traffic is coming! There is no doubt that we must use our minds to analyze our performance and to absorb lessons from others to better our karate, but when we are in the moment, our minds must be free.
With regard to being ready to learn, you might have heard the phrases “Emptying your cup.” or “Going back to white belt.” in your dojo. Both of these phrases allude to the same thing: if you see yourself as already having full knowledge of a subject, you can’t learn anything new. This is not to say that you just chuck everything you know out the window and start from scratch. No, instead you need to be receptive to teaching to experience learning. A teacher doesn’t magically stuff knowledge or understanding into your brain, he/she lays the information out in front of you and builds a framework for education. It is you who must go through the experience of learning. Like leading a horse to water, only the horse can take the drink. As we grow as martial artists, and as individuals, it is important to have the ability to empty our cups to remain receptive to learning to facilitate further development. As discussed earlier, you can miss out on a lot when you focus only on the physical aspects of karate. Releasing your mind while engaged in the art/act allows your body to respond better, and releasing your mind to remain receptive to learning allows you to benefit from someone else’s perspective and experience.
Think about how we learned how to walk. When we’re babies we don’t have the mental faculties to think about how our own limbs move and how best to manipulate them to stand up, gain balance, and begin walking. Despite this blissful disconnection from intent and action we all learned how to walk just the same. Our bodies and brains almost automatically trained themselves, through trial and error, how to coordinate the muscles, nerve responses, and motions of our limbs and begin a new method of locomotion. Now that we have matured, we have many more mental tools at our disposal that helps us greatly as we attempt to learn something new, but they can be misused, too. We must not let our knowledge and experience close ourselves off to learning. Too much focus and micromanagement of every motion as we go through them can end up slowing down our progress. Also, even knowing what is wrong does not automatically mean we solve the problem – our bodies must still be trained. Like with walking, the body must be able to perform unconsciously. Allow yourself to relax the mind and give the body the chance to learn through repetition. Use the mind afterwards to analyze yourself, along with the guidance of your peers, senior students, and instructor to improve for next time.
Misfortune comes out of laziness.
To me, this principle ties in very nicely with the others discussed in this piece. We have discussed that karate is not about the techniques; that spiritual development and humbleness are key traits to have for true success in martial arts. One’s education in karate must involve the training of the mind, the body, and the spirit. To me, this is an uplifting thought – your physical stature or condition does not limit your success in learning a martial art. So long as you put the effort in, show improvement in yourself and your ability, and endeavour to improve, you’re succeeding on a personal level. However, this principle also reminds us that we must take care not to become lazy on either of these three fronts, not just the physical one. Again, like the horse to water, your peers, senior students, and instructor, who are there to guide you, cannot make you drink; you must take the steps to achieve all on your own. Some diligence and discipline are required on your part to strive to improve; to endeavour. It can be said that there are no bad students, only bad teachers. In the beginning, this statement may hold some truth; the way that you are taught and the dynamic that is established between student and teacher are the responsibility of the instructor. However, as you rise in rank and experience, and begin to take the reins over your own education, you also take the responsibility for the quality of what you produce in your art. This principle is a gentle reminder that failing to endeavour to develop the mind, body, and spirit as you train may one day catch up to you.
That’s it for Part 2 in my series of discussions of the Niju Kun. I hope these writings inspire you to form interpretations of your own! Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for Part 3.
