Niju Kun Part 3
by Dan Blackmore
22 May 2015
Welcome again to my continued exploration of the meanings behind the Niju Kun. The Niju Kun are Twenty Instructions that O’Sensei Gichin Funakoshi penned in 1938. They were written to guide students along as they train karate. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of my interpretation of eight of the Niju Kun. For this piece, I will present my interpretations of the following principles:
- Karate is a lifelong training.
- Put Karate into everything you do.
- Karate is like hot water. If you do not give heat constantly it will again become cold.
- Do not think you have to win. Think that you do not have to lose.
Karate is a lifelong training.
Karate is not something that you can master over a weekend. You might learn some moves, but, like anything that you want to get good at, you must stick with it and train. To stay sharp, you must continue to train/practice; there is no real finish line. Generally speaking, when we start karate, it becomes about earning our next rank, perhaps in anticipation of being able to learn the next kata and set of techniques. As we continue to train, we gain skill, learn, and develop. For those of us who stick with it, we will earn our Shodan, and beyond. After Shodan, or perhaps Nidan, you may have realized that it’s no longer just about earning that next rank, or getting a black belt. It becomes about what you wish to achieve with your rank, and what you can help others to achieve in their own training. Maybe for others, having a black belt just satisfies their karate itch, and they have no interest in earning Nidan. Even then, they would have to maintain their skills through training. Along the way many of us have paused our training for a period of time while focusing on other priorities in our lives. Yet, some months or years later we have come back to training to get our skills back up to snuff, and perhaps to continue to progress. As we all grow and change through time, our karate training can follow, if we keep it in our lives. Some karateka train to compete, some train for the art of it, others for learning self-defence, and still more train for fitness. Our thoughts, opinions, attitudes, physical conditions and abilities, and desires constantly change as we age. In turn, karate training can adapt to suit the ever-changing individual; we each get out of karate what we put into it.
Another way to look at this principle is to realize that there is no finish line – we are meant to continuously endeavour to improve ourselves. We must always maintain the attitude that we are students, open to learning. Be weary of the feeling that you have achieved mastery. Having pride in your accomplishments and confidence in your abilities is a good thing, but take care not to reach the point where you feel like you know it all. If we were to let our pride get in the way, see ourselves as masters and not acknowledge that we have any weakness, we might just choose to stop training those techniques or kata that we already know, or those that challenge us. We would end up just sticking with what feels comfortable and familiar and, naturally, get good at what we do. However, by narrowing our scope to phase-out anything that challenges us, we have fooled ourselves into believing that we have achieved “mastery.” True mastery would involve losing your ego, staying honest with yourself about your own abilities, and never shying-away from attempting something new.
Speaking for myself, I have a sandan rank, but know that despite having much to teach, I have much to learn as well. I am not talking exclusively about any techniques or kata I have yet to be taught, but also about returning to everything I have learned thus far and trying to find something new. I would like to think that even if I were to earn 4th, 5th, or any further dan rank, I would still believe that I have great progress to make, and continue to strive to achieve it. This falls in line with another principle – “First you must know yourself. Then you can know others.” – you must know your strengths and weaknesses, which will change over time. We must all acknowledge that we have more to learn as we train to find our limits and push ourselves to overcome them. No matter anyone’s individual size, physical condition, or age, we can all maximize our techniques and strategies through training. If anything, we should train-up what we find to be difficult in order to maximize performance, and to find alternatives where necessary. If we do not adapt our training to be in tune with our personal goals and physical abilities, we will not be setting ourselves up to make progress.
Put Karate into everything you do.
I see three sides to this one: move deliberately to inject supplemental body control exercises into your daily actions; be mindful and aware of your surroundings and the people around you; and bring the philosophy of karate into the way you approach other challenges in your life.
For the first point, we must learn to be aware of our bodies when training karate. By staying mindful of how we move, we can turn our daily actions into ways to train ourselves. For example, we should all maintain good posture, breathing, and connection as we sit, stand, walk, lift and carry objects, navigate around objects and people as we walk/run, etc. If we get into the habit of maintaining the connection between mind and body, intention and action, then we become more adept at controlling our bodies. Further, by transforming mundane, repetitive motions into training exercises, the more reps we complete throughout our days. The more natural it becomes for us to use control and body connection, the more natural it becomes to perform karate.
Secondly, we must always be aware of our surroundings and the people around us. I am sure Funakoshi could never have dreamed of the future that is today: personal computers and devices on-hand, 24-7. A person might wear headphones or earbuds to experience their own music and block out the noise of the outside world. Similarly, a person can focus their attention to the phone or digital device in their pocket, messaging, playing a game, watching a video, checking the weather, etc. Though they serve a purpose, they can also serve to be distractions. The devices and applications themselves are not bad, but they require a certain level of personal responsibility for an individual to use safely. Have fun and use your gadgets, but don’t let them become preoccupations while you’re walking, running, biking, or driving. Turn the volume down, both to protect your hearing, and to be able to hear what’s happening around you. Don’t look at your phone while driving – whomever is at the other end can wait a few minutes or so until you safely get to where you’re going. While walking, step aside and pause to type your message to avoid tripping over unseen objects or holes. Overall, just scan with your eyes to see anything that might become a problem before it does. Maybe you’re driving too closely to the vehicle in front of you. Maybe someone else walking towards you doesn’t see you because they are distracted by reading or viewing something. Maybe that person driving is looking for an opening to make a right hand turn on a red light and doesn’t see you starting to cross. Maybe there’s someone hot/cute walking nearby. Maybe there’s a guy running towards you, swinging a stick, haha! The point is that you must be aware of your surroundings and be a little cautious because not everyone else around us is.
For the third point, consider the rest of the niju kun, and the dojo kun. A great deal of the principles introduced have to do with endeavouring to improve oneself, acknowledging one’s own weaknesses, developing good habits, having respect for oneself and others, staying humble and confident, never ashamed of being a student, adapting to the situation, being prepared, knowing/understanding an opponent or problem – all encouraging the development of positive virtues in ourselves. Karate is not just about learning self-defence techniques – that’s a welcomed bonus – but it’s far more important that karateka are shown a path to self-discovery, and given a positive example to follow. Individuals are given the responsibility to make judgments on how they conduct themselves with their newly developed skills. The overall hope is that karate training has produced more sensible people in the world who will make better-informed decisions when faced with adversity. This culture of self-discovery and improvement is the essence of karate that can be injected into everything else that we do in our lives.
Karate is like hot water. If you do not give heat constantly it will again become cold.
To me, this one is pretty straight-forward; to stay sharp you must train. There is no substitute for physical skill training; you must train on the dojo floor. There is no substitute for training the mind, you must study and absorb other peoples’ perspectives to further develop your own philosophy. There is no substitute for developing your spirit, you must work with your peers to enhance and further each others experiences and skills in karate. Even if you are fit, you must still train karate properly to keep your skills up. Exercise and karate are different activities. Yoga, running, aerobic workouts, and the like all have benefits to improve your overall fitness, which can supplement your karate training, but they are not substitutes for it. Likewise, karate training will give you some level of flexibility training and body conditioning, but you will also benefit from supplemental exercise outside of the dojo. For example, deep, long stances help build-up muscle and increase flexibility, but are not meant to be how one moves to defend oneself practically. I would recommend working both karate and exercise into your regular schedule to maximize achieving your goals for both fitness and martial arts skill development.
Do not think you have to win. Think that you do not have to lose.
This is a reminder that karate is about self-defence. By definition, competitions must have a clear winner above other participants, but one must be careful not to let competition shift their focus from self-defence. Kumite exercises and participation in tournaments can be important tools for us to develop our abilities, but reality is very different. The essence of self-preservation is to get out with minimal harm. In competition, you must pursue your opponent and attack to win. In reality, you should either try to keep your distance, or strike to cause damage and shock to your attacker and find/create an escape. Do not let the ego drive you to chase victory, because you may catch defeat instead, or cause undue harm to the attacker. What if a child was swinging a stick and attacking others, for example – would you aim for the knockout? To break a limb? To get a good choke hold? Or would you simply disarm and control the child safely? How about if someone pulled out a knife – would you attempt to close-in to disarm the attacker? What if a bunch of guys surrounded you – would you attempt to defeat them all? You must use your head to avoid and deescalate dangerous situations. If not, then look for creating an opening to escape. You don’t have to “defeat” anyone assaulting you, and you should not waste any time trying to gain a position to do so – defend yourself and get out of the situation as fast as you can.
This concludes Part 3. Part 4 in my series of discussions on the Niju Kun will be arriving in the near future. Thank you for your time! I hope these pieces encourage you to think about what you believe karate to be and to find your own interpretations of the Niju Kun; feel free to sign-in to the website to leave comments.
