What is Tradition?

Keynote address to the 1998 NAPMA Martial Arts Professional Convention

by Stephen K. Hayes

Sometime during my first few years of living in Japan, I discovered the temple and graveyard dedicated to the famous forty-seven ronin of Japanese history. I went to the temple with a Japanese friend who explained the story of the forty-seven men who gave their own lives in order to avenge the honor of their leader who had been tricked into committing a breach of etiquette for which he was executed.

In the temple museum display, I saw what looked like an old and well-worn off-white judo gi, with its short sleeved jacket and short-legged pants. I commented to my Japanese friend, "Little guys in those days, huh? Short legs and arms on that gi."

My friend looked uncomfortable, as though guessing whether or not I was joking. He took a breath and explained that judo wasn't invented until the late 1800s. That was not an old judo gi up there with the kimono and swords, but rather a suit of one of the forty-seven warrior's samurai underwear. Short legs and sleeves fit inside a silk kimono. Feudal Japanese warriors took off their silk kimono to be dressed in that white underwear for rough sweaty martial arts training. It was the equivalent of stripping down to boxers and T-shirt or tank-top for athletic training today. My friend acknowledged that maybe that was why I associated the underwear with a martial arts gi.

I stood and stared at that underwear I had mistaken for a gi. It dawned on me that back in America in the 1960s, I had been taught a special way to fold my gi at the end of a workout, place it before me, and bow to it before leaving the training hall. Uncomfortably, I had to consider the comical ramifications of solemnly "bowing to my underwear" back in those days of karate training in Ohio.

So! Just what is your tradition?

Tradition! The word is so often associated with the martial arts of Asia as practiced in the United States. So many of us enjoy being a part of the centuries of tradition that have gone before us in our martial art's "old country" of origin. It is stimulating to think that we are a part of something important enough to survive for generations. So, when we speak of tradition, what do we really mean? What does tradition mean to you, and exactly what is your tradition?

• A way of getting students to do things? You offer a tradition-based teaching style.
• A way of moving your body? You offer a tradition-based set of techniques.
• A way of communicating through a social structure? You offer a tradition-based cultural pattern.
• A way of honoring a hierarchy? You offer a tradition-based revenue generator.
• A way of developing the ability to generate results under pressure? You offer a tradition-based model for solving problems.

In my early days of martial arts training in Ohio, I studied for awhile in a very strict karate school. We were so proud of our position as a "traditional" school. We had rules for everything. No laughing in class. No talking directly to the Master Instructor. No whistling in the dojo. It was very severe and we all practiced walking around like grim warriors ready to kill or die for the emperor.

I remember one particular time the instructor showed us a technique that was very difficult for me to perform. And of course he warned me that it would be difficult and only the best students would get it. For weeks, I struggled to get the technique to produce results. Then finally one day, I surprised myself by getting it to work.

I was so happy that I forgot our code of dire warrior grimness and unthinkingly started to whistle a cheerful tune in dressing room. Oops! Forgot the rules.

A very angry face popped into the men's dressing room and a voice demanded pointedly, "Who's whistling in the dojo? This is a traditional school; no whistling in the dojo!"

"I don't know?," I lied. Some ugly guy I've never seen before came in here, whistled in the dojo, and then left. It was just a moment ago, so if you run real fast you can probably catch him before he gets out the front door."

What a funny way to teach what I now call in my Quest Center dojo, "the art of winning!" Hey! Happiness is the sign of the winner. Gloomy sternness is the hallmark of the person who is not getting things to go his way. We are supposed to look like up-tight angry guys? Is ours a tradition of grim losers? I'd rather smile, just like the winners have always done throughout history.

Is yours really a "tradition"?

I have read advertisements for 2,000 year old martial arts, but is such a thing really even possible? The truth is that many martial arts taught in America were founded after WWII; and are not really ancient traditions at all. I used to study a martial art that was created in the 1950s by a man who took one martial art and just changed the sequence order of the techniques in the kata and called it a different martial art. And of course, all of us kids who were studying this martial art were fiercely proud of the ancient heritage that our teacher said stretched out through thousands of years of Asian history.

I eventually left America and went away to Japan to study the Togakure ninja tradition. As part of my training, I even went to visit the mountain where the founder of the Togakure legacy lived and trained as a teenager in the mid-1100s. It doesn't get more traditional than that. I guess I have to acknowledge that my martial art makes me as traditional as they come.

When I got back to America in the 1980s, I ran into one of my fellow students from that original martial arts school where I studied before going to Japan. We reminisced about the "old days" for a few minutes, and then he commented, "I saw you in all the magazines. Doing that ninja martial art now, I see."

I did not want to seem disrespectful, having left our old martial arts school to go to Japan and study something totally different, so I tried to be diplomatic, make it more a story of finding my personal way than being critical of our old school. "Well, it really was what I was looking for all along. Everything I wanted was in there; how to deal with grapplers, punchers, everything from swords to walking sticks to hidden snipers, and all that mental power training. Sometimes it even gets kind of spiritual. I don't mean like a religion, but in the sense of having to look at just who we are as humans in the vast story of how the universe works, and why it is that some humans feel compelled to prey on other humans."

He looked thoroughly bored and said, "Oh. Yeah. Well, sounds cool, but I'm going to stick with the traditional martial arts."

Traditional?! He was talking about that system that was created in 1955 so the new "grandmaster" would not have to pay dues to some other teacher's organization!

So then am I a traditionalist or not? Would up-grading something that was established in 1955 be "breaking tradition"?

When did your martial art become "a tradition"?

If yours is an ancient tradition, at what time period did your tradition "freeze" into its final form? When did your tradition stop growing, researching, and incorporating innovation? If you are practicing with Edo era (late 1600s through mid 1800s) swords, your tradition has chosen to change, grow, and go beyond the techniques of the Sengoku Warring States period (1500s), during which a completely different style of sword was used. And if you claim to practice the original tradition of Japanese sword as applied in the Sengoku era, then you are stating that your tradition chose to grow and adapt beyond the Muromachi era (1300s into the 1500s) with its distinct style of swords and techniques. How do you decide just how traditional you want to be?

If yours is an ancient tradition, how would the founder do things if he or she were starting out today? What was the founder's motivating purpose for creating what eventually became your tradition? If it was self-protection, what were the prevailing types of attack that he or she had to deal with? Do you think that those same attacks are in use today? If the point was health cultivation, do you believe that they knew more or different things about health back then as compared with today? If the point was spiritual or character development, what were the cultural conditions that the founder wanted your martial practice to counter? Do those same conditions apply to your own culture in this age right now?

When I came back to America and began to teach seminars and workshops in the early 1980s, I completely reversed the specifics of my own teacher's message. In Japan, my teacher Masaaki Hatsumi is quite an iconoclast as martial arts grandmasters go. He always emphasized to our small (in those days) training group that the martial arts should be a thing of bringing out the best in everyone. I used to enjoy my teacher's deliberate reversal of what looked to me like too much sanctimonious and pretentious posturing on the part of so many Japanese grandmasters. My teacher always had fun, and that annoyed some of the other well-known grandmaster figures in Japan. To the Japanese students, he used to exhort, "Play!" as a call to loosening up and being more creative in their training. Of course, this was a generation ago in Japan, back in the days when the Japanese people were tireless workers putting in six days a week of working from pre-dawn to late at night. There was too much self-sacrifice, too much distance from family raising responsibilities, and way too much alcoholism. Hatsumi Sensei wanted his students to become more attuned to the human side of life. Too much hard work and not enough play was driving the Japanese people over the edge.

Why did I change my teacher's message? Well, my students were 1970s Americans moving into the 1980s. Too much selfless hard work was not our problem. Anybody old enough to remember the 1970s? We had become a nation of spoiled children. Absolute lack of commitment or mission was our disease. Disposable marriages, disposable careers, "if it feels good just do it" was our code of ethics, and the dream was a hot tub in every backyard. We gave up the camera and optics industry, we gave up electronics, and we were on our way to giving up the auto industry, all because quality workmanship had become a bother. The last thing that 1970s Americans needed to be told was, "Play and enjoy life more." I hammered my students with "Take responsibility!"

And how wonderful it was that my martial tradition was big enough to hold the cures for both cultures, radically different though they were. I could deliver a message that sounded contradictory to the message of my teacher. The truth was that we were both delivering the same ultimate message, and that was, "Use this martial tradition as a way to get your life in order!"

How about your tradition? Is it big enough to address the needs of your students in this country in this age without contradicting the founder?

Is your tradition a source of benefit or limitation in your school?

How do you honor your tradition and serve modern students? needs at the same time? How can you embody the best spirit of your tradition? How can you avoid "mindless habitual momentum" excused as "proudly following tradition"

Of course, you know my tradition stretches back to the 1100s. Can't get more traditional than that. My tradition was founded from a need to protect family and community against enemies who had the odds in their favor. The tradition is, "How to win under impossible odds." That's it.

Therefore, I am obligated to provide my students today with lessons in practical application of mind and body in ways of handling danger so that everyone gets home safe, healthy, and happy. That is being traditional. The tradition is not how to adjust the chain mail armor so that you can swing the halberd blade under an enemy's torso armor, although that is one of many techniques that make up the history of our tradition. The tradition is how to win when other people do not want you to win. Tradition is not wearing funny clothes, acting like feudal Japanese people, or practicing techniques to counter attacks that never happen today. The tradition is how to get enemies to make peace with you so that you can enjoy watching your children grow up.

Do you know the traditional origins of the forward-facing "horse stance" in karate practice? In ancient China there were only two ways to gain power and wealth. You could be a government official or a general. Poor kids could not afford to go to school and study the classics for the government test, so they could only aspire to be a warrior. Of course they did not have a horse because they were poor, so they practiced how to fight from horseback with an imaginary horse. They practiced pushing back the sleeves of a warrior aristocrat ready to do battle.

I used to teach the horse stance and sleeve brushing technique, even though I didn't know why. Somewhere about yellow belt I learned the hard way to quit asking my teacher about what would happen if I stood this way in a fight?

Why did I teach it? Well, builds up muscles, teaches focus and discipline... Well, yeah, sure.

How about this possibility? Are there any other things that are also more relevant to real world self-defense that I could use to inculcate strength and focus and discipline?

5 suggestions for success from a traditionalist in the modern world

Don't "dumb down" the material. "Brighten up" your teaching methodology.

Yes, I was taught by a gruff guy who barked out commands and who did not respect questioning attitudes, but that was in Japan a generation ago. I teach in America today, and I want to my students to relate to their martial arts school in a way that will inspire them to stay long enough to get the benefits of the training. There is a whole world of documented educational science available to us today. It did not exist back in ancient China or Korea or Japan. Take advantage of what we know today about the best conditions for learning, and incorporate those into your program.

Yes, I still teach the historical use of spear against samurai armor. That is one piece of the historical tradition behind my school. But that material is taught to senior black belt instructors who are skilled fighters, who have been through all the practical lessons and are now ready to spend some time exploring the arcane roots of our martial art heritage. Newer students need material relevant to their own world first.

Focus on the purpose of your tradition.

The tradition behind my martial art is providing a way to be safe and happy and healthy in a sometimes crazy world. What was the primary threat to safety, health and happiness in ancient feudal Japan? I think it was armored riders from over the mountain who came to kill and steal and take over other people and lands. What is the form that threat takes in modern America? What is the primary threat to health and happiness in America today? How can I translate what worked in ancient Japan into a form that will work in modern western society today?

Identify the real needs of people in your community, and allow the appropriate parts of your tradition to serve those needs.

You don't have to talk everybody into training for commando operations or professional pit fighting or life as a Zen priest. What do your students really want and need?

If they want effective self-defense training, are you honestly addressing the kinds of assaults likely to happen to them in contemporary America? Are you effectively preparing them for the emotional and cognitive jolts that will happen when they face actual aggression and all those natural survival chemicals rush into their bloodstream?

If they want training to increase confidence, focus, and personal discipline, can you give them an actual program for how to accomplish that? Sure, martial arts are said to improve those mental capacities, but very specifically how are you going to do that?

The answers to those questions drove me to develop the Quest Center martial art of To-Shin Do as a modern adaptation of the ancient ninja martial art I studied in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s. I had to face the reality that few people had the time or desire to devote their lives to the martial arts as I had. How about you? In what direction are your answers pushing you?

Prepare to be strong in the face of criticism.

Less-visionary people will condemn you for not "doing it the way we always used to do it." You will be seen as a threat to those who are comfortable with all the old limitations. Some people actually like the limitations because so few others are willing to put up with them. It makes the "venerable old-timers" feel elite when they can use the limitations to keep others out. Aren't we "so special!"

I think that for many, the allure of a "non-commercial" traditionalist school is part of a syndrome I call "Looking for Mr. Miyagi". Did you see the Karate Kid movie? I mean, wouldn't that be wonderful if you discovered that down in the basement under your apartment lived this Okinawan karate grandmaster and nobody else knew about him? And he agreed to teach only you? Wouldn't that be cool? And even if you got a little cocky or lazy or outright disrespectful to him, he'd still be there waiting to give you your next karate lesson whenever you wanted it? And when you did something stupid like taunt a gang of bullies into chasing you down, he would just show up out of nowhere and beat them all up for you? Wouldn't that be great? And he'd take you to his dojo in Okinawa, and introduce you to his gorgeous teenaged niece, and he had all these cars and he'd tell you to pick out any one you wanted, and he'd even give you his own gi? Imagine that! You became like his own child, and he ended up really living his whole life just for you? And on top of it all, he gave you all this for free. You didn't have to pay your karate grandmaster teacher even a penny for all the secrets that he was giving to you alone. I mean, wouldn't that be fantastic!

Unfortunately, I think that down in their hearts, there are a lot of people out there who are "looking for Mr. Miyagi." They hang on to what they call tradition, even when it has nothing to do with authentic tradition, and smirk with haughty derision at the sin of the "commercial dojo." The embarrassing truth is that they are looking for an escape from an uneventful life. They want to be able to think of themselves as being "someone special", or somehow different from or "above and beyond" the average ordinary person.

Well, when you make your move towards a more effective and successful school operation, be prepared for criticism from all angles, but don't let it get you down. I guarantee you will lose a few old friends but vastly increase your circle of new friends.

Team up with other progressive thinkers who have real-world experience.

Maybe your old grandmaster is set in his ways. Great! Study with him if you like, pay your annual dues, give him lots of compliments, show him respect. And work with other people as "consultants" so that you can continue to upgrade what you are offering your community through your school. Train with your old grandmaster for what you want, but offer your students what they see as the benefits they are looking for in the martial arts.

Bring out the best of your tradition. Offer your "introductory realistic self-defense program" as a tribute to your old grandmaster. Explain that it is a way to get people up to the point where they can appreciate the high level that the grandmaster teaches from.

Or thank your old grandmaster for all he has given you and find a new set of teachers who offer what it is you have grown to the point of needing.

Remember that you are studying with your teacher for your own purposes, and that your students may have other reasons for wanting to study the martial arts. The truth is that the vast majority of my own students are studying with me for reasons very different from my own. To be effective and successful in business, I need to address their needs, not mine.

If I were to run a school for all the Stephen K. Hayes types in my community, I'd be out of business in a heartbeat. Personally, I am a maniac when it comes to the martial arts. I'd be your dream student. I never get bored, never get burned out. I?ll do anything to learn more. I've enjoyed it all from cardio kickbox workouts to tai-chi moving energy meditation. I've had spontaneous bare-knuckle full-contact fights erupt in my own seminars when I was trying to teach. Because of my magazine cover appearances, I have been ambushed by unethical fighters trying to make names for themselves at my expense. I gave away all I owned and moved to Japan to hunt down the grandmaster of the ninja. I've slept in dirt-floor huts in Tibet while searching for the few fighting monks left over after the invasion of Tibetan temples by Chinese troops. I've finagled my way into training at the FBI academy and British SAS training camps even though I am not a cop or soldier. But that's my trip, my life. I'm a self-professed maniac, and there aren't that many of us, so it would not be a good idea to build a school around what I want to do. How about you? Any of my life dedication to the martial arts remind you of your own?

So, what do you really want from the experience of running a school? What would make you the happiest person possible?

I had just moved back to America after studying the martial arts in Japan in the 1970s. And magically, the hottest martial art in the early 1980s was the martial art that I was the only American to have actually studied in Japan with the grandmaster.

I got a call from Black Belt Magazine. They wanted me to be on the cover of their 1980 yearbook. Very few people had ever actually seen me in action, but here I was going to be on the Black Belt Yearbook cover!

They flew me to Los Angeles, and we drove out of the city and trekked way up a mountain to a wooded spot. The crew set up all the cameras and light reflectors and diffusers, and I was busy trying to think of what would be the best pose. A punch? Maybe an elbow breaking arm lock?

The editor walked over and said, "We want you to strangle this guy from behind with a ninja chain."

What? That's not what I want to show. It's a false image of my martial art. Ours is a highly effective method of self protection. We can deal with strikers, kickers, knife stabbers, get-on-the-ground-and-pound-you wrestlers. Why do I have to strangle him from behind? Can't we do a shot of me fighting this guy face to face, toe to toe, like a real man?

"No. Nobody wants to see a ninja fight like a real man. You have to sneak up on this guy. Surprise him out of the blue and choke him out before he even knows what happened."

Well, I argued for awhile, but I was forced to give in. I resigned myself to doing what it would take to be on the Black Belt Yearbook cover. I took a few breaths and got into character. I slipped behind the victim and wrapped a chain around his neck. I pulled back on the ends and laughed in dark triumph. Well, alright!

The director interrupted again. "No, no! Your face is not fierce enough."

What?

"You've got to snarl and really contort your face in rage and anger. Grimace so we can see your teeth."

Whoa! I'm smiling because I'm winning here. This is working for me. I only snarl and screw up my face when things aren't going well and I have to struggle and scramble.

"Well, try."

I gritted my teeth. Grrrrr!

"You've got to look tougher than that."

You know, the toughest guys I know in life never go around "looking tough". They just are tough when toughness is needed. It's usually the cowards who fear they really are not tough who go around imitating movie bad guy toughness.

Well, we're losing our sunlight, and unless you can get the right look, we're going to miss our dinner reservation at the Hollywood Sushi Restaurant and have to go to some diner for a grilled cheese instead.

Whoa! I roared and strangled and that ended up on the cover of the Black Belt Yearbook.

Remember, no matter what the name, the most traditional of martial arts are all about winning, and winning in my book is getting what you need and having the world be a better place because of it. That's tradition! Do great things, and help make this world a better place for everyone!