Jan de Jong Jujutsu Grading System Analysis Series #1: Insights and Understanding

I am going to post a series of articles on this blog based on an analysis of the Jan de Jong jujutsu grading system. Why? Because it will produce insights that lead to a new and better understanding which can change the way the reader understands, thinks, feels, acts, and desires.

The above answer to the above question is based on Klein's (2013) work in Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights. 

Klein explains that insights lead to a new and better understanding. It is a new understanding because it did not exist before and it is better because it is a better understanding than the one that existed before. It is more accurate, more comprehensive, and more useful than the understanding that existed before.

Klein suggests that insights transform us in several ways and that in some ways they make us different people. They

change our understanding by shifting the central beliefs … in the story we use to make sense of events. … our new understanding can give us new ideas about the kinds of actions we can take; it can redirect our attention, changing what we see; it can alter the emotions we feel; and it can affect what we desire. (Klein 2013, 148; emphasis in original)

One of the paths to gaining insight that Klein identifies is curiosity, which he describes in terms of a 'What's going on here?' reaction. He explains that the reaction itself does not produce the insight but it can start the person down the road to gaining insight. It can start the person down the road to gaining insight when they go in pursuit of an answer to their initial 'What's going on here?' question.

As it turns out, I am all too familiar with this path to gaining insight. It describes how my first book on the science behind all fighting techniques came about, as it does with the second book, Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat. It also explains how I gained unique insights into the JDJ jujutsu grading system that produced a new and better understanding which is more accurate, more comprehensive, and more useful than the one that existed before.

I was recently mentoring a couple of students training for their shodan in the JDJ jujutsu tradition. It's been a while since I graded and taught shodan so my memory was a bit hazy on some of the attack-defence combinations in the practical grading. The practical grading in the JDJ jujutsu grading system is referred to as Shinken Shobu no Kata. SSnK is the foundation of the JDJ jujutsu grading system and will be the main focus of these posts. 

When the abovementioned students demonstrated some of the shodan attack-defence combinations they had been taught, they produced a 'What's going on here?' reaction which led me back to JDJ's original grading(s). A lot of the answers to my questions were found there, however, a lot of other 'What's going on here?' reactions in relation to JDJ's original shodan grading were also generated.

That is how this series of posts came about.

But as Robert Hymas used to frequently say, 'having said that,' curiosity and asking 'What's going on here?' in relation to an instructor's teachings is generally not encouraged in the martial arts, in fact, it is often actively discouraged. There are many possible reasons for that, one of which is that the instructor simply does not have any insight nor understanding. They may be able to perform what they have been taught but that is as far as their knowledge and understanding extends. Another reason may be that having their teachings being questioned and the instructor being unable to answer those questions challenges their authority and self-image. 

Isaac Newton famously said that if he has seen further, it is only because he has stood on the shoulder's of giants. First, it is amazing how most martial artists are reluctant to say that they have seen further than their instructors. One reason is that they probably have not. Second, you can see further than your giant-instructor by gaining insight and a new and better understanding by questioning the giant-instructor's teachings when appropriate.

Case Studies

While many will/have seen any analysis of JDJ's teachings that is not unquestioningly supportive as being an attack on him and his teachings, such analysis not only shines a light on his teachings, it also shines a light on all other martial arts, combat, sports, self-defence, close combat, law enforcement, security, etc. teachings. It does so by being a case study in the area of preparing a person to engage in a violent encounter.

A case study is an in-depth, detailed examination of a particular case (or cases) within a real-world context.[1][2] For example, case studies in medicine may focus on an individual patient or ailment; case studies in business might cover a particular firm's strategy or a broader market; similarly, case studies in politics can range from a narrow happening over time (e.g., a specific political campaign) to an enormous undertaking (e.g., a world war).

Karl Friday (1997) in Legacies of the Sword uses the Kashima-Shinryu as a case study to understand the bugei (military arts or martial arts). By studying one and gaining insights and understanding of the one, this provides the ability to have insights and understanding of the many similar but different phenomena, in this case martial arts grading systems. This is what an analysis of the JDJ jujutsu grading system provides in terms of an opportunity.