Jo practice drills..?

**Andy_Watson** · 27th November 2009, 11:12 PM

Quote:
"an ikkyu in Ealing will be better then an ikkyu in Bari access to 7th dans"
He's quite correct on this point, the only difference between ikkyu in Ealing to Bari, is the 7th dan teacher and 5 dan dojo seniors.

Just to reiterate (acknowledging that all are free to their opinion) I don't think that being in a dojo with 7th dans and a glutch of 5th dans makes THAT much difference to an ikkyu!

Let me qualify that opinion with a question:

How did the Polish team, fairly and squarely and with good judging, beat the UK team when the highest grade in the whole of Poland is 3rd dan?

..and before anyone answers with things like "but they have 7th, 6th and 5th dans visiting them" - they haven't been going to Poland for a) very long or b) very frequently.

Okay, I warned you! I'm not gonna bring a spreadsheet into this but I think it's time for a formula...

Progress = (teachers ability x exposure to training)/("students' personal resistance to improvement" ^ 2)

What do I mean by this? The numerator at the top of the equation is how much external pressure there is to improve. The denominator at the bottom is the internal resistance to improve. This resistance consists of a lack of enthusiasm and interest and the inability to translate external information into memorised movements and subsequent replication and development of those movements.

The key feature is the "to the power of two" - regardless as to how good the teacher is, if the student is either not interested or doesn't have a high level of learning ability then this will outweigh any positive pressure to improve. This is why even in Ishido Sensei's dojo there are some students who can't even be trusted to shave without supervision.

(steps off soapbox)

**Kim Taylor** · 27th November 2009, 11:53 PM

Let me just back up what Andy is saying. The major factor in anyone learning is that person's efforts, a teacher can only provide guidance and a path to follow, it's the student who learns, not the teacher.

It's absolutely not true that having a 7dan in the dojo will make you a better ikkyu, in fact it can be a problem for beginners. At 4dan I knew one way to do things, and I was really good at it. Now I know 23 ways to do things and may or may not be good at some of them but I am sure a beginner who is taught four ways to do something is going to be lousy at all four.

A 7dan can make you lazy, you don't need to think, you don't need to remember or make notes, you can rely on sensei to correct you. Now any sensei can correct you but a nidan will likely be saying things like "I think this is how this one goes" which tends to make beginners pay attention.

7dans can tend to drift off into strange and esoteric instructions and lectures on the meaning of life... beginners just need to know which foot goes in front when you do this swing.

I think perhaps 7dans are like really rich desserts, excellent for your enjoyment of life if indulged occasionally but not very good as a steady diet.

Kim.

**Harry Jones** · 28th November 2009, 01:00 AM

Kim you are awesome!

**Andy_Watson** · 28th November 2009, 01:08 AM

Kim

As Harry is alluding to, you just don't know how close you have just hit the mark...

**Budo Angel** · 28th November 2009, 01:15 AM

7dans can tend to drift off into strange and esoteric instructions and lectures on the meaning of life... beginners just need to know which foot goes in front when you do this swing

I had to wipe the grin off my face reading this one...

7th dans and a glutch of 5th dans makes THAT much difference to an ikkyu!

Think this may have been misconstrude, what I was pointing was a response to the thought that an Ikkyu in Ealing was better than Bari, I was simply saying - what is it ? other than one dojo may be having a 7 dan & 5 dans in the dojo...I was not inferring this was the critical point of difference...apologies for blind allay or poor expression of English

it's the student who learns, not the teacher

hmmmm - but it is poorer teacher (7 dan or not) who doesn't learn too while teaching

in fact it can be a problem for beginners

Agreed, proud to say my Jodo/Iai life started with a then san (Watson) and yondan (Nash) in their respective fields, more than enough for the elephant feet in this world...

**still learning** · 28th November 2009, 01:30 AM

Originally Posted by Andy_Watson

... you cannot force an elephant into a bottle no matter how hard you push. .

PM Sats for instructions & guidance....

Originally Posted by Andy_Watson

"students' personal resistance to improvement"

A very fine expression.......... you must have met some of our lot....!?

Originally Posted by Kim Taylor

7dans can tend to drift off into strange and esoteric instructions and lectures on the meaning of life...

Anyone in particular in mind?
Some Brits may have a mental image [or two...]

Originally Posted by Budo Angel

hmmmm - but it is poorer teacher (7 dan or not) who doesn't learn too while teaching:

....BUT;
Emeritus Professor of English Language @ Oxford or Cambridge [or Harvard/Yale] may NOT be the best person to teach 5-year-olds how to read......

**Fred27** · 28th November 2009, 02:13 AM

Originally Posted by Kim Taylor

7dans can tend to drift off into strange and esoteric instructions and lectures on the meaning of life... beginners just need to know which foot goes in front when you do this swing.

Kim.

Interesting you should mention that. My own sensei usually tells the beginners, (in a light-hearted kind of way), that "first you will learn to distinguish between the left and right.

**Budo Angel** · 28th November 2009, 04:58 AM

Oxford or Cambridge [or Harvard/Yale] may NOT be the best person to teach 5-year-olds how to read......

The damage done by those who consider themselves teachers because of rank or age, can be immeasurable... 5 yr olds like beginners are hugely impressionable... some sandan are the best to teach; yet some roku or nanadans, the pits.

(So instead you have graduates who's first degree subject isn't English, teaching English...fluency in a language doesn't make you qualified to teach it; high rank in a budo doesn't make you qualified to teacher either... perhaps that's why there's coaching courses... but also why some folks are natural teachers even at nidan or sandan, beating hands-downs, those less than able roku or nanadan 'teachers')

A good teacher can inspire you for life, a bad teacher incite a student/child give up for life...
*not my words, forgot who

"first you will learn to distinguish between the left and right

*Laugh* or in the case of Jodo, its same both ends, trust me ...(the beginner will still look)

beginners just need to know which foot goes in front

Indeed and how many words do people think it takes to explain that...my first proper Iai lesson as teenager, and the (un-named high grade) teacher, needed 100 words to describe - up down like this - I never went back to that place.

Andy is right, you don't need high grade, just a willingness (& dedicated insanity to budo) to perhaps travel to seminars/events if you don't have that high grade input on your door-step.

Anyone in particular in mind?

Now that's just playful teasing on a tired Friday...

**Emanuele Covino** · 1st December 2009, 04:10 AM

A nice formula, Andy. I'm saying to myself "why don't you have these ideas?"

There are of course many different components in the learning process: a good teacher (maybe not a 7th dan), a good student, some money, an airport close to your town, and so on; we all agree.

I made a comparison between Bari and Ealing because I think there is another factor: history. Is there a difference between the italian and the english rugby teams? Fifteen men, same rules, same physical and mental training. However, if you are a 13 years old boy, and you wan't to play fly-half, you try to be like Johnny Wilkinson, not like the italian one (see? I don't remember the name!). From time to time we could beat them, but 99/100 we lose.

History matters, but you cannot measure it.

PS going back to the topic, are we sure that there are no drills in jodo? Apart the official kihon, why not to train on kihon combination (honte uchi followed by hiki otoshi, alone or in pair, or hiki otoshi + kaeshi tsuki), or repeat parts of the kata's, without the initial and final movements?

**Andy_Watson** · 1st December 2009, 06:34 PM

There is one which I think I initially learned from Vito and Linda Tattoli but can't be sure.

1. Shijo in hikiotoshi kama; Uchidachi in chudan kamae
2. Shijo executes hikiotoshi; Uchidachi steps right foot back
3. Shijo takes a large shuffle back, changes front grip to gyakute; Uchidachi steps right foot forwards and cuts into awase
4. Shijo executes gyakute uchi harai against the sword and seme's forward; Uchidachi shuffles back (as in Kasumi)
5. Shijo shuffles back into hikiotoshi kamae; Uchidachi moves right forwards and cuts into chudan kamae - go back to 1.

...and go faster and faster and faster.

It's a really good warm up but also good for taking the tension out of these two techniques and making them more natural.

**Fred27** · 1st December 2009, 09:08 PM

Originally Posted by Emanuele Covino

PS going back to the topic, are we sure that there are no drills in jodo? Apart the official kihon, why not to train on kihon combination (honte uchi followed by hiki otoshi, alone or in pair, or hiki otoshi + kaeshi tsuki), or repeat parts of the kata's, without the initial and final movements?

Depends on what you mean by "no drills in jodo". If you mean if there are drills preserved from the samurai-period then no. There are mentions of drills in documents from the period, but nothing (of those) have been preserved apparently.

But if you mean modern-day drills then yes! Oh God yes!

We do several drills in our dojo, both ken vs. ken and jo vs. jo.

There is a fairly new "ken kihon" in the European Jodo Federation that was formulated in part by Pascal Krieger Sensei. Its a paired "ken vs. ken" system with the aim of practicing the most common sword techniques: Jodan, hasso, yokogiri, kesagiri and tsuki in the same spirit as the jo-kihon but against another ken.

Jo-drills we practice in several variations. The most common is honte, gyakute, hikiotoshi and makiotoshi drills against a swordsman. The performers do maybe 10 honte, switch partners, 10 gyakute, switch partners 10 hiki, switch partners and lastly 5 makitoshi. Then switch weapons and repeat. Sometimes we add 10 tai hazushi uchi (left and right) to the drill. The number of techniques fluctuates of course.

We sometimes replace the ken for another jo and perform a "jo vs. jo kihon". The kihon is mostly the same as the regular jo-kihon, except each performer only does two techniques: Two honte uchi, shi and uchidachi switch roles, two more honte, switch roles, two gyakute tsuki, switch roles and so on until they've done all the kihon.

Most orgs and even individual dojos prolly have their own types of drills.

**Sandra S** · 10th December 2009, 06:04 AM

Originally Posted by Jklak

Of couse if we have had blessed with nanadan kyoshi jodo-sensei in every club we could and might grade ikkyu in first grade.

Sorry for adding to the conversation a bit late, having been an ikkyu in Ealing only three years ago, some of these comments sort of caught my attention.
I believe it is not the presence of the nanadan sensei that will make the difference, it is simply this way of negative thinking that will keep people from grading ikkyu as their first grade.The difference between the Bari Ikkyu or the Ealing Ikkyu is not the 7th dan or the 5th dans, it is not really the teaching or the technical knowledge, it is the spirit within the dojo that gets passed on to the student.

One year ago I started my own dojo in Portugal. My very first student started Jodo in April 2008, graded Ikkyu in May 2009 and graded Shodan last November at Darlington (UK). During this time my students only had Jodo classes twice per month because I was living in France and had to fly over 1500 km to teach that class. My student is not someone specially gifted, he is just as normal as any average person, what I felt made the difference is that when he got home he continued to study and didn’t simply put his jo on a shelf and forgot about it until the next class. By the way, I am a Jodo Nidan and the only person in my country senior to me is… another Nidan.

If you tell a person he has this limited time to perform a task, the person will try to meet the deadline. If you give the person twice the same time, that doesn’t mean he will complete the task twice as better: most people will make it roughly with the same quality, the only difference is that they will use the time given until its very limit to achieve it. That is human nature.
Gradings should work as a challenge, not as barriers. And although the Kyu system may work sometimes and it might make perfect sense for other martial arts, in Iaido and Jodo and in the way it is carried out by certain countries I do feel it does act as a mental barrier that prevents people’s progression or discourages them at a very early stage.

I was teaching Iaido in France this last two years and I met hard-working people that could have gotten a 1st kyu under the BKA but that only got 3rd kyu in France. What message does this send to the less skilled people of their dojo, the elephants? They are now telling themselves: "If he's so good and he can't make it than surely neither can I". They are now considering the 1st kyu as utterly difficult, the Shodan as their final target and the Nidan as utterly beyond their reach. I thought that Budo was about making people wanting to surpass themselves, not cutting their legs when they have hardly learned how to walk.

Sorry to say but from my experience in France, for the normal people that don't show up at the Europeans a demanding Kyu grading system really puts off people from even trying to challenge dan gradings, thus preventing the art’s growth and stability.

**simohell** · 14th December 2009, 09:10 PM

I think, that in Finland the reasons for kyu-grading are rather straightforward. Not so much to do with any teatchers or teaching. We do it because Germany does it. That is we copied the German grading system in mid 80's for kendo and, since in Finland it is the same federation, the grading for jodo is the same.

Also nowdays, when those guys who already do kendo start practising jodo, they don't expect anything else. And for those of us who started with judo, aikido or kyudo it is already amazing that in jodo we can grade kyus so quickly.

For myself it was nice to have kyu grades. It was motivating to grade something before I can afford to travel abroad for grading (still couldn't have done it, if the federation wouldn't chip in). It can take one months gross income or more for a student to do that. It was also a chance to have something to show for personal progress - and to get focused feedback. Of course it doesn't need to be a grading, but when somebody tells you that you are grading (or just that now all the sempai/visiting sensei are staring at you) it has some psychological effect - it can give something extra for one's training.

**Emanuele Covino** · 15th December 2009, 12:45 AM

By the way, because the Bari-Ealing comparison is becoming paradimatic, and because I'm a bit proud of my work, we had in Bari an european champion in mudan category (2005), and a silver medal (2008).

**Jklak** · 23rd February 2010, 08:34 PM