The point is to pick a road and begin the journey. Rome will be at the end of it somewhere, but that’s not the important point. The nature of the journey—the Way—is the primary concern.
The most popular Japanese martial arts in terms of numbers of students are karatedo (“the way of the empty hand”), judo (“the gentle way”), kendo (“the way of the sword”), and aikido (“the way of harmony”). These four warrior ways are also the most widespread and visible around the world. Most who travel to Japan to study martial arts will probably practice one of the four major arts. That being the case, I will offer a brief history of each art, a description of its physical appearance and practice goals, my observations concerning who would most and least benefit from the practice of that art, and instructions on how to find a suitable dojo that will serve your interests. I will also include information on training in iaido (“the way of drawing the sword”), jodo (“the way of the staff”), and naginatado (“the way of the halberd”): three archaic weapons arts that are widespread in Japan, but relatively little known outside that country. Finally, I will discuss training in ninjutsu (“the art of stealth”).
Another important question to ask yourself is “What is my purpose for going to Japan to train in the martial arts?” What do you want from your experience in a Japanese training environment? Personal challenge, knowledge, a good workout, meditation, aerobics, self-defense training, traditional art experience, self-confidence, a chance to experience a living history? Any traditional martial arts dojo will touch on all of the above topics over time. At the same time one can find teachers, martial arts styles, and schools that naturally—or because of commercial considerations—cater to a particular martial arts training approach. There are many: the physical intensity of judo; the meditative effects of iaido; the flow of aikido; the surge and snap of karatedo, the auditory and physical clamor of kendo; the stateliness of kyudo (traditional archery); the esoteric mysteries of ninjutsu.
Studying a completely different art from the one you train in at home might also be worth considering. It is an ancient dictum that creativity is stimulated by contrast. You might consider practicing more than one art. You are probably not going to be training in Japan long enough to fundamentally affect your mind/body, but you could take the opportunity to more broadly educate yourself. Most advanced martial arts teachers are, in fact, ranked in more than one art. To really know what you are doing necessitates knowing what you are not doing ... and why. Bonsai (the culturing of miniature trees), ikebana (flower arranging), sado (the tea ceremony), and go (Japanese chess) are also excellent ways to polish the warrior soul.
Don’t dismiss these arts as being unfitting to the training of a budoka, a student/practitioner of the warrior way. The mental tension created in the warfare of the go board can be exhausting. For me, the practice of the tea ceremony was the most mentally and physically draining art I practiced while in Japan. The very precise kata (prearranged form) of the tea ceremony, its slow and measured pace, the ritual requirements of guest and host, both at the physical and verbal level, would leave me exhausted. This reveals more about me during the time I was in Japan than the tea ceremony itself. I would have preferred practicing karatedo kihon waza (basic technique) in full kiai mode than spending the same two hours under the intense scrutiny of the tea sensei. The power and elegance of karatedo gave me energy, while the precision and dignity of tea took it from me.
That experience taught me something about myself as a budoka. When I could disengage my logical mind from the acts of my body, the training would produce energy as a by-product of practice. Practicing basic karatedo techniques leaves one no time or energy to think. But with the tea ceremony, I was trying to make my body act with the precision required while my mind was full of “Remember to do this and not that ” and “Let’s see, do I rotate the bowl three times or two times before sipping,” and “I hope I’m not making too much of a fool of myself.” Another way to put it is that until you can see the relatedness between the tea ceremony or a game of go and the martial art you practice, you are not practicing your martial art at a very high level.
The lesson here is universal and sounds almost mystical, but really is not. The mind has to cease discursiveness for the body to learn. When the two are vying for position, the result is that you are working against yourself, with the effect of simply exhausting your energy. You are working for perfection of an act that when done correctly you will never witness, such as a judo throw, the shot of an arrow, a correctly timed combination in kumite (sparring; literally: “exchange of hands”). Experienced martial arts sensei will tell you that they often experience spontaneous techniques which seem to occur when the discursive mind is not paying attention.
Occasionally, when teaching aikido, I will invite my demonstration partner to attack freely. Sometimes my response is conditioned by decades of aikido practice and is usually a basic technique—and sometimes the defensive technique I use seems to come out of nowhere! I see the attack come, and the next thing I see is the attacker on the dojo floor. If the technique felt right—a condition I cannot define—I clap my hands and invite the students to practice the technique. As they begin, I study my senior students to find out what I just did, because in a very true way “I” was not there when it happened. If you hang around to congratulate yourself on how good you look in kata, you will progress much less than if you rid yourself of the ego observer. Even as I write this, it sounds like so much mystical drivel, but it is not! It is the natural outcome of sound practice over time.
My aikido sensei described the experience of spontaneous technique as being possessed by the spirit of his deceased teacher. I remember thinking, “Interesting, the sensei believes in spirit possession.” Many years later, when I experienced this sensation personally, I understood what he was talking about. However, I did not see it as literally being possessed by a spirit, for my cultural and educational background made that assumption too much of a reach. It did occur to me that aikido was literally shaped by the experience of its founder, Ueshiba Morihei Shihan, and an experience of spontaneous technique was, in a manner of speaking, an act of being possessed by the master’s art. Where else did the spontaneous technique come from? My body and mind had been molded over many years by continuous training in the basic techniques of Ueshiba Shihan’s art and when it found expression in my creative acts as an aikido teacher it was as if Ueshiba Shihan, who had become one with his art, was present in me through his art. My aikido sensei called this type of experience “the miracle of hard training.”
Karatedo: The Way of the Empty Hand
Karatedo has a wonderful story of origin. The orthodox account is that karatedo originated in India. The martial arts of contemporary India at this point in their evolution, however, look much more like kung fu, with its complex “animal forms” and great variety of exotic weaponry, than the austere art of modern karatedo. Kung fu does not, in fact, point to a particular type of Chinese martial art but, as the literal translation of kung fu (“effort”) suggests, to any skill derived over time through hard training. It may be said that kung fu is at least partially derived from India and that later karatedo evolved from an ancient branch of kung fu.
The ancient story tells of Bodhidharma (Japanese: Daruma; Chinese: Tamo), the twenty-eighth patriarch of Buddhism, and his arrival in China in the sixth century A.D. on a mission to revitalize Chinese Buddhism. In the company of his Sherpa guides (traditionally described as eighteen in number), Bodhidharma briefly visited with Emperor Wu and then moved into residence at the monastery of Shaolin-szu (Japanese: Shorinji), “Temple of the Young Pine Trees.” (Some versions of the story claim that he founded the famous Shaolin temple.) Finding the resident monks too weak to follow his rigorous monastic regimen, he taught them a style of martial art which he derived from the