Kaze Uta Budo Kai Forum Archive

I've been reading Pascal Kreiger's book "Jodo: The Way of the Stick" lately, although not the parts that demonstrate jodo kata. Rather, there's a lot of philosophy and history that he writes about that's kind of interesting in a general sense, to budo in general, not just jodo (or jyodo, or however we're supposed to spell it).

Anyway, he was talking about a concept called "misogi" which means roughly "ablution, cleansing, purification" and it brought back a few memories. He told the story of a sword class (not sure if it was kendo or iaido) where the students were doing their routine cutting practice. It's called "suburi" or a rapid succession of repeated cuts (sometimes done with a heavier wooden sword called a suburi-to). They normally do about 300, sounding their "kiai" in unison, and then the sensei yells "yame!" or stop, and they move on.

One morning, the sensei never called "yame." So they kept going. And going, and going... After about 20 minutes, shoulders started to burn, sweat started to drip. But it kept going, held together by the constant rhythm and meditative chant of the "kiai". After a while, some of the younger students couldn't take it any more and stopped. When they saw some of the other continuing, they jumped back and kept going.

Once it finally ended, they all stood around as if in a stupor, woken from a dream. Body and mind had been worn out and broken down, certainly ego, but everyone had shared in a collective super-effort that somehow strengthened them.

Kreiger does a much better job at explaining it (I'm condensing it here), but it reminded me of something. Not that I've ever done anything like that for 45 minutes plus, but a long time ago, when the dojo was on I-40 and Meridian, Chuck would--ever once in a great, great while--have us do our uchi komi drills in judo in unusually high numbers (an uchi komi is basically loading up a single throw over and over again). We'd take o-soto gari and, rather than load 4 times and throw on the 5th, we'd load 19 times and throw on the 20th. Uke counts each one out in rhythm. Then the other guy would do it. And then we'd both do it again, 20 times each. We may have even gone a third round, I don't remember, but I remember what it felt like!

It was almost like jogging or running. At first, you're trucking along, no big deal. Then the boredom starts to set in, and then the discomfort. Eventually, you pass even that, and you get into a weird sort of zone (Nick could probably describe what that is better than I can?) where your conscious mind just shuts down and can't think, can't analyze, can't criticize, nothin'. It really takes you to a new place not just in terms of my judo technique, but mentally. It was like getting out of a brutal massage or a super hot steambath. Something like that. You come out tired, but refreshed; sweaty, but cleansed.

You wouldn't want to do it all that often, but every once in a while it's kinda nice to change things up.

That's all. I don't really have a point or a question, it's just me ruminating... Anyone ever done something like this? Anyone have any other training methods that have been unusual and/or meaningful?

I know exactly what your talking about, not that I've done it in any sort of dojo setting, and I agree. I think it is very beneficial.

We use to do stuff like this in basketball and other sports I played with sprints and other drills. Athletes refer to it as 'hitting the wall.' You hit the wall and keep going! You keep pushing yourself and you do more than you thought you could. It's amazing how much more, physically, you can do than you think you'd be able too. I say it is beneficial because it let's you know that when you are absolutely gassed and think you have absolutely nothing left to give, if you keep pushing, keep trying, eventually you break thru that wall and and BOOM! all of a sudden your good to go again! It's like you have caught your second wind. I try to do this when I'm in the gym (not that I've been in a while and certainly not regularly like I should be! ARR! 😡 ) by going harder than I think I could. There isn't a reason for me to go hard. It's not like I'm a professional athlete or in the military where my life is potentially in danger all the time, but I think it helps me in other parts of my life anyway. For instance, if I have a school project or something at work where I am just tired, my brain is fried and I don't want to do anymore....I know if I keep pushing and fight thru it that good things will happen and I will be happy I didn't quit or give up in the end.

At least I think that's what your talking about, that is what I took from it anyway. 🙂

There's one thing I wanted to add to my comment. It's important to know 'when to say when' too. And I think that can be the toughest part to learn / figure out, at least it was for me.

For example, you don't want to 'overtrain' @ the gym to the point you injure yourself, obviously. Or to the extreme, like some of the cases we have heard about in football, where guys go so hard they end up dying.

The same applies for work or school, as I figured out recently. It's important to work hard, get as much done as you can at the highest quality you can do it, but you have to know when to call it a night. Other wise you make careless mistakes and end up wasting part of your next day correcting those mistakes.

Still though, I think there is a lot to be learned from pushing yourself like the post you put above. And it did build a closer team, when you are all dead tired and the coach says one more set of sprints, etc. And you all conquer it together.

last time i did this stuff was at the last kangeiko-- high repitition ukemi-- high repitition jo and bokken kihon --high repeition releases and high repitition walking -- all work as misogi -- we touched on all those practices between x-mas and new year and if we do shochugeiko in late june or early july we'll do it again i suspect