How should you have 'pure faith' in your martial arts?

In a recent Host Chat episode LXIX of Punch, Kick, Choke, Chat, we had a question from our own Sensei Justin Shea about the concept of “pure faith, direct transmission”, which is a translation of Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū, the name of the iaido style practiced in our school. Though the question was more so about the balance of direct transmission from your instructor vs asking questions, the concept of ‘pure faith’ in martial arts was discussed. The question that I had in my mind during the discussion was, pure faith in what, exactly?

After letting this idea bounce around in my head for a weekend, I came to the conclusion that the type of faith students should have around their art varies as they progress. The stages of this can roughly be broken up into beginner, advanced, master, paralleled also by the stages of ShuHaRi, which was also discussed in a previous PKCC short.

As a beginner, I think the student needs to focus first and foremost on having faith in the art and in their Sensei, the latter of which especially continues through all stages. The process to select a school and an instructor is an important one, as a year with the right instructor can be more valuable than 10 years with a bad one. However, once you have selected an instructor and a school, it is important to devote yourself to them in order to properly learn the art. In the beginner stage, students questioning their Sensei and defying what their instructor tells them can only lead to poor training and a lack of growth in the art. It is impossible to know how martial arts is supposed feel like and look like if you have never trained in it yourself and carried it to a certain level of competence. It is common to have new movements and concepts, such as turning over your fist when you punch or using your hips to generate power, to feel foreign and strange to new students. However, trusting your Sensei and letting the awkward moves eventually feel normal through repetition is a most important part of the early stage of martial arts. A student who refuses to use their hips because they do not trust their Sensei’s instruction will never master this, and never have enough mastery of the art to even comment on what is proper. In this phase, the Sensei guides the student to develop their body to be able to perform the art.

In the next ‘advanced’ stage, a student has moved to a point where they have mastered the basics, and are perhaps starting to master even more than that. They have succeeded in other aspects as well, such as free sparring, applying the art in bunkai, and have a level of comfort that goes beyond simply knowing how things should look, but internalizing how things should feel. In this stage, I think it is important to have faith in their Sensei, once again, but here as someone who can guide them through to real mastery. It is also at this stage where questioning the art, and perhaps leaving a bit of the fantasy behind by re-evaluating the art with a critical lens, is necessary in order to break things down and re-learn the art for themselves. This is part of the process to truly understanding and internalizing it. A beginner or intermediate student may be someone who can replicate a kata and regurgitate the bunkai they have been shown. Someone who is closer to real understanding can apply the bunkai in the kata in different contexts, come up with their own bunkai, and perform the kata with modifications as needed to tune it to a tournament or for demonstrating to beginners. I think in order to really understand something, within martial arts or not, you need to take the time to break things down and make them your own. The faith you need here is not in the instruction you have received thus far, but in the continued instruction and discussions with your Sensei, and faith that your sensei can guide you through this analysis to real understanding. Here, the value in having a Sensei has much more to do with the student-led discussions you have with him or her, rather than in being shown how to punch harder. In this phase, the Sensei guides the mind.

At this I feel I should clarify that most people will not get to even this intermediate stage, as moving past being a ‘beginner’ and becoming a master of the basics is approximately where you obtain your black belt, which is not an easy feat in a classical school. Many end their journey long before this point, and even obtaining a black belt is only the minimum buy-in to continue to what I am describing here as the advanced stage. This stage may be one that is experienced after ten or more years of training - I myself have been training for almost 24 years and still consider myself to be in this stage. Therefore, this is not to be taken lightly, and not to be confused with calling someone an ‘advanced’ student because they have a brown belt in karate. A brown belt is advanced with respect to mastering basics, but not with respect to becoming a ‘master’ in their own right, and here I refer to the latter.

The last stage, being a master, is where one has moved past all of these barriers and has likely spent most of a lifetime in the art already. In the ShuHaRi parallel, this stage is where one may consider themselves sufficiently experienced to actually change the art, and move it in a proper direction. This type of privilege is and should be reserved for those who have reached this master stage, else the art risks becoming an ever-shifting entity with each new black belt who has only mastered their basics. At this stage, the faith one needs to have is in themselves, as a living embodiment of the art. Even after a lifetime of training and study, shifting a classical art by changing moves or adjusting the direction of martial arts is no minor feat, especially after a lifetime of dedication to the art as it was taught to you. However, the faith in yourself as a master, after the proper time and study of the art, should enable one to have the confidence in themselves to understand the martial art, what it needs, and take it in that direction. Here, the master in turn guides the art.

While faith in the martial arts takes different forms, and as I highlight here it likely changes over time, some things should be consistent. The trust in your Sensei, the masters that came before to develop the art, and after some time, your own ability to use the art to defend yourself. However, I do think it is important to consider when you need to simply take what your sensei tells you at face value, and when you need to break things apart on a deeper level and build that understanding for yourself.

Thank you to my Sensei for helping to guide my own thinking by providing some valuable feedback on this work.

~Robert Chlumsky, June 17 2022