Towards Independence
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So, what’s the big deal about patricide? It seems to come up a lot in literature. When the Olympian gods overthrew the titans in greek mythology, it was Zeus who made the victory decisive by murdering his own father, Cronus (who, incidentally, had also murdered his own father). I’m pretty sure there’s a few patricide stories in the Bible (it’s practically a how-to manual for all-around wickedness), but I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Some primitive cultures had coming-of-age rituals in which the sons would act out battles with their fathers and uncles before learning the secrets of the tribe. In American courts, murdering one’s father has become nearly acceptable behavior, provided he did something abusive to the child at some point.
See also, the story of Oedipus, from which Freud coined his famous oedipal complex - that so-comforting notion that all boys secretly wish to murder their fathers and marry their mothers (which, by the way, has pretty-much been discredited, along with almost everything else freud theorized). See also, Star Wars. See also, me. Just kidding on that last one.
Even in intellectual pursuits, it’s often the case that the student must refute the teacher in order to earn recognition for his own achievements. Examples: Plato and Socrates, Aristotle and Plato, and (a couple thousand years later) Jung and Freud. Einstein had the seemingly impossible task of refuting Newton and Euclid to help us arrive at our current understanding of how the universe works. In one sense or another, it seems patricide is just how things get done. I guess that’s something to keep in mind around Fathers’ Day…
I can’t say that the above has anything to do with my relationship with Mitsunobu Uchida, but I believe that all families are “dysfunctional” in some respect or another. In this article, I will be very candid in saying things that might piss some folks off. Please read the disclaimer. Naturally, Uchida Sensei has been a major influence on my experience of Taido. As a result, I feel it important to explore this dynamic.
To Stand on One’s Own
I was having a discussion with a friend about the kinds of plans I had for Taido in the future - things I wanted to accomplish for myself and on a larger scale. I mentioned a few things that my friend had a suspicion Sensei may object to. He asked me “Do you think that may cause some friction with Mr. Uchida?” and I told him that of course I hoped it would not. Then I added that, should my future Taido plans end up causing difficulties with Uchida, then I will just have to achieve them without his endorsement or support. I’m OK with that.
I think we all come to a point in our various paths of development where we have to assert some amount of independence. As young adults, we take on our own responsibilities and sometimes must struggle with the issues that arise when we find out that we disagree with our parents. In healthy families, this is a dynamic process in which the parents learn to respect the right of the former child to make different choices than the parent. At the same time, the younger adult must realize that the parent is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, and at no time omnipotent. In short, they come to respect each other as equals, despite the necessary historical inequality. This is a process I’m proud to have experienced in a healthy manner with my own parents.
In my Taido development, there have also been struggles in my gradual process of becoming my own man. I’ve had to assert my abilities in numerous ways, inside and outside of practices, for quite a long time. Before I ever really clashed with Sensei, most of my issues centered around the fact that my father also practices Taido. It was a long and difficult road to becoming “Andy Fossett” as opposed to “Buddy Fossett’s son” in certain people’s eyes. Along with that, I was one of the youngest black belts in our school’s history. This also came with many challenges. I met them and moved beyond.
My first move toward independence from Uchida Sensei was not a rebellion or a clash of interests. I simply wanted more practice on more creative things. Luckily for me, Bryan also craved a special brand of complicated torture that we couldn’t unleash on the students at the dojo. We began to practice separately as well, and this was the seed of what eventually became the Georgia Tech Taido Club.
The Tech club has now become a ten-year process of working with, for, and occasionally against Uchida. In seeking the best interests of my students (who are a very different demographic from Uchida’s students), I naturally have to use methods that are at odds with those employed at the honbu dojo. This causes a lot of difficulties when it comes time to have my students test for belt promotions or when they practice with students from the other dojo.
At times, my connection with Sensei has been much more business-like than it resembles any sort of student-teacher relation - we even find ourselves competing from time to time. Most of our discussions over the past few years have centered around what he wants from my students (test fees) and what he’s prepared to give me in return (not very much). In many ways, it’s as if I am licensing Taido from him for the rights to teach my own students. I don’t like the franchise model of Taido very much. I don’t feel like I need a certificate from anybody to share my knowledge and experience. Not from Uchida, not from Japan. Tom DeVenny calls his dojo the “first branch location” or something to that effect. I don’t have a problem with that (even though I was teaching independently before Tom was), because I’ve never considered my dojo to be a “branch”.
In addition to all that, my Taido has evolved considerably since I opened my club. And so has the Taido being taught at the honbu now. In many respects, they are different things, and both differ from the Japanese Taido that I practice when I am in Japan. I have experienced and studied a lot, and I have developed some personal ideas about how things should be done. Many of my ideas are in opposition to those of my teacher. He does things the way he believes is best; I do things the way I believe is best.
Should I stay, or should I go?
So then what? Well, I hope nothing. I hope that Sensei and I can find some level of mutual respect in which we are both free to pursue our own visions for Taido in the best ways we can think to do so. I hope we can continue to support each other towards those goals we share, and I hope we can back off when we disagree and agree to leave it at that. I think this is possible. If I am incorrect, then… Well, I don’t need an angry father figure to validate my abilities in Taido. If he decides that he can’t respect my Taido, then I don’t need him.
You see, I used to think that I had to have his permission to practice and teach Taido. But that’s simply not the case. And I’m not saying “Now that I’ve been teaching in Japan, I have more qualifications”; to be perfectly honest, I don’t need permission from anyone. I have my own permission to do what I feel I should do, and I’m confident that I will never find myself short of people who believe I can help them achieve their own goals through Taido practice.
It’s a matter of self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-respect, and lot of other self-stuff that I haven’t always had much of. Perhaps as a benefit of living as a foreigner in an isolated town, I have come to posses a much greater sense of self than I had a few years ago. However it’s happened, I now feel confident that I can stand on my own in Taido, or anything else I do. That’s right: I’m a big boy now, and I don’t need anyone to hold my hand or change my diapers anymore. I fail, learn, and succeed as an individual now.
So where does that leave Uchida and I, in light of my newfound whatever? Well, I think it leaves us as two men who both have a wealth of experience and insight into a shared passion. Right?
The truth is that none of this is anything new. Growing into a responsible adult and gaining independence from one’s various teachers has always been a necessary fact of life. It will always be so. Furthermore, it is an important part of even our martial arts heritage - see 24fc for one version of how this plays out in karate.
While I hold a rank in the hierarchy of his organization, I also have a life outside my teacher’s influence. Within a certain sphere, I am necessarily under Sensei’s authority, but in a wider sense, I am perfectly capable of working under my own authority in anything I happen to do - including Taido. Though he may be the ultimate authority in his school (and my place in that school), my teacher does not own my Taido. As Negishi Sensei likes to tell me “I don’t teach you anymore - you teach you better than I do.”
And so my teacher is very special to me for many reasons, but I’ve also come to the place in my life that on some levels, he’s simply an older man. While I have a certain degree of familial loyalty to Sensei’s school, I can’t say that the current set-up of American Taido fulfills all my hopes and dreams for the future. I’m going to go for those dreams, and I’m going to use what I’ve learned from Uchida Sensei to help get me there. In the process, I imagine that we will continue to support each other as best we can to create the best Taido we can.
Content of this page created by Andy Fossett exclusively for Taido/Blog.Tags: georgia tech, learning, methods, practice, rank
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