Obedience

I thought that the post below was good even apart from the original context of the discussion thread.

Patrick Augé writes: Jul 24th, 2009 at 1:18 am

A teacher is a student who teaches in order to continue his study. (Mochizuki Minoru Sensei)

The question is: is our teacher here for us or is he here for himself?

How is his life style? Brand name articles, fancy cars, mindless hobbies and activities, whimsical spouses, secret personal life, etc.? Or did he prepare the proper environment and conditions to continue his study? How does he deal with daily life? Does he tell us what we want to hear or does he tell us what he thinks? Is it obvious that he has his students’ best interest at heart and has been maintaining that attitude in spite of all the model students who have left him for whatever reason?

Is the teacher a unified, integrated person in core ways – at least core in ways that are important to the individual student and the teacher himself? “Unified and integrated” don’t necessarily mean treating everyone the same. I might treat my children differently than I would an adult stranger. I might handle business relationships differently than I would a student-teacher relationship.

Having one’s students’ best interest at heart doesn’t mean giving them what they want, it means giving them what they need, which is often contradictory.

Did he leave his own teacher or was he expelled and avoids the subject or has he maintained the relationship with his teacher and often talks about him without hiding the fact that there were disagreements at times?

Is our teacher a public person, does he make himself available to his students, will he make the time to listen? How are his senior students, the product of his teachings? Is it an unreachable clique or a group of compassionate students who close the gap between our teacher and us? How do they behave when the teacher is away?

Is our teacher a human being? Is he struggling with his weaknesses and does he admit them and work on improving himself?

Those are not the only questions to ask, but they may help in seeing more clearly through one’s emotions.

In all relationships there are problems. Doubt is healthy when it leads to researching the truth in order to make a decision. Doubt is wrong when it becomes the excuse to avoid making a decision. Many students who left their teachers without fully understanding their actions and their consequences end up being treated the same way by their own students. It may go for another generation or so but will die for want of the spirit that ensures the continuation of the lineage.

When the relationship is based on the right reasons, all difficulties become opportunities to strengthen that relationship. Otherwise the slightest problem becomes the excuse for running away from the relationship.

If you decide to leave your teacher over deep disagreement with him, then do it cleanly. Return your ranks, certificates, all that which you received from him. That will be the best expression of your disagreement. Look for another teacher, explain the situation and do not expect any special treatment since you will be considered as a high risk student and will have to establish your credibility, which may take time. That may help you if you later find out that you made a mistake and want to go back to your teacher. But be ready to start again from the bottom.

If your priority is to learn, be unconditional, accept anything, do not victimize yourself.

“Unconditional”. This relates to my thoughts on faith, as I’ve written elsewhere. Many times I’ve seen people whose expectations of teachers were not met or disappointed, maybe even ravaged and shattered. For some of these people, they could not follow that teacher anymore, at least not in any way that requires them to open up their heart to their teacher.

To open up your heart to your teacher and have faith in them does not mean, necessarily, that the teacher will see this and get something out of it. The primary goal and consequence is that you, the student, see more of what the teacher has to offer, and accordingly receive more of the good stuff from the teacher. (Perhaps as a further consequence of this (ie that you are getting it), the teacher may see what is happening and your mutual relationship deepens.)

To have faith in your teacher means to try to see that which they may be clumsily trying to get across to you, that which they may imperfectly be striving to achieve. Maybe the teacher is socially inept, verbally crude, interpersonally sloppy, etc. To have faith means to accept that the teacher might be imperfect and clumsy in some respects, but to recognize whether those imperfections do not fundamentally interfere or obstruct your learning from the teacher. This recognition includes grasping that how and how much you are bothered by those imperfections is your issue – that you yourself are holding yourself back in some ways from learning from the teacher.

To have faith means to be accepting, patient, generous, and open-minded. In the case of relating to a teacher, it helps greatly to have a heart of gratitude and humility, selflessness and devotion. These not only clear away the clutter of your own issues that may interfere with your learning, but in the context of relating to the teacher as another person, they may go a long way to communicating to the other person where you stand and how you wish to relate to him. If you want to be treated as an equal, a customer, a peer, a rival, an advisor, etc. – of course the way you present yourself to your teacher will influence how he sees you and will see fit to relate to you.

Many people in the above forum had strong reactions against excessive obedience, or against obedience in general. There was a similar mentality seen in this thread about burkinis. What is this fear or aversion toward giving yourself over to someone or something?

“Do not victimize yourself”. Does the teacher seem to require you to completely debase yourself in order to relate to you as a student? Does the teacher encourage you to prostrate yourself possibly excessively? Does the teacher encourage you to beware of how you realize humility and selflessness? Does the teacher encourage or guide you to have awareness of your own development? Does the teacher give the impression that you should always trust his opinion over your own? The fear/aversion I mention above, it seems to be indicative a lack of reconciliation of selflessness and devotion with self-awareness and self-actualization. That is, faith, obedience, etc. – the things that would appear to go with selflessness and devotion – they seem to contradict self-awareness and a person knowing how and where he is going, and some level of responsibility for the same.

More on theoretical teaching

Naomi Klein 7:43 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO4aH5ZSb_o

When people fall in love with what seems to be a perfect theory, a set of rules, and they love those rules more than they love people or places. In fact they start to see the messy reality of life as interfering with the beauty, the imagined beauty, that exists only within their texts, only in the sacred texts whether they’re economic texts, or religious texts, or the dream of racial purity. I think we need to fear people who love systems more than people because the flipside of the love is the hatred for anything or anyone that interferes with the realization of that system. And the other thing about dangerous utopias is they can’t co-exist with other ideas. They need the whole stage.

Severity of words. I’ve seen some discussion in aikido circles where some people say that there are those out there who do aikido for a hobby. This is inevitably greeted by a number of people who don’t like being described as hobbyists (and somehow identified themselves as being targeted by the term that they stigmatize). I sympathize with those who react in this way because I myself consider aikido a bigger and more pervasive aspect of my life than “just” a hobby. However, I admit that I don’t make a living from it and if it somehow ceased to be a part of my life I wouldn’t necessarily need to replace it as I would with a job, or be devastated as I would with a child. For the sake of convenience, when someone uses the word “hobby” to refer to what I do, I try to accept the situation and the point they’re trying to get at, particularly if the discussion is not contingent on their interpretation of my practice as a hobby. At times I will paranthetically insert, “Well, a serious hobby (but anyway, go on)…”

The word “hatred” in the quote struck me as something most people are not prepared to acknowledge in themselves. I reckon most people would feel more comfortable with another word, and perhaps even feel an urge to qualify the particular contexts in which they would have this stance or feeling. However, humans are nothing if not clever and making excuses, procrastinating, reframing something in order to reduce discomfort, etc. are ways we exercise our cleverness.

In my own introspection (and this brought me, virtually out of necessity, to simultaneously cultivate compassion), I have expanded my view for the ways in which I am “bad”. This includes the ways I may manifest or embody “hatred”. In my case, I can recognize this as being suspicious or even just wary of others, looking down upon others, being dismissive of others, feeling superior when I juxtapose myself to specific others, avoiding, believing that I know everything about others, becoming irritated or impatient with others, keeping only to those who are like myself, etc. As you can see, these are all ways in which my hatred might manifest toward those who muddle up the beauty that I perceive in the theory, or frame, that I love or advocate.

The necessity for introspection re: use of words and frames.”Connected”, “accepting”, “responsible”, “mature”. The connotations of words. Mystification of ideas, actions, even reality. All too often we encounter use of words such that we know what they mean on an intellectual level, but they don’t reach us on a gut level. Or the words are so mundane that when they might be intended to inspire or illuminate, they fail because we “already” know. Often, when a theory comes with certain catch phrases or words, those words take on a mystical status. It’s an especially tough spot to be the creator or a proponent of a theory, when using those words, because the words may be received differently by different person. It’s part of the problem of a theory being perceived as something that will be perceived the same or very similar by everyone.

When we try to implement a better or grander or deeper meaning of “connectedness”, for instance, it is pretty easy for a person to come to feel better connected with people, but the people around wouldn’t necessarily agree. So, is that person’s experience of “connectedness” driven by a compulsion to realize the theory and all its glory, so that he becomes more susceptible to deluding himself that he is connected? And is that “connectedness” of the theory the same for everyone? or does the theory “presume” that each person will experience it differently? or does the theory “presume” that each person’s experience will evolve? And, regardless if it’s the same experience for everyone, do the people around the individual also experience the connectedness or is it just the person who is trying to realize the theory who is experiencing it? And does the individual, expectedly or inadvertently, during his development of “connectedness” start to see what others label as “connected” as not the genuine thing, completely different from what he himself is developing? (ie how does the individual see and act relative to other interpretations of the word?)

And, regarding a theory “presuming” people realizing it in this way or that: does the individual, and do we as objective observers, concern himself with what the originators of the theory presumed or intended? If the originator is not available, at what point do we stop wondering what he was thinking, how he was seeing the world, etc. and take ownership of our own point of view and consequent interpretations?

The necessity for introspection re: one’s vision. I’ve found lacking in general people’s (including myself) tendency to go only so far in imagining how everything would be if it went according to the way they thought it should.

For instance, many people imagine a more peaceful world. I wonder how many people have given time to be astounded and appreciative of how “enlightened” people would be in that world. People would be able to hold on to things as high value and high priority but have no hang ups or attachments when they encounter people who have different values and priorities. People wouldn’t feel perplexed or disturbed by anything others did – other people’s actions would not be digusting, aberrant, “wrong”, etc. If two people had mutually exclusive wants or values (eg wanting a single thing) they would not only be patient enough to sort out and negotiate this difficult situation, they would be pretty intelligent and innovative also. People wouldn’t be perturbed or perplexed by what they didn’t know about others – there would be no suspicion, no hoarding, no preparing against others. No insecurity. No anxiety. Or, in this imaginary world, maybe I could get anxious but the majority of people around me would a) have time for me and b) help to alleviate my anxiety so that my anxiety and I don’t have a primary effect on society, that society continues overall to function in a non-anxiety based way?

This idea of the overall vision relates to concern for the originator of a theory also. Taking, for example, Skinner’s theory of behavioral psychology where all organisms behave only according to previous experiences being rewarding or punishing: If I implemented his theory simplistically relative to my misbehaving child, I’d simply use various punishments until his misbehaving stopped. If it didn’t work, I might dismiss the theory. If it did work but my child started staying away from me, then I might think, now what? According to the theory, reward him for coming near and punish him for staying away? At some point any person will start to see how endless and complex it is to actualize the theory. Not to imply that it should be easier or harder, but at some point, I think it’s beneficial to wonder, how did Skinner see the world? How did he see his theory as applicable to the world? If I stuck simplistically to his theory, I’d think he saw the world as depressingly mechanical. I’d wonder if he had any appreciation for creativity or joy. And if I thought to myself, No, I don’t believe Skinner was such an unfeeling, simplistic person, I might delve more deeply into his theory.

Nonviolent Communication – an example. I’ve encountered various people who are “into” NVC to some extent or another. One pattern I’ve noticed is that they point out to me when I use a non-NVC communication ie a “violent” communication(?). It occurred to me to ask, Are you able to be nonviolent only with other nonviolent people? That must be pretty taxing, to go through day to day life, full of non-nonviolent communicators, those people who are muddying up the world that the theory presents as possible. What thoughts and emotions must fill the day of a NVC-er? Every moment, thinking, Hey, that’s a judgment; God, this person is making a request in a really inefficient way, etc.

Of course, I am referring to people who are able to realize the theory only so far. Even without knowing the originator, I think ti myself, there’s no way that he/she intended to come up with a theory so that NVCers could only comfortable hang out with other NVCers. He/she must have intended something to help people deal with a largely non-NVCer world, maybe even by putting into the world less “violent” communication, making the world a more nonviolent place. Based on that, I infer that to realize the NVC theory is, implicitly, to pursue self-mastery eg of the “Hey!”s and “God!”s, while communicating in an NVC way oneself.

Remedying disharmony

http://agasan.no-blog.jp/hitorigoto/2009/08/post_0daf.html

108 »Remedying disharmony

Aikido practice takes place according to an agreement. When your right foot is supposed to go forward, you move it forward; when your left foot is supposed to go back, you move it back – the broad movements are managed in this way. It is not as strict as traditional martial arts, but I think that aikido practice still belongs to the category of kata practice. In traditional martial arts, the movements are even more specified – that is, let alone the movements of the hands and feet, the movements of the fingers and the workings of the eyes (‘metsuke’) are stipulated. In aikido, there are few places that instruct so specifically or strictly. If it’s approximately correct, then it’s okay. However, as soon as a beginner makes a movement that is inaccurate or different, he/she is corrected immediately – this is absolutely to be expected, and the fundamental way to proceed, I believe.

However, after a certain time, those who have practiced enough that they can do the form without an inconsistencies (approximately from 2-dan) should start to be able to handle situations in which the partner does not move according to the agreement. This is my belief because, even though it is supposedly a method with health benefits, aikido still carries the label of ‘budo’. (I acknowledge that this is my own thinking and should not necessarily be imposed upon those who do not agree.)

Not just beginners, but among yudansha also there are people who do not move according to the correct, prescribed movements. We may overlook some kinds of exaggeration or inaccuracies if they are included in a demonstration intentionally, but it is a problem if such things are included in normal practice. If they are included, then it is likely what those people have been doing all along due to mistakenly memorizing something or not recognizing the importance of forms. It may be easy to criticize or caution such people, but it is also necessary to convey exactly why it is wrong.

Also, there are people who grossly misapprehend the meaning of forms practice, and consequently fall off balance even though their balance wasn’t taken, or see a point where should be off balance and forcefully stay standing, etc. If someone loses their balance all by themselves, reflecting an unconstructive habituation to the forms practice, they can remedy that tendency if they are cautioned. The problem is people who awkwardly hold their ground, and think that they are correct in doing so – when told, “That’s incorrect,” they often think that the person speaking is unskilled or lacking (yudansha are especially rigid in this tendency).

Regarding such people, though unfortunate, it is probably necessary to “reach down deeper” or be clever in order to deal with them. That is, if they don’t lose their balance as a result of the correct movement, then one needs to move in a way that is unexpected to the person. (At this point it already ceases to be forms practice, but rather actual application.)

Taking ikkyo as an example: In the case of right hanmi shomen-uchi omote, both partners first step forward with the right foot and their right handblades meet (and of course tori’s left hand goes to uke’s elbow). Next, tori steps forward with his left foot and cuts down with his handblade – accordingly, uke starts to turn away. At this point, uke’s feet are supposed to stay in the same position, but sometimes a person steps forward (away) with the right foot. In actuality, this movement is an indication of tori’s incomplete technique, or skill; it is a movement that leads to a reversal. When tori applies a balance break, and uke can move his feet freely, then the balance break failed.

In order to prevent uke from stepping with the right foot, instead of tori pushing uke’s arm forward, he should cut downward or step in between uke’s feet with his left foot. Thus tori can prevent uke from stepping forward – but what to do when uke has already stepped forward is the innovation I would like to discuss here, in relation to the topic of situations when there is deviation from the agreement.

This is very simple. [technical discussion]

Now, one sticking point is, this kind of technical innovation that is not “loyal” to the fundamentals – it is a point to consider, whether to practice such things as aikido practice. In the world of traditional martial arts, technical changes and innovations are restricted to the successors of individual arts. If any other person were to do so, it would only be when they leave the school and start their own lineage. A representative case of this is when Kano Jigoro founded Kodokan judo and its array of techniques from koryu jujutsu. The was an inevitable consequence of having matches.

It may be a stretch to apply that exactly to aikido, which does not have matches. I myself wonder if it is not forgivable to have some degree of innovation as a way of maintaining and explaining the rationale of the basic forms, and as a modern budo that is associated with the hope to embody martial-ness (or practicality).

My thought process followed a similar line: if my partner changes the situation, then I will use the opportunity to use it fittingly. (The author’s example was how to do so with ikkyo, which I skipped because it was tediously, at this point, familiar to me.) But with is “fittingly”? There is a lot of social dynamics going on in a dojo. In this situation where my uke changes the situation, there are various presumptions he and I could make.

Can I presume that he can fall safely if I change my technique according to what he presents me? that he will fall smoothly, safely, skillfully, joyfully, etc? that he was changing the situation knowingly? that he was changing the situation with full acceptance of the consequences?

Does he presume that I will struggle but continue doing only the one technique? that I will struggle and fail? that I will struggle and force the technique to succeed? that I will struggle and give up after some point? that I will change up but execute a technique that is smooth and comfortable for him? that I will change up and ultimately execute something that may be more dangerous, uncomfortable? demanding, etc.?

Although there are individual cultural differences among dojos, I think that generally we can say that most people are average. That is, they will only be willing to go so far as far as self-reflection, self-discipline, exploring limits, dealing with discomfort and adversity, etc. So, among the above presumptions, they will be adhering to or deviating from the pre-arranged forms to a certain degree, be able to a certain degree to respond to what they encounter/what transpires, and be willing only to a certain degree to respond to physically and accept emotionally to what they encounter/what transpires.

There is another sort of presumption that is at work, and varies between dojo cultures. Does a person recognize and acknowledge the type of student they are? Do I recognize that I am not a deshi but just someone coming for more or less a good time? Am I accepting of a certain amount or type of instruction because I am this type of student in the teacher’s eyes? Do I practice according to the situation eg if I am practicing with a 20 year-old “deshi”, 50 year-old “deshi”, 40 year-old fellow “average person”, etc. Do I expect the 20 year old “deshi” to practice with me in the same way as I do the 40 year-old hobbyist? Do I change how much, for instance, I “let my guard down” or keep my attentiveness sharp? Do I respond differently if that “deshi” or the “hobbyist” expresses pleasure or displeasure? What does that say about my stance and attitude?

In “agasan”’s blog entry, I get the sense that he is presuming that the uke who is changing the situation is or should be accepting of the change up that tori makes, that that uke should or does listen to any cautions or instructions he is given about behaving in practice that way (ie changing the situation), and that somehow the two partners do not or should not get carried away in their mutual practice becoming more and more like a match.

Good artists copy…

I came across this video on Boing Boing. It resonated pretty strongly with the budo idea of stealing from your teachers in order to learn. I believe it’s also closely related to the idea of practicing repetitions of forms in a way that is “alive”. On top of all that, at the end the guy giving the talk says something about “standing on the shoulders of giants” – those are the words that I had bouncing around in my mind when I started on this blog!

I wonder if to some extent people who, intending to “steal” rather than “copy”, unwittingly get caught up in copying anyway. (Hypothetically) like some people who think they are trying to “steal” the touchscreen technology from the iPhone to make their own thing, when more accurately they are “copying” by by trying to make the same touchscreen as the iPhone in the first place. Or like an aikido student who is trying to “steal” by observing where the teacher is putting his feet more than seeing what the teacher is accomplishing by putting his feet in those places. The teacher might be trying to achieve certain positions at certain times, but it’s easily possibly for the student to overlook those aspects.

Of course, there’s a process i.e., you don’t get directly to an end result in a lot of situations, and there is no end result oftentimes. If I, as the aikido student, end up being able to copy my teacher’s foot positions, maybe it’s a good step toward grasping why he’s doing that. If I continue the process by reflecting upon how I don’t seem to be getting the same end result as my teacher despite putting my feet in those same places, maybe I can refine or discover what end result he is really achieving e.g., achieving certain positions at certain times not just random times.

Without reflecting and refining my grasp of what I am doing, what my teacher is apparently doing, what my teacher is apparently achieving, what my teacher is apparently trying to achieve, etc., I will stay in the “copying not stealing” frame. For instance, I may get to a relatively shallow interpretation of what my teacher is accomplishing by his foot positioning, such as not getting hit by the strike. If I have it in mind, from the start, “I don’t need to imitate him exactly”, then I may end up standing two feet away, having achieved the result of not getting hit.

Of course some situations are more apparent than others. In this case, being two feet away, I’m unlikely to be able to do the next action just like my teacher. However, I think that a fair number of people follow this way of thinking and perceiving nevertheless, and it leads them to, for instance, dismiss this or that technique as nonviable. As for my own emphases in practicing, it is indeed to reflect upon and refine my ways of thinking and perceiving that the practice affords me opportunities – for me, that is the “process”.

And I recognize it is not an easy task – it definitely can’t be made into a recipe or formula – to navigate how to copy and steal well i.e., in a way that still helps me grow and work in the process. If a person is hungry or ambitious to avoid wasting time copying, then I’ve found that they don’t seem to get much out of that source of copy/stealing e.g., teachers and traditions. So I believe there’s a certain amount of surrender that one has to be willing to embrace and even cultivate, in order to get the most out of copying. It may be that copying hones one’s ability to see what there is to steal, and even the ability to steal it. So, in addition to reflect upon and refine my ways of thinking and perceiving, the process seems to require the cultivation of surrender also.

The process  is always about the extent – how far is too far, how much, how long, etc. How much do I want to copy vs that other guy? That will depend on what we’re each trying to go toward or get at. Some aikido people are very content, and also develop as human beings, copying to a greater extent I do. Conversely there are people who stop copying earlier than I would, and I’m impressed by how much they’re able to steal, not to mention how much they seem to innovate and create on their own. So, another way to frame the process is that it’s about one’s sense of value. How do I want to live? to be? to spend my limited time here on this earth?

Addendum:

Something Borrowed

After reading (most of) this article, I thought further, as human beings we’re imperfect. Hypothetically, as an artist, I may be clearly satisfied at a work I have produced and the process I’ve gone through. But it’s plenty conceivable that at various points along the way I’ve gone through different stances around the question, “Am I just copying another artist’s work? Am I just leeching off of them? Or is this really my work that I’m making? Will it, or does it, have meaning for me?” Even one person can, at different points in his/her life, different grasps of one thing.

To know the originators of a theory

The second part that I’ve put in bold, below, resonated with my thinking around theoretical vs. practical learning, specifically the idea of striving to know the thinking of the originators of a theory. It easily relates, also, to the ideas of aspiration, relationship, and communication.

http://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=662

I am mystified and challenged by O-Sensei, a man who went to war, who obsessively trained both in bujutsu and austere religious rituals, and emerged, claiming that “aikido is the realization of love” and “aiki is not a technique to fight with or defeat an enemy. It is the way to reconcile the world and make human beings one family.” I would encourage readers to look at the photograph that has been printed several times on the back of this magazine, advertising O-Sensei’s films, in which he is in a tenkan movement with his wrist held by Kazuo Chiba. I would submit that there is nothing, anywhere, in any other martial art, that is expressing exactly what O-Sensei expresses here, with his perfect postural alignment, and open curved arms. Were someone to lay a sleeping baby in his arms, that infant would not wake. Yet this is where the “problem” of aikido lies, for O-Sensei himself trained much as that senior exponent of hapkido describes above, a method very different than that handed down to the followers of aikido. The question that still nags at me and drives me onward after all my years of training, both within aikido and outside its boundaries, is simply, “Is aikido the best way to learn aikido?”

When I practice my koryu, I make every effort to reach the spirit of the founders, who were born and died in a bloody era of survival. Such practice has both kept me safe, and enabled me to help and protect other people. But as I practice, I often stop and think, “What are you doing? There are millions of people, right this minute, slaughtering others using methods not too different from what you are practicing now.” I have found good reasons to continue my martial training, but I must be mindful of its pitfalls every time I practice. To paraphrase Nietszche, if I begin to play with power too casually, it may begin all too casually to play with me.

When I ask if aikido is “for real,” I mean “Will aikido create, within me, what O-Sensei asserted was created and embodied within him?” The development of combat skills will probably always be an interest of mine, but such concerns are relevant only in so far as their execution keeps me safe so that I can ask truly important questions. Thus, in my heart of hearts, I deeply desire that all my studies lead me to be able to stand in as elegant and perfect a posture of welcome and protection as the old man in the photograph. Strong, open, at peace.

When I took a swing dance lesson for the first time, I didn’t have it in mind to try to be able to do exactly what those more experienced people were doing. In fact when I saw experienced people doing the “real thing” at my level I couldn’t catch all the intricacies, but only the grossest impression. And when I was started on learning the most basic steps, it was fitting to this initial mindset – that whatever I was doing was pretty detached from real swing dancing. I’m sure that as I progress, I’d get to the point of watching others and starting to wonder, “Do I look anything like that? Can I look like that – wouldn’t it be a small, do-able jump to make?” (i.e., starting to practically refer to others), and further still, “I wonder how they became able to do that?” (i.e., becoming curious about broadening my conception of the learning process further than my own to that point). But in the beginning, I may be so dependent on guidance that I have no sense of independence and “standing on my own two feet”. (At what point a person starts to feel like they’re standing on their own two feet is individual and subjective. Some, at the very beginner stage of knowledge, may feel completely dependent and yearning for external guidance. Others, at the very same stage, may feel more independent and wanting guidance only as exceptions.)

When I started aikido, I had a similar attitude and experience. However, at some point I learned that, supposedly, there was a point to doing aikido that I hadn’t considered, such as to become a peaceful person, etc.

Machines / Being mechanical

Another nice find from that site.  Likely with strong influence from Endo sensei talking about the danger of becoming mechanical, I myself see how people show a tendency to become so, such as desiring to be told, desiring a formula or system by which they can act, desiring simplicity and ease, desiring power so that things are easy and simple, etc.:

http://moongadget.com/origins/lotr.html

Joseph Campbell, George Lucas and the Wachowski Brothers all use The Machine as a metaphor for evil. An important word of caution: although myth-makers often represent The Machine using mechanical devices, this is only a symbol. The path away from divinity is not the devices themselves, but the mechanization of human beings. Myth dramatizes the idea that people lose our “souls” when we surrender responsibility for our own lives in exchange for the advantages of the System – any system. The Deathstar symbolizes The Machine, but R2-D2 and green-bladed lightsabers symbolize machines used for good. The tool itself is neither good nor evil.

Mentors

I liked this comment (in bold) about mentors from this article I found:

http://moongadget.com/origins/dune.html

Zen Buddhism: Herbert sprinkled Zen ideas throughout Dune. When The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam nonsequiters Paul with “Ever sift sand through a screen?” Herbert next writes, “The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into higher awareness.” This is the technique of the Zen Koan: saying or asking something that sounds like gibberish, but also like it might be incredibly profound, provided you think about it long enough. Zen masters developed this trick to “open up” the mind of their students without filling it with their own opinions. Myth teaches us that all mentors push us towards new ways of thinking, but only dark mentors attempt to make us think just like them. A mentor who walks the path of light teaches us how to open up to the voice from within, not without. The most famous koan in the West is probably “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

Theoretical Learning

Below is a reworked but messier draft…

Theory can give a thing a semblance of order and structure. It simplifies. The pieces in the theory can then be more thoroughly identified and become bite-sized and comprehensible. The pieces make sense relative to each other i.e. they’re internally coherent. The organization and the simplicity enable the student to examine and understand more deeply. In short, a theory can be a tool that helps look at the thing in question.

1. It can be like a map that helps you go into new territory, although it may not account for everything you encounter and it may even be inaccurate (e.g., outdated) in some ways.
2. It can be like a sporty car tire that helps you go faster and have more control, although it may make for a bumpier ride, restrict what surfaces you can go on, and wear out faster than a regular tire.
3. It can be like a hammer that pounds in nails, although it is not meant to drive screws or cut wood.

Theory and Value. (“Value” could be thought of here as synonymous with “criteria” and “priority”.) By the very act of simplifying, a theory omits some details and includes others. By such discriminating and emphasizing, the aspects of a situation, and accordingly of courses of action, that are pointed out to a person using a theory will vary. The more accepting a person is of a theory, the more they will accept its emphases. The more one accepts, or takes in, certain things as being important or not important, that person is internalizing a sense of value.

At first glance, this could be taken as possibly occurring in a cold, unfeeling way. If I’m gradually internalizing a particular sense of distance, for example, not only am I paying attention to distance, I’m also gaining a sense of what distance is more comfortable, what is too close. The emotional content is often too easily dismissed. When someone hits their target, there is a probably a feeling, like “Yes!” rather than a Terminator-like distant awareness that a target was hit. When someone is about to hit their target, there is also probably a feeling, an urge, also. Although through self-mastery and mastery of skills, we strive to reduce the degree to which our feelings stand in our way, without any urges or motivation we will not excel or hone ourselves, but stay in a state or level where no particular “specialness” (e.g., concentrating, being curious, etc.) is necessary. (Of course a relevant paradox here is that at the highest levels of self-mastery one can be “usual” (‘heijoushin’) yet act in very refined ways. Yet the recognized process is that one eventually, gradually, ultimately attains a “usual” state, which is to say one is not that way from the beginning nor forces his way there too early.)

There is a dynamic, not static and unchanging, relationship between progress (i.e., increasing one’s capacity to realize the theory) and an individual’s grasp of a theory. As they both improve, they affect each other. In the beginning, when a person is putting a theory into action, they may be very limited in the range of situations they’re able to realize the theory. Depending on whether or how much a person can act freely in a situation, their valuation of all the aspects of the situation will surely vary accordingly. That person will perceive, notice, appreciate, dismiss, fear, avoid, embrace, wait, become harried, become defensive, etc. about the situation and its aspects depending on how he can (or feels he can) act relative to that situation. If a person perceives a possible situation to be hopeless or pointless, or pleasurable and safe, that perception is based on that person’s current sense of value. If you perceive someone as rageful and not listening, you may look down on them, stay away from them, not care or want to comfort them, perceive no conversation as being possible, etc. Regardless of whether you identify your values as respectful, caring, curious, compassionate, etc. if you perceive the situation as impossible for you to act on those values, then in reality (i.e., the effect, the consequences, etc.) it is virtually the same as if you did not have those values. And whether or how much you can act on your values depends on how you have developed your capacity to act until that point. And your capacity to act is closely related to how you see and assess situations, and how you form your expectations of situations.

Also, a theory as compared with a tool can define what “good/poor use” is. If we get a hammer and everything starts to look like a nail, then we use the hammer to fix things, say a stuck doorknob, and we may not mind leaving dents and dings in things. And we assess situations as changeable, doable, “can’t be helped just live with it”, “everything’s fine and if you’re bothered or hurt then it’s you’re problem”, etc. depending on the way we see the world as we conceptualize it – and conceptualizing the world and how we can be or act in it is what a theory influences us in doing. If we have a hammer and encounter something like a pillow or sponge, then we may perceive that there’s no job to be done at all because we’ve “developed” to the point of judging jobs that really really don’t fit a hammer as not doable.

Critiquing a theory. Just as there can be presumed no theory that fits reality without any adjustment, assimilation, or ‘filling in the gaps’, there is no one reason why a theory doesn’t “work”. One individual may struggle to progress as a particular theory prescribes “progress”, but ultimately progress in another direction. Another may struggle to progress in general. Is the tool very difficult to learn how to use? Both of the above may be “reading” the theory accurately or faithfully. Yet others may find themselves going in similar directions due to prematurely, inaccurately, or shallowly interpreting or assimilating the theory. Does the tool, say a hammer, influence you to identify and neglect jobs, say seeing everything as nails or not nails? So there are any number of reasons as there are individuals for the implementation of a theory to go awry.

Another thought is that a theory may fit poorly with reality. While this may be the case, there is often another (mis)judgment often made: that a theory doesn’t fit reality when in fact it is very deep or complex and the depth and understanding required by the individual is accordingly extreme. Many people give up on aikido and conceive a personal interpretation of its implementation after a premature assimilation. Many people form pseudo-religious beliefs based on a premature grasp of actual religion or even actual science. When there are a great many people around who are examples of the theory “not working”, we may assess that the theory is bad. But in fact it may just be a case of seeing a very widespread, common tendency among humans to do that same thing – in this case, to prematurely assimilate a theory and possibly use it for something other than what it was originally meant.

To take religion as an example, there are many functions and manifestations. One is to use it for a way to create and maintain a certain order or social organization. Another is to, as an individual, find meaning and efficiency in one’s life; by finding “peace” and “purpose/meaning” a person doesn’t expend excessive amounts of their energy and time on this earth worrying, fighting needless battles, etc. Certainly these aren’t the only functions but with even just these two examples we can see potential overlap. An individual may find meaning in creating social order and harmony through religion, for instance. However, another individual may find meaning or peace in creating a social order by oppressing or controlling others; if we see many examples of this, we may judge that religion in general is at fault or is a risky tool for humankind to use because it can be misused.

We may see a specific theory or religion as having ‘too many’ failed or bad examples and judge it not to ‘work’. We may also see a specific religion and find its orientation very much a ’stretch’, foreign or bizarre, and thereby not be interested in what it puts into order and helps to navigate, let alone how well or poorly it navigates it.

There is possibly an American take on this, at this point. We in this culture tend to desire rationality and order. A tool is either good or bad. If it’s not, then it’s completely relative. It seems to be difficult for people in this culture to see it as ‘good in most cases’. Hence most people’s views on theories such as aikido or religion tend to be very personalized or very generalized. That is, we have a conception of “this is how I and my group implement it” and, often times simultaneously, “these (ways a, b, c, etc.) are how others implement it” as opposed to “this is how people generally implement it and here is how my group and I specifically do so, but in general we are all doing the same thing.” This latter approach seems to be held by many to some degree but it begins to fall apart at a relatively shallow level. For instance, we may say, “People doing aikido generally are seeking some sort of peace and thriving, but the way those people over there do it is either a very different understanding of peace and thriving or at the least I can’t see myself implementing the theory as they do.”

Objections to learning/acting from theory as opposed to practical experience seem to be a mix of several components:

1. “Does the theory try to …” This wording reflects a confusion around personifying the theory, and also mixing up the originator, or original intention, of the theory and the proponents/users of the theory. Does the map try to account for every rock in a forest, every bench in a city? Does the sporty tire try to drive on all surfaces? The question is better phrased, “Is it meant to do such and such?”
2. There can be a distinction between what the theory describes and what it prescribes. Does having a map mean you’ll get to where you want to go? That there are no cars, construction sites, or pot holes to watch out for?
   
3. Related is the matter of, how much do we expect the user to adapt his behavior so that the theory is useful? And how much do we expect him to think on his own, to be able to fill in the blanks?  If one street name described on a map is changed from when the map was made, is the rest of the map thrown out of whack? And how much would we expect to be reasonable for someone reading the map to be thrown off? If a sporty tire was designed to fit well-paved, smooth roads, would we assign responsibility to the person who chose to buy it or the people who maintain the roads, if the local roads were not well-paved? If someone who’s never seen a hammer or nail before receives a hammer and pot of stew that needed stirring …
4. Another related matter is, what if the user uses the theory poorly or for some other purpose than originally intended? Do we blame how much of a “gap” the theory left for the user to have to figure out? Do we assess how much effort the user made in figuring out how the theory should and could be used before they made their own interpretation? Do we go and find out what the originator of the theory intended the use to be? How much effort do we make to put ourselves in the originator’s shoes? If we see many people using the theory in one way, particularly poorly, do we rely on their apparent assimilation and use, or do we find out for ourselves? If we see others riding around with sporty tires and putting up with heavy vibration, do we accept that that’s what we should put up with also?
   

A theory that doesn’t stir up objections probably does not deal with something that is complex or has many exceptions, and is clear earlier about what its scope is. Unfortunately, human beings exhibit a yearning for simplifying complex or inexplicable matters, and therefore give much attention and feeling (e.g., hope, skepticism, suspicion, longing) to such theories.

A person who prefers not to learn or act from theory, and instead prefers practical experience, probably does not like the task of filling in the blanks (“reading the manual” before taking action), figuring out what the originator of the theory was thinking, or relying on a “manual” or “troubleshooting guide” instead of figuring it out on his own. Such a person may also know that putting a theory into action requires some kind of figuring out anyway, so why waste time on potentially irrelevant details and levels of detail.

- that is, does the tool actually do the job well? and does it do the job it is presumed to do? Another objection is how the tool can influence which jobs the user perceives. If I have a hammer, maybe I only look around for nails, maybe everything starts to look like nails. If I have a car with off-road tires, maybe I’m looking more often at dirt paths and overlooking paved roads. So I might start doing some jobs poorly because I try to use a tool that isn’t the best fit. Accordingly I may gradually see less and less how it isn’t a best fit – that in fact it works just fine. I reckon that most of the time the blame gets cast on the theory or the very idea of learning from theory. Other times the blame goes to the teacher of the theory. Fewer times, blame may be associated with the student and his/her ability to figure out how the rubber meets the road.

The proponents of a theory, both teachers and enthusiastic students, will at some point prescribe how the rubber should meet the road. By prescribing, not describing, the person gains an expectation that the world will happen according to the theory and not the other way around. If the expectation is strong or stubborn, it reflects an attitude by which the person does not want to be disappointed, contradicted, etc. – in any case, this is a tangent about how the expectation is held by the individual.  The expectation itself is a reflection of the proponent’s grasp of the nature of the road, what can be expected to happen when they meet, etc. This entails emphasizing and dismissing different aspects as important or not (e.g. does it matter if the tire makes noise against the road, does the tire need to be on specific rims, etc.). “How the rubber meets the road” is also related to presumptions regarding the theory. Is the theory meant to encompass all cars and surfaces? Does a proponent of the theory presume it to do so? Does the person presume the theory to be a formula or recipe that will somehow fit all of the possible variations of circumstances? Or that the circumstances are not so complex or variable that the theory couldn’t account for them?

This is problematic when the proponents are seeing the situation very inaccurately/skewed and rubber wouldn’t meet the road well in reality. So the theory might be very much in an imaginary world, out of touch with reality, regardless of how internally coherent it is. It is also problematic when the rubber meets the road in reality only if the rest of reality would fit with the theory (i.e., the theory is extremely limited to specific situations in reality). With respect to theories involving people, it is indicative when the proponents of the theory, in order for the theory to be valid, need to have a lot of “bad guys” and people who “don’t get it”, and excuses in general. And it’s not that having excuses and exceptions  is nonsensical or delusional, or invalidate the theory. In the case of tires, we could say that road noise actually doesn’t matter if we’re talking about an off-road tire. In the case of people, there may actually be people who are exceptions, such as people under the influence of drugs, people hearing and reacting to sounds that aren’t there, etc.

In my own experience, I try to notice when my learning of a theory starts to demand changes in my sensibilities and values. One of the main, common changes demanded is regarding the situations that fit the theory. For example, I may learn counseling skills, which usually are in the form of talk therapy. However, the things that I learn, such as giving voice to one’s experiences and feelings,  may not work with people who do not describe their own internal experiences well, whether due to lack of vocabulary or lack of awareness, or both. So does the counseling I know only work with aware and educated people? Does counseling work with only certain people? And if I wanted to counsel unaware and uneducated people with my current capacities, would I have to give them vocabulary lessons and awareness training first? And if they didn’t want to do those lessons and training, would I dismiss them or tell them that their problem is lack of motivation as evidenced by not wanting to take my lessons and training? In the end, if I made these demands (because my theory doesn’t meet the proverbial road) I wouldn’t put my theory to use unless reality, or the “outside world”, fit the client. What would “counseling” mean to me, then?

In the context of aikido, the rubber can meet the road in several ways. One way is the cliche topic of “does it work in a fight?”. Would I demand that my opponent attack only in specific, “aikido-type” ways? And if they didn’t accommodate me, I wouldn’t put my “aikido skills” to use but instead hit them or run away? What would my grasp of “aikido skills” be, then?

Instead of dismissing the theory, I might revisit my grasp of the theory, as well as how the theory has been presented to me by my teachers. The best example is when my teachers demonstrate to me what is clearly the theory meeting the proverbial road. Depending on how they perceive what they are doing, they might say it’s the theory at work or that it’s just how they do it. In other words, depending on how the teacher frames it to me, the student, I might see them teaching me via theory or the practical application.

In cases where it’s framed as the theory, there might very well be (to the student anyway) a big gap between what the theory is saying, apparently, and how it functions in reality. How to bridge this gap? I think it depends on both the skill of the teacher’s teaching and the student’s learning. Both of these are related to a sense of value. Specifically, more than what to emphasize or dismiss regarding the rubber meeting the road, but how to develop oneself as someone able to meet the road. That is, whether I meet the road or not, how, as the student, am I developing myself?

If I am a student counselor, then I may learn talk therapy as well as art therapy so that I can work with various clients. What if I never learn of dance or movement-based therapy? If at some point I learn the principle that by learning talk therapy and art therapy, I am learning about various ways clients might express themselves, then the idea of movement-based therapy might not be another “add-on” to learn. Likewise, if I learn the principle that aikido is about how to move oneself and touch another person (that happens to be taught via certain forms), then if circumstances don’t allow me to move according to a form, my body may still have a sense of how to move skillfully, and if circumstances restrict me to touching a person in specific ways different from the forms I learned, then perhaps I will still have a sense of how to touch them.

Both learning from theory and from practical experience may address only how the rubber meets the road, how to expect the road to be, how the rubber should be, etc. However, the common point that makes either or both of these approaches work well could be the consideration given to how the student and teacher are continuously developing themselves to be the “tire”, and how to be regardless of whether they will meet the “road”. As well having and developing awareness regarding what one is valuing as important or dismissing as unimportant is crucial.

The energy of the heart/mind

From ‘agasan’s’ blog. Emphasis in color is mine – what resonated most to me.

The energy of the heart/mind

The other day, our prefecture’s aikido federation, along with the Aikikai, Nippon Budokan, and other budo groups, held the “Regional Community Budo (Aikido) Instructors Seminar”. The seminar consisted of classes oriented toward instructors and intermediate or higher level practitioners. In addition to the instructor the Aikikai sent, Kobayashi Yukimitsu shihan, there were two other local instructors, one of whom was myself. All of Saturday and Sunday were filled with aikido, and though the event was a happy thing, I worried that it was demanding of the general student’s stamina.

To do aikido with people with whom one is familiar and meshes well is pleasant for sure. However, in a seminar where most people are meeting each other for the first time, this does not necessarily occur. People may feel they have to represent, not appear tired for fear of making their dojo look bad, not become open to others looking down on them, etc. And in reality, both partners may be thinking the same thing, each wishing that the other would just ask to take a break.

In the case of a seminar, I’m grateful if the participants attend with a different attitude than for normal practice. For one thing, the instructor is different from normal and therefore there are style differences. The movements and way of thinking are also different, among other things. So of course there is reason to be perplexed or hesitate. Also, your practice partners are people who you are meeting for the first time so it may be difficult to make things go smoothly right from the start. In this situation, if a person receives an instruction and thinks they can execute it as skillfully and confidently as usual, that person is either a genius or completely ignoring the intent of the instructor.

At this seminar, I myself also learned from my friend Mr. T. As I stated to the participants, instead of carrying out his instructions stoically, I wanted them to savor each and every movement. By going slowly and savoring, and thereby using all of our senses to experience the details while moving carefully, we have to consider the meaning behind the movement that we are trying to do.

For example, the hand that you extend toward your partner – depending on whether the palm is facing up or down, or whether the forward foot is pointing outward or inward, the function of the hand or foot and the meaning they have will differ. This is what I wanted the participants to understand while they moved. The kind of practice in which you just move and move a lot is based on having achieved this understanding.

The movements of aikido are designed to control the opponent. One may think about, then, how to control or throw the opponent. However to think nothing except this would be a neglectful line of thinking. Not just aikido, but in any activity there must be some objective. Regarding modern budo, the objective is probably not to control the opponent. Instead, the thinking is, what do I gain (by practicing to control the opponent) and thus actually gain that. In other words, it is the pursuit of benefit.

The benefit I discuss here is the energy to reach that which lies ahead on the path one has been walking on and will continue to walk on. This is not a scientific kind of energy. Normal energy diminishes when you move your body. The energy that is nurtured by aikido is none other than energy of the heart/mind. Furthermore, this is a heart/mind of love. This energy of the heart/mind relates deeply to all of the conditions that make us human, including matters of feeling, knowledge, and rationality.

When that perspective is lacking, one becomes fixated on controlling or defeating the opponent. The consequence is that the people in the roles of tori and uke, the unique feature of aikido, each perform their roles individually and a consciousness of creating and sharing a space together does not arise. (Refer to post 11: 2007/3/26). For example, even when uke falls down for you according to the agreement of his role, if tori arrogantly pushes uke down, this is a clear failure of rationality – it makes no sense – and it shows off a weakness of feeling. True strength will not arise from such practice.

Modern budo borrows from the appearance of old bujutsu, but has a completely different objective. Bujutsu is for dominating an enemy. On the other hand, budo is, through mastering the technique of controlling an opponent, for developing one’s own mind and body. The core premise is that one must train oneself, not the opponent. Accordingly, I myself do not regard highly the kind of demonstration in which tori hardly moves and one-sidedly tries to throw the uke. Regardless of whether one is tori or uke, to train every far corner of one’s body through movement that is based on sensitivity that runs not as far as the arms and legs but to the fingertips, and further, to feel gratitude for working together with one’s training partners to create an environment in which such movements are made possible – to nurture such a body and mind is surely the true objective of modern budo. (For what it’s worth, this does not contradict the martial nature of aikido.)

Perhaps because I think in this way, there is something that occurred to me at this year’s seminar. Could it be that the main/original purpose of a seminar is not the transmission of technical matters. No one can expect their own way of movement, which they’ve grown familiar with for years, maybe even decades, will change by a one or two day seminar. If this is the case, then the role of a seminar instructor is, more than to teach technique, could be to teach the meaning of techniques and movement – this is what occurred to me. If one understands the rationale, then one’s technique will change accordingly.

By having contests, some budo are able to further development practical techniques. However, in aikido, which does not have contests, it’s necessary to have other ways to make the technical aspects complete or thorough. I believe what makes that possible is to thoroughly study the rationale. If this is done, I believe it can move from a self-satisfying budo to a budo that has consideration for others and enhancement of oneself. This requires a physical energy but also requires cultivation of energy of the heart/mind.

In aikido this is possible – more to the point, in aikido this is what should be. Even in normal practice, from time to time why not practice slowly, savoring it? You’ll become strong.

Mystification

Being impressed, seeing something that makes you go “wow”, being inspired – these are not the same thing as being mystified. Mystified has more of a connotation of being stopped, stupefied, left in a daze. On the other hand, being inspired has more of a connotation of being moved, or moved to take action. Whether the initial “wow” is something that wears off after a short while is telling how an individual assimilated the experience. Furthermore, whether the “wow” wears off isn’t something the individual passively goes through.

We have the capacity to think to ourselves, “Gee, that’s novel, that’s interesting,” or “Hm, I want to be able to do that. I feel I can’t go on doing the exact same thing as before. I can really recognize the weight of this experience, and that it’s my choice to pass it by or not.” We have the capacity to notice and activate our own sense of urgency and meaning, and not completely rely on the external to stimulate us. We are able to look at ourselves and think, “Hm, I’m in the exact same place as I was two years ago. Is this where I want to be?”, “I don’t feel like I’m in the right place. I want to be over there. What’s keeping me here?” etc.

There’s a certain dilemma that we face when we encounter a way to get to where we want to go. We may think that it should get us there instantly or soon or easily. We may think that it may involve some amount of work and time. We may think it may require a certain amount of perseverance, devotion, and acceptance. We face a choice of exercising our judgment and faith when we can’t see a step or two ahead. This includes judgment and faith relative to ourselves e.g.,  “Do I trust my confidence in my ability to see two steps ahead? Or do I have more trust in ‘the program’ and give it some more time, effort, etc. to show me something I can’t see yet?”

Sometimes the object of our judgment and faith is a thing. Sometimes it’s a person. The thing with humans is, we have the ability to mix (and mix up) the two. A real person may symbolize something to us, which would entail our putting meaning and expectation on the person (i.e., “objectification”). And a thing may feel close to us and be active or behave, like a good luck charm that “works” for baseball games or a god that we recall at certain times is with us, watching over us (i.e., “personification”).

The getting mixed up part is a piece of the human condition. Of course we have the capacity to recognize our own unintentional and unwitting tendencies. We even have the capacity to endeavor to master them or be free of them. This endeavor is very closely related to budo, if budo is taken to mean a possible way for self-mastery, or “polishing” the self.

The caveat is, then, if a person does budo with the thinking that he can master or attain the ability without mastering himself. Or perhaps the person aims only to attain the ability to a meager or moderate degree, maybe even up to a hypothetical point where self-mastery is not needed. Or the person desires to exert a meager or moderate degree of effort at polishing himself. All of the above cannot avoid the characteristic of budo which has to do with another human condition, namely that humans are of both mind and body (and further, of action; read: “shin-gi-tai”). If a person wishes to emphasize polishing the self, he cannot avoid that this is done through polishing his skill in budo. Conversely, if he wishes to attain the skill (which is understandably the more comprehensible endeavor initially) he must polish himself in the budo model.

Where does staying in a state of mystification, or being easily mystified, come in? What function does it serve, if it is a persistent state or tendency? What is it being reinforced by? It probably comes down to a misunderstanding that feels good to the individual. If a person ordered a product and didn’t get it or got something else, and they were happy about it, how to explain their happiness? For one thing, we could surmise they didn’t really want the product despite what they were and are telling themselves. And/or if they got something different instead of what they ordered, they must really like it, like it more than the thing they first had in mind, and/or substantially  had their original opinion changed by the packaging/presentation of the new thing.

(All of the above could happen in good or bad ways. A lot of “spiritual” processes aren’t clear from beginning to end to a beginner, and they may re-evaluate and re-formulate some fundamental values and premises on the way. )

If a person didn’t get what they ordered and they didn’t mind about it, what could we presume? Maybe they didn’t have particularly high hopes about it, so it didn’t really matter if it came or not. Maybe they had only a vague idea about it, and so they didn’t have high hopes about it. Maybe they didn’t really need it – they just happened to have surplus time, money, energy, etc. and thought they’d give it a try; but there wasn’t a need to be met. In this case, the way mystification would continue would be if the person kept ordering again and again. In which case, maybe it’s like the lottery to them. Their hopes could be high or low, but they think they’ll get rewarded sooner or later.

If a person got something different instead and they either didn’t mind about it or were happy about it? Maybe the thing they got was like getting a deluxe online magazine subscription with coupon codes instead of a regular paper subscription  – genuinely as good as or better than what they originally wanted. Maybe they got something entirely different but realized they had a different need that would be met, like ordering a magazine subscription but getting a astrology/horoscope/personality test  service. Again, maybe their need wasn’t so urgent that not getting it fulfilled isn’t that bothersome. Maybe the person’s hopes were so low that getting anything at in return is enough. And maybe, if they got something different that was pretty good, it gradually started to feel more than pretty good – this is probably a known phenomenon in business/consumer psychology.

What if a person got something different, but they were satisfied with being given an appealing presentation/packaging? Maybe the presentation was really convincing. Maybe their initial expectations were low or vague, and the presentation was very effectively convincing? So the person has already made a small investment, so being sold something else doesn’t feel exactly the same as being given the presentation to buy that something else from the beginning. (This is also possibly a known business psychology phenomenon).

The “magic bullet” of sales would be getting the consumer to pay for something and be satisfied with getting nothing or little in return. How is this accomplished? The act of paying can become satisfying in itself. This could include the knowing of who is getting paid, the knowing of one’s association to the payee, the knowing of one’s association to other payers. How to distinguish between beneficial practices of devotion and selflessness and parasitic or stagnating arrangements?

In the non-competitive budo model, one component of not going astray is the teacher’s integrity. If the teacher sees that the student isn’t getting the goods, the teacher will in one way or another make it apparent to the student. Some teachers may go one stap further and push the student away or demand that the student get on board. If the teacher sees a student not getting “it”, it’s part of his role to see what the student is getting. This is because it influences the meaning of the teacher’s relationship with that student, how specifically the teacher behaves toward that student, and how these all influence the rest of the group.

Another component in budo is the goal: namely polishing the self i.e., the student’s self-actualization. If the student is being drained or somehow  sustained by the student-teacher or student-group relationship but the student himself is not becoming polished, then the responsible person, the teacher, is obligated to notice. That is, if the student is not benefitting while others are, then things are awry. The teacher grasps that each person is an individual. That is, while the actions (e.g., the practice of kata or social interactive behaviors) may follow patterns, the teacher grasps that the aim is not to perform those actions but for the individual to polish himself. The teacher is the one who has the best understanding of what job the tools are to be used for, and therefore the most potential to recognize when the tools are being misused.

Regarding “misuse of the tools”, this goes back to the integrity of the teacher. The teacher should value his tools as he values himself. That is, it should be notable and perplexing if the people he considers his students use the same tools according to an entirely different sense of value and understanding. It is different if they are not his students – one can’t go in the world being perplexed by every single example of someone not fitting one’s own sense of value and understanding.

Budo students who are choosing to be under a particular teacher are by definition people striving to attain something unique to that teacher. Precisely because it is unique, it is not superficial and easily replicable by others. Because it is not a superficial technique or ability, the student faces the task of knowing more and more about the person doing the technique or ability. Just as mind and body are inseparable, so are mind-body and technique/action. The misunderstanding that can occur is that one can do the exact same behavior as another person but not have any of the same sensibilities, not see the world in the same way. Of course it is possible to find convergent development i.e., find two unrelated people who are behaving/doing technique in similar ways. But the intentional endeavor to learn a behavior from someone else is inevitably endeavoring to grasp what that person is about, what that person is experiencing, what that person pays attention to, what that person values, what that person perceives as reasonable, relaxed, forced, fast, slow, etc. And in addition, by encountering the unavoidable contrast between the self of the teacher and the student’s self, the student faces the task of grasping his own tendencies, his own unmalleable fixed conditions, etc. – he comes to know himself if he truly studies the teacher as a vehicle to mastering himself.

‘What are we doing?’

My ‘thinking out loud’:

Originally, “What is the point” – specifically, what are we in aikido doing if we stick with approaches that are different from traditional jujutsu/bujutsu ways of practice? What’s the point of doing aikido and not aikijujutsu?

Common features of traditional jujutsu practice (and what we might all be neglecting in aikido) that I’ve observed:

• Addressing (ie talking about, being explicit about) the circumstances, being very specific about the circumstances, and emphasizing staying within those circumstances and not claiming to be practicing something effective in all circumstances (ie a ‘”magic bullet”).
• Being specific about the use of the body (eg which parts move and don’t, which parts should be activated, which tension is crucial to avoid, etc.)
• Being specific and concrete about what is going on in the uke’s body. Ie 1) what effect one is having on uke and 2) what uke is doing.

• Is there a desire among aikido practitioners to not have emphasis/thought given to many specific points but rather have one coherent and unified rationale/philosophy?
• Is there a desire among aikido practitioners to have a coherent and unified philosophy because the emphasis is about how to be as a single, unified person (ie a philosophy about how to live)? or because it simply sounds simple/beautiful/convenient/romantic/etc.?
• Re-phrase of above: Do aikido practitioners operate based on a (appealing) view of the practice as something that’s supposed to be more than what happens on the mat?
• Is there a desire (possibly compulsion) among aikido practitioners to use abstract and philosophical frames more than concrete/specific? Or to go to extremes (very shallow or very deep/”jutsu-y”) when using either of these frames (as if one frame explains it all)?
• Is there an open-ness or susceptibility to mystification? (Both among students and teachers catering to such students? and reciprocally, teachers who are inclined to get/have students under such control?) A broader-view re-phrase: does aikido have a self-selecting audience of people wanting mystification, simplicity, etc.?
• Is the tendency to desire mystification a desire for simplicity, convenience, ease, etc.?
• Is the unique emphasis of aikido to be adaptable in the moment (ie not so circumstance specific)?
• (Related to previous thought on people’s desiring unified, coherent philosophy:) Do general/universal principles of how to use the body become apparent gradually through the specific techniques in jujutsu/bujutsu? Eg the head shouldn’t come forward, the elbows shouldn’t end up behind your torso, you should maintain an upright upper body.
  Do these generalize to, e.g., have good posture, don’t force things, develop your sense/sensitivity of awkwardness, ease, etc.?
  And do these then generalize to the kind of person you are/are becoming through practicing?
  Is this an individual question, more than a generalization that can be made about all the people doing a particular art? Isn’t there an influence if generalizing/integrating is explicitly mentioned?
• Is the (ideal) method of transmission in aikido, one in which 1) a developed and skilled senior is in the nage role and transmits to newer people his/her internalized sensibilities, and 2) less time is spent emphasizing specific technical points, one that enhances cultivation of relationship (e.g., paying attention to self-other, developing sensitivity to cues and communication, functioning according to roles, developing within and to other roles), not just between seniors and juniors but among the group in general?
  If so, it would inherently be less efficient technically; but the aim would be different – less technique and more self-awareness, receptivity, responsiveness/connectedness.
• What exactly is this necessity, or ideal, of a skilled senior/mentor/teacher? Someone who models and conveys a further advanced/developed sense (thereby inspiring and nurturing the newer person’s capacity) of being ‘honest’, insightful, fitting/accurate/congruent.
• How is the above realized through the practice of forms? How is form practice that is “alive” and responsive realized? Sensitivity, continual questioning/examining e.g. was this movement reasonable? how much strength did I use? did my position allow me to move in an un-forced way?
• To realize responsive and accurate practice, many reach the conclusion that the uke should intentionally create more variables for nage to deal with and resolve. Or that uke should not be concerned with taking away the variables for nage to deal with.
  One implication of this is that, through the practice of the uke role, one can enforce/normalize forced movement, sloppy/inaccurate movement, lack of connection, lack of sensitivity/self-awareness.
• How to practice the same things as nage but not be nage? How to practice responsiveness, unforced movement, absorption, re-positioning, accuracy, etc.?
  Connection, an emphasis on. Continually receiving and reconciling that which nage gives.
  [Addendum: uke acts with little initiative. Just do the initial attack. When something happens next, continue the possibilities rather than stopping, interrupting, and starting over. Very 'mindless' and in the moment.]
  Responsiveness, unforced movement, etc. is not the opposite of falling down and taking the disadvantaged position. They become the opposite when, more than connection, one emphasizes the technical aspects (eg staying upright, moving at certain angles, successfully executing one’s own action, etc.)
  Could this be the unique characteristic of aikido? (Is the unique emphasis of aikido to be adaptable in the moment (ie not so circumstance specific)?)Why O-sensei changed around the roles of traditional practice in which the more senior student takes the ‘losing’ role? The point of being uke is not to learn exactly how to do what nage is doing but what nage is doing?

Gihou (技法) vs Shinpou (心法)

One of my earliest conversations after moving to Japan started with asking Endo sensei about how the teachers in Japan never seemed to talk. I tried to stab at this topic more than once with him, and one of the times was around my noticing (and being somewhat bothered by) teachers talking only about technical matters, where the teachers in California used to often talk about energy, philosophy, and abstract matters. Apparently what came to Endo sensei’s mind was a distinction between ‘gihou’ (methods relative to technique) and ’shinpou’ (methods related to the heart/mind).

I never reached a conclusive and distinct end to this line of questioning. However, there probably has been a consequence, namely my grasping that these matters were inseparable and didn’t require exclusive attention. And, on a more personal level, if I valued ’shinpou’, then regardless of whether I ever heard the teachers talk about it, it would show up in my practice (eg as criteria, as a factor, etc.). Vice versa, if there was an absence of talk about the technical aspect, then it’s not as if giving attention to the heart/mind absolves me of all the technical requirements of reality. It’s a matter of emphasis.

More recently I’m running into the possibility that it is also a matter of personal choice. I’ve always leaned more toward a heavier emphasis on heart/mind, but compared to most of the people at this end of the spectrum, I value and delve into the technical aspects also. (I guess I tend to be the black sheep relative to any group I might be lumped in with.) In the past few years, and particularly early this year, I’ve been working on mainly the technical aspect. I believe I reached a threshold where it’s clear that there is A LOT of technical matters to study and incorporate if I am to consider myself serious and even close to competent technically. But this path is not my original inclination. What to do?

I could simply abandon or de-emphasize it at some point, but I doubt I will reach such a point that would leave me satisfied with my choice. For the moment, I’m considering what it would imply for me to pursue the technical emphasis and presume that I could work on it all, both the technical and heart/mind aspects. And so I see another reason why I have been possessed in recent months by the questions, “What am I doing? What am I trying to get at via my practice? Why am I doing it? What’s the point?”

If I were to keep with a practice that looks like regular aikido practice, a) it would be spending time on that rather than the skills that would naturally need to be honed if I were to emphasize the technical aspect and b) it would possibly involve spending time and energy on movements that don’t/may not  have that much technical meaning. It would also be more inclusive, more accessible, exercise-oriented, and fun-looking.

If the practice were to be more technical, I think it would be simply practicing something very very similar to Daito-ryu and other traditional jujutsu. Do I want to simply practice Daito-ryu? If I prefer “aikido”, then, knowing what I know now, wouldn’t it be Daito-ryu lite? I.e., a Daito-ryu that’s more fun and less deep?

“What am I trying to get at via my practice? Why am I doing it?” In the back of my mind (but closer to the forefront now that I’m conscious of it) is the idea of my being compulsive – needing “more”, needing to be competent “enough”, “strong enough, skilled enough, knowledgable enough, etc.” Compulsive also relative to letting go – aikido is my “territory” after all. I have little trouble letting go of all the other leads that potentially have depth e.g., Systema, Chinese martial arts, Feldenkreis, etc. So, considering Daito-ryu and other jujutsu, all of the technical depth they offer, depth that seems poignantly relevant to “my” aikido – to choose ignorance seems bitter and unbecoming, right now anyway.

Going the other direction, there are presumbaly many traditions that offer depth relative to matters of the heart/mind. To pursue them and then “just” do aikido as a different manifestation – this also feels like the aikido piece is an add-on.

I wonder if I’m having some kind of loyalty issue – with regards to that which has become my “territory”. It feels like it… こだわり. A “hang-up”, an attachment. To simply seek to enjoy aikido-ish movement/practice feels pollyanna-ish and ignorant. But even that is an attachment I am just now getting over – to look down on those who apparently seek to do aikido on a shallow level (despite stating that they are interested in the depth). To be continued…

A Talk with Dr Harding

The other day I was invited by my wife to attend with her a discussion on peace with Dr. Vincent Harding. She mentioned that he’d worked with Dr Martin Luther King Jr and so I thought, if nothing else, I could see a person who was close to an intense time in history.

Dr. Harding began by saying that he did not see himself as the primary figure for the day’s gathering, but instead it was the participants, including the five or so young people who gave short presentations on how they promoted peace in their lives. He said that he wanted to have a dialogue with the people in attendance. Right from the start, from the way that he talked, I got the distinct feeling that there was no superficiality.

We were broken up into smaller groups of 4-5 and invited to talk for a few minutes on the discussion questions handed out on a piece of paper. Then the groups got back together and members were was invited to put themselves forward and talk to Dr. Harding. It was evident that all of the questions were close to the hearts of the persons asking them. Each answer by Dr. Harding was straight and simple. When I think back on it, if I were to summarize what he said, they were all well-known responses, even cliches, such as be present for others, let yourself feel what you’re feeling, etc. But it was the way he communicated that struck me and I believe made an impact.

My wife told me I looked very intense during the Q&A discussion. I was probably taking in, intensely, how Dr. Harding was present and interacting with the members. I walked away from this gathering with a revitalized notion of how I would like my future dojo to be, how I would like to be as a therapist, and how to be a leader in general.

How to draw out such true and congruent expression from people? That bearing of Dr. Harding is not something that is acquired in a day. Yet there is something to be said of “stepping up” and filling the role of a leader. On a superficial level, a person’s credentials can draw out kept-away parts of people. You may open up to a therapist or Dr. Harding just because you know his credentials and believe in their weight. However, the superficiality can beget superficiality. The questions and expressions drawn out by a superficial reason could be demands for “magic bullets” to problems or complete sympathy. How one in the leader’s role deals with the superficiality can add to one’s bearing, though it might be difficult.

One way to draw out true and congruent expression is to share from oneself true and congruent expression. If one is more true and congruent than not, then the relationships that will arise around oneself will likely be influenced accordingly. The trick (for me anyway) is to not demand that others relate to me as I deem “true and congruent”; it’s easy to be lazy and disinterested if someone doesn’t talk about something I’m interested in. Whether one is coming from a problem-solving perspective or a perspective of empathy, to share questions and insight that are true is crucial. Depth is relevant here. Sharing one’s own true and congruent perspective even (or especially when) it may differ from that of the other person – this can be impactful as it is a way of conveying that one is really seeing, hearing, and understanding the other person. If the other person wanted to know how to comfort others over a loss they’ve suffered, I might be true and congruent by saying I don’t think there’s anything in particular one can do to comfort others, but that it’s more important to do be there for them, stay in the room near them, get them some tea, etc.

Dr. Harding spoke of allowing ourselves to feel, and not apologize for feeling sad or angry. Instead, let yourself feel it and share with others that you’re feeling it. Some of the group separately shared with Dr. Harding about the frustration they felt regarding their peers’ apathy and inaction. Dr. Harding’s response included the above as well as the implication that one should convey to others what is important to oneself.

He spoke of the three c’s needed for peace-work: courage, creativity, and compassion.

• In summary I believe “courage” is to see oneself truly and wholly, to be as one truly is in relation to others and in relation to situation, which includes taking initiative and action, to strive to respond to others and situations to the best of one’s capacity rather than at one’s lower, easier levels;
• “creativity” is to try different ways of seeing oneself and outside, to see and try different ways of being and interacting with others and situations, to exercise one’s imagination in being and expressing oneself, to exercise one’s imagination and utilize inspiration that one has experienced in becoming a person with greater capacity;
• “compassion” is to accept the prospect/fear/expectation of what one might see and what one actually does see when one observes oneself, to understand that there are parts that one does not want to see and that there are reasons for not wanting to see, and accept those possible reasons, to grasp the limits of what one is and can do, despite the possibility that others may expect differently, to recognize and exercise the capacity to accept the limitations of others whether those are limitations in your view or others’.

Seminar – taking stock 2 (Atari & “Hitting the structure”)

There is another thing that I realize I’ve walked away with from the Aikiweb seminar, evidenced by how frequently it’s been popping into my mind. It is the phrase that George Ledyard used, “hit the (partner’s) structure”. This phrase fits so well that I am tempted to say I prefer it over the expression “tai-atari (体当たり)”, which would be the original term I heard. Perhaps tai-atari would show its usefulness in the connection to “ki-no-atari”, which of course leads to an early point, namely that there is no absolute distinction between body and ki, or body and mind. For now, I had a train of thought run through my mind based on “hitting the structure”.

With variation among schools of aikido, there are place where the partners pause. E.g., after nage does the turn in tenkan/tai-no-henko; the first cut down in ikkyo omote; the first cut down to create kuzushi for kata-dori or katate-dori ikkyo, the cut down after the initial irimi movement in irimi-nage, etc.

What the examination of pauses boils down to is, what possibilities do you have from that position? The scope can be as narrow as, can you and your partner go to the next proper step in the form? It might be wider, such as can you extricate yourself from that position and continue attacking, possibly with the other hand, without opening yourself up to all manner of techniques and attacks? From this general question of possibilities, the examination is no longer restricted to the codified pauses in the forms. It’s anywhere uke’s balance is broken, which direction they fall or stumble, and how they recover. And, possibly the extraneous question, how to still “be uke” in that the interaction between nage and uke is completed with uke falling or being pinned.

What the idea of possibilities has to do with “hitting structure” is that in order to have the possibility of acting on a partner, one must be engaged with them. That is, I might have many possibilities by disengaging, staying away, and making noncommital gestures to engage, but none of them will give me access to the possibilities of interacting with or acting upon my partner.

The more or less codified pauses are points at which uke can check whether they are organized enough to a) hit the nage’s structure with their structure (as opposed to with only their arm) and b) move in accordance with the next step in the form, or more precisely speaking, move such that the next step in the form is fitting (or else the nage can either forcibly continue the form or change to something else that is more fitting).

Offhand there are 4 ways in which the interaction can go.

1. Uke hits nage’s structure with his own structure.
2. Uke hit’s nage’s structure only partially (eg with muscular strength only).
3. Uke hits part or none of nage’s structure (eg only the arm) but with his own structure.
4. Uke hits part or none of nage’s structure and without his own structure.

There’s a fifth way, consisting of uke leaning on nage. I’m presuming that this gives uke the sensation of pushing on nage. Suffice it to say, using one’s body to push and to lean are quite different actions. At the least, leaning creates the potential for falling, and likely makes acting upon uke’s body by nage a completely different action. Utilizing the fall is probably primary and not necessarily easy.

One way that it is not easy (if uke is leaning skillfully, like a good tackle), is that nage must still be moving with his structure, not just any old way. A skillful tackle will fill up the “space” within nage’s body such that nage may be literally backpedalling, or unable to use his body with the feeling of backpedalling.

When one “grows up” in a particular school, they learn where to stop and how. The “how” part might not be examined very deeply, though there might be a sense of accomplishing it better or worse. Another piece that might not be examined is “why”. From what I myself have seen, both students who do and don’t come from schools where these “pauses” are practiced struggle to one degree or another when faced with the examination of “how” and “why”. This examination is probably presented to students familar with pauses as pausing in unfamiliar places and times, with consequences relating to what happens after a pause. These students may at least have the possible advantage of having something to translate to become more flexible or generalized. To students unfamiliar with pauses, the examination is likely more of a struggle. For one thing, if a student is used to continuous movement, they may face the demand of organizing their body only at a few points, such as at the very beginning or very end of contact with nage. If demanded to pause right in the middle of flow, their body organization might be lagging behind, accustomed to the luxury of catching up later in the flow, or jumped ahead, knowing what the next leg of the flow will be like. Or perhaps the student might not even be behind or ahead, but simply doing an approximation, sort of like counting from 1 through 10, “1, 3, 5, 34, 2, 78, 5, 9 9.1, 10″, used to getting by within the loosest of criteria. If a student was suddently corrected that this was not really counting from 1 to 10, they might have some justified response, indicating the criteria that they’ve been using, such as “I counted 10 numbers didn’t I?” or “I started with 1 and ended with 10 didn’t I?” The student who is already used to pausing may be used to counting correctly from 1 to 10, but struggle with the task of struggle with the task of counting from 1 to 20 using whatever numbers they deemed fitting. For both, the examination of pauses may seem nonsensical.

Seminar – taking stock

• “The Animal” – Clark sensei responded to someone who was basically commenting how it “feels like nothing” when you do the technique and your partner falls down. Perhaps the question was, how do you assess and improve the skill if you can’t feel when you succeed? Clark brought up the concept of the “animal” that we feed with the feeling of success or otherwise working away at something (eg wrestling with someone, overpowering someone). Getting better at technique means becoming able to do technique in a way that doesn’t give you that feedback that “feeds the animal”. Conversely, if feeding the animal is your incentive for practicing, then your technical improvement will accordingly stay at a level at which you can still feed the animal. To move on, you have to starve it.
  An immediate thought I had was how the animal can adapt to different “diets”. And, because the animal isn’t being fed by the initial diet, I might be in danger of feeding it without noticing. This is a question of  internal awareness and introspection, one that could be the biggest one I took away from that weekend. It was one of those “Ag!” moments where I realized I didn’t really understand what my teacher was getting at years ago. I’ve already had a couple of “Ag!” occasions where I thought I understood why Endo sensei was so persistent about the idea of feeling oneself and not being captivated by the partner to the point of not noticing or ignoring the partner.
  My “project” now is to notice the animal’s current diet.
• The value of a group to which you belong, or a “kai”.
  Talking with some of the Jiyushinkan people, I could see on one hand how much they were developing as human beings from their practice because they belonged to a coherent, cohesive group. Belonging entails having a set a values, priorities, relationships, reference points – all of which entail having an identity. Paradoxically, being able to have an identity enables a person to question themselves and thereby grow.
  On the other hand, and this is not a piece that is strictly wedded to being in a group, there is the aspect of “other”. That is, belonging to a group influences how you see people outside of the group and how your experience is when you encounter such people. The main, possibly only, danger lies here, in that that development of “other” could go poorly. Precisely because the danger lies here, a person’s way of mitigating that danger is to initiate encounters with it (ie interact with “others”) and continue to be/become the person he/she is trying to become. So, if belonging to a group involves any related danger, it is to minimize exposure to “other” and increase the possibility of a person’s grasp of “self” and “other” to go awry.
• Premises and assumptions.
  Examining the assumptions that I place myself under in my practice is a good way to contemplate why I am practicing, what I think is important, how I prioritize, what I’m trying to get out of it.
  To start from specifics, I think I don’t value reversals as much as I value absorption and efficient use of energy. I probably value continuity more than intentional acceleration/deceleration. I think I value surrendering myself to my partner’s actions more than consciously deciding or knowing what we are doing from moment to moment.
  I probably value demanding, or encouraging, a pre-decided form to happen by making my own openings rather than my partner’s openings apparent. This could have something to do with boundaries, but particularly when I’m dealing with someone I’m not familiar with or with a beginner, I will be more likely to leave the windows of opportunity open, and close them with people I’m more familiar with and of a higher level. Of course the premise is that I think one dimension of an interaction with a partner is awareness of who they are and when something is being artificially, rather than organically, given/taken. I don’t know if this reflects my attitude on social context or my aikido development.
  Why? Why choose these assumptions? For the first assumption, at the risk of providing an evasive answer, I like “neru” practice. I like the idea of striving for unconscious awareness and accepting whatever comes. As mentioned above, with a higher level partner I can “keep a channel open” for my own agenda (eg attacking and putting them down, or reversing) but it’s not an emphasis.
  As for the second assumption, again at the risk of an evasive answer, I think that that is more in accordance with my philosophy of life at this point. It’s likely also how I’ve “starved my animal”, at least in one way.