Fingers are the methods

After six months that young judo man will meet, what are called in the judo circles by various uncomplimentary names, but the most acceptable is the ‘old soldiers’. He meets a chap who’s been there, he says to him, “Look, I’ve been here 14 years.” He’s grade is not very high, but he’s quite impressive with his reminiscences of the past. He says, “You know, they don’t expect you to do it. They tell you this because it’ll get you to do something, you see, but they don’t really expect you to bring off that throw. After a hundred thousand or a hundred million repetitions. You can’t do it unless you’ve been born in Japan and brought up there. You can’t do that, no, but keep on trying, you’ll get a bit better, but don’t expect that you’re going to pull it off.”

He’s only about 18 and he’s told that by an old boy who’s been there, seen it all, come in the back door, the front door, the side door, he knows it all. He begins to hesitate. He begins to think, “I wonder if that’s right. Do they tell everybody this? Do they just tell you, well after a hundred thousand at most you’ll have it?” Now, a young teacher when he sees this, he tends to get uneasy, and he thinks, “He’s been talked out of it.” He generally goes to an older teacher, and he says, “Look, this is what’s happening, That old…he’s talking him out of it. Do you think I ought to have another word with him and just sort of–?”

The old teacher says, “No.” Then he says, “Now, look at you, you were in the British team at your peak, and since then you’ve produced some good men. You’ve written a couple of books on judo. One of them was quite good, and you’re fairly well known. Now, he’s your pupil and you’ve told him this. Now he’s either going to believe you, or he’s going to believe that no good man, who’s never done anything himself and doesn’t want anyone else to do anything either. It’s a question of faith.” The old teacher says, “Leave him, either he’ll have the faith and he’ll keep on with it, and then he’ll confirm it, and then he’ll trust you ever afterwards.  But if you have to keep pushing him, the next time, you’ll have to push him again and next time, you’ll have to push him again. Now’s the time, he can develop faith. You’ve got faith in him, let him have faith in you.”

The fingers are the methods. We teach these special techniques, which people can acquire and they can get an extraordinary mastery after perhaps eight years.  A man who’s very keen and has a good teacher can get an extraordinary skill in one or two moves and he then identifies himself with that skill that he’s got. When he comes up to a contest, he thinks, “This is how I’m going to win, by this special technique I’ve developed.” Of course, his first aim is to find out what special technique the other man has developed, so that he can guard against it.

When you generally get confusing and conflicting reports about a prospective opponent, some people tell you, “Oh, he’s like a bomb at the beginning, but if you can survive that, he’s got nothing. He’s just got this one terrific throw.” Then somebody says, “Oh, no, he’s given that up, he’s given that up all together. He hangs on now till the fourth minute, then he goes off.” After you have a certain amount of experience, you just wipe all that aside, I’ll just fight the man as he is. We build up a special excellence and we think we’ll fight with that and we can win with it, but there’s a limit.

The special excellence is something that can, so to speak, be like a block of ice: it can’t go through a sieve. And as the grade goes up and up, opponents can put up the bars against these special excellences when they get to know of them. Now, he has to throw away that special skill and take the small and tiny opportunities as they occur. It’s very difficult to do this, just as it’s very difficult in life to give up ones particular technique, which one’s good at, for handling life.

People say, “I’ll stick to the judo, because it’ll be better.” People come to the Judo hall and they say, “Of course I’m not very good at judo, but I am good at accounts and organizing. I’ll take over all the accounts and the organizing, do it for nothing, you’ll all be free to practice.” That’s a very bad thing for a judo dojo. Now the man who’s a skilled carpenter, he’s terrified of judo, but he wants to be associated with it, so he said, “I’ll do all the repairs.” He’s busy, you have new benches and you have new racks in the changing room and it’s all transformed and the members are doing nothing. That’s very bad. You get another man, he’ll sweep out the showers and the lavatory and do it beautifully, it’s spotless, but he’s not doing much judo practice. That’s bad for him and it’s bad for the judo players.

In a judo club, we always prevent this happening and the members, however good and skilful they are, are on their knees scrubbing out the showers along with the others. This makes a great difference to the whole atmosphere of the place, it brings a unity into it.

In our Western sports, and in a good many other things too, the tigers won’t play with the rabbits.  But in the Budo arts, however much of a tiger a man is, he’s in the club team, perhaps in the county team, perhaps in the national team and he practices like mad, but he always gives 20 minutes of his time every day to giving some instruction to a beginner, to a complete beginner. In order to bring this unity – not that some are performing stars and the others are just watching them – but that there’s a unity.

 

 

© Trevor Leggett

Titles in this series are:

Part 1: Fingers and Moons

Part 2: Cherry blossoms

Part 3: Fingers are the methods

Part 4: Imitations do not lead to anything

Part 5: The trees on Mount Ibuka