This was originally posted on
www.atemicast.com, but has since be deleted due to space. I believe this interview was important enough to share again, as I learned a large amount of information, and I studied with the Gentleman. Enjoy!
Martial artists are a sundry group,
which is one of the fun aspects of our art.
Everyone has a different take on the same thing. As an example, here is an interview conducted
through emails with my first instructor in Martial Arts, Jason Backlund Sensei.
Martial Thoughts: Thank you for doing this interview
with me. As an introduction, could you
describe the history/origin of Yamagata Ryu, as well as what the official name
of the system is?
Jason Backlund Sensei: When I began studying under Yamagata
Sensei, he was a Soke Dairi (official representative) of a style called
Matsubara Ke Senpo (literally - Matsubara Family Strategy / but better
translated as the Matsubara Family's Method of War Fighting). The Matsubara Ke
had a huge number of techniques detailed in several scrolls including Tojutsu
(sword techniques), Sojutsu (spear techniques), Naginatajutsu (glaive
techniques), Bojutsu (staff techniques), Taijutsu (unarmed techniques),
Goshinjutsu (self-defense techniques) and Kotojutsu (knife techniques).
Unfortunately, none of us had the time necessary to devote to studying all of
these techniques adequately, so, as time went on, Yamagata Sensei began to
focus his lessons on two main fields of study - Tojutsu and Goshinjutsu.
Yamagata Sensei's true passion was the sword, and for this reason nearly half
of the classes were devoted to Tojutsu. He was also a strong believer in
practicality and, therefore, Goshinjutsu filled most of the remainder of our
time. About 10 percent of the classes were spread among the remaining Matsubara
Ke curriculum.
Such a large amount
of time was spent on self-defense techniques and sparring that the mindset of
practicality and efficiency began to pervade every aspect of our training. This
was especially true for sword training. Matsubara Ke Tojutsu included hundreds
of techniques for every conceivable form of attack and defense. Yamagata Sensei
began to see this method of teaching as flawed. He believed that groups of
techniques could be distilled to their fundamental versions, and that mastering
these fundamentals and practicing them free-form in controlled-sparring
situations would allow the students to naturally adapt to variations in an
opponent's attacks. The difficult and time-consuming part was choosing which
techniques best fit this criteria.
As this transition
was happening, I was becoming increasingly dedicated to my training - to the
point that I stopped going to school and spent more time at the dojo than I did
at my own home. Yamagata Sensei rewarded my dedication by working with me
privately before and after classes. Eventually, Yamagata Sensei utilized me as
his sounding board and assistant while he developed and catalogued his new
method of teaching sword techniques. What began to emerge was not only a set of
distilled Matsubara Ke techniques, but also a complete and distinct curriculum.
Yamagata Sensei thought that this new curriculum could become an addition to
the Matsubara Ke curriculum and presented it to the Soke, Matsubara Isao,
during his visit to the Orlando dojo in January, 1994. Soke Matsubara was
indeed impressed, but in addition to entertaining the idea of including
Yamagata Sensei's curriculum into Matsubara Ke Senpo, he also insisted that the
techniques and, more importantly, the method of teaching them, be taught as an
entirely new style. This new style became the Yamagata Ryu.
Yamagata Sensei, then
at the age of 64, had little interest in starting a new style, and instead had
planned to return to Japan the following year and retire. Having devoted a
substantial amount of time to helping Sensei with his endeavor, I was excited
about the prospect of opening a school and teaching Yamagata Ryu. Sensei, who
had begun to encourage me to go back to school and continue my education,
proposed a deal - my reward for achieving a high-school diploma would be
permission to open my own school. After graduating high school, I made plans to
move to Gainesville and attend college. Yamagata Sensei rewarded my efforts by issuing
me a Menkyo Kaiden (license of full transmission) certificate that not only
granted me permission to open my own school, but named me as the Nidai Soshi
(Second-Generation Head Teacher) of Yamagata Ryu Kobujutsu (Yamagata Style of
Ancient Martial Arts). The following year I opened the first Yamagata Ryu dojo
in Gainesville.
Regarding the second
part of your question:
The original name for
the style was Yamagata Ryu Kobujutsu, which was composed of two equal parts:
Yamagata Ryu Hyoho Kenjutsu (literally - Yamagata Style Soldier Method
Sword Techniques / but better translated as the Yamagata School of Strategy and
Sword Techniques) and Yamagata Ryu Goshinjutsu.
In addition to the
Matsubara Ke curriculum, our Dojo in Orlando also held classes by instructors
of Jujutsu, Aikido and Judo. Part of the Matsubara Ke Taijutsu set included a
group of techniques referred to as Inyoho (Yin Yang Method), which was very
similar in nature to Aikido and other styles of what is today called
Aikijujutsu. My interest in these techniques and Yamagata Sensei's take on them
led me to include a large portion of them in a separate curriculum, which I
briefly taught in Gainesville under the name Yamagata Ryu Aikijujutsu. My
interest in this curriculum waned, and I eventually stopped teaching it as a
distinct class. As my interest in Aikijujutsu was fading, I was beginning to
rekindle my interest in Jujutsu and Judo. Atemi waza (striking techniques) had
always been a dominant part of Yamagata Ryu Goshinjutsu, but I wanted to teach
more grappling than had been in the original curriculum. Since this was getting
outside the realm of what Yamagata Sensei had developed, I decided to start a
club, which I called Kobushin Kai (Society of Ancient Martial Spirit) with
additional techniques in its curriculum. Today, approximately 60 percent of
Kobushin Kai's curriculum is taken directly from Yamagata Ryu Goshinjutsu, and
the remainder is a combination of Jujutsu and Aikijujutsu techniques that I
have learned from various sources over the years. Since I no longer teach
Yamagata Ryu Goshinjutsu, Yamagata Ryu Hyoho Kenjutsu is now a stand-alone
style. There is a certain amount of irony in this, as it was my insistence that
Goshinjutsu be included as part of the Yamagata Ryu curriculum, and Sensei, who
originally wanted the style to focus solely on Kenjutsu, only agreed
reluctantly after a significant amount of respectful badgering on my
part.
MT: So your official rank/title is as Soke?
Backlund Sensei: Soke, as I'm sure you are aware, essentially
translates as head of a house or family, and its use in the Japanese martial
arts stems from the fact that many styles used systems of family succession to
transfer leadership from one generation to the next. I was first referred to by
this title when I moved to Gainesville. At one point, I was invited to join an
international body composed of the heads of various martial arts styles, which
referred to its members as Soke regardless of their official titles. As it is
such a widely understood and accepted term, I fell into the habit of using Soke
as my title and even signed a number of documents as such. The title that
Yamagata Sensei conferred upon me is Soshi (Head Teacher), an uncommon term in
the martial arts. At the time when I was considering joining the aforementioned
organization of "Soke", I did not have a healthy respect for the
difference between the two titles.
As I became more
involved in the martial-arts community at large, I discovered that there exists
a group of Koryu purists that take offense to Americans using the title of
Soke, and I have come to see their point. Soke describes a relationship with a
family, and usually is conferred upon a blood-relative of the previous head of
style. At the very least, Soke of legitimate Ryu are almost always Japanese.
While I am the head of Yamagata Ryu, I am not a blood relative, nor am I
Japanese (I guess I should point out that my father is half Japanese, which I
guess makes me a quarter, but that detail would be irrelevant to most purists).
Over the years, I
have learned to see the wisdom in Yamagata Sensei's choice of title. Even
though Soke and Soshi both effectively mean the same thing in terms of
day-to-day responsibilities, they are very different in what they represent.
Koryu, led by Soke, are family endeavors that span generations with carefully
protected histories. Our style is a technical study of Japanese sword
techniques stemming from historical teachings but intended to treat its subject
matter as if it were still relevant today. In other words, Koryu are snapshots
of history, and their techniques are essentially frozen. Yamagata Sensei
approached his art by essentially saying - hypothetically, what if we were
still engaging in sword fights today? What would be the best way to train students
to fight and defend themselves? From that perspective, Yamagata Ryu is a Gendai
Bujutsu headed by a Soshi, not a Koryu headed by a Soke.
MT: Looking at the nature of weapons involved in the art,
I'm going to assume that this is a traditional bushi art, and not a modern
budo. Is this a correct assumption?
Backlund Soshi: I would classify Yamagata Ryu as a
Gendai Bujutsu (modern-age martial art). It is not a Koryu simply because it
was developed in the 20th Century. However, it is not a Budo either. The goal
of Yamagata Ryu is to teach its students to effectively fight using the
Japanese sword with ancient Japan as the setting. The curriculum includes
techniques for fighting in armor on the battlefield, and for fighting out of
armor in the context of a self-defense situation or duel. We train using bokuto
(wooden swords) for kata (paired forms) and kumitachi (sparring), and shinken
(live blades) for batto (sword drawing) and tameshigiri (test cutting).
MT: You mentioned earlier that practicality and efficiency
became part of the mindset, could you elaborate on this? Is this in terms
of removing techniques from the common repertoire or in terms of minimalizing
movements?
Backlund Sochi: A little of both. The kata of Matsubara
Ke were far more numerous, and there were many kata that, while being slightly
varied in movement or execution, essentially expressed the same fundamental
principle. Yamagata Sensei spent a great deal of time trying to determine which
kata best expressed each fundamental principle and included one version of each
in an attempt to avoid repetition - thus increasing efficiency. The problem as
he saw it was that too much time was spent on training kata and not enough on
training waza.
In Yamagata Ryu, a
kata is a pre-arranged series of movements that deal with an attacker from the
initiation of his attack until he has been dispatched. Waza are individual,
constituent components such as individual cuts, blocks or footwork. Most
kenjutsu styles spend the bulk of their time training kata, as was the case
with Matsubara Ke. Yamagata Sensei saw this as a flawed method of teaching. He
believed that kata should make up approximately half of the students' training
time. The remainder should consist of training individual waza in combinations
that are put together by the instructor on the spot and changed often, so that
the students begin to learn how to deal with unpredictable situations. The
students then work their way up to being able to respond to free-form,
improvised attacks - thus increasing practicality. Eventually, the students can
even freely spar. This is similar to the method used to teach Kendo, but Kendo
techniques have become so specialized toward winning competitions using shinai
that they are not practical for fighting with shinken.
As for minimizing
movement, there was a little bit of that in adapting the kata, but those
changes were fairly minor. The individual Matsubara kata were already a pretty
good case study in efficient movement.
MT: When did you start martial arts training, and why did
you start initially?
Backlund Sochi: My father took me to my first martial
arts classes when I was eight years old, and the best reason I can think of is
because I liked to watch martial-arts movies as a kid. He also thought it would
be something that would provide me with the benefits of physical fitness and
discipline. The first classes I took were Karate and Tae Kwon Do, but
those didn't last for very long.
When I was in fourth
grade, I met two classmates, Tommy and Yoshi Hara, who shared my
enthusiasm for martial-arts movies. Being Japanese, they were somewhat isolated
in a school populated almost entirely by Caucasian children. When I told them
that I had a Japanese grandmother, we became fast friends. Eventually, I learned that they were
receiving private Jujutsu lessons three times a week, and, even
though I had no idea what Jujutsu was at that age, I was
nevertheless fascinated by what they described. They invited me to attend
one of their backyard sessions, and I jumped at the opportunity.
Tommy and Yoshi's
father, as it turned out, was a big financial supporter of the Matsubara Ke
dojo, but never had the time to attend. Instead, he arranged for three private
lessons a week for his sons - two of which were to be taught by a senior
student and one to be taught by Sensei. As luck would have it, I happened to
show up for my first time on a day in which the class was to be taught by
Yamagata Sensei himself. I'll never forget the look of disapproval I received
when the brothers introduced me. During a very brief sidebar, which I could not
understand at the time, Yamagata Sensei informed Mr. Hara that I was not
welcome. Mr. Hara, however, insisted that I be allowed to stay, as he
thought it would be rude to send me away after having been invited by his sons.
Sensei reluctantly allowed me to participate, but only as an uke for the
brothers.
At five feet, nine
inches with a barrel chest and stern demeanor, Sensei was quite
intimidating, especially to a fourth-grader. That first training session was
intense, exhausting and painful. Sensei, as I would only come to
understand much later, was hoping that I would never want to come back.
Ironically, I was more afraid of quitting than I was of showing
up for the next lesson. For some reason, the idea of simply not
showing up never occured to me. I thought that in order to quit, I would need
to personally give some excuse for not wanting to continue,
especially since Mr. Hara had gone through the trouble of insisting that I be
allowed to attend. The idea of trying to explain to Sensei why I couldn't
continue, and what his reaction might be, terrified me, so I came back - over
and over again.
MT: That’s an awesome story. Now that you have stayed in martial arts, how
has martial arts positively impacted other aspects of your life?
Backlund Soshi: I guess this is the part where I admit
that growing up I got into a few fights, and martial-arts training certainly
came in handy. Although the neighborhood I grew up in was a normal,
lower-middle-class area, it was surrounded by areas that weren't so nice.
Before moving away from Orlando to go to college, I worked on occasion in
private security, and it came in handy a few times then as well. Aside from
those circumstances, the real benefit of my training has been that it has
taught me the nature of conflict and conflict resolution, which I use quite
often in every aspect of my life. What we do in the dojo can be thought of as a
metaphor for the interpersonal conflicts that we deal with every day - in my
case, both personally and professionally. I don't mean to say that people are
always trying to start fights or arguments with me on a daily basis. Rather,
I've learned to read peoples' postures, expressions, demeanors, etc. - I've
become sensitive to the potential for conflict. Usually, I can use that extra
sense to avoid conflict, but sometimes, if a conflict becomes unavoidable, I
can anticipate it and deal with it better than I would be able to otherwise.
Once I'm in a conflict, I can determine the best strategy to deal with my
opponent using some of the lessons I've learned through the years.
In my professional
life, I am a vice president of a construction company. I deal with both
customers and subcontractors on a daily basis. Customers often want more from
us than what was agreed upon in the contract. Subcontractors often don't want
to provide all the goods or services they are contractually obligated to
deliver. Conflict resolution has become my specialty, and I use the lessons
I've learned from my 27 years in the martial arts on a daily basis.
MT: I agree with that.
Martial arts has to influence your daily life, or its really not an
art. Now for the fun questions. You know how James Lipton always asks the
same questions at the end of his interviews, well you get to be the first test
for my three questions.
Q1: What is your favorite martial arts movie and is there any particular reason
why?
Backlund Soshi:
Recently, I saw the movie "13 Assassins," which I really enjoyed,
even though a couple of parts were a little twisted. I have to say that my
favorite Samurai movie is "Heaven and Earth," which tells the story
of a famous battle between Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen. It is not a
martial arts movie, per se, but it has some excellent battle scenes and a
really good, albeit brief, sword battle between the main character and one of
his retainers.
Q2: What book would you recommend to all
your students?
Backlund Soshi:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. As far as martial arts books go, I
haven't read very many of them, and I can't say that I've ever read one that I
would recommend.
Q3: Who was the most impressive martial artist you ever
worked with and why?
Backlund Soshi: Yamagata Takashi Sensei, without a doubt. He understood
every aspect of the martial arts techniques and concepts he taught, and could
see every conceivable variation and counter. This was the most important lesson
that he taught - how to truly understand. I've worked with and taught many
martial artists over the years, many of whom have more years under their belts
than I do, and it always surprises me how little they truly understand. I can
watch the mechanics of a technique that is completely foreign to me, one that I
might be seeing for the first time, and immediately understand how it works. It
amazes me how few martial artists there are that can do that, but it makes me
appreciate the depth of what my teacher communicated to me and how much of a
genius he really was.
MT: Again, it was a pleasure to talk to you again, and thank
you for your time.
If you are a martial artist, or you
would like to recommend a martial artist to share an interview with us, please
contact Martial Thoughts at martialthoughts@gmail.com
Sometimes there are things that prevent you from getting on the mat normally. Could be something as severe as a broken limb, or as simple as a bad head cold. This gives you two kinds opportunities. First, if you can go to the dojo (again using the Japanese terminology), you should use this time to watch class. Watch the instructor not from the point of getting the technique right, but instead look at all the other things they do. Pick one small aspect, like foot angle or shoulder position, and watch that point through all the technique applications. Try to notice the little, subtle details of each time they demonstrate the technique, let alone between different techniques. This would be a good thing to record in your martial arts journal. By staying back, and looking at the whole picture, you can sometimes see things that you normally miss up close. Use this time off the mat to practice this wide focus of learning.
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