How does anyone grow as a person. How do you become something that you are not. How do you escape from the shoe box that you grew up in and become aware of the larger world outside the bubble that you normally exist and live within. How do you become something you are not (yet).
The answer is reasonably simple but it must become a regular part of your life. You need people in your life that are further along than you, people that have a bigger vision, people that are more experienced in the ups and downs of life, people that are out of your league in terms of knowledge and sophistication, people that are more mature emotionally, intellectually, and experience-wise.
Long story short, you need to be exposed to new levels of knowledge, understanding of life, maturity, and experience so that you can go to your own new levels by being around new sources of knowledge, a broader view of life, and deeper information on new topics.
I came to martial arts from a small country town that when compared to a big city was incredibly backwards. We had lots of BBQ and Tex-Mex food but we didn't even know what a pizza parlor was and something such as Chinese food or sushi was equivalent to an invasion from outer space ...... and philosophy ......... what in the world was that. Buddhism, Taoism, meditation ..... scary stuff to be avoided and belittled.
So I begin training in Aikido & Judo and am immediately exposed to those, and many other new ideas that changed my way of life. New foods, new ideas, new information, new people all of which taken together opened my eyes. My old attitudes about such things as martial arts, even politics, changed and grew larger in scope allowing me to better understand the good and bad points, the strengths and weaknesses of everything around me including different opinions, and new training ideas. In effect, I became a more worldly and sophisticated person open to exploring new ideas.
However, as an interesting side note, I also became more discriminatory in what I did and accepted; that is, greater knowledge can manifest itself by our having a deeper understanding of everything around and what is desirable, or undesirable and what to accept or not accept. In other words, growing up in a small country town had resulted in a lack of depth and accepting (or denying) many things at their face value, also known as naivety.
A dojo is different from other endeavors. People who go to the same church tend to have the same ideas on religion and philosophy. People who belong to the same book club tend to read the same books. People who live in the same area of town tend to go to the same bars and restaurants and eat the same repetitive selections of food.
Martial artists however generally start training with only one thing in common, learning martial arts and maybe getting in shape but they all come from different backgrounds. Everything else you may know (or think you know), believe in, or have experienced is very likely completely different from everybody else on the mat so every day working with others potentially results in new knowledge and information to be exposed to ....... and then there is "Apre's Dojo" or the social hour after practice as you discuss everything and anything over a cup of sake where you go into "being exposed to new ideas" overload.
So, learn from your training partner and the teachers and begin to grow your horizons. Use this idea as just one more reason to train in Bushido (a word, an idea, and a way of life that I didn't even know existed until I put on my gi for the first time and stepped on the mat).
And ..... pay attention to the Sensei at your dojo. The word Sensei after all translates as "One who was born before"; not necessarily by a calendar but instead, one more experienced in life, more broadly educated, and knowledgeable (in all that "new stuff").
L F. Wilkinson Kancho
The Aikibudokan
Houston, TX
October 4, 2023
Good post. Thanks.
Posted by: Rick Matz | October 05, 2023 at 09:37 AM