This post will complete the review of the Jan de Jong shodan jujutsu grading.
The final three parts to the grading are all teaching oriented.
The translation of the Part title and the Part descriptions are taken from Jan de Jong: The man, his school and his ju jitsu system (Jan de Jong Self Defence School, 1995).
SHODAN PART 7: JU JITSU REKISHI
Rekishi is translated as 'history.'
'Candidates are required to submit an essay with no less than 1500 words on the history of ju jitsu and no less than 1500 words on any one aspect of ju jitsu.'
This Part carries on from ikkyu part 4 of the same name: 'Oral examination of the history of ju jitsu and a general history of Asian martial arts.'
The recommended reading for the shodan grading were:
Beginning Ju-Jitsu by James Shortt
Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts by Donn Dreager and Robert Smith
Classical Budo by Donn Dreager
Secrets of the Samurai by Ratti and Westbrook
The Fighting Spirit of Japan by E. Harrison
Zen Combat by Jay Gluck
There have been some authoritative books published since Jan de Jong (JDJ) devised this grading and compiled the above recommended reading list. Two that should be compulsory reading are:
Legacies of the Sword: The Kashima-Shinryu and Samurai Martial Culture by Karl F. Friday (1997)
Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery by G. Cameron Hurst III (1998)
Friday is associate professor of Japanese history at the University of Georgia. Hurst was a historian of Japan and Korea holding academic posts at various universities in the U.S. and Japan. Unfortunately Hurst passed away before he could publish his promised accompanying Unarmed Martial Arts of Japan.
Errors ... persist in Western writings due in large measure to the insularity of both the audience and the authors. The overwhelming majority of the literature on Japanese martial art has been directed at practitioners and other afficionados, and penned by journalists, martial art teachers, and others without formal academic training in premodern Japanese culture or history. Not surprisingly then, most English-language books and articles on the topic have relied almost exclusively on other English-language martial art books and articles, supplemented by survey histories. Thus, mistakes and misinformation tend to circulate and recirculate largely because those with the wherewithal to correct them - the community of experts versed in Japanese history and thought, and trained to read primary sources - have generally viewed the bugei with little more than bemused condescension. (p.8)
The English-language literature on the traditional bugei includes how-to manuals, biographies of master swordsmen, translations and commentaries on classical texts, and broadly synthesizing historical or analytical studies. Much of this work suffers from historical naivete, flawed by errors of fact or conception, but most is useful in one way or another and some is quite excellent. Even the best, however, suffers from limitations imposed by the sheer diversity of the bugei. (p.9)
JDJ introduced the history grading into both his initial instructor gradings because, as he explained, an instructor needs to be able to explain what jujutsu is to prospective students and others.
My writing journey began around 2000 when I started writing a book on the jujutsu that JDJ taught. The first chapter was, 'What is Jujutsu?' Answering that question was JDJ's intent when he introduced the history grades into ikkyu and shodan, however, I found knowledge of the history of jujutsu did not answer that question.
Understanding the generic nature of the term is a must in understanding what jujutsu is. When martial artists say that jujutsu is [ ], there are always exceptions. Friday has this to say about attempting to understand phenomena in generic terms:
Analysing and explaining the bugei in generic terms is a bit like conceptualising world history, world literature, or world religion in similar fashion. Standing back far enough to examine the phenomenon in toto permits one to describe its outlines, but seeking deeper insights about its essence forces one to grapple with a volume of diversity and detail that quickly becomes overwhelming. (p.9)
In addition to the generic issue above, I found that the history of jujutsu, if there is even such a thing, did not add much to the understanding of jujutsu. Instead, I found an evolutionary approach was far more informative. An evolutionary approach looks at the same historical period but with a clear focus on function. It has a clear focus on explaining how what is under investigation came to be what it is today.
Another book that looks at the evolution of the Japanese warrior that is also helpful in understanding the generic nature of the Japanese warrior arts is Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan's Military, 500-1300 by William Wayne Ferris (1996). In fact, Ferris' principles of counter-response and symmetry - the tendency of one antagonist to reproduce the same kind of weapon as the enemy, which he suggests dominated much of martial thinking in the premodern era as it does today, explains the development of the modern phenomena that is 'mixed martial arts' as a martial art in itself and which destroyed the original concept of those competitions.
The technical content of jujutsu reflects the evolution of the Japanese warrior which is explained in the last four-mentioned books. Friday compares the Japanese warrior arts to the Chinese, Korean, and Okinawan boxing arts:
Japan, however, had no counterpart to Chinese boxing - at least not until modern times. The bugei practiced in Japan today descend directly from arts developed for the battlefield. Furthermore, until modern times the Japanese fighting arts were more or less the exclusive property of the samurai, the ruling class throughout the period in which the disciplines matured. Chinese, Okinawan, and Korean boxing forms, by contrast, were created by tradesmen, peasants, ascetics, entertainers, monks, rebels, bandits, and other political have-nots. (p.6)
The final element in Dreager's explanation of jujutsu is the practical application of the philosophical concept of ju. Dreager explains that the principle has been interpreted in highly individual and technically differentiated ways, all of which are subsumed under the generic concept of jujutsu. I won't go into a discussion on the subject, but I will note that it is an important part of an explanation of jujutsu and that it serves as a point of differentiation between different jujutsu methods.
You will recall from the description of this grading at the beginning of this section that the essay is to be comprised of one half on the history of jujutsu and the other half on one aspect of jujutsu. I cannot remember what my aspect was.
One of my training partners, Gerald Woods, a very funny person, informed me that he'd submitted his essay. I asked what aspect of jujutsu did he write about? He was perplexed. He hadn't read the instructions thoroughly and wrote the entire essay on the history of jujutsu. When I point out his error, he said au contraire. The first half of his essay was on the history of jujutsu and the second half on an aspect of jujutsu was on the aspect of the history of jujutsu. I've got to give him that.
SHODAN PART 8: KYOGI
'Examination of the candidate's ability to teach all grades to Ikkyu. Candidates will be judged on manner of presentation, explanation, demonstration, correction, technical knowledge and attitude to and handling of students.'
This grading follows on from part 6 of ikkyu which is exactly the same except the grades are from ichimon (1st mon) to gyoku (5th kyu).
The 'sheepdog' approach was adopted to teaching prospective teachers at the Jan de Jong Self Defence School (JDJSDS). What I mean by that is that the candidates would assist an instructor in teaching classes and would basically learn to teach by observation, with very little if any instruction.
There were no requirements regarding minimum time assisting before being eligible to attempt the teaching grading in the JDJSDS. A JDJ ryuha has introduced a minimum time assisting requirement before being eligible to attempt the teaching grade.
In a previous post, I explained that JDJ asked me to take over a branch of his school after 1.5 years training, graded 3rd kyu (orange belt), and after having never assisted any instructor in the school. Maggie de Jong once attempted to 'explain' to me the the high calibre of our instructors was because they all had assisting experience and were graded shodan (conveniently forgetting that instructors were ikkyu when there was no shodan grading). I reminded her that her father had asked me to take over a branch of his school when I was 3rd kyu and that I had never assisted any instructor. She backtracked and said that I was the exception. I was the exception, but why?
I also assisted Debbie Clarke when she was teaching the women's self defence courses that she developed and taught for the JDJSDS. I was the only male to do so for any extended period and I learned a great deal assisting her. One thing I learned that being a martial arts instructor does not necessarily prepare you for teaching women's self defence.
There was no consistency in teaching standards or methods at the JDJSDS. Teaching martial arts is still an amateurish affair. It is patently obvious that teaching prospective teachers how to teach would lift the teaching standard within the school and introduce some sort of consistency in terms of teaching standards and methods that can only benefit students.
SHODAN PART 9: EXAMINING
'Candidates are required to assist with 40 hours of gradings in an assistant examiner capacity. Twenty (20) hours must be completed with Shihan Jan de Jong. An official record signed by the head examiner is to be submitted.'
There is no similar grading in ikkyu. You will recall from a previous post that ikkyu was the instructor grading in the one-off kyu system that JDJ initially developed. Why is there no examining requirement in ikkyu?
If there was no consistency in teaching standards within the JDJSDS there was absolutely no consistency in examining standards. The standard varied so widely that no candidate for this grading could have developed an understanding for what standard is required for any grading in the JDJSDS.
There was one senior instructor who was so lenient in his marking that it was nigh on impossible to fail a grading under him (in terms of teaching standards, it was his students who tended to fail gradings). There were other senior instructors who considered JDJ too lenient and so tended to mark a lot harder than JDJ. In fact, one of the instructors went out of his way to show me what a 'high standard' he imposes on grading performances when I was 'assisting' him that he was in danger of failing the student who did not deserve to fail. In the second half of the grading, he overly compensated but passed the responsibility for those marks over to me, his supposed assistant.
The senior instructors who openly considered JDJ to be too lenient in his marking of gradings, I figured JDJ couldn't be that bad because he graded them, and they are not too shabby. So I decided to teach myself to grade to JDJ's standard.
I would assess the grading performance in my head and compare my marks to that of JDJ. If there were major differences, I would ask JDJ about them when the grading and awarding had been completed. In time, I got so good at this that I would regular get within one or two marks of JDJ's assessment. I can confidently say that I can grade to the same standard as JDJ. That is how I know that the other instructors were inconsistent with their marking, when it came to the standard being set by the head of the school, JDJ.
The current approach to this grading is generally a waste of time. There are better ways to develop examiners. For instance, formalise my approach. Have the assistants mark a grading sheet and then compare them with the examiner. Alternatively, technology can assist. Get examiner candidates to watch videos of gradings, grade them, and compare them to the standard set by the principal of the school. In this way, differences can be identified and clarified in real time (remember, this cannot be done during gradings as it would interrupt gradings).
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