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Discipline - and the intelligence of
Seiryoku zenyo |
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To hold order in life, it means that there
is no energy wasted on pointless acts. Where chaos reigns, much more
effort must be made to do something or to organize business. Try to make
appointments with people without agenda. Try to find a pen on a desk
when there was no cleaning up for weeks. Try to find a book in a library
that is not logically organized. Try to find the road without signs or
navigation. Try to have a judo contest without rules or referee.
It looks like fun to be completely free in
everything, but no one can live without order and discipline. All you
want to do is much more complicated and takes a lot of unnecessarily
energy. Discipline, order and seiryoku zenyo belong completely together.
Keeping discipline has multiple facets:
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Knowing what is good and evil
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Keeping things within bounds.
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Discipline: the sensei and his dojo.
1.
Knowing what is good and evil
Jigoro Kano explains that there is a clear
link between intellectual and moral education. Why? Of course, a judoka
must have knowledge, before he can apply techniques. Who knows nothing
about judo principles, will not perform any waza as it should be. The
same is true for entire life. Who knows nothing about principles of good
and evil, can't live morality. Those who didn't learn to think
logically, can never act consistently when it comes to choices between
good and evil. Intellectual training is necessary to think logically.
Someone who creates order and discipline in his mind, can live
correctly.
Jigoro Kano says (we quoted earlier):
In one respect, moral
education must be carried out from the aspect of knowledge. That
is to say, it is necessary to know intellectually what is good and
what is evil. Its is also necessary to develop the intelligence to
distinguish right from wrong in various complex situations. Thus is it
necessary to teach the ability to determine good from bad, to
discriminate what is right from what is wrong.
(Mind over Muscle p.68)
What is good and evil, is inspired by
justice (see menu: 'virtue'). In summary, jita kyoei is the general
standard for what a judoka should do or not. The welfare of all is the
highest purpose on earth. It is difficult to distinguish what is in
alignment with that goal and what is not. Therefore you need prudence
and intelligence. Because what is really good or evil? Very often this
is a subtle balance of short - and long-term, the choice between a
larger or smaller evil, or the absolute prohibition of doing things.
Intellectual training helps to master the dilemmas that inevitably
arise.
For example. In a judo tournament the
question might arise, if it's good or evil to let an opponent - who is
aroused and angry - stumble over his own behavior. Because after all,
although the other is mentally kuzushi, the question is whether he will
learn to be a better man by quickly humiliating him, or let him to be
punished by the referee with shido. So what is good or evil? In the long
term it seems that he will be getting a proper lesson to learn. In the
short term, however, there is a risk of overheating, injuries or
unsporting behavior. A good judoka will concern all these considerations
in a fast decision, in order to make a choice which contributes to peace
and happiness for his partner. The right choice may be pretty
complicated.
Virtues help a judoka to make the right
decision. If you have made regularly wise and fair decisions, you will
have experience. Then your mind is always surer and sharp in the
deliberations. Repeatedly carefully chosen, will help to make always a
good choice.
About the virtues of prudence, intelligence
and justice we can summarize the following:
Prudence is the virtue
that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every
circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it; "the
prudent man looks where he is going." Prudence is "right reason in
action," writes Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle. It is not to be
confused with timidity or fear, nor with duplicity or dissimulation.
It is called auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues); it
guides the other virtues by setting rule and measure. It is prudence
that immediately guides the judgment of conscience. the prudent man
determines and directs his conduct in accordance with this judgment.
With the help of this virtue we apply moral principles to particular
cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and
the evil to avoid.
Justice is the moral
virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due
to the neighbor. Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights
of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that
promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good.
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2. Keeping everything within bounds
Jigoro Kano gives the example of diligence
(zeal). Diligence is not always good, although a lot of people think
that you can never be diligent enough. For example, when you are
mentally or physically tired, you must not continue at all costs,
because you can get sick or injured, or get involved in uncontrollable
circumstances. Therefore it's true that:
Virtually no one doubts
that diligence is a good thing. (...) You must select the good things
from among them and be diligent, but if you are diligent in an
irresponsible manner, you will spend a great deal of effort on
something that is not very useful, and expend the energy required to
do something good wastefully. You must carefully choose something for
which diligence is suited. Even when we do what we believe to be best,
overdoing something can be harmful. When students stay up late reading
a book because their teachers, parents, or society has deemed it best
that they should read it, this is certainly diligence, but it's also
detrimental to their health to read so long. Diligence is good, but
one must be diligent in moderation, to an appropriate extent.
When you consider it this
way, it cannot be said unconditionally that simply because something
was done diligently it was necessarily good. Behind this notion there
must be one major guiding principle, that is to say, seiryoku zenyo.
That does not mean pushing yourself to be diligent when you are
exhausted. Conversely you cannot do things half-heartedly or randomly.
You must not expend so much effort that you become unable to do other
things. You must first create an image of seiryoku zenyo in your mind
and then set about being diligent. (Mind over Muscle p. 78-79)
In short: hard work - and all virtues -
should be arranged by the mind. We could summarize some obvious elements
one by one to pursue:
-
Moderation in everything: not too weak,
not too enthusiastic
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Think what you are doing, consider whether
it is useful and effective
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Master and control your own physical and
psychical boundaries
-
Keep versatile in your efforts
-
Balance your energy consumption.
This is moderation. The right extent does
not necessarily lay in the middle, but is adapted to everyone's
capabilities.
Another example of Jigoro Kano is the right
amount for eating and drinking in relation to your needs:
Devotion to seiryoku zenyo
entails striving to act selflessly for the good of society. When
carrying out some kind of duty for society, it is all right to skip a
meal once or twice, but eating irregularly when it is not necessary to
do so is not good. So, from the standpoint of seiryoku zenyo, you must
eat a proper amount whenever you can. Yet because work can often be
demanding, for the sake of yourself, others and society, you must be
prepared to miss a meal once or twice, though not in excess. (Mind
over Muscle p.80.)
All this shows that commitment is important,
but that the judo principles also help to avoid any form of
exaggeration. Unfortunately, some judoka's should take that to heart.
Scoring an ippon is not wrong of course, but there is certainly more to
do in our country than just judo training or competition. Dr. Kano would
learn that judo is a way, but the goal is bigger. Who trains hard, but
has no social life because judo determines everything, has understood
something entirely wrong. What some competition judoka's do to maintain
a certain weight, not to be their natural weight, disrupts in some cases
the balance of the body completely. The question is, whether the
competition results are stressed too much in relation to the
requirements that a human being must make for their energy and
nutrition.
In normal life, this application of the
proper balance is just as interesting. Any reader, judoka or not, could
look into a mirror in which he or she can distinguish his own motives:
-
To be unmotivated is terrible, because
that creates weakness, laziness, disorder, chaos - and a lot of energy
is not used when it is needed.
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To be overmotivated is also terrible,
because that creates overstrain, stress, perfectionism and
one-sidedness - and a lot of energy is used where it is not needed.
Both forms of motivation miss order. The
discipline of seiryoku zenyo remains clear in everything by
distinguishing the means and the goals, what intentions we should have,
and what a balanced use of the technical principles mean. Discipline and
wisdom in all is the basis for a virtuous life in balance.
If we closely observe the
actual state of society all over the world, notwithstanding the fact
that morality in all its forms (religious, philosophical and
traditional) is meant to improve man's conduct in society and make the
world ideal, the fact seems quite the contrary. We notice vices,
quarrels, and discontent in every level of society, from the highest
to the lowest. While we are taught hygiene and correct ways of living
in school from childhood up to mature age, we still are prone to
neglect the rules of good clean living and of hygienic and orderly
lives.
The actual facts prove
that our society is lacking in something which, if brought to light
and universally acknowledged, can remodel the society and bring
greater happiness and satisfaction to this world. This is the teaching
of maximum efficiency and mutual welfare and benefit.
(Jigoro Kano: The
Contribution of Judo to Education)
T.
Shidachi, speaking on the principles of Judo in 1892 said:
We come by daily training
to know that irritability is one of our weakest points, and that we
have to try to avoid it in our life, as it facilitates our opponent's
efforts to overcome us . Not to be irritated in any emergency, but to
always be calm and composed, is one of the first principles of Judo.
Prudence, precaution, temperance, perseverance, presence of mind,
quick discernment, decision after deliberation, animation with
moderation, self-respect, and self-control — all these are surely
moral qualities which are inculcated by the study of Judo.
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3. Discipline: the sensei
and his dojo
Sensei ni rei!
Jigoro Kano always had great
respect for those who had initiated him in ju-jutsu. Not for nothing. It
is unthinkable for a Japanese not to honor those who passed the
principles of judo. The key feature of the sensei is that he is a
lifelong teacher. What we modern judoka's regard as a sort of trainer or
coach, would be a too limited vision for Japanese tradition.
We
call Jigoro Kano often the O Sensei, the great Sensei. He was a
teacher and educator in the broadest sense. Teachers in Japan have a
high reputation. That belongs to the culture of Japan, they are almost
similar to samurais and the nobles. A teacher is to be treated with the
greatest respect. In Japan you would therefore never appeal teachers
with their first name. He is not simply 'Peter", but always 'Mr...'.
Courtesy is in the Japanese culture a normal behavior. Power and
positions are according to Confucius a "mandate of Heaven". A leader has
a mandate from the gods, and he has to keep that high standard up. The
subordinates give him unconditional obedience, unless it has been proved
that he is not worthy to obey him. The Confucian standards were very
strict, had something of a father-child relationship. In Japan, this
rule is more cultivated than in China, the birthplace of Confucius. Even
in companies, you can still feel this attitude of obedience. We
westerners do not understand everything about it. We're much too
democratic.
If we do the greetings during training, and honor to the teacher
(sensei ni rei) with the greetings, we are behaving not like an Oriental
or Japanese. For us, the sensei is someone who is more a friend, we
usually don't call him 'Mister' or 'Master'... like all our
teachers.
Discipline
From the classical budo principles,
discipline was common and ordinary. Obedience, respect for the
traditions and predecessors was a subject beyond doubts.
If
you are searching the Internet for the relationship between judo and
discipline, you will find almost nothing that connects you with those
traditions. The modern sensei is not the one who imposes anything, and
is certainly not demanding the obedience that the Japanese do like. The
dan-grades of a sensei are not fixed. Traditionally a real teacher had
at least the 5th or 6th dan. Today the shodan is sufficient and of
course a certificate from the trainer-course of the Judo-organization.
It has nothing more to do with the idea of a real lifelong-teacher on
the 'do'. Judo is not a lifestyle anymore, it seems, but just a sport.
The sensei is a democratic sport instructor.
But the discipline
in the dojo is more than a system of etiquette. Discipline has become
more 'self-discipline'. Yet there is something good to say. Neil
Ohlenkamp for example gives a good summary on the judoforum:
As students progress in
judo they naturally develop a form of self-discipline that helps not
only in judo but that will serve them well in life. At the same time,
this is passed on to the newcomers in class who learn by example. The
sensei and senior students set the tone in everything. Once the
atmosphere of the dojo is established, most new people will try to fit
in, even without really knowing why we have the discipline. An
undisciplined person in a well run judo class should really stand out.
Many rituals we do in class help to build this serious atmosphere that
promotes good discipline, including everyone dressing the same, lining
up, bowing, etc. One of the things I like to see in my class is people
working hard. A great tool for building discipline is simply hard
training, which leads to progress and intrinsic rewards including
enjoyment of judo. It still bothers me to see people talking during
uchi komi and I encourage them to train harder. I prefer to focus on
the positive benefits of good discipline, rather than simply enforce
rules. If you try to draw out the best in people they will naturally
become more disciplined.
It is very rare to need to impose a
more overt outside discipline on a student, but of course a sensei
must be able to exert authority when needed. Anyone can get out of
line, and we must pull the person back into line. This is a learning
opportunity as well since self-control is an essential part of judo.
About Jigoro Kano was said, "As a
teacher of Judo he appears to have been human. while one writer recalls
that he was a strict taskmaster who went about the dojo (club) urging
those resting and conversing to be up and about active practice, another
student remarks - with an apparent pang of conscience - that the class
was sometimes very noisy and disorderly and that their sensei (teacher)
often had trouble in quieting it." (R. W. Smith, see also menu 'Kano and
Mifune'.)
However, not to think about military structures, we
might say that many judoka's nowadays are very free. Very free... A
little more discipline might sometimes be desirable, not least because
it serves the judo and good manners very adequately.
Dojo discipline
There are a lot of Internet pages for the various rules dojo.
Here we present a few general:
1.) When entering or leaving the tatami, a standing greeting
brought (ritsu rei).
2) In the dojo everyone has short nails
(hands and feet). And jewelry (necklaces, piercings, rings, earrings,
etc.) are dismissed.
3.) Outside the tatami always slippers, not with bare feet to
the bathroom or shower.
4.) During training a judoka is silent.
5.) By exchanging training partners, always greetings to each other.
6.) Never leave the tatami without asking.
7.) Never eat or
drink on the tatami.
8.) Pay attention to what the teacher says and what occurs!
9.) Respect for the training partner (uke).
10.) Judogi is always clean, and very neatly.
"Teachers open the door, but you must
enter by yourself."
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