"Honor the men, challenge the material"

I came across this fantastic article tonight by Rob Pincus. Besides being right on target, it immediately reminded me of the Great Kata War Pat started on his blog back in January 2010. Here's the post heard 'round the world that started it all.

Thursday Thoughts, 4/14/11

I follow Rener and Ryron Gracie on Twitter (@GracieBrothers), and they tweeted some really interesting statements this morning:

Imagine if the student was not fearful of disappointing the instructor.

Imagine if the student had the freedom to study the art to the extent that they would allow all inferior positions to happen.

The path to black belt can be cut in half.

Happy and Humbled

I got a great feeling this week, and thought I'd post about it.


I've written about my buddy Josh, who I work with and train BJJ with. We've been friends since we were kids, and our families remain friends to this day. Josh has always been into martial arts. In fact, he was mostly responsible for me even giving grappling a second thought (I never really intended to train in judo until the last year or two). Way back in the day, Josh trained judo at the dojo at which I would eventually come to begin training in aikido. His only exposure to aikido was what he saw on the mats while warming up for judo classes.


For as long as I can remember, Josh has had a familiar mantra: "BJJ is superior to all other martial arts. Period." For the past couple of years as I've practiced aikido, Josh has always sort of made fun of it, "attacking" me with his "zombie arm" out in front of him, walking like Frankenstein. I never really try to convince people otherwise - I can understand what aikido looks like from the outside. I can see how it's so often misunderstood.


A couple of months ago, I got a job with the company Josh works for. In fact, my cubicle is right next to his. During occasional down times, we'll goof around and pretend to fight; everything from "Jim Carey stiff-arm knife attacks" to old-school karate kata and one-steps we remember from childhood. Just goofing off. Inevitably, Josh attacks me "aikido-style", and I usually do something from 1-9 of junana hon kata (such as I can). We just mess around and have fun.


This past couple of weeks, being so near the holidays, have been really slow at work. Wednesday afternoon, we ended up playing around again. I kept doing shomenate, and to my great surprise, Josh asked me to show him what I was doing. I explained that ideally, my reaction to an attacker getting a "certain distance" from me, would be to step off the line and get my hands up. Then I could do whatever the attacker "wanted" me to (once I'm proficient, that is) - get away, knock him down, lock him up, etc.


So while I gave a "lesson" on shomenate (and tried to give a little lesson on aiki in general), I quoted Pat: "In this situation, you might be able to do something to me, but you're going to have to do it while you're flying backwards."


Josh, being practically-minded, wanted to test the validity of what we were doing. So once we did a few reps, he started trying to figure out what he, as an attacker, could do to counter or nullify what I was doing to him. It turns out the harder he tried to press the attack, the worse his condition became, and he could tell that if we were doing this at a "realistic" speed, he would be knocked down easily (even though he's much stronger than I am, and very athletic).


I was happy he showed some interest in aikido. I always like the chance to talk about it. We left it at that. After we left work, I got a text from him: "Man, you've got me interested in aikido now". I texted back: "It really is extremely neat/interesting. And way more practical than it looks on the surface." Josh: "Yeah, I just realized how practical. Changed my whole view just now." Me: "Now you're just teasing me." Josh: "No. I'm being serious. I saw some things when we were practicing."


We had lunch together the next day. I asked him to elaborate on what he saw in our aikido practice. Josh is the kind of guy that was pretty... "adventurous" when he was younger. By that I mean he was in a ton of fights. Bar room brawls, road rage fights, etc (he's much more mature now, and less of a hot-head). He explained how just from shomenate, he could remember so many situations where he could have defended himself more successfully if he'd known aikido. He also said he could see how his wife would be able to use it to defend herself, even though she's just a slip of a girl. I told him the story of how my petite wife was able to drop another one of my friends with aikido when we were both training together (he asked her for a "lesson", haha). He said he could see how aikido might be the most practical art for real self defense.


It really does seem like his attitude toward aikido has turned around 180 degrees. It's pretty thrilling to me - and humbling that my aikido...which is no more than a couple years old, could make such a drastic difference in someone's opinion about the art. It's encouraging.

Thursday Thoughts, 8/6/09

"No matter how one may use techniques mastered in secret, if his mind becomes attached to techniques he cannot win. It is one of the greatest importance in training that the mind does not become fixed, either on the enemy's movements or one's own movements, either on striking or blocking."

~Yagyu Munenori

Thursday Thoughts, 7/16/09

I found myself with some free time over the weekend, and I was flipping through television channels. I came across a show called "Spectacles" on the Sundance channel. Basically, Elvis Costello interviews folks, and they talk about music, life, etc. Seemed like a cool show.

His guest for that night was Bill Clinton, but they were going to be talking about music, so I didn't change the channel. In case you're unaware, Clinton is a pretty good saxophone player. I'll leave any cheap shots regarding "hot air" and the like unsaid. Maybe I'm feeling generous - I didn't care for President Clinton while he was in office, but I think he was mostly harmless compared to what we have now. But I digress...

They were talking about why Clinton didn't pursue a career playing music instead of politics. His answer was something like "I looked at myself in the mirror one day, and realized that even being a great sax player, I would never be the greatest...I would never be on the level of John Coltrane or Stan Getz...and if I couldn't be among the very best, I didn't want to pursue it."

That made me think about my martial arts practice, and my expectations for how I'll progress. I don't expect I'll be the next Mike Swain, Karl Geis, or [pick any] Gracie. I don't think I'm naturally gifted "raw talent" at this stuff. I don't think I have the potential to become a household name in judo or aikido, but I still consider it a worthwhile pursuit. So I've been thinking about what I do expect from myself as I continue my training - what I want to get out of it (or give back to it, in some cases). I bet most martial artists go through a similar process at some point, and I'm sure if you asked 15 people, you'd get 13 different answers, so the answers may vary for each individual. My personal list may change with time or experience, but here's what I've come up with for myself, in no particular order:

• I want to be better able to defend myself and my family from physical attack should the need arise.
• I want to accomplish something...stick with something. As I glance back down the trail of my experience I see so many projects and goals that lay abandoned...begun with great enthusiasm, but never accomplished. I don't have a particular dan rank in mind, and I'm not under the impression that my training will ever be complete - I think I'll just know one day "Hey - I stuck with this!"
• I'd like to have influence. Not necessarily over a multitude of people, but at some point in the far future, I'd like to be able to begin teaching martial arts, and I hope that I can provide positive influence to those I teach. Not in a "guru-ish", have-all-the-answers, run-their-life kind of way though. I'd like to be a part of helping people enrich or improve their lives. I think in its proper place, martial arts can contribute to that.
• Speaking of which - I always want to keep martial arts in their proper place in my life. There can be a tendency, I think, to elevate the things we enjoy....to place more affection on them than they are due, even above things that matter much more. I'm not talking about feeling guilty for taking enjoyment in hobbies. But when martial arts occupy more of my thoughts than God or my family, for instance, something's probably out of whack.
• Speaking of which (again), I try not to divide the "sacred" and "secular" in my life. To me, it's all sacred. By that, I mean, whether I eat or drink, or work, or play, or grapple, or throw - I want everything to be full of and pointing to Jesus Christ (I Cor 10:31). I want to practice martial arts (and everything else...indeed the way I live) in such a way that Christ's work in my life and my love for Him is evident. This is my highest pursuit. Does that mean I want to preach to my opponents while I'm grappling, or wear obnoxious bumper stickers on my gi? Nah. I just want to let my light shine, so people see something in me that causes them to honor God (Matthew 5:16).
• I want to move toward a more healthy lifestyle. Drop weight, gain endurance, build muscle, and improve my diet. Maybe martial arts can help motivate me to do that.
• I want to represent traditional martial arts in such a way that promotes a respect for them (culturally, practically, and artistically).
• Unfortunately, some in Christian circles have ideas about the martial arts that are way off base (some automatically associate martial arts with demons, humanism, new age philosophy, etc). In the same way some people equate all Christians to a few isolated examples of nuts, some Christians equate all martial artists to a few examples of weirdos (you can read one example of this here). I'd like to be one of the many Christian martial artists whose very lives and training refute these ignorant ideas.

So it's not important to me that I become known as the best aikido/judo player around. My indicators of success or failure will come mostly from how closely I'm moving toward the things on my list.
Anyone care to share a list of their own?

Picking One Thing

I read a quote from my teacher today (who was paraphrasing one of his teachers) regarding aikido training:

"...you pick one thing to put into place and the rest of it goes to pot, but if you succeed in putting that one piece into place then you have succeeded at that repetition of the kata. Then you pick another aspect and your first thing goes to pieces but eventually working at it like this more than one aspect begins falling into place at a time."

I tend to go in cycles of being (somewhat) comfortable, then overwhelmed in my training. Lately, I've been going through the "overwhelmed" stage again. Not in a frustrating way...more of a sense of awe/wonder at what a deceptively complex art aikido is (that is, how freaking cool it all is!).

Anyway, it can be tough to remember and do more than a handful of things during a technique (example: don't bend your arm, don't force it, move your feet, point your center at your hand, relax, etc). I'm going to use this in my solo practice, whether with the walking kata, or practicing with my imaginary uke. I'll consider it a successful rep if I get that one thing right that I chose to focus on.

Tsukuri

I don't consider myself a great husband. Let me go ahead and say that first. Utterly devoted and loving? Yes, absolutely, but I feel I have a lot of room for improvement, as I do in many areas. So this post is not meant in any way as a peal of my own trumpet. I hope this isn't too much of a ramble, and that it makes some sort of sense. It's just an attempt to A) explain what's been tumbling through my head, and B) get back into the habit of blogging!

My wife and I were having a discussion this morning about our one-year-old's sleeping habits, and what we're going to do about them. At some point, my much better half said "We're just going to have to (whatever was said), and you're going to have to deal with it." Now, I should also point out that her tone and attitude were NOT what they may sound like from what I just typed. My wife is as sweet and un-bossy as can be. But as I considered her words (knowing she didn't mean them that way), I thought of how careful we should be in our communication. Sometimes we get used to certain tones-of-voice, knowing that the people we're around most "get" us, and understand what we mean and what we don't mean. Since we're used to it, it can carry over into our conversations in the workplace, or among strangers. I think it's important to be aware of how things might come across to others, who might not know our natures or idiosyncrasies.

So I carefully and good-naturedly brought it up: "Maybe when we're discussing things like this, we can approach it more from a 'team' mindset rather than one of us laying down the law and expecting the other to fall in line..."

Now, I'm not one to say Aikido fills and informs every part of my life, but I can't deny that the things we practice and think about have an influence over other, unrelated areas. When my sweetheart was telling me later "I appreciate how diplomatic you are when we have a disagreement, instead of just striking back", I thought "Is that indicative of an aiki-tude?" I'm a peaceable guy by nature anyway... but I wondered if things like this are an example of "Verbal Aikido", specifically, the "fitting" aspect (tsukuri). My response drew attention to the "togetherness" of our relationship rather than focusing on the differences (force-meets-force) of our opinions/methods.

My point is only that I should try to consider the "fitting" aspects of my interactions with others as much as I can. Both in how I express myself (in the case of my wife's statement) and in how I respond to the way others express themselves. I'm not speaking of political correctness (at all), but a mindset analogous to the tactile sensitivity we strive for with our training partners and attackers in Aikido.

"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

~ The Apostle Paul, to the Christians in Rome

Romans 12:18