Oh Everest, My Everest

What I say does not matter. The only thing that changes the score is what I do. I'll need to repeat this to myself for the rest of my life because it will never stop being true.

From The Theory & Application of Tradition Kata:
An Art with a Thousand Faces:

Moral Philosophy:
One mistake the modern karateka often makes, when trying to grasp conceptual origins, classical application theories and moral philosophy of karatedo, is to depend too much on contemporary assumptions. Knowledge taken for granted these days was originally locked in an ironclad ritual of secrecy known only by a select minority who had passed the arduous test of time. For the same reason one would never entrust a loaded weapon to immoral hands, so too did the early pioneers of this tradition believe that embracing a body of moral philosophy to govern the ethical behavior of those who mastered its brutal secrets superseded learning to fight.

My classes aren't in a traditional school, so this is the kind of lesson I only seem to get when I search for it online. I wonder how common it is for larger, more established schools to neglect these important lessons... and I wonder how the methods used to impart this information on adults and children differ.

I was just looking up the terms on my list of white belt (one stripe) requirements because I'll be testing at the end of August, and the list uses the Japanese names, which I'm not entirely familiar with yet. One kicking technique I haven't been taught yet is Kansetsu Geri, a stomping kick where you can break your opponent's knee. I looked it up to get a detailed description of it and found this fun video clip of Sensai Terry Lyon demonstrating it.

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." (Anaïs Nin)

Before I found this quotation, I had come to an understanding that love (at least for me) is something that comes stealthily, mysteriously, even arbitrarily, and that its survival is largely independent of present circumstances. I am fairly certain that the rest of the enigma lies in the fact that love is too often conflated with the behaviors that surround it. So here I am now trying to untangle the mess for my own sanity. I'm sure there's a big, overly personal entry brewing in me, but I'm not quite sure what it's about yet. Well, I think I know who it's about, which should be half the battle (yet isn't), but it will probably be a little while before I understand what I've got on my hands, and I want to get some ideas down now.

Matthew expressed my initial thoughts pretty eloquently when he blogged about the quotation. (Matthew, you stole my twinkie so I'm helping myself to your homemade pie, if you don't mind. Deal? Deal.) The part that resonated with me most was that blindness is sometimes just holding your eyes closed against the light. Everyone I know either has strict rules about their romantic behavior or careens through relationships with nary a responsible thought. A small (very small) percentage of my acquaintances make seemingly reckless decisions that are actually just the right thing. The ones with rules look at the minority group and think that they are being helplessly foolish, but that just means they are following a logic the others don't understand. I'm still figuring my own rules out, but I've learned enough to know that using somebody else's rules doesn't work for me. That's the whole point of having the rules, isn't it - so that they improve my life by working for me? Anyway, Matthew nailed this feeling I had right on the head. The effect of blindness may actually come from blindness as a cause, but sometimes we have different reasons. Blindness is not weakness in and of itself.

Right now, I can't mentally separate my romantic behavior that's Just Plain Stupid from the behavior that Society Just Isn't Used To Yet. Furthermore, my instincts are telling me that both possibilities are way off because Everything I'm Doing and Feeling is Okay. I just don't have the theoretical framework to explain it yet. The closest I've come has been by using Paul Graham's ideas (again), à la What You Can't Say. I'm challenging society norms by challenging my own boundaries. Thinking outside the box. Saying words I can't say. Doing things I can't do. The end results, I trust, will be positive for everyone involved.

From Shitoryu Karate Do Cyber Academy:

Mokuso is part of the training of the mind called 'Mushin', which comes from Zen Buddhism. One must attempt to return to the mental state of a new-born-child that is without a sense of fear, not conscious of distress, pain, cold etc. A baby cannot anticipate these things and therefore has no fear and does not hesitate before moving. An adult knows fear and is afraid. When attacked they feel tense and are often useless against the assailant because movement is restricted.

If one sees a beautiful flower, normally the mind concentrates on it, but with an empty mind (Mokuso) the mind is aware of everything else as well as the flower.

So when one fights an enemy, attacking and defending, if only concentrating on blocking techniques, the mind is restricted to that movement, but if the mind is empty (and blocking practised enough) the body is able to do the next movement automatically and movements will always be natural.

If the body is tense it is wasting energy and restricting speed, it is essential to move without being conscious of it. That feeling is called Mushin.

From The Theory & Application of Tradition Kata:
"An Art with a Thousand Faces":

Spiritualism:
Realizing that the source of human weakness lay within, early innovators, many of them spiritual recluses, realized that man’s ultimate journey had to be inward, not outward. Discovering the source of human weakness also revealed the inner location in which man’s battles should be first fought & won before the outer circumstances of their daily lives could ever be improved. Transmitting this truth through their defensive discipline the pursuit of emancipation and harmony became a journey more highly desired than the physical vehicle used to achieve it.

Time to marinate.