I Dream of Judo

A couple nights ago I had a wonderful dream: I was playing judo with my childhood judo teacher, Umeki Masaru Sensei. It's no mystery why I had the dream. The day before I had begun reading Higher Judo by Moshe Feldenkrais. Feldenkrais is best known as the originator of the school of movement education that bears his name. He was also a physicist and engineer as well as an early student of Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo. We see in his writing some early glimmers of how judo would inform his method, as in this passage: "Many people have never made any but the most primitive use of their feet, with the result that the only use and idea associated with them, is that of a plate-like support to the body. This being the only use made of the feet for many years on end, the muscles are most of the time maintained in a fixed state of contraction - precisely the one that makes the feet fit for the service demanded of them. In extreme cases the exclusion of other patterns is so complete, that the feet become frozen in the flat, plate-like position and are useless for any other purpose than motionless standing."

Reading Higher Judo, I was struck by the degree to which Feldenkrais was obviously influenced by Kano's vision of judo as something that went beyond martial art, as a physical/educational/developmental system with a unique pedagogy that helped the practitioner achieve a certain completeness as a human being: "The understanding Judo teacher does his best to further the maturing process of his pupils in this respect, showing them that it is essentially a question of learning and not of infirmity. He, therefore, literally helps his pupils on the way to adult maturity."

The introductory chapters of Feldenkrais' book helped me remember the impact that judo had on me as a child (the rest of the book, on judo groundwork, would have been better served by an instructional DVD, to my Youtube-generation mind). From age eight until fourteen, I strove to perfect my skills in judo under Umeki Sensei's tutelage. I was a skinny boy, something of an egghead, and not at all a natural athlete. I am convinced that, were it not for judo, I would have turned into an ungrounded intellectual with very few physical skills and very low confidence in my bodily abilities. As it was, I learned from an early age to fall and roll and throw and pin, and I believe that has made all the difference. Though I didn't get in fights often, when I did I would throw my opponent to the ground and that was usually the end of it. My favorite pin is a wonderful move called katagatame ("shoulder pin") that to this day nobody I have fought has ever escaped from, including a fellow soldier in the Swiss Army who challenged me to a friendly wrestling match and had at least twenty pounds on me. Judo fostered in me, as Feldenkrais puts it, "a degree of independence of gravitation" that demonstrated to me that, with the rational application of the correct method, one could free oneself of other types of restraints one might come across in life.

Which is not to say that the journey to be free from gravity or other forces was always easy. For instance, I had a natural affinity for leg techniques such as ashi-barai and osoto-gari, and was not very good at applying upper-body throws such as seoi-nage in competitive situations. Somehow I never overcame the mental block that kept me from using seoi-nage. I am not naturally very aggressive, and seoi-nage requires a certain chutzpah and quickness that I didn't think I possessed. In hindsight, I wish I had applied myself to push past this limiting self-definition.

Shortly before leaving Japan for the United States at the end of the ninth grade, I tested for black belt and didn't make it. Black belt testing consisted of entering a tournament of aspirants of the same age, and competing in round-robin fashion. If you won three matches in a row, you got your first degree black belt. I lost my first match, and over the following weeks was a little jealous of my friends Fujita, Wakamiya, and Arakawa, who got to sit up at the front of the class next to Umeki Sensei with their impressive new black belts on.

When it came time to leave Japan, I went to say good-bye to Umeki Sensei. I was surprised and honored when he gave me his black belt as a parting gift. I believe that what he meant by this was not "Here, you deserve this," but rather, "You may not be very good, but I've come to like you so here, keep this to remember me by."

In my dream, Sensei and I were doing judo on the familiar mats of the old dojo, he throwing me around and I occasionally throwing him when he deemed my technique good enough to work had I been matched with someone closer to my ability. The smell of rough cotton gi blended with sweat and Sensei's Mild Seven tobacco aroma, the feel of the cold tatami mats as I was slammed down time and again, the thrill of throwing my teacher, it all came back to me and I was just so happy. Thank you, Sensei, for playing judo with me again after so many years.

Martial Arts and Medicine

In previous posts I have written a little about martial arts and a lot about medicine. Here I’d like to explore the connections between the two. The most obvious connection is that the practice of martial arts comes with the occurrence of injuries, and the treatment of those injuries requires some sort of medical knowledge. Because the major martial arts developed in East Asia, the treatment of martial arts injuries tends to utilize the methods and theories of traditional Chinese medicine – especially acupuncture, massage, and medicinal herbs. Conversely, martial artists throughout history have contributed to the medical arts of Asia their own field-tested methods and formulas, so much so that a large part of traditional East Asian traumatology – the treatment of bone, tendon, and sinew injuries – can be said to be descended from martial arts traditions. The various Shaolin lineages of China are the best-known example, with their "dit da jow" trauma liniments used by martial artists wordwide. Much of "tui na" (traditional Chinese massage and physical therapy), especially bonesetting techniques, co-developed with martial arts as well. In Japan, there has also been a close historical relationship between martial arts schools (especially styles of jujutsu) and bonesetting, and wandering martial artists in search of teachers to study with (or to challenge!) would look up the bone doctors when they first got to a new town.

Because of their common cultural origins, martial arts and traditional Chinese medicine share a common terminology and worldview. Most importantly in this regard, they both take as a fundamental premise the existence of qi, the life force. Qi, also known as “ki” in Japanese and Korean traditions, is thought of as the animating principle in all life, indeed in the whole universe. It is qi that the acupuncturist affects as he inserts fine needles into the channels or meridians through which the life energy flows. It is this same qi that is affected in a martial arts strike to a pressure point. The exact same point can be used to hurt or to heal; what varies is the amount and direction of qi flow through the point. It is said that the ancient sages sat in contemplation and felt the life force flowing through their bodies. From their initial observations developed three interrelated studies: martial arts, medicine, and meditation.

My own introduction to traditional Chinese medicine came through the martial arts. I grew up in Japan, and attended the local judo dojo since I was seven years old. The way we trained in those days was basically free play, or “randori,” all the time. We would get a partner, bow, and go at it, trying to throw our partner to the tatami-mat ground. At our teacher’s command, we would switch to ground-fighting: after the next throw, we would try to pin each other. After about age twelve or so, we were allowed to incorporate chokes into the ground-fighting. Most of the time, the person being choked would tap out and nobody got hurt. But every once in awhile, someone would lose consciousness, and our teacher would revive him. He would use the resuscitation techniques known as “kappo”, and the unconscious student would promptly revive. My interest was piqued.

As a teenager, my family moved to Southern California, and I had the great fortune to study with Joo Bang Lee, the grandmaster of a Korean martial art known as hwarangdo, and with his eldest son Henry Taejoon Lee. Grandmaster Lee is also an acupuncturist, and it was from him that I received my first acupuncture treatment, after a wrist injury sustained at a demonstration. I was fascinated with this exotic healing art, and by the fact that in its advanced levels hwarangdo incorporated "kookup hwal bop" (acupuncture for resuscitation), "chim goo sul bop" (acupuncture for the treatment of disease), and "jyub gol sul" (bonesetting). During the course of training I learned several first aid techniques, such as pressing the middle knuckle into the acupuncture point Du-26 between the nose and upper lip to revive an unconscious opponent, and slapping (or jumping on) the point Kidney-1 on the bottom of the foot, for injuries to the testicles.

Finally, when I was in college I studied taijiquan for a few years. My teachers, Tsuei Wei and Jim Douglas, were both licensed acupuncturists. With taiji I was introduced to the idea that martial arts techniques themselves – movement and breathing – could be healing. In judo we didn’t talk much about ki, and in hwarangdo we practiced techniques to develop and circulate the ki but didn’t really incorporate it into our martial arts techniques (except for breaking techniques, which were basically an extension of “kihap chagi” ki coordination methods). But taiji was different – in taiji, it was all about qi. With taiji it all came together for me, and I began to see the human body not as a conduit through which a mysterious energy flowed, but as a kind of concresence of energy itself. If energy and matter are a continuum, then qi is something more on the energy end of the spectrum, and blood and flesh are more on the matter end. But it’s all the same stuff, and acupuncture is more about affecting the body from the energy end, and herbs are more about affecting it from the matter end. It was ideas like this, plus the persuasion of my teacher Jim Douglas, that made me consider acupuncture as a career.

These days, I am not as active as I once was, and no longer practice martial arts regularly. But it gives me great satisfaction to watch my son Lukas train under instructor Michael Laird of Laird’s Academy of Martial Arts. Instructor Mike teaches ho kuk mu sul, a style that is very similar to the hwarangdo of my youth. Training in martial arts has improved Lukas’ coordination, memory, and motivation, to say nothing of the self-defense skills he is learning. It might seem ironic that an activity that produces injuries is actually health-promoting, but in fact the practice of martial arts does improve health. There are the obvious cardiovascular benefits from the aerobic exercise aspect of training. There are the benefits to bone and muscle from all the stance work, blocks, kicks, and strikes. The qi gets a workout from the "kicho chagi" breathing techniques. All the stretching keeps the body limber. The entire body gets conditioned from the "nak bop" falling techniques. Perhaps most importantly, martial arts training produces an attitude of calm confidence and in-the-moment awareness that counters the stresses and ills of our modern lifestyle and lets us face life with courage and balance. So if you are a martial artist, I would be honored to treat your injuries and illnesses using the techniques of traditional Chinese medicine. But you should know that you are already doing something far more important for your health: you are treating yourself daily by training in the martial arts. And if you have no experience in martial arts, you may want to start - it's good medicine.

Martial Arts and the Value of Ritualized Violence

The appetite for power is rooted in our capacity for violence. In ancient times, before laws or civilization, our power rested in our ability to fight and kill. Of course, in the modern world, most of us exercise our power in non-violent ways. However, our bodies respond to the stress of perceived attacks (and to stress generally) the same way they did a million years ago: by pumping adrenaline and cortisol into our blood, shutting down our digestion, increasing our heartrate, sending blood to our large muscles so we can fight or flee. In ancient days, running away from that mountain lion or fighting that aggressive neighbor provided the perfect outlet for this kind of stress response, and our bodies quickly regained equilibrium (or died). These days, we accumulate stresses but often don’t have an appropriate outlet for them. So we store the stress in our bodies - in tight neck/shoulders/jaw, or ulcers - or release it as inappropriate aggression towards others.

Martial arts, because they place us in situations of ritualized violence, allow us to exercise our power in a healthy way. Through martial arts training, we gain mastery over our bodies, our minds, and our potential attackers. We take the aggression that is an innate part of our genetic make-up, and rather than deny that it exists or vent it where it’s not welcome, we exercise it.

If you are considering taking up martial arts, shop around. There is a wide variety of styles, from the more grappling-oriented judo, to the kicks and punches of karate or taekwondo, to the music and rhythm of Brazilian capoeira, to the meditative grace of taijiquan. Keep in mind your needs and preferences: do you want a competitive sport, bare-bones self defense, or a form of meditative self-cultivation? Also keep in mind the fact that many martial arts styles are in essence gangs and corporations, with strictly codified rules of behavior, longstanding animosities or alliances with other styles, and the expectation of loyalty and allegiance to the leader. Do your homework first so that you know what you are getting yourself into! The most important thing is to pick a school and instructor that feels right for you.