The Hero and the Warrior

Six people came that first time. We trained – all day – and ran around all night trying to sneak up on each other. The next year we did it again. And the year after that and the year after that. Pretty soon it was like this thing - an important thing, it turned out. In fact, we looked forward and enjoyed it too much, not to keep doing it. So we did. And we’re still doing it today. Gasshuku is shugyo. It’s two-and-a-half days when we volunteer our time and energy to concentrate on warriorship.


Google ‘warriorship’ and you’ll find it bandied about in new age circles – warrior coaching, self mastery, finding the ‘inner warrior’ – but it’s all just mumbo jumbo and clever marketing. No one seems to understand how to even define the warrior, let alone train others in their ways. So, why invoke the ‘warrior’ in such talk? Because of how we associate that strong archetype of the stable, centered, unflappable person able to deflect and defend life’s challenges, and our ideal self. In that sense, a warrior is really a hero.

But there’s something about a warrior that goes beyond even what heroes are capable of. Warriorship is not a complicated thing, but it’s also not an easy thing. Its roots are associated with war, to be sure, but not confined or limited to it. The best definition I ever heard of a warrior comes from Shihan Jack Hoban, an expert in ‘Ethical Warriorship:’

“A fireman is a hero. He protects life, right? At the risk of his own life. Runs into a burning building to protect someone he’s never seen before. Perhaps as a volunteer. And could die saving this person he doesn’t even know. That’s a hero. That’s the epitome of the self and others (value). Which others? All others. And what does he get for it? If he’s a volunteer he doesn’t get anything material. If he works for a town maybe he gets a civil servants pay. But what he (does) get for it is two things: one, he gets to save lives, which is the most noble, best feeling that a human being can get, and he gets the esteem and support of his peers and the people that he saved. He gets the inner and the outer feeling.

So, what’s the difference between them and a warrior? A warrior is supposed to protect people at the risk of his own life, but what he does that (others do not) is kill to protect life; this oxymoronic thing that actually undermines this feeling of nobility from defending others. Yes, I did protect others. Yes, I did protect life, but I had to take life in order to do it. This is an added burden. They almost cancel each other out. And that’s why people get sick from it. And they’ll surely get sick if they do it from the wrong mental perspective, out of anger or fear or prejudice or disrespect or dehumanization – you’ll get real sick. But even if you don’t, it’s very, very difficult. And that’s why a warrior to me is the epitome of human endeavor because even though they protect life they may have to take it which is almost … so dangerous to you … that it can’t be overlooked.”

There is a burden, a responsibility, in learning the ways and means of the warrior. The ‘self and others’ value inherent in Ethical Warriorship provides a roadmap by which to train by. Is it right to be excited by the pomp and circumstance of our training, the scope of our history, the minutiae and relentless pursuit of technical mastery? In a word, yes. This is the ‘self’ side of our training, the ‘selfish’ part we often, perhaps too often, get energized about, because it’s what we can most easily and readily identify – the part that seems to provide fulfillment. But we should be mindful here, not to allow ourselves to be carried away by the best intentions of our enthusiasm, lest it devolve into pride, self-centeredness, and relativism.

There is an ‘others’ side to the training as well, steeped in the honesty of movement, the tactical usage of space, and the ethics of the protector. We channel it through the principles of our art – position, leverage, and initiative – giving us the macro view that provides the necessary counterweight to find the stability to reconcile the two halves into one whole. It is our mature side, the ‘adult’ in us, providing perspective to “be real” about our movement, and come to terms with the warrior’s inherent burden and accept it.

We often excuse the absence of thought, word, and deed when it is superfluous, extra, or redundant, but what about when it is not? What about when it is essential, as in the protection of life and the lives of others? When inaction causes death, it exposes that which drives us to begin training, our most innate and primal fear – the grip of hesitancy, helplessness, and inaction, the spiritual nakedness that robs us of confidence to make us responsible or contributory to the death of someone we love. And it is through this we can decipher the imperative of our training, it’s crucial and key points.

Make no mistake, the warrior trains not to become courageous - the opposite of courage is not fear, but submission, a sick thing the warrior can never do. Since fear is an emotional response it cannot be eradicated, but after many years of hard, physical training we can discover its opposite – the assured and steadfast, peace of mind to know when to forgive ourselves for prideful activity, and when “doing” is the only answer, even at the cost of our own life.

Those first six people and I didn’t talk about this kinda stuff way back then. Maybe we had a hint, a sense of it, I guess. We trained and tried to exemplify what we had been taught the best we could. And even though we’re still doing that today, Gasshuku gives us a chance to do it together.

This year, I’ll host our annual Gasshuku on October 8, 9, and 10, at Camp Edwards in East Troy, Wisconsin. Join us for training, for shop talk, for camaraderie.

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That thing, on the ground, with the bo … that was cool

A mighty thank you to everyone who came out last weekend for our workshop and birthday thingamabob - so much fun. At the bar afterward, there was cake. And thunder! Then more cake.

A prospective student once told me rather than show up regularly, he'd spent his money on training DVDs to ‘get him into shape,’ so he ‘wouldn’t hold any of us back.’ I wished him luck and never saw him again – for some, owning information is so seductive, it becomes more powerful than the ability to utilize it.

There is an undercurrent of collection in the Bujinkan – for techniques, densho, kata, whatever – because we enjoy these aspects, respect them, and fully expect their knowledge to assist us in understanding this confounding physical philosophy.

But like ethics, “doing is what counts,” and this is no less true when it comes to our own ability. If our label is ‘Master Shootist,’ and we know stances, grips, draws, and ballistics, we can be sure at some point we’ll be measured by how well we pull the trigger and hit the target. For our friend, once he had watched all the techniques, he’d satisfied his curiosity and there was no reason to train – he already knew everything.

How do we know if a reliance on form has not superseded our ability to break and apply its principles to the actualness of the moment? How do we know if our ability is real and not virtual?

The workshop was hard, I admit it, but it raised this question. Practicing kata and techniques are known outcomes – a kind of programming that is different from sheer application. But at the workshop, we took movements with known outcomes and branched off into creative directions without knowing where we’d wind up, yet still shaped the space to our advantage. That was the point - gaining advantage no matter where or how we started or where or how we wound up.

Facts are inconvenient, so is reality. If our ability is hamstrung when applied to reality, we’ve a major problem. So, questions remain. Application is an unknown quality involving spontaneous creativity – the most difficult aspect of training - and reconciles the mechanical with the natural state. But it begs the question: what is the natural state?

We’ve many ways to describe this state, but little definition to give us actionable intel. Yes, the principles are distance, balance, and timing. Yes, Taijutsu is based on escape. Yes, we use the kukan as a shield to control the opponent. But there is something more, a truth from which all of these modifiers flow; a Rosetta stone that deciphers the parameters of what exactly Taijutsu must be if it is to exist.

When an architect designs a building, they can pull from their wildest imagination, with twisted schemes and broken thoughts. But if they intend to render it in the real world, they have to adjust it, apply it to reality. Though their shape, size, height, and usage may be different, all buildings – every one - share at least one thing in common, a fundamental, foundational rule that all buildings must abide by if they intend to sustain their existence: buildings don’t fall down.

Gravity exerts a force so powerful, every building must be built to defy its effects. At the very least, equal pressure is necessary to equal the force gravity pulls on it so it can stay upright and useful.

Like gravity, there is a force that pulls on Taijutsu with the strength to make it fall. And we must invariably defy its effects with at least equal pressure if not more. If we know how to define that force, we will understand how to naturally make the transition and reconcile our movement from the known to the unknown.

In training, we can design from our wildest imaginations and practice a variety of kata straight from the densho. But reliance on programmed movement is just that. At some point, we have to render it in reality, putting it into the kukan against an honest opponent, under given circumstances. The question is what foundational rule must Taijutsu abide by – above all others - to sustain its very existence?