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Club, Dojo, or a School?
By Ivan Zdravkovic, of the Shinbukan Dojo

Not so long ago, what is today known as a Shinbukan Dojo, my private non-profit school of Japanese martial arts, was called "Budo Club Pozarevac" (Pozarevac is my home town here in Serbia). Few friends of mine participated in this, seemingly, insignificant process of turning a club into the school: one (Brett Denison sensei) gave it the name, second (Srdjan Ilic sensei) suggested the change, third (Slobodan Saric sensei) gave a support in other important forms. Yet, there are, superficially, very few changes that can be actually seen: we are still in the same public facility, a training hall of Sports Center "Pozarevac"; there are no kamiza, no shoji, no fixed tatami, nothing like that. (Not that I wouldn't love to have these things - but I am just a poor doctor of medicine in the middle of a third-world country, and I give free jujutsu and kenjutsu classes, so being a non-professional, I cannot afford renting any space that would be redesigned into a traditional dojo interior). We have the same surroundings, same members, and everything seems to be the same - except for that "weird' Japanese name that 9 out of 10 Serbs can't pronounce properly not even after hearing it for 20 or 30 times. Naturally, everyone could ask: "Well, what's the catch?" In deed, it is definitely not the type of a dojo people who love tradition would have expect. After being asked for more than couple of dozens of times what was the difference, here is what I extracted as the best answer:

  1. A club regularly possess several common organizational characteristics. Being registered with local sport and juristic authorities, it is a subject of public law - and as such it includes all the "sequels" of legal organization: Boarding Committee (management), General Assembly (legislation and supervision), Presidency (executives), Statute (rules, rights and obligations), democratic procedures (participation of all members in making decisions - directly or indirectly), and all sorts of things like that... It is a micro-society that mirrors in all of its segments the social system, the system of general social structure and organization. Unlike with the club, a dojo (even if it does not look like one) has no such things at all. First of all - dojo is regularly owned by one person. There is no place for democracy. "One dojo - one sensei". There are no other things except few manuscripts - maybe a dojo kun, maybe some small booklet for accidental visitors - but that's it. Dojo can be organized even in a cellar, garage or backyard, it does not have to be registered at all - because of the many other differences that will be mentioned in the following notes. Of course - this definitely does not mean dojo is less formally organized than the club. On the contrary! Dojo is in many aspects more formal and more stabile than the club. Only - it is simply not overloaded with modern bureaucracy.
  2. In most of the clubs (we are talking about sports clubs in general) - one enters the classes after paying the monthly fee. This may not be the case in Dojo. Club is a public place and - even though someone may watch over you and has the right to expel you if you do anything against the club rules - it mostly goes like this: as long as you pay, you stay. And even more - since the club membership fee is for most of the clubs the dominant thing in working with club members - naturally, the clubs will try to keep the members as longer as possible. Now, imagine a school that tries to keep it's students (same ones) for ages. And when I say: "keep it's students", I mean exactly that: not promoting them into assistant instructors, or making them your partners - but keeping them in ignorance and thus squeezing their money by tactically prolonging their education. THAT is the most important difference of all: in my school ONE HAS TO LEARN. It is the main goal: to learn something, learn it good and learn it fast! In a club - one can come and go, be absolutely uninterested in what he (or she) is doing, and that is very good for instructor - for as long as this "student" keeps that minimum of interest sufficient to make him (her) PAY the membership fees. As long as this is the case, no one cares whether he (she) is learning anything or not. That is the main reason clubs are faced with lot of those who hardly stay for more than couple of classes. Unlike with the clubs, in school one gets involved in regular attendance and fully concentrated education - being bonded with much stronger reasons than monthly fees: student in school loves the art more and more as he learns new things. One loves what he knows - that is an ancient rule. Now, I am not saying that in clubs people don't learn a thing - on the contrary. But if you insist from the first minute that you and your student are here, on the mats, for only one purpose - LEARNING - then many facets of club functioning drop off. In short: club has members - school has students. With all the implications of this definition!
  3. Interesting consequence of scholastic orientation is that in a school or a dojo, certain rank - which is the sign of successfully learned specific portions of the curriculum - often means a lot more than in clubs! And these ranks are issued with high precaution, seldom and with (generally) higher standards and more requirements than in clubs. A properly organized dojo or a school will not have juvenile black belts! (I must underline the term "properly organized" - because there are many training rooms that are actually using the names such as "school of martial arts", "martial arts academy", "dojo", etc, - while they actually have all the characteristics of regular club. And, on the other hand - there are many "clubs" that are real traditional schools in the best sense of that expression.)
  4. Subsequently, if you insist on calling "your place" a school, it will be more than clear that there are other specific rules of behavior in such surroundings. First of all, one can get expelled for not learning well! Does that happen in an average club? I haven't heard of it. Yes - in clubs people are mostly made quit themselves - but here you have the right to warn your student and say: "Listen, you are not putting enough of (physical or intellectual) effort in this - please do not waste my time, start listening, open your eyes and do what I tell you to do, or please leave and let the others move on." And we are now coming to another great difference between clubs and schools: in clubs we frequently see novice students being accepted on almost every class. It distracts the attention of (usually) single instructor (or insufficient number of them) - and the mechanism is "lubricated" again: the more students (members) we have in a club, the more likely is they will be on variety of different levels of progression - meaning one would need to work with many groups separately (novice, beginners, advanced beginners, intermediates, advanced students, black-belt candidates, lower DAN-grade holders, etc). Since most of the clubs cannot afford separate groups (or can afford only couple of them) - it slows down the pace of studying to the rhythm of the slowest learners. Fortunately, in school we have only one or two enrollment "seasons" - we practically have semesters and classes of students, and no one can just join in "in the middle of the school year".
  5. In dojo (and you see - now I openly identify "dojo" with "school" - both "synonyms" opposed to "club") there are not more but few students - all in accordance with its serious educational intentions. A dojo sensei (same as a school teacher) is not a coach or "trainer" - he does not look for the talents and leaves all the others to their "destiny" - sensei should never "sell" his member to another club or buy "a reinforcement" for his team - that is not the way it goes in dojo or in a school. In school we are proud with what we passed on to our students - that is the most crucial fact. I believe the ultimate dream of each descent sensei is taking an absolute beginner and bring him to the level of mastery - without any of his/her previous knowledge or experience.
  6. Having in mind the educational nature of school/dojo, we can easily draw the conclusion that clubs will put much more emphasis on competitions than the schools. It is much easier to make one state champion than one solid yudansha! And it pays better, I believe. This is maybe the most important difference of all: an average dojo (or school) will never pay much attention on competitions - unless we have a "school of kickboxing" which is - then - wrongly named - it is, essentially, a "stable" of young studs who learn what they need in matter of days, and spend the rest of their lives punching a bag...
...And so on - one after another, more and more differences come to the surface. Being a sensei who once was a head instructor in a club - and now is practically the owner of a private school, I am fully aware of all these important things. It is very useful to know what you are doing - what you are and what you are not. It draws the line between you and others - and it gives you releases you from the "obligation" of following modern trends that are slowly - but certainly - killing the true spirit of budo.

(Please visit Dr. Zdravkovic at the Shinbukan Dojo)