Musha Shugyo

I was given an assignment by my teacher.

A very specific assignment.

Meet with the three senior students of the dojo and follow the instructions given them: for one hour, exactly one hour they were to instruct me on what they thought the most important part of the martial art was. 

Something along the lines of if they had to impart one secret to me, one aspect of budo that would carry me though the next decade what would they be. 

Meet them at the time and place of their choosing and complete the assignment in one month.

The train ride into the city was uneventful as the car filled with more and more people the closer we got to the central station. 

I was meeting the first senior student at a bar not far from his work and I was very much looking forward to our meeting, not knowing what to expect I had my martial arts uniform and equipment with me in a backpack. 

He was the student I wanted to be the most. Amazing skill, and not that much older than me, so maybe one day it was possible I could become like him. We often trained together in the dojo and sometime he would even stay over with me when I would be at the dojo over the weekends. 

I respected him and his commitment to the art, more so in that he was not originally a student of my teacher, but rather when he moved to the city for work, out of all the school to select he picked the one with our teacher. 

We found some space at the bar and I bought the first drink not knowing what to expect.

The next our was about kuden- secret instruction about the art. 

Things to be aware of and look out for. 

Things going on in the dojo with the training, and the movement that if he had been aware of ten years before, he’d be that much better at. 

Look out for this.

Be aware of that.

Remember.

One drink turned into a few and one hour turned into a few hours, which I wasn’t aware of, and if I was, it would not have been my place to interrupt a senior. 

If I understood half of what he was saying one day, maybe I could be as good as him.

Next week had me meeting with the next senior student, a park about an hour and a half from the dojo, instructions to be their rain or shine. 

Dress in comfortable street clothes that I wouldn’t be upset if they got a little dirty.

The park turned out to be more of a series of sports fields, and it was there in the center of a football field that I received my instruction on what was important. 

I considered this senior student my friend, the one I was perhaps closest with in the dojo outside of the training. We got along, laughed at the same jokes, and even read the same comic books. I was the only other person he ever knew who could quote back to him various lines from the Destroyer series. 

Could one have friends in the dojo was a question I often thought about.

How does one balance friends with duty and responsibility without hurting any feelings?

Instruction started with a command to throw a punch and from there we just started moving. 

He was the most senior of the senior students, having started with our teacher at the very beginning- student number one. His movement was the closest to the teacher, yet among the other two he often doubted himself.

In true budo fashion he explained very little, preferring the movement to speak for itself. He kept asking if I was getting it, and I respectfully nodded, but in truth I had no idea of how this movement was all related or what the point of the instruction was. 

When the hour was up to the minute we stopped and he shared with me the point of the lesson: you have to be able to take a hit and keep moving. 

Always keep moving.

I had saved the third senior student for last, deliberately.

He had us meet in the dojo during open mat night. 

Dressed formally in our uniforms, complete with patch and dojo insignia.

Bowing in, hierarchy, and insisting he be addressed by his formal title. 

He took me through a number of the formal kata, making sure my translations of the names from Japanese was more exact than the Japanese themselves would have been.

The hour went by very slowly and while respectful to the protocol he enforced I was glad the hour ended.

One art, three different senior students, one most important point.