Correction As An Act Of Compassion

After we learned sword etiquette, months of learning how to hold the sword, how to formally pass it to another persona, how to respect it, it was finally time to start properly learning the sword.

The previous instruction involved a real sword (shinken) that was never unsheathed, it was the destination, an example of the focus that would be needed to make everything else work.

A way to capture the feeling.

Now we were given a wooden training sword (bokken) which would be our *sword* for the next decade.

The first lesson was the most important lesson.

Being able to stand in the various sword postures and shift back and forth between them, cycle through them.

We would spend hours in front of the mirrors that lined one side of the dojo wall.

Shift to a posture.

Hold it without tension.

Return to the starting posture.

At other times we would partner up with the student next to us, standing across from each other, assuming the postures.

The sword postures had to be perfect.

If there was even a sliver of an imperfection that would create an opening, and the practice was about closing those openings.

Some of the openings I could see, mistakes in the level I was holding the sword, mistakes in my footwork or spine.

These were easy corrections and adjustments made by the teacher.

Yet, there were many times when looking at myself from across the mirror my posture looked good, feeling confident, only to be told it was wrong.

Often without explanation.

I was told that if I could not figure out what was wrong, if I could not see in now months into the training, that was OK.

As this was kenjutsu, I would just die if I could not close the opening.

Many times the teacher would be harsh, critical, uncaring of feelings.

Severe but not uncaring- there was a difference.

One could say this was a test to see who could hold capacity to receive the next level of training, (kuden), could they trust the teacher?

But there was something else going on, something that years later my teacher confided in me, as my duty to the dojo and the tradition demanded a more active role in helping other in the dojo.

It had to be this way.

At a certain point, after a level of technical proficiency has been cultivated and obtained by the student, not 100% perfect, but 80% or so, that gap must be closed quickly to 100%.

With what the student has been entrusted with, if something was to happen to them, in using the skills and they died, who did that rest on?

Who was responsible?

If the faults were not pointed out, if the student was left to just coast, or given a pass this one time, the spiritual responsibility for failure and death rests on the teacher.

BUT, at that certain level of technical proficiency, of the mistake is pointed out and the student does not correct it, the spiritual responsibility is on them.

A teacher does not want their students to die without capacity or by making a choice, so that act of harshness in training is actually one of compassion.