The Student's Most Important Decision

by Wade Goodner

The most important action a Martial Arts (MA) student can take is selecting the best sensei. This choice alone can mean the difference between life and death. MA are, on a base level, training to find the best way to kill the opponent. On another level those skills protect the individual, society on another, the country on another, and ultimately, improve the condition of all humanity. This training is not a science, nor a subject that can adequately be studied with words. It is an experience of a feeling. A feeling of danger, of safety, of correctness, of nature, and of life itself.

Centuries ago during the Feudal Era of Japan the selection of a sensei was crucial. The deshi (student) decided to dedicate his life to becoming a warrior. The development of these MA skills was going to be what keeps him alive. This is a key point to understanding the connection between the art and the artist. In a sense the student gives up his life to become a warrior to protect the lives of his family and country. His new life becomes the art—incorporating those skills/understandings that keep him alive. His connection to those skills comes through his relationship with his Sensei.

The Sensei in many cases was a veteran warrior whose understanding of the MA was such that he survived many battles and wars. Back in the Feudal Era aged warriors were scarce. Only a few had attained such a depth of understanding in their MA to live through the hell of war and live to share their knowledge and experience. These men knew what it took to stay alive. They had attained an understanding of the “gokui,” the highest level understanding of the MA, a feeling behind the written techniques—an indescribable essence that allowed them to live through existing on the thin line between life and death. Those warriors who lacked sufficient skill/understanding died on the battlefield. Experiencing this line and feeling of the essence is what the deshi strives to understand through the Sensei’s guidance.

 This gokui of the MA was born on that thin line between life and death. It is here where one second feels like and eternity and the less-than-one centimeter width of the blade feels like a mile. The slightest misstep or imbalance and life may become a fleeting memory. It is here in this surreal existence where this secret lies. Those who have been there return to “normal life” with a new outlook that is profound. It is through these new “eyes” that the MA traditions were born. It is through these eyes that an understanding of justice, correctness and perseverance is attained on a physical as well as spiritual level. These traditions are called “ryu” using the character meaning flow. This gives the deshi a hint into the understanding of gokui.

 Interestingly enough, this heightened perspective was not the goal of the warriors of the past unlike many modern MA students. It was a natural phenomenon arising from surviving the experience.

 Many modern Western sensei teach MA like a military drill sergeant purporting discipline and respect. Others preparing students for tournaments and sporting events all the while claiming to be teaching self-defense and a warrior way of life when many are running the dojo as a business. Few of these sensei understand the true essence of the MA and the gokui. They are teachers in that they are transmitting information to the students. But what kind of teacher are they?

 Let’s look at the meaning of the word Sensei. It is made up of two characters. The first “Sen” means ahead of or in front. The second character “Sei” means life. So a rough translation would be someone who lives ahead of you, inferring someone who has more life experience and wisdom. In English we translate sensei to mean teacher. Teacher means, “one whose occupation is to instruct.” The feeling of a MA sensei is more like a mentor, “a trusted counselor or guide.” A mentor takes the student under his wing and the two develop much more of a rapport and share information in a more intimate level. Through this kind of transmission the student can better catch the feeling of the gokui through experiencing the sensei’s lifestyle and habits.

Centuries ago deshi actually worked and lived at the sensei’s home or dojo. In this way the student would receive teaching constantly through experiencing sensei on many different levels. These students were called uchi-deshi, house students. Nowadays it is not practical for potential MA students to become cooks or butlers for their sensei, but the sensei does need to take on the responsibility of becoming a mentor to the student. This way the student can receive unspoken training/teaching much the same way children receive instruction and habits from their parents without the parents consciously instructing or parenting. They just “pick it up.”

So much of MA training or shin-ken “life-or-death” training stresses not thinking since the mind is slow and cannot think through all the possibilities and ramifications of attacks and counter-attacks. So this kind of instruction that actually soaks into the student without conscious understanding becomes crucial to understand. The state of “no mind” is the closest that the student can come to the shin-ken experience. Verbal instruction goes through the mind and it takes time to process it through all the student’s analytical thinking and logical processes so it is not as effective as learning through experience for MA.

 Without understanding these important aspects of MA training both the student and sensei could make mistakes that ultimately could cost their lives.