Thanks to a plethora of fine doctors, I am back to practicing my Japanese swordsmanship. Although I am a bit rusty, maybe more than a bit. I have also started taking new students. It's amazing how fast motor skills and muscle tone can go away. But it is not lost forever and it feels good to be back in the dojo. Between COVID and my health it has been over 2-3 years since I taught or did much of any martial arts. It took me three hours to remove the "topsoil" on the hard wood floors that had accumulated in my absence. A few thousand dead flies and miles of spider webs were sucked up by my trusty vacuum cleaner.
Some details of the kata were missing from my grey cells and I had to refer back to a book titled "Flashing Steel." It's a great book, and although it has limited numbers of photos for each kata, it was possible to refresh my memory. This is something you need to think about. Anything that is important to you must not be preserved only in a digital format, because, in the blink of an eye this technology can all go away. I practice an art that was developed in the 1560s and is still taught today in limited numbers and places. I have a few books ("Sword and the Mind") on the philosophy and techniques, BUT you could never learn the art through reading a book. Only through training with flesh and blood teachers can you learn and refine this sort of art. Anything, anything worth knowing or saving must soon be collected and stored in a physical format. Right now, everything of importance in this world is being rewritten, compromised, corrupted and often destroyed. Cancel Culture is more than a catch phrase, it is the most destructive movement this world has ever experienced. Many things of value, once lost, will never be recovered. I once told my Abbot that I feel like a man screaming out FIRE in a theater of deaf mutes.
This blog obviously has nothing to do with commando knives. There are other things in my life that I am equally passionate about. Many of them are being destroyed, relentlessly, furtively, purposely. As a Buddhist nun said to me many years ago (and I have never forgotten this) "Awaken." I say to you my friends, awaken!
Some details of the kata were missing from my grey cells and I had to refer back to a book titled "Flashing Steel." It's a great book, and although it has limited numbers of photos for each kata, it was possible to refresh my memory. This is something you need to think about. Anything that is important to you must not be preserved only in a digital format, because, in the blink of an eye this technology can all go away. I practice an art that was developed in the 1560s and is still taught today in limited numbers and places. I have a few books ("Sword and the Mind") on the philosophy and techniques, BUT you could never learn the art through reading a book. Only through training with flesh and blood teachers can you learn and refine this sort of art. Anything, anything worth knowing or saving must soon be collected and stored in a physical format. Right now, everything of importance in this world is being rewritten, compromised, corrupted and often destroyed. Cancel Culture is more than a catch phrase, it is the most destructive movement this world has ever experienced. Many things of value, once lost, will never be recovered. I once told my Abbot that I feel like a man screaming out FIRE in a theater of deaf mutes.
This blog obviously has nothing to do with commando knives. There are other things in my life that I am equally passionate about. Many of them are being destroyed, relentlessly, furtively, purposely. As a Buddhist nun said to me many years ago (and I have never forgotten this) "Awaken." I say to you my friends, awaken!
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