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Reflections on the Impact and Importance of International and Global Education
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Musings on Japanese and Ryukyu Budo
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 Primary Text Under Review
Jennings, G. (2016). Ancient Wisdom, Modern Warriors: The (Re)Invention of a Mesoamerican Tradition in Xilam. Martial Arts Studies, 2, 59–70. Before turning to Jennings' article, a brief point of context may be useful. The selection of this paper was prompted by a recent and highly stimulating conversation with my friend and colleague Professor Rune from Norway. While we did not discuss Xilam directly, we found ourselves returning repeatedly to a deceptively simple question: when a martial tradition claims to connect practitioners to a deeper cultural inheritance, what exactly is being transmitted? Is it technique, identity, memory, philosophy, or something else entirely? Jennings' article does not answer these questions directly, but it provides a fascinating lens through which to explore them. As is often the case in academic life, one conversation opened the door to another. While Jennings frames his discussion through Bonfil Batalla's concept of México Profundo, I found myself reading the article through a somewhat different lens, namely Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus and Michel Foucault's concept of subject formation. Doing so raises a question that extends well beyond contemporary Mexico: what kinds of people are martial arts attempting to create? Summary of the Article It is perhaps inevitable that any serious student of martial arts eventually encounters the question of authenticity. Is a martial art legitimate because it possesses an unbroken lineage? Because it is effective? Because it preserves a cultural tradition? Or because it helps create meaningful lives for those who practise it? George Jennings' examination of Xilam, a contemporary Mexican martial art inspired by pre-Hispanic cultures, provides an opportunity to revisit these questions from a fresh perspective. Yet what makes this article particularly interesting is that authenticity is not ultimately its most important concern. Rather, Jennings invites us to consider how martial arts participate in the construction of identity itself. The article introduces Xilam as a modern martial art founded by Marisela Ugalde during the late twentieth century. Inspired by the cultures of the Mexica (Aztecs), Maya, Zapotec and other Mesoamerican peoples, Xilam seeks not merely to teach techniques of combat but to reconnect practitioners with what anthropologist Guillermo Bonfil Batalla termed México Profundo — the deeper civilisational foundations of Mexican society that survived conquest, colonisation, and modernisation (Bonfil Batalla, 1996; Jennings, 2016). Importantly, Jennings is refreshingly honest from the outset. Xilam is not an ancient martial art. There is no continuous lineage stretching back to pre-Hispanic warrior societies. The martial systems of ancient Mesoamerica were disrupted and largely destroyed following the Spanish conquest. Xilam is therefore a modern reconstruction rather than a preserved tradition (Jennings, 2016). Yet Jennings argues that this does not render the project meaningless. Instead, he suggests that Xilam functions as a form of embodied cultural education through which contemporary Mexicans may reconnect with elements of their ancestral heritage. Through ritual, movement, philosophy, symbolism, and physical discipline, practitioners engage not simply with a martial art but with a broader project of identity formation (Jennings, 2016). Situating the Article within the Field Jennings' article emerged during an important period in the development of Martial Arts Studies as a distinct academic field. Much early scholarship focused either on Asian martial arts or on questions of technical effectiveness, violence, and sportification. By contrast, Jennings joins a growing body of scholars interested in martial arts as sites of cultural production, identity construction, and embodied meaning-making. The article sits comfortably alongside studies of capoeira, taijiquan, kalaripayattu, and other traditions that cannot easily be understood solely through the lens of combat efficacy. It also contributes to ongoing debates surrounding Hobsbawm's notion of "invented traditions" and the broader question of how communities construct continuity with an often imagined past (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983). What particularly distinguishes the article is its engagement with Bonfil Batalla's concept of México Profundo. This framework allows Jennings to move beyond simplistic questions of whether Xilam is historically authentic and instead examine how martial practice may serve as a vehicle for cultural memory and civilisational continuity. For readers familiar with Japanese budo, this discussion may feel surprisingly familiar. While the historical circumstances differ dramatically, one finds similar concerns in the writings of Kano Jigoro and other educational reformers who viewed martial practice not primarily as preparation for violence but as a means of cultivating particular kinds of citizens. The Warrior as a Subject Position What struck me most while reading Jennings' article was the repeated appearance of the figure of "the warrior". Yet this warrior is not primarily a fighter. Indeed, Jennings repeatedly emphasises that Xilam's understanding of the warrior is metaphorical rather than literal. The warrior becomes a person who pursues excellence, self-discipline, honesty, responsibility, and service to others (Jennings, 2016). This is where I believe the article becomes most interesting. Drawing loosely upon the work of Michel Foucault, one might argue that Xilam is less concerned with reconstructing a lost combat system than with producing a particular kind of subject. The warrior here functions as what Foucault might describe as a subject position — an identity category that individuals are invited to inhabit through repeated practices of self-cultivation (Foucault, 1988). The goal is not simply to learn techniques. The goal is to become a particular kind of person. This becomes especially apparent in Xilam's recurring emphasis on "removing the skin" — a metaphor for shedding ego, illusion, and false identities to discover a deeper self (Jennings, 2016). Such language bears a striking resemblance to what Foucault described as "technologies of the self": practices through which individuals actively transform themselves in accordance with particular ethical ideals. Viewed in this light, the question of whether Xilam accurately reproduces pre-Hispanic fighting methods becomes somewhat secondary. The more interesting question becomes: What kind of human being is Xilam attempting to create? Habitus, Embodiment, and Cultural Memory The article also invites interpretation through Pierre Bourdieu's work. One of Jennings' central claims is that Xilam transmits aspects of Mesoamerican culture not primarily through intellectual study but through embodied participation. Practitioners move, bow, perform rituals, learn stories, engage symbols, and enact philosophies through the body itself (Jennings, 2016). This is remarkably close to Bourdieu's concept of habitus (Bourdieu, 1977). Culture, in this view, is not simply something people know. It is something people become. Through repeated bodily practices, certain dispositions, values, assumptions, and orientations toward the world become naturalised. Xilam may therefore be understood as an attempt to cultivate a specifically Mexican habitus rooted in indigenous civilisational memory. In this sense, Xilam functions as much as a pedagogical project as a martial one. Critical Engagement The article possesses several notable strengths. First, Jennings treats Xilam with intellectual generosity while remaining transparent about its historical discontinuities. He neither dismisses it as fantasy nor uncritically celebrates it as recovered tradition (Jennings, 2016). Second, the article broadens the geographical horizons of Martial Arts Studies. Too often, the field remains dominated by East Asian examples. Jennings demonstrates that Latin America possesses equally rich traditions of embodied culture worthy of scholarly attention. However, the article occasionally seems somewhat sympathetic to Xilam's narrative. Questions concerning authority and representation remain underexplored. Who has the right to speak on behalf of ancient Mesoamerican cultures? Which histories are selected for inclusion? Which are omitted? How are competing indigenous perspectives negotiated? Yet perhaps this criticism should be applied more broadly across the martial arts world. How many karate practitioners genuinely represent Okinawan culture? How many kendoka represent Tokugawa Japan? How many judoka embody Kano's educational philosophy rather than the imperatives of Olympic sport? Viewed from this perspective, Xilam may not be unusual at all. Rather, it makes visible processes of invention, reconstruction, and selective remembering that exist within many modern martial traditions. One aspect of the article that warrants further consideration is the repeated use of the term warrior. While these are undoubtedly admirable qualities, the language of the warrior deserves closer scrutiny. Most contemporary martial artists encounter conflict within highly regulated environments governed by rules, safety protocols, legal frameworks, and institutional oversight. Whatever else occurs in the dojo, gym, or training hall, it is generally far removed from the realities of warfare, political violence, or life-and-death combat. In this sense, the warrior often functions less as a historical reality than as a pedagogical metaphor. This is not necessarily a criticism of Xilam. Indeed, many modern martial arts employ similar narratives. The interesting question is not whether practitioners are literally warriors. They are not. Rather, it is why the figure of the warrior remains such a powerful symbolic resource for constructing identity, purpose, and meaning within martial arts communities. That, however, is perhaps a discussion for another FART. Suggestions for Future Research Jennings concludes by identifying transformation, transmission, and transcendence as fruitful themes for future research. I would wholeheartedly agree. However, I would also suggest several additional directions. First, comparative studies between Xilam and other reconstructed martial traditions would be valuable. Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), modern kendo, reconstructed indigenous wrestling systems, and even aspects of modern karate all raise similar questions concerning authenticity, memory, and identity. Second, greater attention could be devoted to pedagogy. How precisely are values transmitted through practice? What role do instructors play in shaping interpretations of the warrior ideal? Third, scholars might explore how practitioners themselves understand their participation. Do students experience Xilam primarily as martial training, cultural recovery, personal development, spiritual practice, or some combination of these? Finally, the article opens broader questions about martial arts education generally. Perhaps the most significant question is not whether a tradition is ancient or modern. Rather, it is whether it provides meaningful frameworks through which individuals can cultivate purposeful lives. Conclusion Whether Xilam successfully reconstructs pre-Hispanic martial traditions is, in some respects, the least interesting question raised by Jennings' article. Far more compelling is the recognition that martial arts are often less concerned with preserving the past than with producing particular kinds of futures. The warrior, then, is not simply a historical figure preserved from the past. Nor is it merely a cultural symbol. It is a subject position; an invitation to inhabit a particular relationship with oneself, one's community, and the wider world. In this respect, Xilam and Kano's Judo may have more in common than first appears. Both seek to use martial practice not simply to teach techniques, but to cultivate particular kinds of citizens. Both are concerned less with combat than with character. Both ask how embodied practice might contribute to the formation of a meaningful life. Whether that invitation originates in the Kodokan, a taijiquan school, or a training hall in contemporary Mexico City matters less than we might imagine. The enduring question is not how we fight. It is who we are trying to become. References
本稿では、ジョージ・ジェニングスによるシラム（Xilam）研究を取り上げ、武道とアイデンティティ形成の関係について考察した。シラムは1980年代末に創設された現代メキシコ武道であり、アステカやマヤなどの先スペイン期文明に着想を得ている。しかし、その価値は古代武術を正確に復元しているかどうかではなく、現代人にどのような自己理解や文化的帰属意識を提供しているかにある。 論文を読みながら私が着目したのは、「戦士（warrior）」という概念である。シラムにおける戦士とは戦闘員ではなく、自己規律、誠実さ、責任感、共同体への貢献を体現する人格的理想像として提示される。この点から私はフーコーの主体形成論や「自己の技法」を想起した。シラムは失われた戦闘技術を再現する試みというよりも、特定の人間像を育成する教育的プロジェクトとして理解できるのである。 また、ブルデューのハビトゥス概念を用いると、シラムは身体実践を通じて文化的価値観を体現させる装置として捉えられる。文化とは知識として学ぶだけでなく、身体を通じて「なる」ものでもある。 一方で、「戦士」という言葉そのものには慎重な検討も必要だろう。現代の道場やジムは厳格な安全管理の下で運営されており、実際の戦争や暴力とは大きく異なる。したがって戦士とは歴史的現実というより、人格形成のための教育的メタファーとして機能していると考えられる。 結局のところ、本論文が投げかける最も重要な問いは、「武道はどのような人間を育てようとしているのか」である。問題は、どのように戦うかではない。どのような人間になろうとしているのかなのである。  For readers under forty, that title may require translation. For readers over forty, it probably requires an apology. Either way, as thousands of students across Ireland begin their Leaving Certificate and Junior Cycle examinations today, I find myself arriving at a conclusion that is surprisingly difficult to avoid. Shakespeare was phat. Not merely because he wrote great plays. Not merely because he wrote great poetry. But because he appears to have possessed an almost unfair combination of talents that continues to provoke admiration—and, if I am honest, a little envy—more than four centuries after his death. This morning, examination halls across Ireland are filled with students preparing to demonstrate what they have learned. English papers will be opened. Poems will be analysed. Plays will be dissected. Themes, characters and techniques will be examined and evaluated. That is, of course, part of the purpose of education. Yet as I reflected on the beginning of this year's examination season, I found myself thinking less about assessment and more about Shakespeare himself. Not for the first time. Nor the tenth. Nor even the twentieth. By this stage, I have probably read, taught, watched, discussed or revisited Othello, Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice more than thirty times each. That is one of the unexpected privileges of teaching. You return to the same texts repeatedly over the course of a career. The assumption is that familiarity produces certainty. With Shakespeare, the opposite often seems to happen. The more I encounter these plays, the less certain I become about what Shakespeare was actually up to. When I first encountered Othello, it seemed a tragedy of jealousy. Later, it became a play about race, identity and exclusion. Then it appeared to be concerned with military culture, power and manipulation. More recently, I have begun to wonder whether it is fundamentally about something even more universal: the fragility of human identity and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. The same thing happens with The Merchant of Venice. Is Shylock a villain? A victim? A tragic outsider? A warning? A protest? Somehow, he remains all of these and none of them. And Macbeth refuses to sit still either. Ambition, fate, masculinity, violence, guilt, political legitimacy, self-deception—each reading reveals something important while never quite exhausting the play. That, perhaps, is what I find most remarkable. Most books eventually surrender their secrets. Shakespeare never seems to. One of the recurring themes in my own writing over the past year has been semiotics: the labels, signs and categories through which human beings make sense of the world. We appear to need boxes. We classify. We sort. We simplify. We create narratives that make reality easier to manage. Shakespeare seems determined to break those boxes apart. Othello is noble and flawed. Hamlet is brilliant and paralysed. Lear is powerful and foolish. Shylock is sympathetic and frightening. Macbeth is both victim and perpetrator. The closer we look, the less simple they become. It is as if Shakespeare understood something fundamental about human beings: reality is almost always more complicated than the stories we tell about it. That is not merely entertainment. It is art. And yet Shakespeare was also a businessman. This is perhaps the most irritating part. If he had simply been a literary genius, one might have accepted it. If he had simply been a successful entrepreneur, one might understand it. Instead, he appears to have been both. As I reflected on this, I found myself comparing him to three very different figures. Like Dante, he wrestles with the great questions of mortality, identity and meaning. Like Joyce, he stretches language beyond its ordinary limits and reveals new dimensions of consciousness. And like Richard Branson (not to be confused with the pickle!), he appears to have understood audiences, opportunity and enterprise well enough to build a remarkably successful career rather than dying a misunderstood genius in a rented room. It is a deeply unfair combination of talents. Perhaps that is why I feel a certain amount of envy. Not because I wish I were Shakespeare. That would be absurd. But I am fascinated by the sheer range of his abilities. Most of us become specialists. The historian learns history. The entrepreneur learns business. The poet learns language. The philosopher learns ideas. Shakespeare somehow seems to have occupied several of these worlds simultaneously. Yet what fascinates me most is neither his poetry nor his business acumen. It is his ability to see. Many intelligent people notice things. Many intelligent people analyse things. Many intelligent people understand things. Shakespeare possessed the additional ability to translate those perceptions into language. He notices jealousy and gives it a voice. He notices ageing and gives it a metaphor. He notices self-deception and turns it into drama. He notices power and reveals its hypocrisies. Again and again, he finds words for experiences that people recognise but struggle to articulate. Many writers use words to describe reality. Shakespeare often seems to use words to discover reality. Perhaps that is why he remains so difficult to categorise. Dante often reveals Dante. Joyce often reveals Joyce. Shakespeare frequently disappears behind his characters. Instead of telling us what he thinks, he creates situations in which competing visions of reality collide. The result is that four hundred years after his death, we are still arguing about him. Not merely studying him. Arguing with him. Questioning him. Discovering new things in works that have already been read thousands of times. As today's Leaving Certificate and Junior Cycle students begin their examinations, I hope they encounter something deeper than an examination text. Grades matter. Results matter. But literature at its best introduces us to minds larger than our own. Not so that we may agree with them, but so that we may wrestle with them. Four centuries later, I am still not entirely sure what Shakespeare was up to. I am not even sure Shakespeare knew. But I know this much. Any writer who can combine the imagination of Dante, the linguistic brilliance of Joyce and the practical instincts of a successful entrepreneur deserves a certain amount of admiration. And, if I am being completely honest, a little envy as well. The examination papers will be collected this afternoon. The Leaving Certificate and Junior Cycle will eventually become memories. Shakespeare, inconveniently, probably won't. Four hundred years later, the examinations last only a few hours. The conversation continues. And he never wrote the exam either... シェイクスピアは本当に「すごかった（phatだった）」というのが、このブログの出発点である。アイルランドでは今日からリーヴィング・サート（高校卒業試験）とジュニア・サイクル試験が始まったが、私は試験そのものよりも、なぜ四百年以上前の作家が今なお教室に存在し続けるのかを考えていた。 教師として長年にわたり『オセロー』『マクベス』『ヴェニスの商人』を三十回以上は読み、教え、観てきた。しかし不思議なことに、読み返すたびに確信が増すどころか、シェイクスピアが何をしようとしていたのか分からなくなる。嫉妬、権力、人種、運命、アイデンティティなど様々な解釈が可能だが、どれ一つで作品を説明し切れない。 彼は人間を単純なカテゴリーに閉じ込めない。オセローも、シャイロックも、マクベスも、善悪や被害者・加害者といった枠組みを超えている。まるで現実そのものが私たちの理解より複雑であることを示しているかのようだ。 さらに驚くのは、彼が芸術家であると同時に優れた事業家でもあったことだ。私は彼をダンテ、ジョイス、そしてリチャード・ブランソンを合わせたような存在だと感じている。存在や意味を問い、言語を革新し、しかも成功したキャリアを築いたのである。 多くの作家は現実を描写する。だがシェイクスピアは、言葉を使って現実そのものを発見しているように思える。そのため私たちは今なお彼を読み続け、議論し続けている。試験は数時間で終わる。しかしシェイクスピアとの対話は、まだ終わりそうにない。  This past Sunday I was returning to Waterford after a weekend home in Drogheda. It had been a frantic few days. End-of-year examinations were underway, interviews had come and gone in rapid succession, and my thoughts seemed to be pulled simultaneously towards professional ambitions, financial realities and the endless practicalities of daily life. Aknot sat in my chest and behind my eyes a numbness had descended.
I was tired on several levels. Physically tired from the travel. Mentally tired from the uncertainty of interviews, contracts and futures not yet decided. Emotionally tired from a year that, at times, felt considerably more full of fog and rain than sunlight. Yet I have always enjoyed the journey back to Waterford. There is something reassuring about that drive south. The landscape gradually changes, the traffic thins, and the mind begins to settle. After three decades abroad, I still find myself appreciating the simple geography of Ireland. The motorway becomes less a route and more a transition between different parts of my life. It is, to steal a phrase, a pathway that goes on and on - and you never know when you will be swept off your feet on an adventure. In truth, I was looking forward to getting ‘home’. Earlier that weekend I had treated myself to a new television. After months of watching every euro, it felt like a small indulgence and I was already imagining settling down to watch the upcoming World Cup on a screen worthy of the occasion. Sitting alongside the television in the back of my silver Nissan Serena was my racing bike. The weather had improved, the Waterford Greenway was calling, and I was quietly looking forward to rediscovering some fitness after a year that had involved rather too much sitting, driving and worrying. Looking back, it strikes me that Serena was carrying two very different visions of the summer ahead. A television for watching life. A bicycle for participating in it. Between them sat a collection of plans, possibilities and assumptions about what the coming months would hold. The television represented future evenings. The bike represented future mornings. Between them sat a collection of ordinary plans and modest hopes. It was somewhere on that familiar stretch of the M1 that something happened which felt as though it belonged in an episode of The X-Files. There was no bang. No grinding of gears. No warning light suddenly illuminating the dashboard in angry red. No dramatic mechanical protest announcing that something was wrong. One moment I was cruising along in the familiar rhythm of motorway driving. Next, the accelerator simply ceased to have meaning. I pressed it. Nothing. Not hesitation. Not reduced power. Nothing. For a brief moment the van continued forward as though unaware of its own condition. Momentum carried it onward while the speedometer needle began a slow, almost reluctant descent. It felt as though some invisible hand had quietly reached into the engine bay and severed the relationship between intention and action. I pressed the accelerator again. Still nothing. The silence … unsettled. Modern machines usually complain when they are dying. They shudder, rattle, vibrate or scream. This failure arrived with the eerie calmness of a switched-off light. Together Serena and I soared, albeit briefly along a horizontal plane - a silent waltz. And as in a dance where one's partner misses a step - I did not panic. There was no rush of fear, no sense of paralysis, no internal drama. Instead, my mind became strangely quiet. I recognised that the lane beside me was empty, glided across, onto the hard shoulder and switched on the hazard lights. STOPPED. At the time it seemed unremarkable. Looking back, it may have been the most important fact of the entire day - I was fortunate that the adjacent lane was empty. Only afterwards did I reflect on how odd my calmness seemed. I had never trained for fuel-system failure on a motorway. Nobody had ever rehearsed this scenario with me. Yet when the moment arrived, there was an almost automatic composure. Perhaps that calmness came from somewhere else. Perhaps age helps. By sixty one has survived enough unexpected events to recognise that panic rarely improves a situation. Over the course of a lifetime, we accumulate experiences that teach us how to function when plans fail. Teachers do it daily. Leaders do it regularly. Parents do it constantly. Anyone who has emigrated, changed careers, navigated unfamiliar cultures or spent years studying martial arts learns a similar lesson: reality rarely follows the script. The specific event may be unfamiliar. The process is not. Assess. Prioritise. Act. As I sat waiting for recovery, I found myself becoming unexpectedly angry. Not because I was worried about the repair bill. Not because I was stranded on the side of one of Ireland's busiest roads. And not even because I might have died. I was angry because someone else might have. Had traffic been heavier, had another driver been distracted, had a lorry been following more closely, had circumstances unfolded a few seconds differently, the outcome could have been far worse. What troubled me was not my own vulnerability but the realisation that, without warning, I had become part of a chain of events over which I no longer exercised meaningful control. Most of us live with a comforting illusion. We tell ourselves that we are driving the car. In reality, we are participating in an extraordinarily complex network of probabilities. Every journey depends upon thousands of successful events occurring simultaneously. The fuel pump works. The brakes work. The tyres maintain their grip. The steering responds. The road surface behaves as expected. The driver in the next lane remains attentive. The truck driver behind us is not exhausted. The teenager approaching from the opposite direction is not glancing down at a mobile phone. We rarely notice these successes because they occur with such astonishing reliability. The mathematician sees probability. The rest of us mistake probability for certainty. My Serena had started successfully thousands of times. It had carried me to work, to family gatherings, to interviews, to appointments and errands. Somewhere along the way I stopped recognising each successful journey as a remarkable statistical achievement and began treating it as a law of nature. Then, somewhere on the M1, reality politely corrected me. The experience also reminded me why road-safety campaigns matter. Every summer we hear familiar warnings about alcohol, drugs, fatigue and distraction. Most of us can recite them by heart. Many quietly dismiss them as repetitive lectures. Yet a mechanical failure taught me something those campaigns understand very well. Safety is often the product of surplus capacity. A sober, attentive driver confronted with an unexpected problem still possesses options. Time to react. Space to manoeuvre. Mental bandwidth to make good decisions. Add alcohol, fatigue, distraction or poor judgement and that surplus begins to disappear. The same event that becomes an inconvenience under one set of circumstances becomes a tragedy under another. A failed fuel pump is not necessarily fatal. A failed fuel pump combined with exhaustion, poor judgement, excessive speed and bad luck can be. Only a week earlier, as my students prepared for their State examinations, I had hung one of my favourite posters in the classroom: Keep Calm and Carry On. Like many familiar phrases, it had become almost invisible through repetition. A slogan. A cliché. A relic from another age. Yet somewhere on the M1, with the engine dead and the hard shoulder approaching, I found myself doing exactly that. Not because I had trained for this situation. Not because I possessed some special courage. Simply because there was work to be done. Find the gap. Change lanes. Reach the shoulder. Turn on the hazards. Call for assistance. Keep calm. Carry on. Looking back, what strikes me most is not the breakdown itself but the strange partnership between competence and chance. As I said, it was fortunate that the adjacent lane was empty. Had circumstances been slightly different, my options would have been fewer. Yet luck alone would not have solved the problem any more than skill alone could have guaranteed the outcome. We often speak of the odds as though they are either with us or against us. They are neither. The odds do not care. Probability has no favourites. The countless variables that shape our journeys, our careers, our relationships and our lives are not arranged according to fairness or intent. They are not rewards or punishments. They are simply part of the conditions within which we live. What remains within our control is how we respond when certainty evaporates. On Saturday, Serena was simply my car. On Sunday, it became a reminder. Every journey depends upon countless things going right. So does every life. Keep calm and carry on. Not because everything will be fine. Not because the odds are in your favour. But because the odds are neither with you nor against you. They simply are. アイルランドのドロヘダで週末を過ごした後、私はウォーターフォードへ向かっていた。学年末試験、立て続けの面接、将来への不確実性――心身ともに疲れていたが、帰路には小さな楽しみもあった。ワールドカップ観戦のために購入した新しいテレビと、ウォーターフォード・グリーンウェイを走るためのロードバイクが愛車セレナの後部に積まれていた。テレビは夏の夜を、バイクは夏の朝を象徴していた。 ところがM1高速道路で突然、アクセルが意味を失った。警告灯も異音もない。踏んでも反応しない。車は慣性で進み続けたが、やがて静かに速度を失っていった。不思議なことに私はパニックにならなかった。隣の車線が空いていることを確認し、車を滑らせるように移動させ、路肩に停車した。後から考えれば、その車線が空いていたことは幸運だった。 待機しながら考えたのは、私たちがいかに「確実性」という幻想の中で生きているかということだった。燃料ポンプ、ブレーキ、タイヤ、道路、周囲の運転手――無数の条件が同時に正常に機能して初めて一つの旅が成立する。数学者は確率を見る。しかし私たちの多くは、それを確実性と勘違いしている。 一週間前、私は試験を控えた生徒たちのために教室へ「Keep Calm and Carry On（落ち着いて前へ進め）」というポスターを貼った。その言葉は高速道路の路肩で思いがけず現実味を帯びた。勇気があったからではない。訓練していたからでもない。ただ、やるべきことがあったからだ。 振り返れば、この出来事は能力と運の関係を教えてくれた。技術だけでは十分ではない。幸運だけでも十分ではない。私たちはよく「運が味方した」「運に見放された」と言う。しかし確率は誰の味方でも敵でもない。 人生も旅も、無数の条件がうまく重なった結果に過ぎない。 だからこそ、落ち着いて前へ進む。 すべてが上手くいくからではない。 運が味方しているからでもない。 運は味方でも敵でもない。 ただ、そこにあるだけなのだ。  May 29, 2026 This blog is dedicated to my father, who would have turned eighty-two today. He was the smartest person I have ever known. Yet the Ireland into which he was born was not always prepared to recognise intellectual talent when it emerged from the "wrong" social or economic background. Thankfully, he eventually found places that valued his abilities and allowed him to flourish. His life taught me that talent is widely distributed, but opportunity rarely is. Over the past few weeks, I have found myself sitting in interview rooms, discussing future roles, future schools, and perhaps even a future home. It is an odd experience because every interview asks some version of the same question: "Who are you?" The answer seems simple until one realises how many versions of oneself have existed over a lifetime. The Ireland I left in 1980 no longer exists. The words I carried with me belong to another time. Some have simply faded from use. Others have evolved into something different. A few now carry meanings and implications that my younger self never considered. What was once ordinary vocabulary has become a reminder that societies learn, adapt, and occasionally outgrow themselves. Yet language is only the surface. The greater surprise has been discovering how Ireland itself has become a new discursive space while remaining in place. The streets sound different. The faces are different. The assumptions people make about identity, belonging, and community are different. Or are they? Are our assumptions really that different - I do wonder. As a child, I often found that accents revealed where a person came from. Today, they reveal very little. A young person may have grandparents from Wexford, parents from Warsaw, cousins in Toronto, and a Cork accent. Another may speak three languages before lunchtime and think nothing of it. My own children taught me this. Their blood was not 'half' anything - they are complete, cohesive, and, for some, divisive. A face no longer predicts an accent. An accent no longer predicts a history. A history no longer predicts an identity. The categories with which many of us grew up have become increasingly porous. And perhaps that is where the question of language returns. Not because words themselves matter so much, but because they reveal something deeper. A few months ago, I found myself searching for an eiderdown. The problem, of course, was that nobody seemed entirely sure what I meant. "Duvet?" someone suggested. Of course, they meant duvet. The object itself had not changed. Yet the word I instinctively reached for belonged to another Ireland. It was a small moment, almost laughably insignificant, yet it lingered with me because it seemed to capture something larger. Looking back, I suspect I was already a semiotician long before I ever encountered the word. As a university student, I became fascinated by semiotics, particularly the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and later Jacques Derrida. Yet what attracted me to their ideas was not merely their intellectual elegance. Their work gave language to experiences I had already lived. Emigration has a habit of exposing the instability of meaning. Moving from Ireland to Canada, from Canada to Japan, and eventually back to Ireland taught me that words, gestures, customs, assumptions, and identities rarely possess the permanence we imagine. Signs that appear self-evident in one society often acquire different meanings in another. A bow in Japan is not merely a bow. A handshake in Canada is not merely a handshake. A school principal occupies a different symbolic position in Tokyo than in Toronto. Ideas such as community, authority, success, diversity, religion, belonging, and even humour carry different meanings depending upon the cultural contexts in which they operate. Long before I studied semiotics, I lived it. Saussure argued that language consists of signs. Every sign contains a signifier—the word itself—and a signified—the concept to which it refers. The relationship between the two is neither natural nor permanent. It exists because communities collectively agree upon it. For a time. The emigrant occupies an unusual position within this system. We leave carrying a collection of signs whose meanings appear self-evident. Yet while we are away, the society that produced those meanings continues to evolve. The signifiers remain familiar. The signifieds shift. The word remains. The meaning moves. The longer one lives abroad, the more visible this becomes. Derrida merely pushed the argument further. Meaning, he suggested, is never finally settled. What appears stable is often little more than a temporary agreement between speakers. Returning to Ireland, I increasingly suspect that countries can be read in much the same way. The Ireland I left, and the Ireland to which I returned, employ many of the same signs—Irishness, community, family, education, belonging—but the meanings attached to those signs continue to evolve. The Ireland of my childhood often imagined identity as singular and relatively stable. Modern Ireland increasingly reveals identity as layered, fluid, and negotiated. This is not evidence of a society losing itself. It is evidence of a society becoming more complex. Indeed, complexity may be one of modern Ireland's greatest strengths. I can stand on an Irish street today and hear Polish, Arabic, French, Mandarin, Yoruba, Ukrainian, and countless other languages. I can meet young people whose names do not predict their accents, whose accents do not predict their histories, and whose histories do not fit neatly within the categories that shaped previous generations. The signs of Irishness remain. They are constructed. The meanings continue to expand. To do otherwise is to stagnate. Many of the students now sitting in Irish classrooms inhabit multiple cultural, cognitive and spiritual worlds simultaneously. They move between family cultures, school cultures, friendship groups, online communities, national identities, and global influences with a fluency that would have seemed remarkable when I was their age. In many respects, they are already living the reality that semiotics describes. They navigate competing meanings every day. They interpret multiple cultural codes. They construct identities from diverse influences. They are required to make sense of a world that is simultaneously more connected and more complex than any previous generation has known. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in education. Schools are, in many respects, places where societies negotiate meaning. They are places where histories are remembered, challenged, revised, and occasionally reclaimed. They are places where young people learn not only what to know, but how to understand themselves and others. Yet I sometimes worry that parts of our educational and political systems remain trapped within the assumptions of an earlier Ireland. Too often, institutional thinking still gravitates towards familiar networks, familiar categories, and familiar solutions. The old habits of gatekeeping, backslapping, and protecting established ways of doing things have not disappeared entirely. At times, it feels as though some of our institutions are still preparing young people for a world that no longer exists. Nostalgia is not always the best-tasting or most nutritious. The students sitting in Irish classrooms today are not preparing for the Ireland of 1980. They are preparing for the Ireland of 2050. That distinction matters. The role of education cannot simply be to transmit inherited knowledge unchanged from one generation to the next. It must also help young people navigate complexity, engage thoughtfully with difference, and develop the intellectual flexibility required to participate in an increasingly interconnected world. Our responsibility is not to mould young people into our image. It is to equip them to become themselves fully. As I sit in interview rooms, reflecting on future roles and possibilities, I find myself repeatedly returning to that conviction. The future of Ireland will not be built by recreating the Ireland I left behind. Nor should it be. It will be built by young people whose experiences, identities, and perspectives differ profoundly from those of previous generations. Their complexity is not a problem to be solved. It is a strength to be cultivated. Perhaps that is the most important lesson I have learned upon coming home. Not that Ireland changed while I was away. That was inevitable. Rather, I have come to appreciate that meaning itself never stopped moving. The signs remained familiar. The meanings evolved. And somewhere between an eiderdown and a duvet, between memory and reality, between the Ireland I left and the Ireland I found, lies the ongoing conversation through which both people and nations continually reinvent and reinterpret themselves. Closing Thought: Perhaps this is one reason why education remains so important to me. My father grew up in a version of Ireland, where intellectual ability and opportunity did not always travel together. Talent existed everywhere, but pathways often did not. The signs of merit, intelligence, and potential were frequently interpreted through the lenses of class, geography, family background, or social expectation. Modern Ireland has undoubtedly matured. Yet the lesson remains relevant. If we are serious about creating a society that benefits from the talents of all its people, then our schools must become places where potential is recognised rather than assumed, where opportunity is expanded rather than restricted, and where young people are supported not because they fit existing categories but because they possess capacities that may not yet be visible. The future of Ireland will depend upon how successfully we identify and nurture talent in all its forms, particularly among those whose voices might otherwise go unheard. Now, if I can just get some well-meaning people to stop explaining my weird accent every time they introduce me. Boxes don’t fit me well. And at 6ft 6 - they never fit Dad either. 私は1980年にアイルランドを離れ、カナダ、日本を経て再び故郷へ戻った。その帰郷の過程で最も驚いたのは、街並みの変化ではなく、「意味」の変化だった。かつて当たり前だった言葉は姿を変え、一部は消え、一部は新しい意味を帯びていた。ある日、「eiderdown（羽毛布団）」を探していて通じず、「duvet」と言い換えられた時、その小さな違和感が大きな問いへと繋がった。 大学でソシュールやデリダの記号論に出会ったが、振り返れば私はその理論を学ぶ前から生きていたのだと思う。アイルランド、カナダ、日本という異なる文化を渡り歩く中で、言葉だけでなく、礼儀、権威、共同体、成功、教育といった概念の意味が場所によって変化することを経験した。記号は同じでも、その意味内容は決して固定されていない。 現代アイルランドもまた同様である。私が育った頃のアイルランドと今日のアイルランドは、同じ「アイルランドらしさ」という言葉を使いながらも、その意味は大きく広がっている。教室には多様な文化的背景を持つ若者たちが集い、複数の言語や価値観の間を自然に行き来している。彼らは日々、異なる意味体系を読み解きながら生きている。  Bibliographic Entry Mizoguchi, N. (2024). Judo and Gender in Japan. The Arts and Sciences of Judo, 4(2), 19–27. Friday Academic Reflective Thinking (on Budo) – Judo and Gender in JapanOver the past year I have found myself reflecting increasingly upon the state of contemporary Budo, particularly within Japan. Recent discussions with a colleague who practises judo locally prompted me to revisit broader questions regarding the role of martial arts within modern society. Simultaneously, reports concerning harassment and problematic institutional practices within certain areas of contemporary judo culture have raised important questions regarding authority, pedagogy, and organisational structures. Such concerns appear particularly relevant given that judo, like many forms of Budo in Japan, faces changing social expectations and declining participation rates. Although I no longer practise judo regularly, I have long regarded Jigōrō Kanō as perhaps one of the strongest examples of a Meijin in the modern era. Not merely as a technician or founder, but as an educator whose aspirations extended beyond technical instruction towards broader personal and social development. In many respects, I have often viewed Kanō as someone I aspire to emulate both as a teacher and as a Budoka. Against this broader context, Mizoguchi’s (2024) Judo and Gender in Japan offers an informative and timely contribution. Situating the Article within the Field Over the last two decades, martial arts studies has increasingly emerged as an interdisciplinary field that extends beyond narrow technical descriptions and historical chronologies towards broader analyses of identity, culture, politics, embodiment, and social structures (Bowman, 2015; Bowman, 2017). Rather than treating martial arts simply as systems of combat or self-defence, scholars increasingly examine them as complex cultural practices embedded within wider historical and social contexts (Farrer & Whalen-Bridge, 2011). Within scholarship concerning women in judo specifically, considerable research has focused upon physiological performance, competition histories, and the biographies of pioneering female practitioners. However, a smaller body of literature has explored broader historical and social dimensions of gender within martial practice (Miarka et al., 2011; Callan et al., 2018). Mizoguchi’s article contributes meaningfully to this latter body of scholarship. Rather than simply examining when women entered judo, the article asks more fundamentally how and under what institutional conditions participation became possible. This shift in focus is significant because it reframes women’s judo not as a linear narrative of progress but as a product of negotiation between social expectations, institutional structures, and competing pedagogical philosophies. Strengths of the Article One of the strongest features of the article lies in its rejection of simplified historical narratives. Rather than presenting women’s participation in judo as a straightforward movement from exclusion towards inclusion, Mizoguchi instead demonstrates the complexity and contradictions characterising this development. Particularly noteworthy is the treatment of Jigōrō Kanō. Contemporary martial arts discourse frequently portrays Kanō in idealised terms as an educational reformer, visionary founder, and progressive moderniser. Mizoguchi presents a considerably more nuanced interpretation. Kanō appears simultaneously supportive and restrictive: encouraging women’s education and physical development while maintaining limitations concerning competition and participation (Mizoguchi, 2024). A second strength lies in the article’s comparative institutional perspective. The contrast between Kōdōkan policies and regional organisational practices is particularly valuable. Whereas the Kōdōkan sought to preserve specific educational and organisational structures, local federations occasionally demonstrated greater flexibility in implementing practices and participation (Mizoguchi, 2024). Finally, the article succeeds in situating judo within broader social transformations occurring within Japanese society. Rather than treating martial arts as isolated phenomena independent of wider social contexts, Mizoguchi demonstrates the interaction between judo and shifting educational, political, and gendered expectations. Areas for Further Development Despite these strengths, several areas could benefit from further development. First, while institutional structures and policies receive considerable attention, the experiences and perspectives of female practitioners themselves remain comparatively underdeveloped. Readers receive relatively limited insight into how individual women experienced and negotiated these systems. Several questions consequently remain:
Second, while Mizoguchi generally interprets Kanō’s restrictions as emerging primarily from educational concerns rather than discriminatory intent (Mizoguchi, 2024), greater engagement with alternative interpretations may have strengthened the analysis. Finally, greater international comparison may also have proved useful. More sustained comparison with women’s experiences outside Japan may have helped distinguish uniquely Japanese developments from broader patterns across martial cultures. Future Directions and Next Steps Mizoguchi’s work opens several productive pathways for future research. First, greater attention to oral histories and practitioner narratives could provide insight into how institutional policies were experienced at individual levels. Second, contemporary research might examine whether historical structures continue to shape organisational cultures within judo today. Questions concerning hierarchy, authority, gender expectations, and institutional responses remain highly relevant. Finally, comparative work across other Budo disciplines, including karate, kendo, and aikido, may reveal broader patterns extending beyond judo itself. Conclusion Ultimately, the significance of Mizoguchi’s article extends beyond women’s participation in judo alone. The article raises broader questions concerning the relationship between institutions, ideals, and historical memory within martial arts culture. Martial arts frequently present themselves through narratives of continuity, tradition, and universal principles. Yet martial arts studies increasingly remind us that such systems are also social products shaped by historical circumstances and institutional choices (Bowman, 2015). Mizoguchi’s article, therefore, serves as a useful reminder that Budo does not exist outside society. Rather, it reflects, reproduces, and occasionally challenges the assumptions of the societies from which it emerges. 本稿はMizoguchi（2024）の『Judo and Gender in Japan』を武道研究（Martial Arts Studies）の文脈の中で位置づけ、その学術的意義と課題を検討したものである。本論文の重要な貢献は、女子柔道の歴史を単純な進歩の物語としてではなく、制度、社会規範、教育理念の相互作用として分析している点にある。特に嘉納治五郎を理想化された創始者像としてではなく、進歩的側面と制約的側面の双方を持つ歴史的人物として描いている点は興味深い。一方で、女性実践者自身の経験や視点については十分な検討がなされておらず、口述史や個人の語りを用いた研究の必要性も示唆される。また、柔道のみならず空手、剣道、合気道など他武道との比較研究も今後の課題として考えられる。本論文は武道を社会的・文化的文脈の中で理解する重要性を示している。 |
James M. HatchInternational Educator who happens to be passionate about Chito Ryu Karate. Born in Ireland, educated in Canada, matured in Japan Archives
April 2026
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