The Ikigai Podcast
The Ikigai Podcast
Beyond Self-Defense: Exploring the Transformative Power of Martial Arts with Adam Mitchell
How can practices like martial arts lead to life transformation?
While martial arts are often associated primarily with self-defense, their potential goes far beyond mere protection. Delving deeper into the practice reveals a multitude of benefits it can offer.
In this episode of the Ikigai Podcast, Nick speaks with Adam Mitchell about how mastering martial arts can provide a sense of fulfilment and direction in life.
The preservation of the art that my teacher is teaching me is the most important responsibility that I have as a student is to not learn it and then make it my own and completely manipulate it and create some other thing from it. But in understanding kobudo, look, I could put on a pair of khaki shorts and a t-shirt and teach anybody in a park or a concrete room these same techniques and how to beat someone up. That's not what budo is. That's not what kobudo. More accurately, what I study and teach is in that prefix, ko, meaning like classical budo, which is the martial arts or the old martial arts, that there is an understanding of, first of all, how to learn and to study in a model of how we are taught, of shuhari, and I'm sure you're familiar with this.
Speaker 1:But the first is really learning, just doing as you're told, doing as you see, following exactly how your teacher, and to not ask questions but to simply do, and I know to many here in the West that people have a challenge with that. And then the second, that ha stage, which is much, much further down the line than most people would think, is this is where you begin to introduce different variables and you begin to pressure. Test it just a little bit. Now they begin to expand through exposure and pressure and variation. But you don't change the root form or the ri. You let go of it and it becomes something that's natural. It becomes part of who you are.
Speaker 2:Find your Ikigai at ikigaitribecom. My guest today on episode 81 of the Ikigai podcast is Adam Mitchell, father, martial artist and entrepreneur. To quote you from your bio on your website, adam, as a professional martial artist for nearly 30 years, my traditional Japanese dojo is more an extension of who I am rather than a business venture, from launching the internet's first fully interactive martial arts school to traveling the world to teach. My involvement in martial arts grounds me as a father, business person and man. It was my gateway to being an entrepreneur Today. We serve over 300 students from around the world every night and provide training resources to thousands of martial artists in an extremely niche community. Adam has been the director of Yasuragi Dojo for over 25 years, a traditional martial arts and cultural learning center in the heart of Hudson Valley in New York. His dojo offers lessons, workshops and online courses in the arts of authentic jiu-jitsu, kenjutsu and classical weaponry. Hey, adam, thank you for joining me. We've had a few chats. I was on your podcast and it's a pleasure to have you on mine.
Speaker 1:Nick, thank you so much. This is really exciting for me to be here and to have this conversation. Yeah, let's get it started.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah, let's do that. So one of the joys of having a non-Japanese guest on this podcast is I learn new words and great insight to an area of Japanese culture that they're passionate about. So what you're passionate about and I may not really be familiar with. So I think we'll dive into many themes on this episode. Obviously, one will be door the way or the path. But before we do all that, do you want to give me a bit of background and share your journey, to how you have dedicated much of your life to the study and teaching of Japanese martial arts?
Speaker 1:Sure, like probably most of your guests, I'm not a huge fan of talking so much about myself, but my journey really starts when I was young. I was really influenced heavily by doing judo as a child. As I got older, I moved around with my mom. Things were broken up in my family a bit and ended up looking to the streets for family and community. I ended up in community with other kids who, let's just say, were of that like mind. Violence became a thing. Taking the wrong path was usually the decision that I made. However, there was always this kernel of morality and making the right choice that I think had been put in place early on as a child through judo and through some other experiences that I had connected to that. So when I had just gotten exhausted as a teenager of fighting and being involved in this street life, I had been given a break by someone and they asked if I wanted to work at their nightclub. I was only 19 at the time, 18 at the time and the story is really that he knew that I was a tough kid and that I could channel that in another way. I had spent some time in working in a factory and I was trying to get my life on the right track and to make a long story short, I got myself back into jujitsu and this is long before UFC and mixed martial arts and I ended up also getting into doing some light competition. Things had gotten better for me through martial arts and I began to sort of rediscover that path, sort of rediscover that path. And I was refereeing one day in my early 20s in a competition in Long Island and I was reffing between two young people in a tournament and I watched this one girl really demolish this boy and Nick. They were maybe 11 or 12 years old and this was a turning point for me because I had channeled all of this young aggression back into martial arts, back into a pathway to self-control, back into some self-discovery. Where had I continued in the direction that I was in? It certainly would have led to either being in a grave or being behind bars, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1:So fast forward a few years. I was in a dojo across the street from this factory that I was working in in New York, and then I'm now at this competition in Long Island and this little girl just really threw almost this sort of coliseum-esque feeling of hundreds of people in this huge hotel, this conference center and all these competitions and people yelling and screaming. This little girl's parents are behind her and this little boy's parents are behind him. And she comes out out and she just hits this kid and knocks him down. They get back up. One point he gets it. She gets in, throws a kick, knocks the kid down again. Second point three points she wins. So she comes in like a tiger, she does a flying kick to this kid's stomach and he falls, his feet come out from under him and he falls flat on his face. And he falls, his feet come out from under him and he falls flat on his face. He looked up at me.
Speaker 1:In my world a black belt doesn't mean so much now, but back then it really did and I'll never forget this little boy looking at me through those padded helmet that he had on, and the girl's parents are screaming for her and the little boy's parents are behind him and they're just sort of like. They're not happy at all and the boy's eyes are tearing up and I'll never forget his eyes shifted to my belt and then he looked at my face and then he looked back at my belt and it occurred to me that I had just uh, I had watched two children hurt each other and I understand. I understand the spirit of competition and I fully support this exposure to making young people resilient, pushing themselves. But this was something much further beyond that. And that little boy looked at my black belt and then he looked at me and I think at that moment that young man had defined something in him and the definition had changed for him what that role meant. And it had certainly changed for me, because I walked off the mat and I never looked back and I made my way to Japan to sort of go.
Speaker 1:I said there's got to be something more to this. There has to be deeper meaning. There couldn't have been so many men and women who, in this path of traditional martial arts and not necessarily only Japanese, but also Chinese, as well as many of the European arts, but these primitive arts there had to be something more. There was something that I'm missing. It couldn't come to me standing in a conference center in Long Island watching two children beating the living hell out of each other, and that was awesome. So I had really once again found myself going down the wrong path, and that young man's stare put me into this path of discovering what this was about, and that's really where I started yeah, yeah, that's quite powerful, quite a powerful moment.
Speaker 2:it kind of reminds me of the day I found out my son, who was around that age 10 or 11, didn't want to continue jiu-jitsu and he was sort of saying, ultimately, just said I don't like hurting people, I don't want to do it anymore. And he sort of teared up and I realised, okay, I thought you know, he was just being a lazy kid who didn't want to go. So I kind of thought, okay, this is not for him and the gradings and all that didn't really mean anything to him. So, yeah, it's amazing how uh, obviously for you, this, this opportunity to learn judo, really sound like it saved you or set you on a new path. It's funny how small decisions when we're younger, or opportunities, or maybe the kindness of someone, really does change our life Absolutely. And here you are. What, 30, 35 years later?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A very different man to, maybe, what you could have been. So it's amazing how the culture of another country can really impact us. So let's touch on your dojo, which is called the Yasuraki Center. I think our listeners will be familiar with the word dojo, but as you run one, I think you can give us more insight to what a dojo is and the purpose it serves. So what is a dojo?
Speaker 1:Well, nick, before we do that, I'd like to unpack a little bit and learn what did your son move on to after he stopped doing jujitsu? Was thereitsu? Was there something else that he gravitated towards?
Speaker 2:Yeah, music. So he's very much into music, composition, and it's a different kind of passion. So he spends most of his time in his room composing, but I mean he's composing orchestral pieces or you know, that's wonderful Hip-hop. Or he's even done the music for his university's commercial. So they asked him to do that. And now he's making, he's collaborating with game makers and doing music, music for for games, so that sort of become his passion or his ikigai. So for him he's using that. Um, I'm just happy, he's using his creative self, really happy about that. Yeah, right on, right on. Yeah, well, dojo is uh, I mean the word itself dojo is.
Speaker 1:I mean the word itself. Dojo is a place for immersive learning. It's, you know, oftentimes it's translated as the hall or the place of the way of the Tao, and it's a, more accurately, it has origins in Zen, so a Zen do is oftentimes something that you hear. Origins in Zen, so a Zen-do is oftentimes something that you hear.
Speaker 1:Yasuragi was a word that was, or a name that was, given to my dojo from an old sensei. At the time. My dojo was in a part of New York, in the Hudson Valley, where back in the turn of the century there had been a lot of iron ore mining, so there was a lot of deposits on these hills and there was a lot of rust and there was this redness and the name was. He had said that Yasuragi even though it's like a place of peace, he said it should be a peaceful place along the hillside is what his vision of the dojo was. Now, I know that literally it doesn't translate to that, but the feeling, the intention that one has when I speak of Yasuragi should convey that. So, yeah, that's the origin of the word and that's what it means.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had to look that up, so I did come across terms as tranquility, sincerity, the gentle feeling of inner peace where your heart is calm, at ease, harmony within yourself, which might even seem like a paradox to the idea of learning a martial art. But this is what's fascinating about martial arts, in particular, maybe Japanese martial arts. There's a balance, or there's this idea of the internal and external. We talked about it on your podcast, I guess, Kokorozashi. So it's fascinating how Japanese martial arts encapsulates not just the practice of training but a philosophy behind it of gentleness, of peace. So, yeah, I probably wished I'd explored that when I was younger. Maybe I've still got time. It's not too late, nick, and that's probably why many people come to you. So tell me more about your center.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so thanks. We started in 2000. I opened my dojo in 2000. And in 2001, we became a registered nonprofit.
Speaker 1:My goal was to really create an atmosphere of boombooryodo, like the merging of the warrior and the literary arts, together and together with my partner, my business partner, sharon Nakazato-sensei, who is a local woman who, in the 60s and early 70s, instead of protesting against the Vietnam War, she ended up going off to Japan and studying Shodo. She spent an enormous amount of time in Japan studying and really acquired a mastery of the brush and art and cooking. She wrote a book on cooking with seaweed and she's done a number of really very, very interesting things and beautiful things. I found her and she was in the same town as my first dojo and we immediately became close friends and are to this day. It was through her partnership that we opened the Yasuragi Center, which was a Budo dojo, a martial arts school, as well as a cultural arts center, and the goal really was to allow people to have an experience that was beyond punching, kicking, choking people coming here. I want my kid to learn self-defense, I want my kid to have self-control, I want my kid to be able to stand up for himself, and I'm kind of like as a father of four. I wanted to say back to every single one of those parents I understand, but that's really your job. But I also understand what many of the parents were up against and at the time up to last year, I stopped teaching children after 25 years and I'll get more to that part later, but the first 25 years of the dojo we were both adults and children. So it was a children's program at the dojo and we wanted to make sure that children had a deeper appreciation of Budo. But martial arts would sort of be a gateway into them getting a higher tolerance. For I shouldn't say a higher tolerance, but they should have an increased desire in the discovery of other cultures and things new to them, rather than being stuck in the snow globe of Westchester County, new York.
Speaker 1:The center was able to offer trips and events and workshops for children and adults, as well as doing partnerships with other organizations that had connections either to Japan or to museums that had exhibits. We also did a program with Music from Japan where we had a yearly concert. Sharon Sensei did the translation services for Music from Japan concert. Sharon Sensei did the translation services for Music from Japan. So we built this cultural arts center and we hosted two large events in one concert and we had a Sakura Matsuri each year for our county and we did a number of things. We had a yearly Daiku no Dogu workshop, or woodworking workshop, and we brought in these teachers and experts in different areas of traditional and cultural Japanese arts and gave them that symposium and gave them an audience that had a shared interest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was Yasuragi. We ran that for about 10 years and then 2009 happened. The economy really took a hard hit and, as a result, we had to cut back on a lot of these programs because people just weren't donating. The interest had sort of dissolved a bit and, as a result, I focused the efforts of our dojo more towards where we were growing, which was our online students and our students abroad, in building shibucho or training groups in different parts of the United States, as well as in Mexico and Canada.
Speaker 2:Nice. Yeah, it's amazing how I guess some people would think it'd be pretty hard to teach martial arts online, but I know you're not the only organization who does this and I guess it's wonderful to connect with people you you normally couldn't because of location, and you have this opportunity to to spread, I guess, the the learnings or teachings of budo to a wider audience yeah, that was a bit of a crazy story, Nick.
Speaker 1:My sensei is a retired lieutenant colonel from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and there's sort of this thing. As you well know, when your sensei says or asks or requests something of you, you usually follow through with it. That's something that's really hard to convey to the Western mind of that relationship of a sensei that you have. Well, he reached out to me, and this was in early 2006. And he said that there was someone that contacted the Honbu Dojo, or the headquarters dojo in Japan. One of them was from Bermuda and another one was from a city in Florida, town in Florida, and he said please help them. I didn't really know what to do because I'm in New York. So I hi, sensei, we'll make sure that this is taken care of. And so immediately I thought of how can I do video content and send it on this thing called the internet. Maybe I could use MySpace. We have to figure this out. So we went to the local bookstore, we got the building website for Dummies book and we started built myself and a 17-year-old program manager I had at the time and he's now one of the senior students at the dojo and he's also my business partner and he has children and his family and he grew up in my dojo and he's wonderful, and that's a whole separate story. But we built a very small content delivery system.
Speaker 1:We had no clue what we were doing, but I had this commitment to my teacher and in January of 2007, we went live streaming with I'm not going to bore you with the technical details, but it was by today's standards. It was absolutely insane how we had the cameras set up. We were recording on tape and the tape was pushing to a hard drive so that we could just. It was just. It was something else. However, what happened when we did that is we had someone chime in from Boston, and then we had someone from Mexicali, Mexico, in the California Baja, and then we had someone in Minneapolis come online that night and it really occurred to me that evening Again this is another one of those shifts that I had that suddenly the teaching of Kobudo and how I was doing this could be done differently.
Speaker 1:Rather than trying to sell to a five-mile radius, I could now share with whoever had a genuine interest and I could invite them to my dojo and give them the facilities to stay here for a period of time or I could help them develop their own training group and their own Shibucho and help nurture that and then maybe visit them and work with them in a workshop. So we took on a whole new model at that time. Nobody else on the internet was doing that. Where they had, I could see you, you could see me, and we were teaching martial arts and we were building libraries of lessons and engaging with one another and that was a real big, pivotal point for us.
Speaker 2:Now, we're very lucky to be living in the era that we're living in, with all this opportunity to connect and share. Well, one thing I've noticed from our conversations and what I've read on your website is your desire to both be respectful and preserve Japanese tradition. That's something that's important to me. So, yeah, why do you think it's important to you?
Speaker 1:That's a great question. It, that's a great question. So the preservation of the art that my teacher is teaching me is the most important responsibility that I have as a student is to not learn it and then make it my own and completely manipulate it and create some other thing from it. But in understanding kobudo, look, I could put on a pair of khaki shorts and a t-shirt and teach anybody in a park or a concrete room these same techniques and how to beat someone up. That's not what budo is. That's not what Kobudo. More accurately, what I study and teach is in that prefix, ko, meaning classical Budo, which is the martial arts, so the old martial arts that there is an understanding of, first of all, how to learn and to study in a model of how we are taught, of shuhari, and I'm sure you're familiar with this. But the first is really learning just doing as you're told, doing as you see, following exactly how your teacher shares it with you, and to not ask questions but to simply do, and I know to many here in the West that people have a challenge with that. And then the second, that ha stage, which is much, much further down the line than most people would think, is. This is where you begin to introduce different variables and you begin to pressure, test it just a little bit, that those basics, those foundational lessons that you have. Now they begin to expand through exposure and pressure and variation. But you don't change the root form or the principles, or we'll use the word kakihiki, or like the tactics and the timing or the rhythm has to stay pure. And then from there, eventually, eventually and you don't know, at least they tell me you don't know but eventually you let go of it and it becomes something that's natural, it becomes part of who you are. Now, in order for that to happen, you have to follow that progression and that takes an enormous amount of patience and respecting the path to be able to follow that correctly. So to me it's very important that the values that I've taken from that and how that's changed my life, how it's changed my perspectives on living, how it has brought me so much value, changed my perspectives on living, how it has brought me so much value and the people around me, how it's benefited my children, how it's benefited my family I mean, I could go on and on with this that can't exist without shuhadi and it can't exist if I put my own sticker on it and call it my own. But there's a balance there, nick. I can't take this template and put it in a punch press and then expect the next generation to do exactly that. At a certain level, my sensei expects my character now becomes part of the art, because it's not.
Speaker 1:There is a Bujutsu right. This is a different thing. There is the Bugei. There's like the science of the craft of warriorship. There's the Bujutsu, which is like the Spartans, all 300 of us marching forward with the spear in that same formation. But the Budo. The path is something entirely different.
Speaker 1:However, in order to get to that place, we need to listen. Then, when we're given the opportunity, we need to be taught how to test and push ourselves forward. To let our teacher say no, you can do this, because all those narratives of self-defeating narratives are going to run wild in our head. But when our teacher says do this, we do it because there's a degree of trust that we have. And then eventually, we get to this place where we're released from it and it becomes the art. It becomes the dough. Not that dough is the art, but a martial art is not a martial template. At a certain point, it becomes you and you become it.
Speaker 1:And this is where very much my interest in Ikigai comes in, where, at this point now, it becomes my way of living, it's my bright future. I know that Budo is a way to age gracefully. It is a way to contain power within and that power could be power of anger, power of hate, power of some greed, maybe Some of those emotions and feelings that I have as a man that I just wow, that could leak out sideways in so many different ways, feelings of possible loneliness or abandonment that so many of us struggle with. But the study of this Budo and how I've learned it has given me the methods to be able to regulate that, to be able to convert that energy into something that's going to be beneficial for me, to be able to convert that negative power into something positive, to not ignore it, to not suppress it, to not sedate it, but to actually use it and to nurture it. And to be able to find balance in it, but to actually use it and to nurture it and to be able to find balance in it. And when I'm able to find that balance, then everything in life, all the different strings of my life, are able to be tuned and be harmonious with one another. So this is what Budo is.
Speaker 1:And this is where a lot of people misunderstand and they say well, you know, I'm not going to study Aikido because you know MMA is better or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I'm going to get my kids involved in boxing. I don't want them doing that old karate stuff, where they stand there and they do kata. But that's not what it's about. That's not what it's about.
Speaker 2:Well, certainly it sounds. You put a lot of care and effort and your whole life into what you do care and effort and your whole life into what you do and obviously there's this very important relationship you have had and continue to have with your sensei. So would you like to talk about Bunsui sensei and your relationship with him?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd love to In fact, I could have had this whole podcast be just about him and not even mention my name, sensei. Yeah, sensei, my dad and I are very close. I'm very fortunate to have been raised by a great man and I hope, dad, you hear this episode because I can't be thankful enough for the men in my life, such as my dad, such as my grandfather.
Speaker 1:However, when I met Sensei, he was a piece of leadership that I had been. It's not that I had been missing, nick, it's that I never knew I needed until I had discovered that and the way that Sensei had treated me in the dojo when I would go and train. So when sensei retired from the military, he and his best friend, also a retired Lieutenant Colonel, when they both retired and they moved to, of all places, baltimore. There's a reason behind that. They bought a house in Baltimore. They came here because they wanted to nurture our organization. It was young at the time and so that gave me a great opportunity in the early 2000s to spend a lot of time with Sensei, because I could make a cup of coffee 5 am here in New York and I could be bowing in with Sensei by 10 am in Baltimore and spend the day there and train and drive back that night. So I was able to spend a lot of time at his dojo when he moved here for a short period of time.
Speaker 1:When I experienced that, I really knew that I was fortunate, because seldom in someone's life do they encounter a moment where they know they're in the right place at the right time with the right person and when they realize this, they acknowledge there's a certain gift here that is somewhat beyond definition and kind of like you we were talking about with your Ikigai experience when you had been asked that question and your whole sort of intuition on following your own path. I had found my place with Sensei and I connected with him. I felt just. He was stern. There was no BS with Sensei. It was expected you would do what was said. However, there was this fierce gentleness that he had, where I knew I was in the right place, like I just said, and I knew that if I continued and I stayed on this path, this is where I was meant to be and it would lead to great things for me.
Speaker 2:Love that expression, fierce gentleness, so I might embrace that. That's beautiful. I'd like to quote your sensei. So here's a quote from Unsu Sensei. So here's a quote from Unsu-i Sensei For myself when a person's time to die comes, being able to say I'm satisfied, thank you everyone, is the highest attainment of one's life. In addition, I feel that it is much better to do and then regret it, rather than not do and regret that inaction. Consider this, if you will, and please continue to the end. Continuation is power, and it kind of made me relate to, in some way, ikigai, this idea of learning new things, doing new things, learning or living life, and even if we have our ups and downs, but we learn from our downs just as much, or perhaps even more, from our ups. So this idea of it is better to do something and if things go wrong you regret it and then move on, rather than imagine years later, decades later, regretting something you didn't do, sounds like a very wise sensei.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think what you just read there was very impactful to me, because I realized that through his teaching and when I just said that you have to keep going, this is something that we say quite a bit in our art, like just keep going. And that doesn't come as a pat on the ass, it doesn't come as a hey, you just just keep going. It actually is, it's a direction Keep going, like do not quit. And that doesn't mean stay in one line and don't look to the sides, just keep going straight, blindly. And it's not that. In fact, it is this path and, like I said, where I can age gracefully, I can age with power. And when I mean age, I don't just mean physically, but I mean I can mature and I can continue to grow, even into my 90s. I will still be expanding in this do, in this way, through sensei's teaching, and I'm really fortunate for that. It is a real gift and I feel that anybody who finds their way, their ikigai for me, this is it. My dojo, as you know, is my ibasho, and there's so much to unpack about this, that's so beautiful.
Speaker 1:I also want to say, nick, that one of the things about Un Sui Sensei is when he was in the military, he was stationed in the United States. He was stationed in Texas and Alabama. So he has this ability to be able to speak to the Western learner in a way where, as he was teaching and working with American soldiers being stationed on a US base several times. So he has this really good ability to be able to see a problem that I or one of my colleagues are having and help us to be able to sort of speak in our language and use our paradigm to get through that obstacle. And again, I just spotlighting another gift that he's been able to give me speak in our language and use our paradigm to get through that obstacle.
Speaker 2:And again I just spotlighting another gift that he's been able to give me. Yeah, it's kind of unfortunate that we all don't have the opportunity to have a mentor or sensei guide us in life. So I guess it's something very special to have that relationship and have someone who is fiercely gentle but also guides you and obviously encourages you and pushes you so you can, I guess, grow and uncover, you know, go past those limiting beliefs and uncover this authentic self that probably have some intuitive understanding exists. But you can't get there without the guidance, even other areas. It's fascinating the master-student relationship and how there's. From the beginning it starts with respect and just trusting and following the guidance of your sensei and it's not always easy, but I guess you grow from this relationship no-transcript that the one episode that came up where I thought, wow, this relationship of master and students fascinating, was episode 59.
Speaker 2:And it was a filmmaker and he was filming the crafts, shokunin crafts, people who make butsuzo, so wooden Buddha sculptures, and it was. I mean, the master-apprentice relationship was pretty brutal, like just constantly pushing the student to commit themselves fully to this craft of wood carving or wood sculpting. And I mean you understand why they hold such respect for the craft, for Buddhism, and it's a lifelong commitment. And so it was just fascinating how at times, they would be unforgiving and just be sort of expressing this anger and then later in a private interview, he's saying look, yeah, I know I've got to. You know, I don't like that aspect of what I do where I'm yelling at my student, but that's sort of the only way I feel that they'll understand. And that's what I went through and I know it helped me and that's what I do with my students.
Speaker 2:So there was a burden on the sensei, like to be like that. He's not just being angry, he's really trying to channel, like you need to care, you need to care so much that you don't make mistakes. And it was. Yeah, it was really quite fascinating that, yes, someone committing their life to a craft actually a dying craft and then, you know, even before they take a student on, there's a scene in this documentary where they're saying this will be hard, we'll be angry at you a lot, you won't get a lot of compliments, so you need to be fully committed to this and if you are, then you'll benefit greatly. And don't think many people would take on that apprenticeship. But in other yeah, certainly in other episodes I hear people say you know, my sensei taught me this or my sensei taught me that, and there is this acknowledgement of who's gone before them and it obviously, yeah, it's like they're constant in their life, this person.
Speaker 1:Even if they've died, they still talk about them often that episode that you're talking about was fantastic, by the way in the documentary. Everybody has to see it.
Speaker 2:It's incredible it's actually one of the few times, this bonus material, where the one of the masters mentions the word ikigai, saying you know, doing this craft, you know, is this ikigai, isn't it Like it's what keeps you going. It's so great to hear someone use this word ikigai in a natural conversation. This is this master who one day decided to smash his television so he wouldn't be distracted, you know, with his wood carvings from family watching TV. So that's how committed he was. So let's dive into Budo a bit deeper. Sure, and you have a collective style of martial art called Jisen Kobudo. So what is Jisen Kobudo?
Speaker 1:style of martial art called Jisen Kobudo. So what is Jisen Kobudo? Yeah, jisen meaning like realistic fight. More realistic Kobudo, as we already talked about, is more like the classical martial arts, the traditional martial arts, and it gets really interesting.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, when I travel to Japan, I have to carry certain tools, depending on what the topic is going to be that we're going to be studying. I'll go there two times a year and every time I go through customs I have a Fukuro Shinai, like the padded sword. So, unlike the Kendo Shinai, which I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with, where it's like this split bamboo and it's used for hitting and striking and not breaking bones or doing a lot of damage, however, a shinai will really hurt if it hits you. However, it's not meant to break bones underneath protective armor. A Fukuro shinai, however, has a bit like a leather sleeve to the split bamboo and we don't wear protective armor. And carrying this through customs when, when they look at my bags, they say what, what is this? And I say it's a shinai and they say like, they're like kendo, like no. I said here we go, here we go. I say kobudo, and they're like oh, kobudo. And I'm like, yeah, kobudo. And they're like what kind of kobudo? And I say jisen kobudo, and I can only imagine us customs having a group of japanese people coming over to study civil or like revolutionary war trench fighting, it's. It's kind of like I can't imagine the mindset that they must think, uh, when we study this. But that's really what it is. It is very much, uh, the study of true applications of battle, where it's not so much the sport or, like morihei oeshhiba O-sensei of Aikido created very much.
Speaker 1:While retaining much of the origins of the Daito-ryu that he had learned from his teachers and having at the time a quite combative art that he had developed, he implemented deep spiritual dimensions to it where Chigato Kano really wanted to move Japan forward into Western athletics and knew that the Takenu Ichiryu, the Kitoryu, these old schools of these Koryu of jujitsu would be very beneficial if modified into a sport and would also be great for the physical fitness program of Japanese youth.
Speaker 1:So there's these new dimensions that were brought into the old arts and much of the actual combative, like the biomechanics of lacerations, and when you cut the shoulder here versus here, what are the difference? Well, these are the things that are written and recorded in many of the Densho, or the old, the scrolls or the old writings of these old schools. So a lot of that has been removed and kendo, aikido, judo were made in. You know, as we came into the modern era, where what I study, that information is still retained and it's a very important part of what we do a very important part of what we do.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. So that's right, that must be funny passing through customs and this foreigner and saying oh, it's just this practice, for it to go back to the traditional style, the trench-style warfare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like bayonet, face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like yeah, yes, we've touched on Do, and you do keep mentioning Do, budo, kobudo a lot, yeah, and there's also Jutsu, so would you like to explain the two and their differences.
Speaker 1:Sure, so the jutsu is. It's like the technique. So jujutsu is the soft technique. We could even kind of split hairs a bit on that. I mean the old schools of jujitsu, and I don't want to get into the different terms because there are many of them, but jujitsu today is really aligned with mixed martial arts, brazilian jujitsu. They've even broken the word down in many new modern terms. It's commonly here in New York called jits and jitsu, which drives me a little nuts. It's like the same as karate, right, and I guess that's going to happen.
Speaker 1:However, jiu-jitsu is the techniques that involve more grappling and are very specific to the leveraging of the arms and the legs and the spine and the body to subdue and lock an opponent or go to where the necessary place in the use of force exists. So a correct jujitsu that would be used in the arena of maybe taiho jutsu, which would be the specific jujitsu for law enforcement, of being able to bind and restrain a person with a rope or a cuffing procedure, some type of arresting ritual, would be a different Jiu Jitsu than would be studied for someone who was doing more, possibly security or military, because you have different rules of engagement. So the Jiu Jitsu changed. It had different names and different terms. However, as we come into the early 1900s we start to see books like Combat Tricks of Jujitsu and jujitsu now being in Romanji is hitting books in England and the United States and we start learning about jiu-jitsu. And when judo kind of came on the scene they were one and the same.
Speaker 1:Jiu-jitsu and judo were sort of the same and that's sort of its progress up to today, where the do is again, it's a way, it's a path, it's more of a way of life, a way of living, and you become Aikido and Aikido becomes a part of you. This is different than the technique. This is different than the Jiu-Jitsu. It is a much, much higher dimension. Know that you have what's called the koshiki gata, which are these higher level forms that have been retained in the traditional kodokan, which go back to the origins of kitoru jujitsu. So even in judo they have retained much of the old jujitsu. However, the larger dimension of the study is the judo. So I hope I was able to answer your question there. And it's also a little bit difficult because I believe it was Lao Tzu who said that the Tao that is explained cannot be the Tao.
Speaker 2:So it makes it pretty hard to explain. I mean, I tried in my book and I think I referenced judo, kendo. So the gentle way, the way of the sword, shodo calligraphy, sado, the way of tea, kudo, flower arrangement, and it just goes on and it's yeah, in English. I guess we're talking about the road or the path or the passage, but it seems to go beyond that. But it does indicate a set of practices or rules for conducting it oneself. But form seems to be this other theme, like the importance of form, and there's structure to learning, I guess, form to express the craft or the art, but there's also this mentality or philosophy behind it. And then jutsu seems to be, yeah, technique, specific, and you, or you're at your school, there's quite a few of these jutsus you explore, uh, kenjutsu, bukijutsu, so that's weapon, bukimini, weapon, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Those would be the different small weapons that were specific for arresting tools. Tessen, kusarifundo jute. These are all different jutsu.
Speaker 2:So just by all these words I've picked up from your website, it seems like the learning will never end, just goes on and on and on. We're talking hundreds, thousands of years of knowledge, um, culture, craft, and you're you're sharing a lot of that, but it must be a real joy for you to do that, and one thing I know that you do is you often take your students to Japan for an obviously immersive experience. So how often do you do that and what do you focus on when you go to Japan with your students?
Speaker 1:Sure, I'd like to digress a little bit into something and speak to something that you said, and then I'll go back to the travel to Japan, and that is to the joy of the study. And then there was also the commonly used word bushido, like the way of the warrior and Inazo, nitobe wrote the Soul of Japan, bushido, the Soul of Japan, and this was really an introduction to the Westerner on this chivalric mindset of the samurai, which was arguably a poor reference to the actual, true history of the bushi. However, he was speaking to an audience who understood Chaucer and tried to find the best parallel there For the Westerner. Though the study in the do of kobudo and how I approach it, nick, this isn't to say every budoka or every dojo, whether it's a budo or whether it's a kobudo, approaches it this way. However, nitobe, in his book, starts within the tenets of bushido. He starts with gi, and this is righteousness, right, it is the fundamental difference between what is right and what is wrong. And then he finishes with the jise, which is that having complete control of oneself and to me this is the life cycle of a martial artist to step into the dojo, and they begin at that first level of learning to know the fundamental difference of what is right and what is wrong. You don't just put your shoes in the genkan like this, you put them like this, and this is why and it starts there, and then all the way up to the point where they go to the place where fight is over, before the sword is drawn, and not to go too ethereal on this, but there's a lot of truth to that to be able to resolve a problem without the use of force and chaos and violence. So this is really the path, this is the dough of the warrior.
Speaker 1:Now you also said the joy and I do really want to share that, especially over decades, of doing this, nick simulating cutting someone's neck or cutting across the do or the uko or the dokotsu, and thrusting to the neck and all these different ways of dismembering and killing and hurting another human being. If there wasn't a tempering to this, in a way to balance it, it would become very traumatic and hurtful to a person. By doing these techniques over and over, even though you're just role-playing, even though you're simulating them right, however, by the practices, the internal practices of the training, what it's? The language, it's the kimochi, it's the mood that someone has and they're conveying. It's the intent within that.
Speaker 1:So, through the suffering of the study, comes our ability to see and to be able to serve and to help, and it then comes the joy that you're speaking of. And I think that this is what is unique about Kobudo and that path versus the Budo, because there's an immense amount of it and if it's not balanced, you will end up with broken students and broken teachers, and they're a dime, a dozen, they're all over the place. But you have to have a good sense that you have to have a good, good leadership in place to help keep you balanced. Have a good sense that you have to have a good, good leadership in place to help keep you balanced. So this, this, that's why that is so important to me, because I do understand what's at risk by doing this type of training and how you can hurt yourself very much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I remember that when I lived in Japan, one of my I had my own small English school and one of my students was a man in his 60s and he had such a lovely personality. I found it so hard to believe that he, just before I met him, he was an alcoholic, used to play pachinko all the time and smoked, and he went and saw his doctor for a yearly checkup. I think they warned him saying look, you won't be here for long if you keep drinking and smoking. And so he decided to start learning Yaido.
Speaker 2:I guess that's what we would call sword drawing or simulating strikes with a Japanese sword, a katana, but he told me that his sensei would use, I guess, a live blade, so a real sharp sword, and his goal, what was required of him, was to get to that point where they'd become so skilled that they would use real sword. He told me this story one day that he's talking to his sensei, and he accidentally dropped his sword on his foot and fortunately, you know, the non-blade side of the sword landed on his foot. Some of these practitioners really take their craft seriously. Where they're, you know, they're risking serious injury by using a live blade and it was fascinating.
Speaker 2:Him. Learning the Aido really changed his life.
Speaker 2:I believe it yeah, he became very healthy, very relaxed, just felt good to be around him. He was just a really nice gentle, one of these fiercely gentle men, and he um, I think he would spend hours just training and, yeah, he would show me some techniques and I really love this idea of some of the patterns were really just this one strike approach where, um, I guess you know broad sword fighting, you have this image of quite a long battle. In Japanese it's really one strike and you imagine basically killing your opponent with one strike or killing multiple opponents with one strike each and you would simulate those movements and I thought, wow, this is quite interesting, this art of drawing the sword.
Speaker 1:It's not too late to get started, Nick.
Speaker 2:So many things to do.
Speaker 1:And that's the problem with.
Speaker 2:Japanese culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I'd like to go to your question about going to Japan. That's, of course that's been. An important part of my journey is after I first experienced the study in Japan was bringing students to train not only to train, but to travel and experience different people and to different places. We would go up to the Nagano mountain range, we would go to Nara, go up to the Nagano mountain range, we would go to Nara. We would travel to all different places Osaka, kyoto and there was always something amazing. We climbed Fuji Sama at night, middle of the night. Yeah, we've done some really just spectacular things. We did Takao at night.
Speaker 1:This last trip, so before COVID, it was a big yearly trip and then oftentimes I would go on my own to spend time with Sensei, or I'd go with one or two of my colleagues who were at the same level of myself, rather than bringing my students. Because I really want to be able to. If I'm in a position of leading, I need to lead as a student, not lead as an instructor, and I need to. Really, my feeling is and this is just me, this isn't everybody, but my feeling is I want my students to know that I'm a student, I'm not a master. There's a Zen saying that I heard once. Anyone who calls himself a master isn't, and I feel very strongly in that.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I get turned off by when someone introduces themselves as Shihan, mark or Sensei, so-and-so. Yeah, I know I have the same giggle and so do probably so do almost all of your listeners. But it's a real thing. And here I want my students to. I am the uke. I want to be the one who's having the technique done to them. I want to be the one who is being thrown by my teacher or having something whipped at my head. I want my students to see that it's extremely important that's part of the travel, also the newness, and also my students seeing that I hold the idea of shoushin as paramount, that they see me as I'm looking through the eyes of a three-year-old, always with such amazement and playfulness. You talk about that quite a bit in your book and the importance of that I need to approach importance of that.
Speaker 1:So I need to approach that, and not only do I need to approach that, but I need to do that and my students, who are with me, not being led by me, see it as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really powerful concept, the beginner mind, and it removes the ego, no matter how good you are or how many years you've spent learning something. As soon as you embrace this beginner mind, shoushin, it's like ah, I'm free to learn again. And it's a really beautiful, powerful concept. So two themes are coming up when I'm thinking about our conversation Now, adam is this theme of learning, and then sharing or teaching, and, as you know, in my book I touch on manabigai, so the value of learning, so manabu is the verb to learn, and then oshegai, so osheru is to teach, so oshegai would be. You know value in teaching and I think you, you experience both, like obviously almost every day or throughout your week. Your learning, your teaching Is learning and teaching martial arts, one of your, obviously, it's one of your main sources of ikigai.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, without a doubt, Wow, that's another good one that I'm going to kind of sit in and think about here the martial art itself, like I'll give you an example, nick the constant learning, not just the technique, not just the history, not just the art, but the learning to learn part. So in Budo there's this concept of kasoteki right, this imaginary enemy, the sort of the hypothetical opponent, and when we train I know I believe I've never studied iaido, but I believe that this is a pretty big thing among the Iaido community but for us and when we do our own Jishukeko, the solo training, it's called learning how to visualize and minimize the variance of our different opponents. To be able to look at someone who's maybe six foot tall, a little bit taller than me, Maybe they're a skill level just a little bit above, or possibly a little bit below, maybe they're a little heavier, bulky upper body, but I'm trying to picture this person that I maybe had a challenge with when I was studying in Japan or at another dojo, and they got in on me and they were able to get them. So I want to go back to that and I want to visualize this and I'm right now in this place where part of my learning how to learn is really trying to visualize in front of me what I'm doing without an actual opponent to play it out. And this is something as a teacher of children one of the first things that we teach is this like these, tobi wazaaza, these like leaping techniques, and we would teach this my toby, this little just called long, jump forward, and it would be. I would get kids to jump one to tommy right and at about 12 years old.
Speaker 1:Most kids can't jump one to tommy at 12 years old. We start with the length of their body, from their feet to the top of their head, and we put a little piece of tape on the ground and they and they have to. They can't have a running start. They have to bend their knees to a squat and leap forward and kind of like they're jumping from one tree stump to another and if they lose their balance they have to go back and try it again. But eventually we get them up to where their feet, their toes, are against the seam of the tatami, they're leaping and their heels clear the seam. In order to do that, I have to take them through some. They close their eyes and I have them feel the cool tatami under the soles of their feet, bend their knees, launch themselves forward, visualize the tatami going underneath their feet and then seeing the next seam go under and they pass. And then I can't guide them through that, as they do it. We have to go back and they have to replay that. They have to recall that in their mind and visualize themselves doing it.
Speaker 1:And 3,000 kids, 25 years, every single kid has done it, for the exception of the ones who may, because of their physicality, just can't. However, I create their threshold. Their threshold is in that place where they feel limited, that they can't do it. Well, that's where we start and you give yourself permission and, through the power of visualization, we push yourself past that point.
Speaker 1:This is extremely important in your own solo training that you don't just sit there and wave your arms around with a bokken or a wooden sword or you don't just do like a karate ka just doesn't stand there and do forms in a mirror and swing their arms around. That they're actually creating and using the intention of their kamai, the language of their body, and they have a purpose in front of them, always in front of them, and this is where I'm at right now. So when we talk about that. Like always a student and always trying to learn how to learn. Well, here I am with those children jumping over the tatami. I'm still doing that. I'm still trying to figure that stuff out, to make myself just a little bit better.
Speaker 2:That's another thing about Japanese culture. I just always love going back to Japan because there's that idea of chanto, like things are done properly, and this idea of intention, like you are mindful, you're focused, what you're going to do, this next step or action with full intention and I mean that's getting much harder for us to do with our children, with all the distraction and technology that they have to, and in Japan too, right, yeah, we kind of have to embrace it, but at the same time we have to embrace it but at the same time we have to manage it. So obviously, this kind of practice of any type of martial art, where you do visualize movements, patterns, it's really is incredible training for the mind and I guess the more you do it, the more intentional you become, and I guess you end up making better decisions and you have less of that monkey mind or that mindless mind that results in impulsive behavior. And I guess we could go on and on about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will say, in the Kobudo almost all of the kata are done with their two-person forms and they become more intense. As obviously as your skill goes up, then the ma'ai becomes more larger, both the ma'ai of both spatial distance as well as timing distance, all the things change. It gets more intense almost to the point of if you were to go to our Hombu Dojo and watch all of the different dojo from around the world come together and we train, it almost looks like a riot going on in the dojo of violence, but it's all very, very controlled. But I use in my dojo Nick this term that comes from sumo, which is like tachi-ai, and it's just like crashing together.
Speaker 1:You have to have that type of contact in order to really understand the visualization component uke nagash, uke nagash. So you're you're like sort of carrying the opponent's sword. Encountering is at the same time as you're parrying. They're almost simultaneous. You can't just do that from video, or you you know.
Speaker 1:Going back to what you're saying, it's hard to learn on video. Yes, it is. You have to have for something like kobudo, and I would imagine, even with like chato or I know, with like uh. I can't imagine learning ikebana without uh, a sensei. You need the hands-on and you also need to feel the pedals, you need to feel the arm coming at you. You need to feel the sword, the mune, riding on the opponent's sword. Once you have that feeling enough and you have enough exposure, the visualization really goes to the next level. So it's important that someone has to make that commitment. This is where that sacrifice of getting on the plane and traveling around the world to just be exposed to one experience is so important. And that doesn't just mean Budo, it can mean anything. And it doesn't just mean Japan. It can mean you will go to wherever in the world you need to go to get the highest level, to push yourself forward in your own ikigai, to find that next experience. So that's very important.
Speaker 2:It is important learning then, I guess, the people along the way or the interactions you have. You sometimes get this incredible gift, and so something that's a little bit unusual is I actually had a cuckoo in hand-carved for my branding. I think we talked about this before and I actually don't. I never met the person who created the actual kakuin, but interestingly, he used the three characters of shingitai, so the three qualities of a martial artist or athlete, so heart, technique and strength, and he added friendship to that. I don't know if you can see, and it's probably hard for you to see, but yes, and then there's guy, so the value. So I think this craftsman thought, oh well, he had some understanding of what I was trying to do with my business.
Speaker 1:and he thought, Did he?
Speaker 2:include Ichi, no, no, no, so Shingitai. And then Yu, as in friendship, and it was really interesting that he could draw that from what he was told about. You know my business, so I love these concepts or expressions and there's just hundreds of them, or hundreds, just hundreds of them, hundreds of thousands of them in Japan. So I think, yeah, you're right, going to a different country just to learn something specific. You have these insights, almost these epiphanies, where you really learn something and it can change your life. So, as you know, I'm hoping to do some sort of immersive learning in Japan related to Ikigai, where we find activities that imbue aspects of Ikigai, and we might be catching up next month because I'll be going to this international wellness tourism trade show, so that'll be fun. So we've talked quite a bit and I'm sure some of the listeners would be interested in learning more about what you do and maybe even looking at your training, either in person or online. So where's the best place to find you? Sure?
Speaker 1:Thanks, it's really. You can just go to my dojo, yasuragidojocom, and everything is there, or you can hop into and check out my podcast, shugyo, which really is just about the journey of traditional martial arts and the important steps along the way and conversations with people who are involved in that path, if that's something that interests you.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, we'll put the links to both those on the page for this episode. So I think we're just getting to know each other, adam, so I'm looking forward to meeting you in person in Japan next month, and I know what it takes to write a book.
Speaker 1:I've done it and I know the amount of sacrifice and time and research that goes into it and emotions that only you know exist between those lines and the lives that you've changed, myself included. I want to just speak gently on behalf of that community, because the lives that you've really changed are the ones that your readers have changed concentrically, outward. You've changed the world and that book was quite a piece of work and I know so many people value it and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for that work and I'm looking forward to the next step in your own journey, because I know it's going to help all of us as well. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Wow, thank you. That's very kind of you to say that, very touched. So, yeah, it's funny. You have this journey in life and you get this idea to, in your case, start learning a martial art or yeah, along the way you make these decisions and writing the book was, yeah, it was like, oh, I should do this, I really should, and I had all these, had my own fears about doing that. But yeah, I am really glad I wrote it and it is this reflection of who I am and it's sort of all my thoughts laid out there, and it's always a joy to get feedback from readers. So, thank you, and thank you for what you do and, who knows, maybe we'll one day do something together in Japan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be great, Nick. Thank you so much. And Nick, don't forget, it's not too late, man.
Speaker 2:Never too late. All right, alright, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, adam, and I'm sure we'll have another chat soon, but looking forward to catching up with you next month in Japan. I look forward to it too, nick. Thank you.