Trevor Leggett/ martial arts

7/28/2019 Trevor Leggett/ martial arts

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Modern Judo has done away with these ideas and abandoned the intent of Kano.

This along with the overemphasis on competition has morally and technically

bankrupted Judo. It was not intended as a sport for an audience to watch, it was a

practice to be participated in. The cleanliness, the order, the ritual courtesies led bya good teacher this was the path Kano taught. This creates understanding with

accompanying technical proficiency.

One tough medical student who practiced randori with me would say, Thank you

after I threw him and Excuse me after he threw me! Initially I did not understand

his pedantic adherence to saying this over and over. Then I realized. It was his way

of checking himself and his own temper. This is what allowed him to maintain his

own self observation and discipline.

And this is not unique to the Japanese. The old aristocratic British after the French

Revolution took up boxing so they could settle scores without the authority of the

sword (which characterized the French way). The story of Squire Smith shows this.

Squire Smith tied his horse up to go in a shop and a cartman pushed it aside. The

Squire emerged from the shop catching him and they had a fight. They were

separated by the police but the carter went home wondering whether the Squire,

his landlord, would have him thrown out of his house. Instead the cartman received

a handerchief from the Squire. When he opened it he saw two golden coins and a

note which read, That was the best fight Ive had in many years! Empty handcombat can transmute into friendship. But this cannot happen with a sword.

I asked Leggett for his views on physical education and his comment was, They

need to get away from ball games. Life is not a ball that you can throw and kick and

steer. These ball games require too much space and have no relevance to life. On

the other hand if they taught Kendo, or Judo, or some sort of stick-fighting that is

something that teaches economy, posture and timing. These are traits used in life

and can also give one a way to defend oneself.

Judo for instance teaches you how to use the body and movement in changing

furniture around! Exercises from Judo and other martial arts, like Shaolin, you can do

everyday with minimal space. They are good for you and have utility in life. The one

ball game I believe is the exception is golf because it favours experience and spans

age groups. At sixty-five I could still play golf against young men in their twenties


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and win. Admittedly as a trained judoman I could retain balance well into age. But

still it required too much space and most cannot do it everyday. For some time I had

a ball on a string hanging from the doorway and a small wooden sword. I would hit

the ball with the small sword and try to hit it again and again while it swung from

each hit. It develops timing and responsiveness.

As for Karate it is most illogical, attempting to hit from a distance without holding

or getting close, hitting hard objects when it is obviously smarter to hit soft spots,

and jumping in the air with kicks to the head when the foot is the farthest weapons

from the head! I am aware this is mainly in films but the emphasis is still all wrong.

Best get close, use economy and hit soft spots with the closest weapon.

When I mentioned wrestling his comments were, The Greeks wrestled naked but

we wear clothes so clothed wrestling, Judo, is more practical. From Judo one learns

balance, coordination, and speed but above all response. The Judo training has not

to be merely technical but include strategy and mental training. For instance in my

black belt classes I used to get them to hold each other, to hold, and then walk

round and they were not to attack each other at all. But when I clapped my hand

one of them who had been designated in advance would suddenly flair up into an

attack and continue furiously until he either threw or was thrown. Now the value of

this in life is considerable and a pupil who later became a librarian told me that a

semi-unbalanced man semi-lunatic perhaps came to the library once and

terrified the staff. He was called down. He faced this man who was twitching and

muttering and making threatening gestures, and as he stood there and calmly facedhim, he suddenly thought, I have been here before. This is just like the judo hall. If

he suddenly flairs up and attacks me furiously I am ready for it. I know what to do.

So the training was very fruitful for him. This kind of mental training you can get in

Judo.

In children again we used to teach not merely technique but also self control. At the

end of practice when they are pouring with sweat, we used to make these classes of

perhaps twenty or thirty boys of between eight and fourteen or fifteen, sit in rows

and say, Now keep perfectly still for ten minutes. They would sit there staringstraight in front of them, and then one of the instructors by prearrangement would

knock over a chair. The head would turn to look and see what happened and we

would shout, Keep still! The heads would go back and stare straight in from of

them. Then the next week, the class, they would be sitting there and this time two

of the instructors would seem to be picking a fight, and of course the heads would

begin to turn. Keep still! And they would go back and stare straight in front of


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them fixedly. Then the third week we would arrange for some catastrophe to

happen, some furniture would be knocked over apparently and somebody would

cry, Oh, ooh! and the heads would shift a little bit. Keep still! And they would

stare straight in front of them. After that they were very proud of their ability to sit

quite still no matter what crashes or disturbances happened. They had learnt the

value of self control and they were very proud of exercises it. And we did in facthave a letter from one school to the secretary of the Renshuden Judo Club saying,

Thank you on behalf of all the teachers in this school. Tommys attitude towards his

teachers has been transformed along with his general behaviour since he took up

Judo.

I know also there has been controversy over keeping the names of throws in

Japanese and learning the Japanese language phrases to go with Judo. I insisted that

the Japanese terms must be retained rather than translations into English, into

French, into German, and so on. Because retaining the Japanese words the studentscan talk to each other internationally about Judo. If the terms are translated they

cannot. And in music after all we all use the Italian terms, sonata and so on. Again,

the students were happy to learn a bit of a foreign language because that was

something to be proud of.

Occasionally an old Chinese boxer would come through the Kodokan and show some

kata. My own feeling on kata is it would be best to do about two years of Judo for a

foundation in response and then build your katas on this. That way one could get

some working skill in two or three years time. Otherwise I recall the Chinese requirea much longer time five, maybe eight years.

On exercise philosophy Kano said western exercises are dead as they do not employ

the mind. This manuscript on so called Shaolin exercises I have been going through

(A Version of The Muscle Change Classic) says some very interesting things. There is

a passage which that says, Imagine riding a horse under trees and reaching

up for them. That makes your muscles do many more things than simply

saying Raise your arms. This employment of the mind is a key to body

movement.

Kata is rather like a student of a foreign language learning endless phrases in that

language in order to cover all the eventualities that may arise. In fact he will never

be able to cover everything that may happen. But he will get a large number of

phrases so he will be fairly adequate for a good deal of the time. But in learning


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languages you have to finally be able to construct your own new sentences. In the

same way the kata, learning the kata, consists in making fixed responses, learning

fixed responses to fixed attacks of various kinds. And you can get quite an adequate

vocabulary, say for many situations. But in the end you need randori, free practice,

where you have to invent your own responses naturally and not rely on fixed

responses which you have learnt in the form of kata.

In Japan for instance I learnt from associating with the young judomen some slangy

phrases which were not appropriate as a matter of fact coming from a foreigner.

And my teacher told me that. So that we need a certain amount of correct form but

in the end there has to be creativity. But the creativity must not simply stand by

itself without the knowledge of the correct forms otherwise we shall fall into

inappropriate things.

These two aspects; correct form and creativity or adaptability, are the essence of

martial arts and this is the training which prepares one for life.

Thanks to the late Judo practitioner and scholar Richard Dicky Bowen for

arranging the interview and to Trevor Leggett for approving the final draft of this

article. Both men now have passed on and I am grateful for the time with them. This

was the last interview with Mr. Leggett prior to his death.

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Trevor Leggett/ martial arts