OMFG, I just found my autobiography!!!

Well, not exactly. But I did discover a document that I started in 1997, about a year after I moved back to the UK from Japan. I have pasted the contents of it here, for a bit of a laugh really. I might continue it later when I have some more time but for now, please enjoy all the writing skill of a 26-year old electrical engineer...

A Study of Japanese Budo
My first experience of martial arts actually in Japan was not a very good one. I was invited to observe a training session at a karate dojo of the Mushinkan style. It was disappointing and was nowhere near as good as the shotokai style that I was doing at home. The attacks were lifeless and the defences were unrealistic. Upon my second coming to Japan for work purposes, I made it known that I was interested in practising the more ancient and traditional of martial arts (karate of course not being actually of Japanese origin).

A couple of months passed before I was introduced to an ex-employee of the company I was working for. He was an elderly man of about mid-sixties and he had a kind smile and gentle atmosphere about him. His name was Mr. Yoneya and he was an iaido sensei in Yokohama. He had been told about my interest from one of my colleagues and invited me to join the martial arts federation that he belonged to. If so then he would introduce me to a teacher in Narita. I said yes and he said that I would have to buy the training suit and a practise sword before I began. In a weeks time I was visited by a stockist who Yoneya-sensei had contacted and I purchased a black, extra long jacket, hakama and obi. My next visit was with Yoneya-sensei from a sword dealer. Yoneya-sensei recommended a sword and I bought it for about 200 pounds. This too was extra long to account for my height.

I was now ready to attend a training session. I went along to Narita Police Station where the dojo was located and went up to the third floor. I went in and removed my shoes and after bowing entered the dojo. It was there where I was greeted by the man who would be my master of training for the time I was practising. His name was Noguchi-sensei, a short plumpish man who although was sixty-three, stills looked mid forties. He welcomed me in and I was introduced to another sensei Wada-sensei. Wada-sensei showed me how to wear the dogi and I was then taken aside and shown the basics of iaido on the tatami mat.

Iaido is the Japanese martial art of drawing the sword. It is practised alone in katas and consists of the initial draw which is usually a cut or a parry followed by a downward strike. After the enemies have been dispatched there follows chiburi, the flick of the sword to remove blood from the blade and then noto, the replacement of the blade in the scabbard in a smooth stroke. Throughout all this, the exponent maintains concentration, never allowing his attention to waver, always focused on the cut and his enemy.

The first training session was painful as the basic moves required to start off in seiza, sitting on the haunches which is easy for Japanese who are accustomed to it but not so easy for Westerners who are used to sitting on chairs. The major cutting action also required one to be positioned on one knee with the other leg projected forward to support the body. On top of all this was the rather heavy sword which was very difficult to wield properly. The blade has a blood line carved in it which causes the sword to whistle is a cut is made properly that is with the edge aligned with the direction of the cut. It was, needless to say, very difficult to get my sword to whistle.

By the end of the first lesson, Noguchi-sensei had managed to teach this clumsy foreigner how to carry out the basic first kata. By the end of the iaido lesson, the small dojo had filled up with about ten other members including Fujita-sensei, the head teacher at this dojo and the contact with Yoneya-sensei. The iaido class finished and I saw that they were preparing to train with the Japanese four foot long staff, the jo in the art named jodo. While training in karate in England, I had taken an interest in jodo but having no sensei I had to self train myself in aikijo, the aikido syllabus of jodo from a book. Thereby I had for a long time looked for a jodo sensei and here they were.

I expressed my interest in doing jodo and Noguchi sensei took me into my first jodo lesson. This was far more easy than iaido especially as the techniques are carried out from a standing posture. There were also basic techniques that I could practise which made it very similar to karate training. I learned the basic strike, the reverse strike and how to move while carrying out these strikes. I think that in the same lesson, Noguchi-sensei also taught me the basic and reverse hand thrust as well as the two types of kiai. The lesson finished and one of the trainees lent me his jo for me to train at home. I thanked them and left with a great feeling of accomplishment. I had completed my first lesson in the art of Japanese budo.

In the following lessons I was taught up to the third kata of iaido and jodo as well as other basic techniques of jodo. The jodo was easy. There were basic techniques and the katas which are done in pairs, the jo against the bokken, the wooden sword, gave me a chance to appreciate the effect of the techniques and gave one the feeling of actually learning to fight. My iaido however was not so hot. The first three katas, all being sitting katas, caused me no end of problems. My legs would hurt so much that by the time I came round to carrying out the kata, my legs would wobble and would throw off my arm action. From my karate training I knew that somewhere I was supposed to concentrate on an imaginery enemy but my mind was struggling to control my arms and legs and head and posture and so on and so on. Much of the kata also required single arm control of the sword and this would also prove to be difficult. The sword seemed too long and unwieldy. It would wobble around or droop where it was supposed to remain level and the main strike would throw my whole posture off balance and forward. I gradually began to lose interest in this art which would probably be of no use in a real fight and was too difficult for me. I subsequently paid less attention to iaido and threw my efforts into practising jodo.

Was this the wrong thing to do, I ask myself. Looking back now, I think not. For me, trying to balance two very different (although in fact very strongly related) martial arts might have caused me to drop both of the trays of drinks and just caused me to become even less accomplished of both arts. I think now about how as a beginner, the training resembled climbing a ladder. You have to move one arm at a time and one leg at a time. If you try to move both right and left simultaneously then you fall off the ladder. If this is a poor excuse then I am afraid it is the only one I have. Later this would change though.

The fact that I only knew three katas created boredom with iaido and fed my lethargy. I was then lucky enough to spend a single training session with my future jodo training partner, a twenty three year old guy called Kawasei-san. He was a third dan at iaido and was thereby very accomplished at his art especially for such an early age. By tackling one problem (opportunity) at a time he taught me a further three katas. The fourth kata in the series was from a half sitting position and although this posture was even more painful, the fact that the kata contained a thrust, two opponents and a much easier chiburi (flicking blood from the sword) made it much more attractive than the basic three. The fifth and sixth were standing/walking katas and were also very dynamic and interesting.

In the next few months, after purchasing a very good book on iaido by Donn Draeger, I was able to learn all ten of the iaido introductory katas. This gave me a nice little syllabus to train with but around this time my jodo training became even more interesting with long and flowing katas with an opponent and my iaido training suffered again. I was soon brought back in line by Noguchi-sensei, not by expanding my iaido training but by restricting my jodo training to the first three katas. I was dismayed. I would be training with a higher grade reaching more and more advanced katas and Noguchi-sensei would come along and tell him only to train with me in the first three. What did he think he was doing? I began to suspect that the stories of Japanese teaching foreigners benign martial arts might be true. I could, at that time, see no advantage in restricting the katas I was training. I was angry and hammered out those three katas continuously. Each session, the instructors would correct a tiny detail to the katas and I would feel the need to move on to more advanced training. Surely this level of detail was enough!

My first jodo grading was approaching and this was preceded by a weekend training course or gasshaku, near the sea. I imagined that this was my chance to really get some advanced training. A whole weekend of jodo! Surely an opportunity not to be missed. By this time, Kawasei-san and I had been established as training partners, not only because we were the same grade but also we were similar heights. It was a pleasure to train with him. He was a modest gentleman with no expanded ego but also with a similar hunger for learning as I had. I sometimes felt though that he lacked an aggressive spirit and the katas seemed to lack feeling. I wanted to feel a clash of opponents and the atmosphere of fighting for life. It was sometimes difficult to get this from him. I wanted him to hurt me when he won the jo kata and I wanted him to attack me ferociously when he attacked with the bokken. For that slight lack in spirit he made up for it a thousand times by his extreme patience which exceeded mine by miles.

We went to the training course and I was again thrown into a silent rage by being instructed by Noguchi-sensei only to train in the first three katas and basic techniques. This was, he explained, because the grading test only required for me to be tested in these six elements. But surely, I thought, we know these things very well now and it was time to move onto higher things in preparation for future gradings. I also thought that the grading was not so important for me. My ambition was to learn as much as I could in the limited time I had in Japan. I thought my learning was being held back. How stupid of me as I was soon to learn.

The training session finished and we went home, Kawasei-san's and my kata having changed considerably during the course. At the end we were made to do a dummy run for the grading and everyone said we did very well but I was looking at the advanced trainees as they worked through the higher, longer and far more exciting katas.

The grading arrived. We went to the Prefectural training dojo and had a final intensive morning course with the sensei from the jodo headquarters. Our 'ikkyu' (first grade) group of four learned many things about the meanings of the techniques we were learning. The afternoon came and we did the grading under the watchful eyes of the examiners. I felt that I had to "play dead", that is to ignore everything around me and do the katas with Kawasei-san like it was any other training session.

After we finished we sat down and watched the first dans doing their grading. This was where the relevation came. We watched and I think that Kawasei-san had the same feeling, the first dan group (who mostly were not under the tutelage of Noguchi-sensei having coming from other dojos) were carrying out their katas with a noticeable lack of tidiness and sharpness. At least that was how it looked. To a complete beginner they probably would have looked very ordered, but to me, I saw dozens of mistakes that had been ironed out of my partner and I. Sometimes it was laughable. I can imagine members of the general public trying to do marching practise like soldiers and that is how the first dans looked to me. It was sloppy. This opinion was backed up by two other of my senseis, one of them, Takeuchi-sensei who is an English teacher, said that our kata was far superior to the first dan's. After the first dans had finished, our ikkyu group was told that we had all passed and well done. We then watched some of the higher grades doing their test. This was, of course, much better but at one point, one of the senior senseis lost his way through a kata. He then made the same mistake again. It was a little bit pitiable to watch but I felt slightly justified in thinking that if he had trained then he would have passed. It was a very superior way of thinking and I scorn myself now for being so arrogant.

After this grading session I could see the firm reasoning in Noguchi-sensei's order for us to limit our training. To pass the test would have been easy. He wanted us to pass it with flying colours. Everything negative I had thought about his order in the past I could now see was unjustified. Perhaps the first dans in the class above us would continue to learn their katas sloppily until one day, at a high level grading course, they would fail because the quality was not good enough. Noguchi-sensei had however instilled something in us that could never fade. The intensive training in the first three katas would, I hope, shine through the rest of the katas. We would train in every kata until they were the same quality as the first three or even better. This is not to say that I have learned all there is to these basic katas. Far from it, in fact every time I train in jodo, I am corrected on a small point. This is especially true where the problem lies in finding inner power. This occurs when the jo is locked in a parry with the wooden sword. Here, it is important not to tense the shoulders and upper body but to sink the power and rely on that energy called ki that is so widely expressed in the martial arts. I have been told many times that I should release the power in my shoulders into the technique and then that power can flow to my benefit but I am not yet able to do even this yet. I find myself fairly well thrown by my seniors who are of a lesser build than me with no apparent trouble. Having received my first kyu grade ceritificate I realised that I had to pick up my iaido training which had virtually fallen at my feet. I went on to learn the first set of katas from the koryu or old classic style. These combine the four most basic katas with other advanced katas, some of them long, some of them as short as the basic ones.

The name of my iaido style is Muso Shinden Ryu and is one of the two major styles which the mainstream style branched into. The other style is called Eishin Ryu and is controlled by the All Japan Iaido Federation while ours is controlled by the All Japan Kendo Federation. The techniques of the two styles are basically the same but differ down on a detailed level.

Basically, each of the major styles is broken down into several teachings. For example, our style, the Muso Shinden Ryu consists of five groups of katas: the federation enacted seitei gata which are the first to be learned and are the major katas to be judged at a grading or contest; the Omori ryu shoden, the first teaching of the old classic koryu style which all, except one of the twelve, are done from a seated position; the Hasegawa Eishin ryu chuden or middle teaching of the old style carried out from the half seated position; the Okuden or secret teaching also carried out from the half seated or fully seated position and lastely the Okuden secret teaching carried out from standing. The interesting thing is that almost each of the teachings has a different way of carrying out the fundamental techniques. Differences occur in the draw, the cut, the cleaning of the sword and the replacement in the scabbard. Each teaching reflects the character and speciality of the teacher who originally created that style. We are, therefore, studying a history and culture as well as a martial art. One teacher may have been a soldier during feudal and would thus prefer either standing or half seated katas which would favour one who wore armor. Another might have been a high status warrior in a peaceful time and thus through his study of etiquette would have prefered the fully seated styles. The koryu styles generally favour a more relaxed maintenance of technique whereas the seitei gata techniques have to be severly adhered to, the sword travelling from a level position behind the head to a level position in front of the body. This is not to say that the classic style techniques are not strict but to watch a seitei gata seems a little robotic compared to the flowing and slightly more natural techniques of koryu.

The Eishin Ryu in contrast generally has the same fundamental techniques throughout all of its teachings. This can be of use when learning iaido as it is much simpler to memorize and will also produce better quality techniques but the culture and the history of iaido tends to become bleached out from the training. At this point one has to remember that iaido, while not emphasizing practical techniques for self-defence or fighting, is a form of cultural study as well as a spiritual training and thereby, by removing these differences in styles, the training tends to lose its human touch. We are, after all, not training to be machines.

Around the time that I started learning koryu I attended a weekend training course again by the sea for iaido. Again I was sure that here would be a chance to learn a little more about the koryu katas and so was a little bit frustrated that we were only training in the basic seitei gata katas. Yes, I hadn't yet learned my lesson. I assumed that I could have learned all that I was learning at this course if I had stayed at home and trained with my usual sensei. While this was going through my mind I was oblivious to two things that I hadn't realised until I came home. One was the very minute but critical details that our teacher was telling us; the fixing of the eyes, the concentration, the breathing. The second was the fact that this was a chance to improve my lifestyle. Here I was amongst a hundred other people who were training in the same martial art and it was a time for making new friends, learning from each other and basically enjoying oneself. Coming from the strict almost regimental training of karate to this much more relaxed and laid back way of training took some getting used to. I will however say, in deference to my karate teacher, that I do prefer and feel a purity in the regimented and strict form of training to the relaxed and casual atmosphere. The strict training produces a self discipline that is apparent in almost everything one does in life. A lack of this discipline could be seen at the weekend training course. One of the young lads in my group who I guess must have come from an even more relaxed dojo than my own, became very much my focus of annoyance when I saw his lack of respect for the dojo and the sensei. In the dojo where I train, it is considered impolite for the belt to protrude from the hakama but here was someone who stuck a dirty sweaty hand towel in the cords of his hakama. He would be continuously wiping his hands on this and cleaning the handle of his sword. In every dojo that I have trained, it is without thought, a taboo not to stand or sit straight but he thought it fine to lean up against the wall while the sensei was teaching something and even thought it no problem to have a laugh and a chat with someone who was passing by. His attitude was one of cockiness. He would often be destracted while we were listening to the sensei explaining something as if he didn't need this training as he had already mastered it. It was not a manner that I would have expected from a martial artist. Throughout the time that I have been training, even the most arrogant and self important people I have trained with have shown a devoted respect to their sensei and the people they are training with. It was inexcusable behaviour. Most of the sensei that I usually train with would have commented to him on this, my karate sensei probably would have thrown him out the dojo had his behaviour continued. I am sure that our sensei at that time, who incidently is a very respectable and able teacher, noticed this young man's behaviour but at the gasshuku where harmony and enjoyment is the most important matter, he was too polite to say anything.

I should, of course, not let somebody like that worry me but in the Japanese environment where people consider etiquette to be an irreplaceable part of life, he was like an insect flying into my eye. The training course finished and I tried to forget about him, this in itself being a failing on my part as I should remember his attitude as an example of something to avoid being. I later learned my lesson in the dojo.

Having learned the first teaching of koryu I concentrated on reaching some form of accomplishment with these twenty-two katas. My training included an equal combination of jodo and iaido on Saturday at the police station for about four hours and then for five hours on Sunday at a sports centre where we would only train in jodo for about an hour and a half before the major iaido training began. The Sunday training was very relaxed. After the initial exercises and running through two or three teaching styles, we would relax for a while before starting individual training. People could train by themselves or ask one of the seniors for help or advice. In my case, often when training alone, a teacher would approach me and offer to correct my kata or teach me some new ones. For that I am immensely lucky and grateful. One never runs short of help, there is always somebody who has time and patience to train you. Also as important is good humor and encouragement, something that my teachers never ran short of and was like food for me when I was tired or confused.

I was one day drawn into a group of three seniors who were learning some katas from the secret teachings from the eldest sensei. I was able to carry out these katas properly the first or second time which proved to be a great source of wonderment for my seniors. One thing that was often commented on was my ability to memorize the katas and techniques. I could learn almost an entire teaching style in one or two lessons, something that could take months with other people. I should like to comment here before the reader creates an image of me being a big-headed arrogant idiot, that anything that I have written which sounds like self praise is merely quotes from other people. For every good quote I have also received an equal number of critisisms especially towards my poor iaido ability from my teacher Noguchi-sensei. Not that that itself is a critisism towards him, in fact I am grateful for it as it kept me in line with my training and stopped me from attaining self satisfaction which would have spoiled any progress I made. In contrast, it would be disrespectful to claim that I am a useless exponent who knows nothing, disrespectful to the teaching itself and more importantly disrespectful to my sensei who have all been kind enough to volunteer their time to teach people like me. For this I say with all sincerity that any progress or skill that I have acquired is merely a reflection of the kindness and skill of my teachers and of the spirit that exists in martial arts and owes painfully little to my own person. I claim none of the praise that I was given for any level that I have achieved. Just like a leaf that gets picked up by the wind and is taken to far lands, the leaf can give no praise to himself for completing the journey. My teachers fired my motivation, showed me the path, kept me to the path, slowed me down when I was running too fast and carried me (or pushed me) when I became tired. On a less metephorical level and on to a literal one, I have received training in not only a way of fighting but in self discipline, independance and independant thinking.

Soon it was time for my first grading in iaido to the level of ikkyu. I attended the grading course which was only for my grades and passed. I did however make a particularly silly mistake which I regret now as it was so obvious and so stupid. The grading consists of correctly carrying out a standing bow to the dojo shrine, a seated bow to the katana and then the carrying out of five katas which are predetermined by the examiners. The examination is finished by the sitting and standing bow as carried out at the beginning. It was the final bow to the sword where I made my mistake and was quickly picked up by the examiners. I was pleased to pass but I still could not fire off much enthusiasm for iaido.

In the next three months, I was to prepare for my first major grading in iaido, the shodan grade. This grade is usually considered to be called 'black-belt' in more popular martial arts and requires a number of years of training to acquire. In kobudo (classical martial arts) however, no black belt exists and the ascent to higher grades is controlled by the rule that a minimum of one year must pass of continuous training to take the second grade tests, two years to take the third grade and so on. I trained and trained and gradually, as the techniques began to occur more efficiently, as the katas began to have more meaning and even as sitting in seiza became more comfortable, I settled into a steady stream of training and enthusiasm. I began to understand the significance of certain techniques and why they were put in the kata. Studying from books also allowed me to understand the roots of iaido and how our style, the Muso Shinden Ryu, was created.

Before I knew it, the grading was here. I attended the pre-grading course and was a little relieved that the sensei did not need to correct my techniques so much. I hoped this was a good sign. During the course I received many wishes of good luck and encouragement from my sensei. I felt that I was not doing the grading alone. I arrived late from lunch and was hurried into the grading. The feeling of my senseis somehow behind was reinforced when just before the grading began, one of the sensei's, a small elderly man with bushy hair, came up to me, straightened my gi and the hand which was carrying the sword and gave me some final words of advice and encouragement. I felt like I could not fail. Most importantly, I didn't want to fail my senseis. I didn't. I carried out the five pre-determined kata without any problems. There was also a written examination as well, the topics being the history of our style and the reason why I began training. I passed this as well but not without an instruction to find out the name of the founder. That proved to be difficult, not to find some names but to determine the meaning of 'founder'. There was the creator of iaido, there were all the masters who influenced and reshaped the system, there was those that put their names to teachings and there were those that created the branch styles. It was a little like asking "who made America".

I had passed and was relieved. I was later congratulated my my sensei's but somehow wondered why; it was after all, with so much support, inevitable that I should pass. My enthusiasm for iaido did not fade following the grading. In fact I began to find myself drawn away from jodo and more 'in' with iaido. Ironically, this produced problems in my jodo training. I was told I was "too strong" by Takeuchi sensei whose small frame produced a power in the jo that I did not think possible from a man of his stature. He is in his fifties and the flesh in his arms looks loose and not at all muscular. He can however, virtually flick me away with the jo and leaves me struggling to move his when it is my turn to take the jo. "You have to release the power in your shoulders," he tells me. It was of course exactly what my karate sensei had been teaching me for years. When training with less mature sensei, they commented on how strong I was with a positive tone but it was always me that left the floor sweating and out of breath from over-exertion. I knew the creed that "power and speed follow correct technique and breathing and this equation should never be reversed" and this was demonstrated by my favourite teacher, Ishii-sensei. This man showed no end of kindness and consideration. He always offered to take me to the weekend courses in his car, always offered to drive me home from usual training, took me to his home and introduced me to his wife and took special attention to correct my training. He was, like Noguchi-sensei, a sixth-dan in jodo. He is quite stocky and about fifty years old although he looks about forty. Without an ince of sweat of exertion, he carries out the jodo katas with correct speed and timing, extreme control, power and fluidity. His teaching is so easy to understand and he always makes training interesting without too much emphasis on small details for the lower levels of student.

I should point out here, what I consider as a student, to be a very important part of training. That is, that it should flow. Trying to make the very first technique perfect before moving on to the next creates boredom and lethargy. Even for the serious student, too much emphasis on small details at the basic level of training may cause a lack of interest. By feeding the student new techiques at a steady rate, his or her enthusiasm can be fired by the various techniques and methods of training and later the student may, when a good number of techniques and katas are learned, train himself to correct those mistakes. By the use of the training manuals and of course consultation with the teachers, the student can find the balance between advancing his knowledge and perfecting his basic training. Naturally, there are times, as I learned, when the teacher has to restrict the variety of training that student pursues in order to create a firm foundation of basic techniques on which the student can later build upon. It is of course detrimental to the student to flood his with knowledge and not give him a chance for even a modicom of this information to settle in. This is however only my opinion and I am not dictating that every teacher and student should adhere to this regime.

My praise for Ishii-sensei's training is in reference to his balance of the two training extremes: perfection of basic technique and learning of advanced technique. If the amount of time was adequate he would do basic training of the techniques, appilication of those basic techniques and then move on to kata. Thereby, he would cover and ensure understanding of all the basics before we actually utilised the techniques. His training would get a good sweat up in his students and I always felt that even though we had only trained for one hour, I had received a good amount of knowledge without learning any new techniques.

An iaido tournament was approaching but I had little interest in participating. My dislike for competitions and sports evolved in school where, having no enthusiasm to put energy into the sport, I would often lose and thereby, having little experience in winning would be reluctant to take part in anything competitive. The only competitive pasttime that I could do required more brain that physical activity and that was chess. I was therefore not particularly enthusiastic to take part in the tournament. In contrast, everybody else had no such qualms in winning or losing but put more importance on participation rather than the result. I could not understand this at the time. I told Ishii-sensei that as my girlfriend would be down for the weekend, that I probably wasn't going to participate. Even though he said nothing, I was fairly sure that he disapproved of me. I spoke to a colleague and he commented on what a great opportunity it was for a foreigner to take part in a prefectural tournament of a Japanese martial art. I thought about this and then thought what a great thing it would be if I actually won the tournament. My enthusiasm was fired and I decided to take part. My training pace took a leap. I found myself taking my training equipment to work and training after hours. During this time, Takeuchi sensei took me under his wing and in one lesson completely changed the whole tone of my iaido. He showed me how to do the katas "peacefully", the areas of almost complete non-movement in some parts and blinding speed in others. He also showed me how to carry out the cut properly and we trained in breaking that cut down into its component parts until I could carry out the whole process with at least a small degree of efficiency. The kata came to life. It literally breathed with the punctuation of fast and slow techniques. He reinforced Wada-sensei's teaching of metsuke, fixing the eyes on the opponent. Eventually I felt that I could do the first basic kata with a good degree of tidiness and life. This, as was said by my karate sensei, was reflected in all the katas. The injection of life into the first one gave birth to a tidal feeling in the others. It was after this training period that I started to become absorbed into the kata. I think this was my first real taste of what the Japanese call Zen. Unlike karate, I did not feel the presence of enemies in the kata but I started to take on a feeling of detachment like I wasn't actually doing the kata myself. I would stare into the distance at nothing but at the same time be partially aware of things around me. I no longer thought about the techniques or the pain of the posture. The tempo, the techniques, the fixation of the eyes, it all seemed to be happening automatically. Of course, there were still mistakes in the kata and these would have to be ironed out with guidance from my sensei. This feeling of detachment had its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are the fact that I was accomplishing the unspoken purpose of the -do of iaido, detachment of the self, but I also found myself slipping into similar katas to the one I was carrying out by mistake. Some of the iaido katas have the similar shapes and the same names, one having been derived from another, and it was very easy to slip into the wrong type of the same kata. This was entirely due to complete reliance on feeling and lack of conscious thinking. Whether it is necessary to find a balance of the two or perhaps just an enhancement of one, I will have to consult with my teachers. I am sure it is the latter and I am fairly certain that as far as karate goes, my karate teacher would agree with me.

The tournament arrived. On the day, as I went to the tournament, my unenthusiasm had returned. I told my single cheering section, my girlfriend, that I would probably lose the first or second match and then we could go. Participation was, after all, the most important thing. The tournament consists of groups divided up into their dan-grades. Members of these groups are then matched together in pairs. Each person has to perform five katas, two of which are selected by the student from either koryu or seitei gata, the other three are decided by the judges and are selected from seitei gata. As is usual for exponents, I chose the most basic kata, shohatto and then gyakuto both from Omori-ryu. The first one is the basic kata that one learns upon beginning iaido training and is probably the shortest. Gyakuto is in contrast, fairly long but also interesting. The katas, performed in pairs, is observed by three judges. After carrying out the five katas and the seated and standing bow, each judge holds up either a red or white flag depending on who they thought was the best. From the result of these three flags, one wins and one loses. I started my first match before I even had time to warm up. I was up against a Japanese person about twenty eight or so and was pleasantly surprised when I won all three flags. I relaxed again and waited for my next match. It turned out that I was then up against one of the other three foreigners that were attending, a man called Kevin from New Zealand. I think we both knew that this was something of a unique stage in the match and we were both very much en guarde and the seated bow to each other was probably twice as long as normal. He seemed to be receiving a lot of briefing from his sensei as to what kata to do instead of deciding for himself and I felt a little sorry for him. We did the match and I won again. Afterwards he very sportingly congratulated me and we chatted for a while. The next match was for the semi-final and I was up against a young Japanese guy for the top position of our first dan group, one of two groups as the numbers were so large. While I was waiting, I knew that I could lose at any time and I ensured that I did not get into too high a spirit and just remain calm. It paid off. I won all three flags again and was now top of my group. Only the final match remained. We had a light lunch and in the afternoon started again. My final opponent was another karate exponent called Tomita-san. Strangely enough, I had met him last year at the Soga Dojo where he had started training about the same time as me. I was very impressed at that time of his sharpness and cleaness of his kata. Watching him prepare, I felt that this competition would be difficult. We bowed to each other and wished each other luck. Once again I was rushed into the kata after being dragged outside to look at some new swords. We did the match and the last second, while we were sitting there waiting for the judges to decide, was definately the longest. I lost two flags to one, it had been close. I felt an ince of regret and then realised that I was very lucky to have made it this far.

The feeling of regret soon left me and returning to my girlfriend we prepared to leave just as I had planned. I felt no shame losing to Tomita-san, not only was he something of a karate expert but his sincerity to the martial arts as well as his humbleness was an example to me. I felt only congratulations to him. The best man had won. As we left, my colleagues called to me and told me to wait for the presentation ceremony. I was awarded a silver medal and a certificate by one of the heads of the federation and I noticed his eyes widen in surprise slightly when he realised that a foreigner had become a runner up in the best attended section of the tournament. I felt a satisfaction of sorts that I had won something in the country of specialisation. The official then mentioned me in the closing speech saying that even though I wasn't Japanese I had managed to come second and he then asked me that when I return to my home country that I teach everyone that iaido is Japanese culture. I felt a warmth when my girlfriend related this to me on the way home.

One thing that did grate with me was that the young rude brat who attended the intensive course was at the tournament and towards the end, when it was custom to wish your final opponent good luck, I mistook him to be the other finalist and wished him luck. He tutted and wagged a finger saying that it wasn't him and that I shouldn't make such a mistake. It was for the first time in my life that I felt like drawing the sword and cutting someone down. It wasn't a matter of personal pride, it was a case of sheer contempt by someone who should know better. Of course I did and said nothing but had the situation been in a different country I think I would have verbally attacked him. I soon put him out of my mind.

Something that impressed me about the atmosphere of the tournament was the attitude that your opponent was not your opponent at all but in fact your partner. You were both entering something together and you both would go through the same process and leave together. The competition wasn't one exponent against another, it was pure budo; one exponent against himself. The only time that I felt any ince of competitive spirit was when I was up against Kevin the New Zealander, where the feeling was "well here we are, two foreigners in the same country, let's see who comes tops." Not that I regretted that feeling, in fact it brought the competition to a buzzing reality. I am sure that the Japanese feel the same sentiments as I do about the self-competitive spirit as people from the same dojo who may be best friends often have to compete against another. The situation of having won a competition is only a feeling of self-accomplishment.

Any feelings of self congratulation were soon quashed by Noguchi-sensei's warning that I must not feel sense of satisfaction. I told him that I didn't, only of surprise but in truth of course I felt some satisfaction in the fact that I was a foreigner to Japan. I think that he was worried that I would consider myself accomplished in iaido and give up but even at that point I knew that the path of iaido, in fact any form of budo, had hardly been trod.

Are feelings of accomplishment important in budo, I ask myself. I am sure that many teachers of budo would say yes and many would say no. When considering the human factor, emotional prizes in the form of praise or even medals can work wonders to boost one's enthusiasm and interest in the art or sport that is being practised. Unfortunately it can also boost the ego which martial arts are supposed to suppress and dissolve. Indeed when considering the martial arts factor seriously in comparison to the human factor, no emotional prizes should be necessary or even present. Should not the student be completely self-motivated? But if this is so then why is it that some teachers give, if limited, praise to their students when they perform well. My idea is that if the teacher gives praise to a particular well performed technique or form then it should be to advise the student that the matter performed was 'on the right path' and the student should continue the technique in that fashion. But how about praise to the student himself. Would a lack of praise in this area create dissatisfaction, frustration and eventual lack of enthusiasm, perhaps leading to cessation, in the art practised. Here emerges the difference of Eastern and Western styles of teaching. In the traditional Eastern style, a teacher would only select his most gifted and self-motivated students to pass advanced knowledge on to. In the West, in an effort to attract students, knowledge and almost bending to the students preferred way of training, flows in a way that would never existed in 'old Asia'. Which is the correct way? This again depends on the creed of the martial art I think. The founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, for instance, dreamed of his budo bringing people together and creating harmony. Surely in this case the emphasis would be on recruiting as many students as possible and spreading this philosophy. In old Japan where a swordsman's life could depend on the secrecy of a certain technique, a conservatism of the number of students became critical. This then leads us to the question of what are we learning, an art of fighting and winning or a way of creating harmony in ourselves and others? I think most of us would agree that the answer lies between these two extremes. Stepping back a place or two, one could say that the secret of winning against an opponent depends not on secret or special techniques but how well we can perform them, that is; how much training we have put into learning and perfecting them. The argument goes on.

As for myself, the tournament merely served as a stepping stone, to indicate that I must be doing something right and any thoughts of the tournament disappeared during training. My iaido training continued with cleaning up the first set of classical katas and then learning, partially from book, the set of katas from the middle teaching. This middle set or chuden style consists entirely of sitting katas and with exception to the last form, all begin in the half seated style with one foot under the backside and the right knee up and forward. It is this set of forms that are perhaps the most difficult to learn because the sword is not just drawn and used to cut but is pulled out of the opponents hand, used as a stay and as a club and the first cut is to a prone opponent on the floor and thus requires one hand behind the blade in a sweep that runs close to floor. The body movements are also complex with the exponent turning almost 360 degrees in various stages or the kata. This set resembles the 'judo' of iaido where the opponent is almost always seated immediately next to the exponent and the techniques are suited to a close quarter fighting. The opponent is in fact so close that he grabs the sword and thus it cannot be immediately drawn requiring the exponent to rip the handle out of the opponents grasp. The chuden Hasegawa Eishin Ryu set introduces a shortened noto or replacement of the sword in the scabbard. Rather than draw the entire length of the sword across the hand of the sword holding the scabbard, the draw starts about two thirds of the blade. These katas required many sessions of training to learn and even now at the time of writing I do not feel confident in my knowledge of them. Having had my weakness in karate pointed out as being close quarter techniques, I felt glad that I was learning 'grappling' techiques of iaido thus I hope serving to heighten my sense of distance and timing.

Around November of that year I partook in my shodan test for jodo which as I expected, was not as clean cut as the ikkyu grade. I passed the test but failed my own personal hopes of keeping my katas sharp and correct. During the pre-grading training, Kawasei-san, my partner, and I ran into the plateaus of training that I would run into in karate where a bad technique becomes difficult to correct or creates a new error. Whether or not these were technical errors themselves or errors in the underlying “feeling” was not always clear, each teacher has his own style of doing the techniques and it often became confusing what exactly we were doing wrong as the right way was not so cleanly cut.

In the new year I began learning the more advanced stages of iaido, the okuden, the secret or inner teaching. The okuden was divided into two sections, the sitting techniques and the standing techniques. All sitting techniques bar the last three are done from tate-hizam, the half sitting method and a long session of training causes havoc for the knees. My first teacher for iaido was Higasa sensei, possibly the oldest sensie in our dojo. In one session he managed to go through every technique in the seated section of okuden. In contrast to the previous chuden techniques which were very tight and close, okuden katas were very large and flourishing with long sweeps from left to right to cut opponents sitting around the exponent. Again in contrast to chuden whose katas depended solely upon the position of the opponent, okuden was strongly influenced by situations dictated by the surroundings. These included cutting opponents seated on either side of a sliding door, crawling out from under a house to cut an opponent and tiptoeing along the ridge of a roof or wall. These katas took a long time to learn especially as the opportunity to train with a sensei was rare. Many of the sensei did not even know these katas.

The arse end of the kata

I was once told during a written examination of iaido in Japan, that the four "columns" of iaido consisted usually of nukitsu, kiritsuke, chiburi and noto. Every kata, more or less, contained all of these elements. Each possesses an essential quality of its own:

• Nukitsuke would be expressed by a range of strategies including taking the enemy by surprise, seizing the moment, controlling or suppressing their attack etc.
• Kiritsuke* would be expressed as a decisive termination of the enemy's life once the exponent had decided that this was the only solution.
• Chuburi would be an expression of zanshin once the distinct fighting part of the kata is over to release the body and unseize the mind.
• Noto additionally would be an expression of zanshin, almost the complete reverse of nukitsuke, but being uber aware during this dangerous moment of the sword being resheathed thus being a moment at which the exponent was most vulnerable to an additional attack. 

*For those kata that are concluded with a thrust, this element would be called Tsukizuke which is both difficult to pronounce without spitting and is a homophone of "moon pickles". 

Despite each of these elements being self-evidently vital, I sometimes (often) notice the tendency for noto to be given a slightly lower position on the priority ladder. It seems that once all the sword waving and posing for the camera had been completed, noto was a fiddly detail that one had to get through in order to progress to the next kata.

Given the number of minor injuries that I and others had suffered while doing noto, this feels like a wasted moment if not given the same priorities as the other elements in the kata. I mean, just because the letter "Z" is at the arse end of the alphabet, it doesn't make it less important - ask any Polish person! 

To illustrate this vital point, here is a list of the names of some my closest Polish friends with the Z's in their names caps'd and in bold.

•  LukasZ Machura
• Michał SZcZepański
• Paweł BrZeZiński
• AgniesZka KrawcZyk
• Marcin Zyga
•  Ziemowit ZenZiZenZiZenZic (shortened to "Domański")

Most of them have more Z's in their name than vowels! Some has more Z' than letters!

Back to the story... 

During 2024 and 2025 I spent some considerable time in Japan training at Shinbukan while students of our dojo prepared to take 6th and 7th dan exams in iaido and jodo. It just so happened during one of these visits, while coaching a 6th dan iaido candidate who had just been landed with her brand new shinken, that Ishido Sensei explained in detail the method of doing horizontal noto i.e. that used in Muso Shinden Ryu and other ryuha.

While I had picked up snippets of this methodology over the years, this was the first time to have it explained in such comprehensive and complete detail. Additionally, Ishido Sensei over the last year during my visits was very focused on the correctness and general performance of noto.

He showed me a scratchy old black-and-white video of some very old iaido masters (who were also scratchy and black-and-white) doing demonstrations and at one point, emphasised how, despite age affecting their speed and power in nukitsuke, kiritsuke and chiburi, their noto still contained the essential aspects of speed, fluidity, control and zanshin vital for a well performed noto. He told me that while most people could learn speed and power within a few years, true quality from decades of practice becomes visible in the way noto is performed.

And so he instructed very clearly and in detail, the exact movements of preparing for noto which I will try to present now. Please bear in mind that this is Ishido Sensei's version of Muso Shinden Ryu noto; other styles may have other methods, even other lines of MSR might vary.

I will first explain my understanding of his noto method up to that point and then explain why it doesn't work so well. Previously I had gripped the koiguchi in a natural way and then rotated the saya (that is the angle of the koiguchi to about 45°. Then as the sword approached the left hand I would rotate the saya to the full 90° to align the hasuji of the saya with that of the sword. I wasn't sure why it should be rotate to a 45° waiting position first, I just did it as I had been taught this way by Ishido Sensei.

 

How most people grip prior to noto

 

You can see from the movie and images below that what this creates is a fairly unnatural bend in the wrist once the saya is rotated to 90° and as sayabiki is performed. This bend in the wrist can make sayabiki difficult especially if one's obi is too tight.

 

The effect on the left wrist from such grip

 

 

The crooked left wrist effect as sayabiki is performed

 

Instead, Sensei instructed us to distinctly grip the saya from above and pinch the tips of the forefinger and thumb together. This pinch-point had to be located at the bottom of the koiguchi. 

Correctly gripping the saya from above with forefinger and thumb pinched together

 Conversely this would put the wrist in a slightly awkward position and so the next move would be to rotate the koiguchi to 45° - finally a reason for taking this position!

 

Rotating the koiguchi to 45° and straightening the wrist

 The effect of positioning the forefinger and thumb tip together at the bottom of the koiguchi is to broaden the "platform" on which the sword sits while doing the outward-moving action of noto. This is particularly important if using a shinken where stability is all too important.

 

Rotating the koiguchi to 90° and making a broad "platform" to place the sword on

 Finally the noto takes place; you can see that the left wrist is slightly crooked but is considerably straighter than the original shown at the top.

 

Comparison of wrist angles (left: original at about 45°, right: optimised at about 30°)

 

 This allows a stronger sayabiki during noto and keeps the platform on which the sword is resting much more consistently horizontal and broader. The result of this can be seen below.

 

"Enhanced" noto

 

Sensei also emphasised that it was important not to get "busy" during noto; this was meant to be the purest expression of zanshin and so if too many actions were being done at the same time than the mind would become distracted. Instead, as the saya is gripped and initially rotated, the right hand should not be moving; there should then be a brief pause, a sign of readiness. Depending on the class of kata being done, the right hand would then move towards the left hand which would move either at the point of contact in the centre of the body (as per "seitei" noto) or would start moving just before the sword reached it (different depending on whether one was doing shoden, chuden or okuden). The main point was that regardless of how fast and flashy one wishes their noto to be, it shouldn't become busy or scruffy with unnecessary movements and poor coordination. 

Given that my own shinken is sharp enough to confuse a leprechaun and that I really like my saya, I have tried to maintain this tone of noto since receiving this shinken back in 2018. It has slowed my noto down but I think I prefer this method instead of it just being rushed. The lack of splinters falling out of the saya during cleaning is a good thing and so is being able to type with all my fingers in place. Noto need not be light-hearted and simply flashy; there's more to it than that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mindset of the Learner

It can sometimes be very rewarding to teach beginners as they have few expectations and biases and are a mostly empty cup to fill.

Putting your brain into the student mindset

Those of you who have been living in my eyebrows for the last few years will know that my budo interests have been steered towards improving budo coaching through some shallow dives into sports coaching theory. These dives have taken me past the colourful coral gardens of ZPD, scaffolding, the GROW model and other interesting underwater features. These have been very much focussed on the role and workload of the coach/teacher/dojo leader and has treated the receiving side as a pretty much homogenous mass of pink jelly that responds to the occasional blast of sound vibrations or poking with a sharp stick.

This year I have so far spent just over 9 weeks in Japan doing a lot of training in Ishido Sensei's dojo, and a little in other dojos. Something that occurred to me in my latest journeys was a noticeable difference in the responses of students with regard to feedback from various teachers. This hasn't been isolated to Japan; once it came to my interest in Japan I started noticing it in the UK and Europe as well.

Before I jumped into writing this, I did some light academic research looking at various articles on the subject of corrective feedback in coaching. I have extracted a few lines from the articles that I found relevant and interesting to just set the scene. These are not only useful for the student but also a superb set of pointers for coaches as well:

The Organization of Corrective Demonstrations Using Embodied Action in Sports Coaching Feedback

"However, unlike classrooms and medical internship discussions, sports coaching is a bodily affair; there is no “talking through a subject” to get the job of these settings done. Errors then are not a matter of what one knows but what one does. Error correction is a matter of showing the athlete(s) what they did wrong and showing them how to do it right. Talk is an instructive guide on where to find the action, but re-enactment is the central part of this setting’s instructional work."

Five Principles of Reinforcement

"Coaches should strive to use only reinforcement – mostly the positive kind – to shape player behaviours."

"Nonetheless, if you say “well done” when the athlete has not performed the skill very well, it’s false praise, and the odds are that the athlete will know it’s false praise. It’s tough being honest sometimes, but if you have built a supportive but challenging climate and you support your players striving to improve, then you’re in a good position to give honest feedback."

_________________________

What I want to focus on is something I have noticed in that, depending on the student, there can be an overly long process from the point of receiving feedback to making any changes, see image below.

I noticed in particular in Japan that the older students tended to skip the disappointment and acceptance stage. They might spend a bit more time improving their comprehension by asking for more detail and confirmation. 

In both Japan and Europe though, the younger and often more talented students seemed to need to go through a disappointment stage and a protracted emotional acceptance stage, sometimes asking for evidence or proof to back up the feedback.

I should add that I have always encouraged the people who have asked to learn from me to be sceptical (I'll come back to this sceptical mindset subject a bit later) of everything including anything that I have taught. This disappointment stage though isn't what I mean; it's an emotional reaction based on a range of the following mindsets in the student:

1. "I thought I was doing it right and you're telling me that I was wrong."
2. "I have devoted so much time to doing it this way and now you're saying that I wasted my time."
3. "You could have told me this sooner."
4. "You're being inconsistent in your teaching of the subject."

In one example of this, while I was in Ishido Sensei's dojo recently, there were quite a few other visitors there from Europe and China. One visitor, who will remain anonymous but is a very skilful and dedicated iaidoka from Europe, was training a notoriously difficult seated okuden kata. They were doing it with a lot of speed and fluidity as is appropriate for okuden. After a short while, Ishido Sensei came up to them and explained that they had misunderstood the kihon (basic version) and showed them what they should be doing. The visitor worked on this for a while but was having difficulty achieving "satisfaction". Of significance though was the surprise, or even shock, on the face of the student that what they had been training turned out to be incorrect. When they took a break during training I heard them express disappointment in themselves and were clearly confused. 

And I get it! This person had been instructed a certain way a few months previously (I think by Ishido Sensei) and they were now being told this was wrong. Had the koryu changed? Had they misunderstood the original instruction? 

Trying to resolve the question, had the koryu changed, takes us down a different road that I don't want to explore at the moment in any detail; suffice to say that any instruction will change in time; the teacher's perspective and level changes, the student changes - change is inevitable and we should be always mentally and physically prepared to accept that change. As is the motto of iaido, tsune ni itte, kyu ni awasu (be in the moment, adapt to the situation quickly).

This isn't limited to non-Japanese budoka either. I have witnessed many times even in Ishido Sensei's dojo, Japanese students making sounds of exasperation or disappointment when being told that they were doing something incorrectly, or that there was a "better way". There would then be a period of non-aggressive "arguing" (by this I mean, the student was trying to establish why they were being corrected) and then, after some time, they would then accept the advice and try to implement it.

And this is such a waste of time and energy. In fact even being annoyed at oneself for not doing this correctly in the first place is not only wasteful, it could even be considered to be slightly arrogant and self-centred. I mean, of course we are all doing something wrong at some point, what's the point of having a teacher in a dojo if the point wasn't to have these errors identified and resolved?

As noted in the image above, this kind of reaction only leads to the following:

• Loss of training and teaching time
• Problem identified and potential solution starts to become of secondary importance to proving the student is doing something wrong
• Teacher/coach can lose patience

We now enter a stage of this article that I desperately want to avoid trying to appear to be the "star student" and so I will try to contextualise my position. I have been the main translator for most of the larger iaido and jodo events in Europe for many years, working with Yuki Kanto Sensei and others to ensure that the instructions from visiting Japanese sensei were translated accurately, efficiently and meaningfully. I have been in a rather privileged position of not just being able to understand directly what these sensei have been saying but also to directly ask questions, to seek consultation on problems, and to discuss subtle points on subjects, all without having to bother someone else to carry out the tiresome task of translating. I would say one of the most significant outcomes of this is that I deeply appreciate that these teachers have already wrestled with the problems that students present; they might even be still struggling with these problems now. In any case, the resolution to many issues isn't always an ideal solution, it is simply the best solution for the time and the stage of training. They haven't received divine inspiration from the gods, they are human and they are also pushing themselves to travel along the same paths as the rest of us. When they give advice, unless it is something "trivial" (I mean something that should be consistently agreed like a distinct instruction on ZNKR iaido or jodo), they don't give the advice lightly. They give the best advice they can.

When in the past I have been given advice about iaido from teachers who aren't my own teacher, such as Oshita Sensei, I am extremely grateful that they have given the time and effort to look at me and express their opinions, to calculate a solution on a problem and then explain it to me in a way that might not be a general consensus among all teachers but is the best advice that they can. I have in fact gone out my way to ask Otake Sensei and other Jodo seniors to be extra strict with me to help with me with my ongoing Jodo development. 

Conclusion - the right response

And so, what is the right answer? I have come up with the simplest of algorithms for the fast shift to resolution, I have even furnished it with the appropriate Japanese response...

(Image above: SEE HOW MUCH SHORTER THIS IS!!!)

1. If I understand the critique and know what to do to resolve it, my simple answer is "Hai. Wakarimashita."
2. If I understand the critique but don't know what to do to resolve it, my next simple question is, what should I do to make it right. In Japanese these could be easily asked by "Dou sureba ii deshou ka".
3. If I don't understand the critique then I will ask a few more details; naturally this verbal response will depend on the situation but I will be careful to not suggest that I'm not doing the thing they are pointing out, for example:

- "You're dropping the kissaki in furikaburi."

- "No I'm not!"

- "FFS!"

(goes and fetches video camera)

Finally, there have been situations where I simply could not understand what I was doing wrong in comparison to what the teacher was saying I should do. While it's easy to get angry and emotional at this point, in the past I have simply asked what is the physical difference to what I am doing compared to what the teacher wants me to do. It is simply a case of error identification and adjustment. If in doubt, asking them to physically move your limbs, body or weapon into the correct position or through the correct course can help.

Denial will take you nowhere.

To a certain degree of satisfaction, I have found that in this particularly long duration of spending time with Ishido Sensei and really hammering Muso Shinden Ryu koryu iaido, this approach has seen my though quite pleasant and smooth days of training with Sensei being pretty complimentary about my comprehension of the koryu (actually doing it well requires a lifetime of training). I'm not suggesting that I know everything or that Sensei won't have some severe corrections to make of me, simply that he never seemed to get impatient when we were working on a difficult point; in fact he gave me some of the most interesting advice for some of the more difficult kata, almost from a student's perspective.

The sceptical mindset

So, is this moving one away from the recommended (by me) sceptical mindset? More than anything I think it is a question of timing and also being aware that there are important differences between being sceptical, cynical, and arrogant.

Working in reverse, by being arrogant I mean attending training with the expectation that you are doing the right technique. Hopefully you are. One hundred per cent. That would be nice wouldn't it. You're probably not though and it is a good idea to bear in mind that the first role of the "sensei" in budo is for someone to be taking responsibility for yo' ass and is looking out for you. They have your back. They're your wingman for a lot of the time even if they don't strip off and play greased-up beach volleyball with you whenever the sun shines. 

Being cynical means that you consider that the teacher/coach/sensei is as prone to making an error in their judgement of your performance in budo as you are. The very translation of sensei (one who has been born/lived/experienced before you) would suggest that they might have gone through the same errors as you have. More than anything though, if they're seeing this from the outside then they may well have a far more objective observation of what you're doing than you are. I'm not talking about unconditional respect or deference, I simply mean that on balance they are more than likely to be making an accurate observation. I mean who wants to waste their time making up errors for someone else???

A healthy degree of scepticism is, I believe, based on doing the right questioning at the right time. Asking yourself is the teacher correct at this moment while they are giving you feedback might lead to negative consequences. The time to go over what has been said and to do an appropriate amount of mulling is probably after the training especially after you have had the opportunity to hear the teacher out and trying to implement their suggested solution. 

That's a pretty short set of conclusions on a fairly broad topic but I hope you find it useful; in short, your passport to happiness and ongoing success might well be in the form of simply saying "Hai!"*

* "Right!", "Got it!", "Thank you!", "I understand" etc are also fully acceptable alternatives.