Not much really, or perhaps a lot? I don’t know, but a change here in the dojo is making me think about it. When Kimo sensei was here during what turned out to be his last visit, we got to talking about his legacy. It had come up before, but it seems timely in retrospect. He took care to tell me that he thought that his Kodokan would cease when he did. It was his, and so without him it wasn’t. Since he never appointed a successor, and his organization was always rather loosely structured, this makes sense. “I expect my students to continue and do their own things, the same way I did when I started Kodokan” was how he phrased it.

That is pretty practical, honest to the real world. I have seen very few organizations last beyond the passing of their founder or leader. Instead they usually break up, with someone holding on to the remnants of the original group or location but with other former members saying that person didn’t have the real knowledge, or skill, or rank, or lineage, or whatever and starting their own groups. It’s messy, and unnecessary, and recognizing a dojo or training group is really a temporary thing is probably the right way to go. The contention that can go along with multiple people claiming to be the “real successor” is pretty unpleasant, and pretty useless, in my opinion.

But of course inertia, or nostalgia, or a variety of other interests can push groups or people to maintain an existing structure. Speaking personally anyway, the social pressures are the real issue. For me that is at least in part because there are no financial or reputational pressures involved- I don’t make any money from teaching and I don’t have much of a presence in the larger martial arts community so those things don’t have any weight to them. But the feelings of the people I train with are important, and my attachments to my teachers and our dojo’s shared past are strong. So making changes can be difficult. You don’t want to lose or upset people, including yourself. And there is comfort in keeping things they way they have “always” been.

So it can take pressure of some sort to spark change. In my case one of them was, amusingly enough, grading. We don’t do much of it. Until last spring I had not, it turns out, run a grading test since before the pandemic. It is not a really important part of how I teach or run the dojo and for adults I don’t really think it is a useful motivator, or useful pedagogical tool. However, there comes a time… I have students that I should have tested for dan rank in the last few years and it was past time to take a closer look at them. And when I realized that, I also realized that if they were ready (which they were), and wanted a piece of paper to go with any change in rank, I wasn’t sure what that paper would say.

It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to give a Kodokan certificate. That was Kimo sensei’s organization and he is not here anymore. I could request Ryushikaikan rank for them, but then I’d have to bring everyone to Kagoshima to test; while I have rank there I have no formal shibu or anything like that and so no right to give it to anyone else. I certainly can’t do a Kokusai Goju Ryu Karate Kobudo Renmei / Shodokan rank, as though Gibo sensei and other seniors have been really generous to me over the last 30+ years and it is where I train when I am in Okinawa I have no rank in that organization. So where does that leave me? In the same position of many others over the generations. Rank, in my opinion, isn’t universal. It is pertinent only to the group you belong to. And Kimo sensei already told me what to do, I just wasn’t listening.

I gave the old dojo space a name when we opened it. Koshinkan, 廣心館 .  It very roughly translates as “open spirit hall’ (kan can also refer to a group, so aslo open spirit group). When Kimo sensei first founded his Kodokan with Matayoshi sensei’s blessing he used the name of Matayoshi sensei’s recently built dojo, Kodokan, 光道館、an enlightened path might be one way to translate it, though it is also a nod to his father Shinko and could be read “(Shin)Ko’s way. Later Kimo sensei changed the characters to sound the same but read something more like “the old way”, 古道館. We’ve used the Kodokan name since the dojo was founded in 1990, but really it no longer fits, and that Kodokan no longer exists. While I have a hard time imagining us with a different name, I also can’t see us using that one any more.

So, long story short, after 35 years we’re still trying to keep things moving forward. Right now, that means taking what was the name for our training space and making it the name for our group. The name has meaning to me- the sound, Koshinkan, references the Kodokan (s) that has been so fundamental to our history. The characters reference both the Ryushinkan and Shindokan, and, more importantly, the idea of an open mind and spirit, from the phrase Kimo sensei taught us so long ago and that has been our dojo motto for 35 years: Open Mind, Joyful Training. I’ll certainly miss the Kodokan name, it has been such a core part of my training life for so many years. And while I’ll bet at times I’ll wonder why I did it, I am very happy with it. It feels right for me, and for our group and the way we approach our practice and each other. To be honest, I probably should have done it ages ago. And while it will take a bit for this change to permeate through the website and other outward facing parts of the dojo I’m not too worried about that, everyone that really matters knows.

Anyway, what is in a name? Something, I guess, but not much at the same time. By any other name, as it were, it is our dojo, our practice, and the people we share it with that are the real things behind any name we choose. And, as our name says, keeping one’s mind open to what the future brings.