Quite a while back I wrote a post about who your teachers really are. Right now an old friend, a long time student, and absolutely one of my teachers, is quite ill. It has me thinking about these things again.

We started training together around 2000, when we, and the dojo, were a lot younger. Now it’s been decades and he’s been instrumental in some of our more important changes. For years members having kids felt like a death knell for training. Around the time his first son was born we’d moved into a new space. A small group of us were training 4-5 or more days a week, Goku Ryu, Kobudo, Feeding Crane, general martial mayhem. You can’t keep that schedule with a baby. Instead of leaving like many before him though he set new boundaries, which in the midst of that I imagine was difficult. Family, work, earning another degree, regardless he was always there, with good energy and full focus at whatever schedule he set. Helping the group grow and developing into one of the best martial artists I have ever had the pleasure to train with. That lesson in balance and commitment served me well when my son was born. And as a lot of life happened- kids, moves, people coming and going, teachers passing and training adapting and changing- it has also served the dojo well. Someone needed to set an example and he was it.

It’s hard to summarize anyone’s training history. It melds with the dojo, with other people, with life in general. From new student, to senior member, to leader. In particular as we got deeper into Feeding Crane, and then Negishi Ryu, he has been at the forefront; focused, exploring and developing on his own (who expected the Uchi-ne?), and bringing us with him. I can’t imagine how these arts, or Goju Ryu, would be expressed in our dojo without his input. He’s made them all better than they could have been otherwise.

A few years ago I remember listening as he ran a class and realizing I was taking notes in my head. The same was happening as we paired up and started pushing each other. That moment can be transformative. For some teachers, when you see a student move past you in some way it can be intimidating. But to me it means that they did what my teachers pushed me to do with our art- embody it, develop it, and improve on it. It also means I have someone to help push me, and the dojo, to learn and grow. And to rely on to run things if I am not there. I’m incredibly proud of his achievements, and that I could help with them. But the work, and the credit, is his and his alone.

It’s hard to summarize someone’s history within the dojo. How they shape the group dynamics and in this case demonstrate how the art belongs to each of us practicing it. I have found I have been relying on him for feedback and advice, pushing each other around the dojo or throwing shuriken, thinking through a problem or figuring out how to explain something differently. And to help bring our group along. I see his art in our members. That makes me happy. Values get expressed through action and interaction, much like technique. His show in the respect members accord each other, for their personal practice and their contributions to the group. And that respect holds for everyone. Not that long ago we were training and he remarked that he needed to better copy the smooth naturalness of my son’s shuriken technique. Age, time training, those weren’t the point. What was actually happening was, what the person was putting in. You can learn if you can respect someone enough to really pay attention. And your technique can grow from it.

A training life is a fragile thing. It can be derailed by accident or illness, by finances or location, by relationships or personality. All of us need support to maintain it. A dojo is a community for a reason: martial arts are fundamentally interactive. Gakiya sensei used to say that if someone disrupted the wa, the harmony, of your dojo, get rid of them. It was too precious to waste. Someone who develops and maintains it is then invaluable. For me, having someone who has both supported my practice and vision for the dojo and simultaneously developed and shared his own approach has indeed been invaluable. It has helped shape my art. It keeps me honest. And it makes the whole community stronger.

I don’t really like my students calling me sensei outside training. It feels like an affectation here. As he’s become as much a comrade in training as a student it feels even less appropriate. But somehow he’s about the only person that frequently calls me sensei outside the dojo and never makes it sound out of place. It’s subtle enough I often don’t even notice. I’m not sure I deserve the respect that shows. Regardless though, I am honored he feels that way, and has for so long. I hear a lot in the word- friend, comrade, teacher, and student. I can’t speak to what he hears, but I hope I can live up to it, and that it displays the deep respect I hold for him and his practice.

It’s hard to summarize a teacher’s path with a student. In part because it can’t be planned. It changes as we do, growing, shrinking, more or less intense, directed or collaborative, full of frustration or humor or generosity. But the idea of student and teacher after over 20 years is kind of meaningless anyway. You sweat and bleed together, share meals and drinks, and keep changing. Like any friendship. You learn from each other, and if you are lucky enough as things change you figure out how keep them supportive, challenging, and, also, fun. Good humor and simple enjoyment of the practice are often far undervalued. As is someone who is willing share them with you.

And it is impossible to summarize the life the dojo feeds into. As a parent and partner, friend and professional, in my experience the right training helps make you a more present person. But we hold so much more than we get to see in our brief glimpses of each other. I don’t know him well as a parent or partner except through these occasional glimpses. I don’t know him in his work except through stories. But I see the approach he brings to both the dojo and our relationship. I know his sons are lucky to have him, and his partner, as are the other people in his life. The dojo most certainly is. I am.

I don’t know what this next time will hold, but I do know that I’ve had few people in my life that were both learning from me and had enough respect for both me and for themselves to show me where I could learn from them. To work together. To me that is one aspect of this path that is unusual. The direct physical nature of it can, if you let it, demonstrate this reciprocity so clearly. The question is if you are willing to take the risk, and have the fortitude, to let it. And perhaps most importantly if you can find a few people to share that with you.

In a section of Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny, Sam, posing as Buddha, has a disciple Rild, once an assassin sent by those who have taken on the aspect of the Hindu gods. Over time, Rild, now Sugata, embraces Sam’s teachings and eventually begins to expound on the dharma. The faithful, and Sam himself, come to listen and word spreads that Sugata too is enlightened, demonstrating the truth of the eightfold path, of how anyone can follow it. Later, Sugata chooses to face Yama, the god of death, and is killed by him. In their following conversation Sam says to Yama something to the effect of: “He was the only man I knew to really reach enlightenment. You have slain the real Buddha; we both know what I am. He knew you and knew he could not win. I do not know what point he was proving through his battle with you but I know him and so I know it was something”. It is fiction, and rather dramatic at that. But I have always loved the book, and in the dojo a few years back something in that scene resonated with me. It leaves me thinking of the role of a teacher, of a student, of which is really which and if it matters. Of how every teacher’s supposed goal, to develop students who equal or surpass you, is so rarely reached and how rewarding it is when it does happen. Of how fragile it is. It reminds me to look to the path for my answers, and to my fellow travelers, and to make sure I listen when the right person has something to teach me.

Like, of course, to not order the chowder. Thanks. Looking forward to next time.