Growing up, did you often hear that you’ll grow up to be like the people you surround yourself with?
That advice is something that is stuck in between the ears of many of us and yet, it has more depth than many at first notice. First, yes – it is important to bear in mind the company we keep. If we surround ourselves with high quality people, we often unconsciously elevate ourselves to the same level of excellence. Of course, the unfortunate opposite can be true if we carry the company of lazy and sloven folks.
Here’s where it gets tricky however. We don’t just assimilate to the people we hang out with on the weekends. We assimilate to our environment – the media we consume, the thoughts and words we entertain, and the places we frequent.
To send our improvements into hyperdrive, we have to take stock of what we are unconsciously digesting and ensure it is high quality and aligned with what we desire.
With that being said, it can be so hard to find the gorgeous treasure of helpful information when there is so much to sift through out there in the wide world.
Breathe. Wipe the worried sweat off of your forehead. I’ve got your back!
Listed below our five written resources you can delve into to kickstart the elevation of your environment.
1) Sword and Brush by Dave Lowry
This book is something of a modern classic – the type of book I would recommend for every martial artist, regardless of where their style originated.
The book starts off by covering the mentality of what makes an art, the history of both the blade and the calligraphic art, the evolution of the poetic mentality in Japan, and the cultural backdrop of feudal Japan.
Following the introduction, the book dives into forty-two Japanese concepts, each chapter consisting of one to three pages.
Despite the short length of the book, you can tell that each concept was well researched and understood.
Even the most complex concepts, the ones which easily could have had a whole book dedicated to them, felt as if they were an appropriate size. Each page’s prose is amazingly concise and no chapter feels rushed. Each chapter cuts right to the heart of the matter, wasting no words to give you a crash course into the creation and purpose of the character.
Every chapter is headlined by the Kanji character(s) for the martial art concept, illustrated in both the sōsho style (the artistic and quick drawn “cursive” writing style) and kaisho style (the modern style of writing that is standard nowadays).
Following the calligraphic art, the book delves into the philosophical, cultural, and historical roots of each martial art concept. Despite the book’s usage of Japanese terminology and intention to relate primarily to Japanese arts, a good martial artist will be able to easily find the relation of each lesson to other culture’s arts.
The book often goes beyond the literal translation, delving much deeper instead into the picture the character is trying to impart on your mind. Sometimes the chapter will simply be a descriptive read on the radicals comprising the characters. Sometimes it is something more, however, such as a parable about a master teaching a senior student how to help his younger classmate gain more benefit from his training.
The bite-sized chapters make for an excellent morning meditative read, a five-minute session that will give you something to ponder for the remainder of the day.
2) Refining Jin by Philip Starr
It is an absolute delight to see quality instruction on the internal martial arts written for the public. Author Phillip Starr has an engaging style of writing that communicates his high level of knowledge in a fun manner. Few people attempt to write professionally on the details mentioned in Refining Jin and fewer still can do it successfully.
Refining Jin takes the smart approach to imparting skills; Phillip Starr gives you a few basic movements and builds on them each chapter. This method allows for tacking on many details of how to move your body without seeming overwhelming.
Refining Jin finishes by showing common places within the three popular Neijia where you can apply the ideas mentioned. That’s not to say that you can’t apply these ideas in any other martial art styles however. Act like a scientist and explore your style. After reading the book, I’m
sure you will be able to look back at your martial art and find places to incorporate what was written.
3) Research of Martial Arts by Jonathan Bluestein
Jonathan Bluestein’s Research of Martial Arts is an impressive compendium of martial arts theory, discussion, and overall knowledge.
The beginning of the book states that everything written between the covers has meaning. After finishing my first read-through, I have to concur—the prose of each chapter feels very purposeful and guides you into thinking deeper about its contents. The amount of heart stuffed inside the large book is enormous!
Jonathan Bluestein’s Research of Martial Arts presents many different approaches the various arts take to applications and training and treats them all fairly. While you can tell he has preferences and deeply enjoys the Eastern Internal arts, you can also tell he doesn’t disregard an idea simply because it is occidental or External.
Case and point, at times you can read a passage about Taiji principles and theory and the next passage can point you towards studying the works of security specialists such as Gavin de Becker.
The contents of Research of Martial Arts are akin to something you may hear in a personal session with a modern master, the type of info rarely found in published works.
4) Philosophy of Fighting by Keith Vargo
Keith Vargo’s Philosophy of Fighting is a very unique treasure to add to the book collection. The book itself is a compilation of the many “Way of the Warrior” columns Vargo has written for Black Belt Magazine. Topics range from psychoanalysis of the warrior ideal, Hindu epics, Balintawak history, no-holds-bared fighting tournaments, and much more. Even as a short read with fewer than three hundred pages, there is plenty of information to indulge in.
As should be expected from a compilation of magazine columns, readers get a deep dive into the author’s unadulterated mind. This makes for a very engaging read. Transforming the written words on the page into something akin to a conversation between two martial art classmates.
When you read the author’s words, you realize something extremely important; he is a passionate and appreciative martial artist quite like you. Even if you don’t have the same interest in sport combat that Vargo has, his passion is infectious, pulling you into the pages regardless. Beyond that, the depth of which he examines everything brings to light many ideas all martial artists can benefit from hearing.
5) Ninja Fighting Techniques by Stephen K. Hayes
Simply said, this is a book dedicated to understanding yourself and, by that introspective glimpse, understanding those around you. This is to know the conflicting and complementary aspects of who you are so that you can better communicate with those around you. These tips apply whether you perceive the person in front of you as your enemy or your ally.
Ninja Fighting Techniques segments into three pieces. The first segment gives you a brief overview of what to expect as you delve deeper into the book. The two chapters that compose it give readers a glimpse into the principles the book founds itself on: being a positive warrior who can protect that which is truly important, the Japanese view on the Classical Elements and their connected differences, and the many ugly faces violence and aggression can take.
The second segment contains chapters for each of the five elements in Japanese philosophy as well as their corresponding tactics. The five classical elements in Japan, known as the Godai, are recognized as Earth (地 Chi), Water (水 Sui), Fire (火 Ka), Wind (風 Fu), and Void (空 Ku).
Author Stephen K. Hayes takes each of these elements and puts them on full display for the reader. The elements show in emotions, tactics and interactions, attitudes, and even postures and movements. The applications of the Godai extend from daily living to a life-or-death struggle.
The third segment is dedicated to the overall protection against violence and human ugliness. While the preceding segments focused on cultivating the ninja mentality and how to utilize it best, the final segment focuses on how to maintain and keep that noble spirit alive.
This is a book on how to live a better, healthier, and safer life by following the principles of Japanese philosophy and ninja ideas.
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There you have it. Five must-reads for every martial artist.
It is said that a good book can transform decades into days, funneling the ideas accumulated by others over a long period of time into your brain with the flip of a page.
Are you ready to seriously upgrade? Time to open up a book and transform your world!
Does Being a Martial Artist Mean You Can Never Stop Training?
After a certain number of years in karate-do, I sometimes imagine that nothing can surprise me. However, when a friend related a conversation he’d had while attending an open clinic presented by a visiting instructor, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
My friend was introduced to some karateka who let him know very quickly that they were “seniors,” highly positioned instructors in their organization. As the seminar began, he noticed immediately that these people didn’t participate in the warm-up session or the training that followed. Instead, they stood at the front of the room and watched. During a break, my friend approached one of them and asked if he would join the training later on.
“I don’t train anymore,” the fellow told him, apparently surprised at the suggestion. “I’m a senior instructor. I don’t train anymore. I just teach.”
I tend to be cynical, being accustomed to stories of “10th-degree black belts” not old enough to remember the first Bush administration and of masters too deadly to practice their techniques in the vicinity of mortals. But the notion of anyone reaching a level at which no further training is necessary rendered me speechless.
Gichin Funakoshi (right)
The idea of graduating beyond practice in karate or any of Japan’s budo — including the tea ceremony and flower arranging — is preposterous. Try saying, “I’ve perfected my marriage to such a degree that I no longer need to be married,” without getting laughed out of the conversation.
Building, refining and keeping a marriage strong and healthy is a lifelong process. You don’t graduate from a marriage academy and become free of involvement. No, you must continue working, learning and contributing to the relationship until you or your spouse dies or you end the contract.
Let’s be absolutely clear: You don’t graduate from karate-do. There’s no summit, no peak to reach and say, “I’ve climbed to the top; there’s no place higher for me to go.”
Instead, karate-do is like slowly working your way up a hill. It’s not steep or treacherous, but it’s intimidating if you’ve never climbed before. You approach the top, proud of your accomplishment, only to see three or four larger hills facing you, each of which must be climbed.
When you ascend the first peak, it affords you a view of a half-dozen even higher peaks. The second reveals a vista of other peaks that are more like mountains. Each time you tackle a new climb, you’re rewarded the same way: another landscape with more mountains. Seeing them, you can’t imagine having the time, energy or resources in one lifetime to conquer even a fraction of the peaks you glimpse.
For some, this description seems familiar, even exciting and challenging. That karate-do offers such varied and profound vistas and destinations is a powerful attraction for them. For others, the view from the top of that first little hill is intimidating. Something within them, a tiny voice from the depths of their ego, urges them to turn away from the hills and mountains and proclaim, “I’ve reached the top!” and believe it.
They spend the rest of their lives not conquering new summits but marching around the crest of that first little hill, reliving that accomplishment and pretending that higher elevations don’t exist.
This is the only explanation I can find for people who believe they no longer need training. How else can they sit comfortably and shout instructions to those below while ignoring their own journey? True, they can help others climb to their level, but no higher. Those who have climbed higher and encounter such people realize instantly that they’re deluding themselves and possibly others.
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The great joy and wonderful benefit of following a way like karate is in the process. That’s a big reason it’s called a martial way. It’s a path, not a destination. There are endless destinations along the way, and some of us will reach more of them than others. In the end, what matters is not how many summits we climb but the process of climbing.
Of course, there may be cases in which physical limitations mean a karateka can no longer be active. If one of my karate teachers was confined to a wheelchair or had to walk with a cane, I’d still seek his teaching and guidance.
In his final years, Gichin Funakoshi had to be carried up the stairs to get to the dojo where he taught. I suspect that even then, he was struggling, climbing new peaks in his art that we may never know. That is what is so terribly sad about the attitude of those “senior instructors.” A much older karate teacher once told me, “By the time I got old enough to know how I was supposed to do it, I was too old to do it.”
The notion of embarking on an endless journey — to a place where dimensions and boundaries are impossible to measure — can be daunting. That’s what we sign up for when we begin to follow the path of karate-do. An “instructor” who thinks otherwise will never be my teacher.
Dave Lowry is a freelance writer who’s trained extensively in the Japanese and Okinawan arts. He started writing Black Belt’s Karate Way in 1986.
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Improve Your Martial Arts Training With Knowledge From Outside
Seek wisdom from other sources to better understand your art.
A fellow who used to come to the dojo, one who was very taken with the spiritual aspects he saw in karate, once said that it was OK for him to miss training because he was practicing karate even when he played the guitar.
We were patient with the guy, though he was the butt of some jokes when he wasn’t around — no doubt polishing his reverse punch by twanging the chords of “Stairway to Heaven.” We weren’t that surprised when he quit.
Black Belt Photo
Much has been published about how following a martial art will and should pervade other areas of your life. This has led to some silliness, such as believing that just because you strive to approach it with the same intent and feeling, playing a guitar is the same as sparring.
The fact that your balance, improved through karate, allowed you to cross the swift current of a river while swimming last weekend doesn’t mean a weekend playing in the river will improve your karate.
The same notion of transference has been applied to all the traditional do of Japan: budo, shodo (calligraphy), kado (flower arranging) and chado (tea ceremony). While they’re similar at their core, we must be careful not to draw far-fetched conclusions.
Photo by Robert W. Young
There’s a famous story about a master of the tea ceremony who inadvertently insulted a samurai and was challenged to a duel. In desperation, he went to an expert swordsman, who told him, “Make tea for me.” The tea master performed the ritual as if it was his last — which it might have been.
“Approach the duel with the same spirit in which you made that tea,” the swordsman said.
You can guess what happened. The tea master appeared for the duel, calm and composed, filled with the spirit of the tea ceremony, and the samurai lost courage and fled.
It’s a great story that makes a worthy point, but in reality, the tea master would’ve died. Spirit is wonderful, but it can’t replace technical skill. Want to become good at karate? Practice karate.
It’s foolish to believe that a sword expert could pick up a brush and automatically be a competent calligrapher or that an expert in flower arranging could perform a great kata just because their arts share a spirit with karate.
It would be equally ignorant to dismiss the parallels between Japan’s traditional do. Sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to shed light on what we do.
Sen Soshitsu XIV was the headmaster of the Urasenke style of the tea ceremony. He steered the ryu during the critical years from 1924 to 1964, when Japan emerged as a world power and was subsequently crushed during the second World War, only to be rebuilt into a modem nation.
It was his idea to plant the tea ceremony in Western cultures, where he traveled to present it. Sen Soshitsu was writing about the tea ceremony in the following paragraph, but you can read his words with the martial arts in mind:
“To those aspiring to follow the way of tea, guard against jealousy. Placing yourself at the center of things, envying or tempting others — these are unpardonable. Know your duty and immerse yourself daily in the way of tea, and you will find contentment. The more you look up to others, the clearer your own position in relation to them will be.
“Whenever something bad happens, people try to make themselves look as good as possible. But if we remember the humility of the host in the tearoom, someone who knows the spiritual taste of tea, then this constant craving of power for its own sake will be seen for what it is.
“Know what you know and know what you don’t know, for only then will the limits of your strength become evident. To attain spiritual power, seize the chance when it offers itself; devote yourself to study and practice.
“In life are many who feign knowledge and lead others astray. No action can be more reprehensible. The way is never exclusive. It is open to all to follow, but those who set out upon the path perforce need the way of those who have passed that way before.”
Black Belt Photo
Did this master offer anything of value to karateka? He did practice the martial arts, namely judo and kendo, back when they were closer to combat than to sports. He was a powerful man, but he never did karate. He practiced the tea ceremony all day long.
He probably couldn’t shatter boards with his tea scoop or use it for self-defense, so one might mistakenly conclude that he couldn’t offer anything worthwhile to the education of a karateka.
Placing yourself at the center of things, being jealous of others, trying to look good when things go wrong — he was addressing these flaws in chadoka, not karateka.
When he advises us to remember the importance of humility and avoid craving power, it was meant to be applied in the tea hut, not the dojo.
Knowing how much you don’t know in order to appreciate and expand the limits of your own strength — surely there isn’t a lesson in those words for the karate student.
And those who fake knowledge and in doing so lead others astray? That’s a problem exclusive to the tea ceremony, surely not something we have to guard against in karate. Right. …
Maybe there are so many lessons to be learned in the dojo that we don’t need to investigate other ways or listen to the words of those who have pursued those ways.
Maybe, though, if we broaden our views on following a way, we’ll see that others who are on different paths might lead us more deeply into and further along our own.
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If you follow any of the social media used by young people in Japan, you’re probably familiar with the initials “KY.” It may sound mysterious. It won’t be any less so when you learn that KY stands for kuuki yomei. Even if you speak Japanese, it may not mean much: “Read the air.” Knowing what it refers to can influence the way you train in the dojo.
There probably has never been a civilization that has as much homogeneity as that of Japan. In contrast, there probably has never been a society as heterogeneous as that of the United States. Think about it: No Japanese person ever says to another, “What country did your ancestors come from?” All Japanese came from the same place.
In a nation where everyone shares the same history, cultural norms and standards, there’s a lot that doesn’t need to be explained. A lot can be taken for granted in personal interactions. It’s an exaggeration, but if a Japanese person feels uncomfortable, the majority of the other Japanese people in the room will — or can — know it. There’s a typical body language that’s expressed. It’s easy to read. In the Japanese dojo, it’s similar: If your teacher is pleased with you, you will — assuming you can read the signs — know it. Likewise if he’s unhappy.
What this means is that a great deal of communication can take place without words. Now, way too much has been made of this by Western “experts” on Japan. In some cases, it’s been blown ridiculously out of proportion. Further, it’s absurd to think that all Japanese react to flattery or insults or frustration or happiness in precisely the same way. In general, however, social clues are at least reasonably reliable in the dojo and elsewhere.
Classes in a lot of Western karate dojo commence when a senior student sees the sensei walk into the training area and roars, “Line up!” Interestingly, in classical martial arts dojo, this usually doesn’t happen. What happens is that the senior sees the teacher come in and, without making a big deal of it, walks to his place where the lineup is to form. His juniors notice it. Nothing is said. All students automatically take their place. There’s no need for words.
This may seem trivial, but it’s actually an important part of training — or, at least, it was during the period when those in the dojo were likely to use their arts in battle. In a battle like the ones those people knew, as in all battles, much was chaos: noise, frenzied action, fear. Communication, if you were depending on a verbal or visible message, was dicey. No, you had to be able to “feel” what the group around you was expressing, to sense it and to react. Warfare in Japan included individual combat. It depended primarily, though, on formations and group action. All that “lone samurai” stuff is romantic nonsense. If a samurai couldn’t work in a group, he died.
Many Japanese terms are used to describe this nonverbal communication. A group, tightly knit through training of a martial sort, is sometimes called a dantai, which implies individuals who are moving as a single, effective unit. Haragei, literally “belly art,” is a word that describes the communication that comes viscerally. (It’s interesting that this word was probably coined by a Westerner trying to explain it.) This brings us back to kuuki yomei. To “read the air” means to be able to sense what’s going on without being told.
It’s critical for the serious karateka to develop a relationship with a real teacher that’s based on being able to read the air around that teacher and in the dojo in general.
Visit a dojo, a real one, on several days and you’ll see what might look like a different place. One day, the mood is lighthearted with some joking and people enjoying themselves. Other days, the mood is tense, tight. Nobody’s talking. Everyone is working with deadly seriousness. These differences arise because the students in the dojo can read their teacher. They know that on this day, he’s happy with them and with their training. On that day, he’s seeing something he doesn’t like. They respond to both accordingly.
Now, we’re not talking about teachers who are mentally unbalanced, who veer from smiling to snarling in the blink of an eye. We’re talking about sensei who know when their students are doing their best and when they’re slacking off, when they’re completely involved in the session and when they’re drifting. The students, especially the seniors, will be sensitive to this, as well.
Think of the dojo as a kind of ant colony. The seniors are those who have one antenna keyed to what’s going on around them. They may be chatting with others before the day’s training begins. They have their other antenna tuned to their teacher — even if he’s just standing around, talking with others. They very quickly will be able to determine what he wants. Juniors will be tuned to their seniors and will key off them.
There’s no easy way to learn to read the air in the dojo around one’s teacher. If you think learning karate is confined to coming in, taking a lesson, practicing and then leaving to go on with your life, you’re out of luck in acquiring this talent.
You have to concentrate, to focus, to be aware of everything that’s going on in the dojo. It demands time and incredible effort. If you want to say that you do a Japanese martial art, you won’t have a better chance to actually do that than to learn to read the air in a dojo.
Dave Lowry has written Karate Way since 1986. For more information about his articles and books, visit blackbeltmag.com and type his name into the search box.