Monday, August 19, 2019

Another mornings thoughts August 2019



 
When you think about the origins of Karate you begin to realize that was a very different world where Karate was created than  the world you live in today. It developed for a private need for families to use in the service of their country. And the instructor only taught students who lived in a walking distance from him.

Which meant everyone in the area knew what they were doing, what their character was, that and their training was something their family sought for them, preparing them for their greater family role. The instructor came from those same families and the training he offered was just as focused to give them what they would need in their larger family roles.

That led to a tighter relationship between family, student and instructor than any of us experience this day. And I am sure your students do not as a group live within a walking distance of where you teach.

You had fulfilled the needs of your students when they were trained so they could take on the roles of their positions in their families. They were not to be students for life, or to be trained to become instructors. There was a definite endpoint to their studies.

Then when things opened up and karate was taught to students in the schools and to others outside of the original families, there were still so many links to the older personal traditions too.

What we do is built on those foundations, but in very different ways. I often think on this as I deal with ageing and disability that I possess.

The hardest thing is not the restrictions that have been placed on my Karate and t’ai chi. The hardest thing is I don’t get to work with others and continue to develop my understanding of the arts I love.

So I still practice abet very slowly. Think about my karate constantly. Realize I know so little and then still work to understand a bit more. Every thing I’ve learned was a struggle, nothing was ‘given’ to me and many, many of the lessons I’ve lived the hard way.

My senior students have been thoroughly trained over their decades with me. They do not need anything else, but there was so much more that I saw I took a friends advice and saved as much for them as possible on my blog.  For what is  not written down can become vapor-ware. And perhaps on some future day it may be useful for them or a student of theirs to have access to what I have seen.

But now living far away I share some of the entries many places. I find there are too many things never discussed and I hope something might spark discussion where I can learn more. There are rare occasions that happens. But for the most part I never hear a response. Nothing new about that for decades before FaceBook I did the same on the Discussion Groups and found pretty much the same thing.

But it seems somebody pays attention. I have never felt anything need be hidden and want everyone to access these things. Now I seems that I have had some response for over 550,000 views have been made on my blog.  Of course there are things I do not post there, instead send privately to my students, I am quite sure they feel too frequently. 
 

I am just trying to ensure that I have left nothing unsaid.
 

No comments: