The Thoughtful Sensei-Aikido Musings

203. Put Your Nose Into the Wind and Climb

For your consideration ....... training in Bushido and your chosen martial art form (for me that's Tomiki Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu and the koryu combat school of SMR Jojutsu) is a lifetime path. I started in high school in the late 1960's and find myself some 50 years later still training and still running a dojo.

 

Now at age 71 (72 if you count your gestation as an extra year as the Japanese do) I likely have at least another 10 years to go on the mat, maybe 15 or 20, who can know for certain.

 

That means that if my luck holds, I could have a total of 60 to 70 years on the mat. Or put another way, if I consider that a full training phase is about 20 years or so, then I will have passed through 3 full 20-year phases during my life.

 

The 20-year idea is about how long it should take to start training and then reach 6th Dan or 7th Dan or so; that rank being the rank at which you should know every technical aspect and kata for your system, being fully functional in all, and have the beginnings of a complete and deep understanding of the more spiritual, esoteric, and philosophical aspects of it all.

 

20 years is about one-third of the way through that time span of 60 or so years which means that the first third of the journey is to learn the basics (and internalize them) meaning that the journey to learn what Bushido and Aiki-jujutsu is truly about, in a deep philosophical fashion, starts in earnest at about the 20 year point with the important ideas still remaining to be discovered and explored.

 

Climbing a mountain would be an example. Walking towards the highest point (the summit) the climber is able to see further and further out, acquire a feel for how everything changes the closer to the top he gets, such as the forest gradually changing to tundra, and then rocky peaks. As he continues the upward journey he sees more and more and can see further and further and theoretically gain a fuller understanding of the mountain itself.

 

The rub here is that if the climber stops at any point, then he is missing what comes next and should he never reach the summit then he will not enjoy the complete vision nor will he be able to savor the joy of all the efforts expended in reaching it, the journey being the important part of it all, more so than the actual goal.

 

Tragically, all too many times during this climb he thinks that he has reached the summit and stops and becomes satisfied with what little he has found. And sometimes he deludes himself into thinking that he has arrived and simply does not know what he does not know.

 

The moral to this story is simply that of never stopping the climb and most especially never assuming the uneducated position of assuming that there is no more hill to climb and no more to learn; which in and of itself can create a form or arrogance (aka "I know it all").

 

Look at the journey as a long-term journey of learning and not a one-time course. After all, it's your life and not a semester at university. Life goes on while that semester will certainly come to an end.

 

L. F. Wilkinson Kancho

The Aikibudon

Houston, TX

October 24,2023

202. A Further and Larger Level of Being

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