Article 1 of 8
In the trilogy of articles on "New Age, Budo and processes of change", we have discussed the development, influence and needs of the present and the past in relation to martial arts and martial arts - with an approach through an unconventional holistic light, and not the traditionally understood and suboptimal spotlight.
In the first two chapters; "Prehistory, influence and thoughts on martial arts and martial arts today" and "Prehistory, influence and thoughts on martial arts and martial arts society", we highlighted a lot of more or less clear connections.
Keep your mouth shut, many are thinking. Could you be a little more concrete and specific? Now we have gone through the entire history of the world, the development of society and the dynamic tools of people in their constant processes of change at a high, low, constant or periodic pace. Furthermore, martial arts or martial arts are something that everyone associates with the Far East, and we therefore live in the West! So where are you going with all this? Could you be a bit more concrete and specific? Of course, it's coming now.
My main angles are the following:
- People are people, whether they are white, yellow, black, brown, tall, short, fat, thin, or male or female.
- All people are born curious and inquisitive to a greater or lesser extent.
- All people go through internal and external processes of change in their lives, to a greater or lesser extent.
- All people use and are influenced by their chosen or assigned external reference points. They help shape them as people, whether they live in the East, West, North or South.
- All people use and are influenced by their inner reference points in the spirit.
- All people are unique and want to be unique.
- All people think and communicate beyond what exists for the benefit of others than themselves. Few act beyond what exists for the benefit of others but themselves.
- All people who can eat with a knife and fork, chopsticks or with their hands, can practice and train martial arts and martial arts according to their choice and motivation.
- Martial arts is an external point of reference, which can periodically through focus be united with the internal points of reference to create harmony, calm and overview at the right time and place.
- Martial arts unite your outer reference points with your inner reference points with the goal of finding yourself, your fellow man and the path to life's holistic and all-embracing, formless and timeless essence.
Article 2 of 8
An instructor with many years of experience said to me; “All that constant change through mental pressure beyond our existing limits and form – it can also get too boring and tiring in the long run!”. Interpretation and meaning: Thinking, communicating and acting beyond the existing and thereby constantly changing oneself for the better, is one of the absolute cornerstones of all martial arts. It is a lifelong process. This instructor is an excellent martial artist.
An instructor with many years of experience said to me; ‟All that training alone – it can be really boring and too much of a gamble!”. Interpretation and meaning: Being alone with yourself and your thoughts, words and actions to find yourself, and expressing and daring to show this through active expression, is one of the absolute cornerstones of all martial arts. It is a lifelong process. This instructor is an excellent martial artist.
Two ambitious and very experienced instructors said to me in a serious moment after a reception: You are the living example of the failure of our others. We are almost the same age, have trained almost the same number of years, but we are still lower graded black belts, while you are a high graded black belt and Menkyo Kaiden „Initiated master of all the martial arts‟. We can't even say that you have come to your grades easily, and that you are not that damned skilled. Because we know that is a lie, and we have both seen and felt it ourselves. – You serve all the rest of us better dead, ha, ha.‟.
Interpretation and meaning: Such episodes of honesty, jealousy or intrigue are experienced by all people who have achieved something that others themselves want to achieve in their field. This can be constant, period or episode wise. We all know the silly, open or hidden remarks from friends, acquaintances, colleagues, bosses, employees or complete strangers when we or a person happily talk about a new acquisition, a success or big visions. It doesn't have to be that way, but reality shows otherwise. Why do people find it so difficult to be genuinely happy about other people's success, progress and joy?
It is really strange when people throughout the history of the world admire, look up to and celebrate those who do not belong to the gray mass in their field - i.e. in the period when they control their lives too wildly. It immediately becomes something else when this is no longer the case. There are numerous examples of this. The royal house is a very good example; Most people expect royalty to serve as examples and live like in the fairy tale. If we get too close to these people in whom we can live out our dreams, people's reaction is often the opposite. People's expectation of the illusion burst, and opponents of the royal house breathe the morning air and set sail in the storm. We have seen this in England, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Monaco and Denmark.
Article 3 of 8
Many people are prepared to kill to maintain their glamour and illusions – which they did in the “uncivilized old days” with cash settlements and consequences. Most people with influence are expected to meet some definable “pedestal norms” that require a certain distance to maintain the glamour and illusion.
If people get too close, the icons are reduced to humans, forcing the admirers to decide whether the icons are better people than them. Which can be extremely difficult with our Western norms of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” and the law of the jungle, – although everyone knows of course that there ARE differences between people.
But admitting it is like admitting that you yourself should improve your "development areas" - the process of change to know yourself. If an icon expresses this publicly, he or she is just amazing. If an ordinary person does this to colleagues, friends or others, they are just a loser, because this person has opened up and made themselves vulnerable in this "Eat or be eaten mentality".
Yes, you say, how can we change this? The answer is simple; ”If everyone knew themselves, the problem would be solved”. But who will start? :. Which came first? The egg or the chicken – here also lies the answer to why society today most often rules by the lowest common denominator, and only in thought by the middle one. The highest common denominator only in secret, as it is about making the world better – by knowing oneself :.
The proverb "Fly high, fall low" can be interpreted as either a mischievous grin or as an eternal reminder of optimal, timely care in all significant aspects, both external and internal.
This admiration and cultivation applies all over the world, which, for example, manifested itself in the Vikings' heroic quatrain, the songs of the North American Indians and other peoples, and in today's world the boundless admiration for business leaders, sportsmen, actors and super models.
The way to admire these is different from Europe, North and South America to the East. This is historically and socio-culturally conditioned. This is traditionally reflected in message, plot and angle in the film world.
In the past, and it still happens, many European films were very "heavy" with many intellectual psychological and unfair real plots, where "the hero dies and the villain wins". In the USA, it is often the opposite with light entertaining and fair fantasy plots, where "the hero saves the heroine and the villain is elegantly defeated by the hero and gets his well-deserved punishment".
Just as most citizens of the "middle & upper class" officially do not read gossip magazines or watch Wheel of Fortune, Robinson or Big Brother - we Europeans most often belittle and excuse the fact that we watch these American entertaining, popular and easily forgotten films, instead of a traditional profound Ingrid Bergman film, which constantly reminds us of our own unresolved problems in everyday life, and encourages us to self-pity, melancholy and "how much harder we have it than everyone else!"
Maybe this explains why the American movies are so popular? :. You know what you pay for and get to see.
Article 4 of 8
Many readers have probably already got the idea that the essence of these differences is that the purpose is the same, but from different angles, parts of the world and people; to know oneself and thus also to be oneself constantly. It will be difficult to be other than oneself when one has finally learned to know oneself. „A burnt child avoids fire‟ – one usually only puts one's hand on a red-hot stove once in one's life, even though there is nothing to prevent it from happening again.
The strange thing is that many people insist on putting their hand on the stove several times, to the detriment of themselves and others, just to prove that they control and decide over their own lives - even if they receive perfectly well-intentioned and correct advice. Many teenage parents, parents of young children, bosses, employees, friends, acquaintances and Budo instructors can nod in recognition to this. Yes, actually all people can.
The question is simply whether people's need for self-assertion, self-punishment, self-pity and self-justification has generally diminished throughout time and history, and if it has not, there must necessarily be a purpose for this - if people believe that life has a purpose. There is now a difference between theory and practice and thus also experience.
Among people, the biggest barrier to learning trust is called; ego, and how well you know yourself - in reality. This can usually have something to do with age, but not necessarily.
Usually this goes along with how early you have been motivated for this. Everyone knows from school that it can take 3-5-7 times as long to acquire material that you are not motivated, disposed and matured to learn and experience. This is also the case in martial arts and the world of martial arts – just like in all other parts of people's lives.
Martial arts and martial arts come from the East. There is a difference between East and West, and learning pedagogy and methodology. You can read more about this here: "The good master". In the East, it is expected that students will pressure their instructor for knowledge and quick learning. That is, it is the student's task to learn something. In the West, it is often the opposite.
In the East, it is expected that when the student asks his instructor for an answer, and the answer is cryptic but long-term, the student works intensely on this until everything has been extracted from the answer and the essence has become permanent.
In the west, the student expects to receive a direct and easy-to-understand answer that does not go too close to the student's person and work areas. And if this is the case, the answer must be made so cryptic, but direct, that the student can interpret the answer according to his own worldview, maintain his illusion without responsibility, since the instructor has taken this on himself and create the feeling of a short-term victory.
It is extremely rare that a student has the will to maintain a sparring and coaching course until Menkyo kaiden "Initiated master of all the martial arts". Most people drop out much earlier.
Sam Torrance, one of the world's best golf coaches, said that the difference between an amateur and a professional, after he has taught them through a course, is that the amateur does not know why his game has improved, but the professional is well aware of this.
Article 5 of 8
It is the difference in attitude, the will to the goal and the degree of the indefinable, timeless and formless self-knowledge. Likewise, it is also with martial arts and martial arts, and it is also becoming this way in the East. The world has become much smaller and is constantly meeting.
Some instructors asked me how this related. Below is the answer I gave them:
"Most people blame others when they are pushed into a corner. It makes it easier for themselves. That's how most people are – although of course no one wants to admit it."
Most people feel self-hatred when they are confronted with the "innermost secrets" that they do or have done but have not done anything about because it is too painful, or they have blamed others for marketing themselves at the expense of others.
It is always easier to blame others if you have not been good enough, or asserted yourself in other ways, often at the expense of others. This increases the more aware you become of yourself, until you “know yourself 100 % ‟ by Menkyo – in Yakami language 5th dan, Menkyo.
In newspapers, books and interviews, it is pointed out that willingness to change and self-development is a must in today's world, both business-wise, work-wise, in schools, kindergartens and nurseries, and also in the cultural and sporting associations.
We all have to keep up with the times in order to survive. But this has also led to a certain mental fatigue with the changing trends and demands on how we all have to be to be “up to the beat and in the loop”. In line with communication and transport options, the world has become considerably smaller. This also applies to the spread of self-staging, image care and own branding. Today it is everyday life for most people, where before it was reserved for Kings, emperors, presidents and prime ministers, later politicians, business leaders, entertainers, idols and other people with social influence, and now it is the turn of the next link in the chain of conscious self-staging; all of us “ordinary” people.
I have trained an incredible number of people over the past 20 years. People have passed to 9.kyu to 6.dan. And people have dumped to 9.kyu to 6.dan. Dumping people is never nice, because you really want them to pass. Because in its innermost meaning, dumping means that you are not good enough - yet.
From 9-4.kyu this is technically emphasized. 3-1.kyu there may be a minor ego-break and some stop. 1-3.dan comes a major ego-break and many reevaluate their priorities and self-perception. 4-6.dan, here you can feel you are losing your "personality", the ego-break is of gigantic dimensions, and many choose to cover this up by belittling, smearing, ridiculing or undermining the person who dumped them, or downgrading, extra will to complete the next time, or they want to "start their own system within the system", where they determine or control the criteria, and they are "king or queen".
After Menkyo Kaiden, this is a non-issue, as a practitioner becomes completely indifferent to degrees. Degrees will only be a pat on the back and something that means more to others than yourself. You will be the “real thing”, open and not hiding anything that others could benefit from if they wanted it.
This has been the case for centuries, but in ancient Japan, only the best survived, so the "fake goods" died quickly, or quickly reevaluated their behavior and statements.
That consequence does not exist today, and most people today place more emphasis on the exterior than the interior – and there are plenty of “teachers” who would be happy to support them in this illusion or glamour.
It spreads like rings in the water, so when the water meets the "real thing" you would rather sail around it than stop and go ashore. That is why Minouchi Sensei (BUIDO's founder) said that Budo had reached its low point today.
Article 6 of 8
Depending on the graduate's degree and thus the size of the ego fracture, the process most often becomes this if the graduate does not progress; After the dumping, there follows a period of post-rationalisation, self-blame, doubts about one's own ability - which after a while turns into the opposite.
The instructor decides he wants to learn again. This is just not done 100 %, but with a distribution on willingness to learn and self-protection against a possible new dumping.
The slower the learning process is compared to before, the more frustrated the instructor becomes. The instructor knows that it is his or her own ego self-protection and built-up illusions about one's own ability that place greater and greater limitations on the learning process. An old saying goes, "You can drag a donkey to the trough, but you can't make it drink." The higher the instructor is, the more disastrous this "learning method" is.
When the Instructor at some point crosses the line where ego protection turns into ego assertiveness during teaching, the phase changes to one where the Instructor will only learn in his own way, demands and conditions, which often directly depend on the Instructor's current emotional state. Then a learning process becomes impossible, and the student has reached his "ceiling", but most often denies this himself.
This can lead to the instructor trying to eliminate the conditions that confirm the truth about one's own ability, illusion and self-denial and thus actual conditions. Most often, the instructor begins to experiment and develop within the system, to attach key people for one's own external "success" and protection closer to oneself, and a detachment is underway.
Many establishment of new systems have been done in this way, and therefore Minouchi Sensei drew attention to this, - and became very unpopular in many circles for this statement, although his intention was to preserve the original requirements and level of Budo and Bujutsu.
Minouchi Sensei was not of the opinion that there was only room for the few, but only that the right "Product Label" should be applied. So that illusions and systems that had actually arisen on the basis of an ego self-defense system should not market a level and insight that it could not maintain.
Today it is not unusual for instructors from the groups 1-3.dan and 4-6.dan to establish their own systems, if the "market base and the disciples" exist. After the First World War, it has been normal practice that the establishment of officially recognized systems could only happen at 7-8.dan. And before this time, at the old Budo and Bujutsu degrees; Menkyo Kaiden (Initiated master of all the martial arts).
There is a big difference between marketing a 7-8th dan or Menkyo Kaiden level when the insight and skills are significantly lower. It is equivalent to marketing that anyone can pass a university doctorate without having to take the exam and meet the set requirements for skills and insight. It then becomes only a question of setting the requirements low enough so that the interest in the "market base and disciples" can continue and possibly be expanded.
Article 7 of 8
The socio-cultural development and difference between East and West means that when some people drop to black belt degrees 1-3.dan, this is done very, very discreetly and differently from person to person. It is kept within a narrow closed circle until the degree has later been passed. Then it can first be used as an example of learning for those who come after.
From 4th-6th dan, the course can/will be significantly different, as Yakami-ryu does not have honorary degrees. The teaching is entirely from the inside out, where before it was the other way around. And it is the world's most thankless job during the course, after the course, especially if they fail – until at some point, and if, they achieve Menkyo. The world's most thankless job must be equal to pure charity, otherwise it is unbearable :'.
If one Grandmaster from the East invites an instructor for special training, this is considered a great honor, where the student knows very well that he/she only gets this one chance. In the West, it is often the exact opposite.
There must also be a good reason why grandmasters, wise men and women or others with special knowledge, usually only give a student one chance. Either you want it or you don't. There is no need to waste each other's time and energy. This is how it has now also become Jokokan.
We have also experienced this in Jokokan. We have therefore respected this different attitude and approach to receiving learning, training and methodologies, which the basic idea of association life also reflects.
But with the caveat that a sports organization is never better than its practitioners, and this in a martial arts or martial arts organization places special demands on the foremost exponents and leaders in the organization.
We learned this the hard way in the organization's change process and during individually targeted special training by Jokokan's main exponents.
Before the change process, the unity was very close and therefore the group pressure was probably also greater. We rarely let each other down, intensively training Yakami-ryu martial arts with skin, hair and whole heart all the time. During this period the high level was founded.
The change process has changed this, as it turned out that the majority of all instructors one by one prioritized differently. The natural development and balance has therefore meant that the broader framework can accommodate everyone, and not just as before – super elitist practitioners. The Jokokan Association (JDK) was established as a community martial arts organization with now 7 schools and approx. 350 members, which also includes the possibility that if the interest, motivation and will are present, one can be invited for individual sparring, coaching and training in the “old” Jokokan organization; The Association for Yashin mon. Yakami no Taijutsu from 3-4.kyu.
Article 8 of 8
The difference in attitude between martial arts and martial arts is also reflected in everyday life. It will only be natural, since everything you do usually has a purpose in your life.
A friend once excitedly told me that he had just bought this wine for us to taste. As always, he had thoroughly familiarized himself with the cases. He told how good the wine had become after the winegrower had purposefully and tirelessly worked for countless years towards this lovely and round quality wine, driven by the love and perfection of the craft; Winemaking. He had expressed and put his soul into this wine. Nothing in the process was accidental and nothing was compromised.
Novra I said, and thought if I was as excited about this wine as my friend, then it would probably be a good idea to buy this wine too. My friend was right, it tasted divine! So I asked cautiously, “Uh, how much does a wine like that cost..?” With a big laugh, my friend said, “Now you’ll hear the best part, I got it for half price through an offer, and I can probably get you some too!” My friend was thrilled that I also thought the wine was wonderful and wanted to share his knowledge and wine bargain with others.
The following week I was at another dinner party. The host exclaims as he pours the wine, "I was a bit busy - now I hope damn it the wine is good because it cost a fortune - otherwise I'll complain!"
Question: What is the marked difference in thought and attitude in the above stories? Seen from an everyday situation and angle, this is also the difference from martial arts and martial arts attitude.
I have now illuminated the difference between martial arts and martial arts from an unconventional angle. I must stress that neither of the two methods is better than the other - they serve different purposes and goals in life, which depend on the individual's personality, life, lifestyle and path of self-discovery.
But the goals, purposefulness and duration of the change process are very different. This is the individual person's choice and responsibility in this life. It is these choices and goals that make people so unique – and different. We are not all the same. There ARE some people who are better people than the rest of us, who know more, who have more money, who have more power, who are more beautiful and more developed than the rest of us. Just as there ARE people who are worse people than the rest of us, who know less, who have less money, who have less power, who are uglier and less developed than the rest of us.
How it is in reality will probably be beyond most people.
