What is a dojo?

So I recently asked a number of our students what the word dojo means.  I was not surprised to receive several different answers.  One said "training hall", another "place to practice", and yet another answered with the more literal translation, "place of the way".

I would dare say that they are all correct because a dojo is many things to many people.  One thing it is not,...it is not a gym.  While I say this often, I believe there is a inherent misunderstanding that for some reason that I think dojos are better than gyms.  I certainly do not feel this way.  A gym, whether it be one in which you lift weights, engage in boxing, zumba! or even a martial arts gym are valuable places. It is in such places that we can reap the benefits of our own hard work through exercise, as well as many other benefits.

A dojo ideally has the added benefit of being a place in which the training you engage in has meaning beyond the physical techniques that are practiced there.  There are many things that are quite different in a dojo than what we experience here in typical American culture.  One of those is in dojo relationships.  In a dojo these relationships are at the crux of the matter but rarely spoken of.  Senior students have certain responsibilities to the younger students, and the younger students likewise to the older students.  Some would say mentoring is an equivalent term for the senior-to-junior relationship.  For our purposes here today in this post, I will agree.  However, I ask for your allowance to come back to that topic in depth in a post to be written later.  The junior-to-senior relationship is one of support and avid listening skills simply because the seniors are "ones that have come before them" and have many experiences to be learned from.


A dojo is also one of those places in which trophies, medals, walls with colored belts, and all sort of other accouterments are of little importance.   We would dare ask, can you get a trophy for being a good [insert your job title here], do you earn rank for being brave in situations that are important, do you get a new colored belt just for being the dad/mom/husband/wife/son/daughter you are supposed to be?  These are the tasks in front of us each day in which people who "get" what a dojo is all about say they utilize their training  for "off the mat".


Some have often said that being part of a dojo is like being part of church.  I understand that.  Dojos can be a place where people feel as if they belong, where people are supported by both positive reinforcement and the sometimes brutal honesty of a fellow trainer or teacher.  This is not done because a teacher wants to belittle someone but rather to help those around them immediately and without hesitation.  However a dojo is not a place where the worship of a god occurs.  My Christian brothers and sisters are often misled in thinking this based upon Hollywood and the teachings it ridiculously imposes upon our lives and those that surround us.  Also many counterfeit martial arts teachers use the same verbage as do many counterfeit preachers do, so the two can be confused at times.   Both of these types of people rely on intangibles to persuade others of their supposed glory.   Make no mistake about it, the problems of a dojo can be answered with tangible solutions, and those solutions involve, hard work, sweat, sore joints, and blood.  It is from these tangibles that we learn within our own selves, sometimes, the lessons being taught by a teacher.  


A teacher once taught me that the past is a only a thing that exists in our imagination and the future is only a dream of sorts and that all we have is the present, the here and the now.  Dojo teachers who follow this sort of thinking are often times very direct, there is no better time than the present to deal with any issue we might have.  


What a great lesson, learned in the dojo, to apply to everday life.  


Yours in Budo,


Craig Caudill