20 September 2026
Why did Mikinosuke Kawaishi say there’s no point in understanding before learning? Explore repetition, mushin, and embodied skill in martial arts.
Shut Up & Train: Why Mikinosuke Kawaishi Wanted You to Stop “Understanding” Martial Arts
We live in the golden age of martial arts over-analysis.
Spend five minutes on YouTube or Reddit and you'll find thousands of words dissecting the exact biomechanics of a hip throw, the frame-by-frame leverage of a guard pass, or hyper-specific counter-strategies for positions you haven't even trained yet.
We want to intellectualize everything.
We want to know why a technique works before we even know how to move our feet.
Mikinosuke Kawaishi, the legendary “Father of French Judo & Jujutsu,” offered a remarkably simple antidote to this tendency. He wrote:
There’s no point in understanding before learning.
“There’s no point in understanding before learning.”
At first glance, that sounds almost anti-intellectual. Surely we're supposed to understand what we're doing?
Of course we are.
But Master Kawaishi was not arguing against understanding. He was recognizing something that is easy to forget – especially in our age when virtually everything can be discussed, dissected, debated, filmed, slowed down, and analyzed before we ever put it into practice.
There is a difference between understanding something intellectually and actually knowing it.
And in martial arts, that difference can't be overstated.
Mikinosuke Kawaishi
One of the peculiarities of martial arts is that the beginner often wants an explanation that they aren’t even yet equipped to understand.
- Why does the throw work?
- Why this grip?
- Why this angle?
- What if the opponent steps back?
- What if he grabs here instead?
- Or the countless variations of “What if...?”
These are usually legitimate questions. Eventually, they become very important questions.
But sometimes they are being asked too soon. Way too soon!
If you have never actually felt someone lose their balance, experienced the precise moment when a throw becomes effortless, or tried to execute a technique against someone who is actively resisting you, an intellectual explanation of those things can only take you so far…and frankly, it isn’t very far at all.
You cannot fully analyze a sensation you haven't experienced.
If you're standing on the mats debating the physics of a throw, you aren't throwing.
There is absolutely a time for discussion. There is a time for deep analysis. And there is a time to simply grab your partner and do the damn technique!
This is where Kawaishi's statement becomes particularly potent.
Learning a technique initially involves a lot of things that feel mechanical and, frankly, sometimes rather odd or even “stupid.”
Put your foot here.
Bend your knees. Bend them more.
Moshé Feldenkrais & Mikinosuke Kawaishi
Turn your hips.
Grip here, not here.
Step in.
Pull.
Push.
Again.
Do it again.
Again.
At first, you may have no idea why all of those pieces matter.
That's okay. Trust the process.
You are building the physical experience that will eventually allow the explanation to mean something.
The first hundred repetitions may simply teach you what to do. The next several hundred may begin to teach you how it feels when you do it correctly. Eventually, you begin to discover why it works.
And somewhere along the way, something interesting happens: the intellectual explanation and the physical experience finally meet!
That's real understanding!
Not merely knowing the words. Not being able to explain leverage. Not being able to draw arrows on a whiteboard showing the direction of kuzushi. Not intellectualizing how or why it should happen this way or that way.
Moshe Feldenkrais
Knowing it in your body! This is where, when stuff hits the fan, you really need to know it. The body.
This is one of the reasons repetition is so important in martial arts.
We often talk about “muscle memory,” although the phrase is somewhat misleading. Muscles don't actually remember techniques in the way the brain remembers facts.
What repetition does is something more useful. It makes movement increasingly familiar. It reduces hesitation. It teaches your nervous system to recognize positions, pressures, angles, and opportunities without requiring you to consciously work through every step.
This becomes particularly important when dealing with a resisting opponent.
Martial arts don't happen at the speed of intellectual analysis.
Hierarchy of Competence
If someone throws a punch at you, you don't want to think:
He is beginning a right cross. Based upon the angle of his shoulder and rotation of his hips, I should now initiate Step Four of my preferred defensive sequence...
By the time you've finished the sentence, you've been punched in the face.
The goal of training is not to stop thinking. The goal is to move some things beyond the need for conscious thought.
Mushin. No mind.
And that takes repetition. A lot of repetition.
Of course, none of this should be confused with “just train and never think.”
Understanding matters. Analysis matters. Questions matter. In fact, the more advanced you become, the more important they become.
But there is a sequence to these things.
A beginner who spends an hour debating the mechanics of a technique before performing it isn't necessarily demonstrating a deeper understanding. He may simply be substituting talking about martial arts for doing martial arts.
And this isn't limited to beginners…
Experienced martial artists can fall into the same trap. Some will pontificate and intellectualize to death. Falling in love with how “deep” their intellect is.
The internet has made it incredibly easy to consume martial arts information without actually training. We can watch ten demonstrations of a technique. We can compare five different instructors. We can study slow-motion footage. We can debate the optimal angle. We can explain the biomechanics to someone else.
And still not be able to do the technique…
Knowing about a technique isn't the same as knowing the technique.
So the next time your sensei demonstrates something and your immediate instinct is to ask three “What if?” questions, maybe pause for a moment.
I'm not saying don't ask.
I'm saying learn it first.
Grab your partner.
Try it.
Do it badly.
Get corrected.
Try it again.
Do it 50 times. Then 500.
Feel what happens when your partner moves differently. Feel what happens when your timing is late. Feel what happens when your angle is wrong. Feel what happens when, for just one repetition, everything comes together.
Now ask why.
The question will probably be different.
And more importantly, you will be different when you ask it.
You won't be trying to understand an abstract description of a movement. You'll be trying to understand something you've actually experienced.
That is a very different kind of knowledge.
Kawaishi wasn't telling us to stop thinking. He was reminding us that thinking isn't always the first step toward understanding.
Sometimes you have to learn first.
Then repeat.
Then experience.
Then question.
Then understand.
And then repeat again.
Eventually, if you've done your job well, you may reach the point where you no longer need to think about the technique at all.
You simply do it.
Perhaps that is what Kawaishi was getting at.
There is no point in understanding before learning.
So shut up and train.
