the eXternal mind

Last Sunday, I attended an Aikido demonstration by the Yoshinkai dojo headed by Utada Sensei. Since I didn’t have a ride, I tried getting Dave or Steve to go. They both backed out at the last second so I called up Fed and persuaded him to take public transportation with me to Philadelphia University. Of course Fed agreed. He could be counted on and trusted which is why I consider him my best friend though we don’t hang out a lot.

Not having a ride was a hassle, but I liked taking public transportation (SEPTA). I hardly ever get a chance to ride SEPTA, and when I actually do, it feels like I’m embarking on some adventure. So Fed and I were trying to figure out how to get to Philadelphia University. It turned out that we had to take the El (SEPTA’s subway system) into the heart of Phildelphia and transfer on a bus that headed to the University.

One of the coolest parts of the trip was taking the subway to 15th street, getting off, and realizing that we were right in front of City Hall. Looking around, we could see the grandeur of Philadelphia. Big buildings and large corporations mixed in with city history. Admittingly, even though we both lived about 40 minutes away from City Hall, we have never actually been into City Hall or even walked around that part of Philadelphia.

From there we managed to find Broad St. to take the connecting Rt. 32 to Philadelphia University. We sat in the back of the bus. A few stops pass and then some man gets on the bus, looks around, and decides to take the seat perpendicularly next to me. Mind you, there were still many seats on the bus. The air that this man carried was peculliar. He had a round complexion and body type. He was a little bald and sat down with his hands folded in front of his belly staring out the window straight ahead.

Now, there is nothing wrong with that, but when a strange guy sits right next to me, the next society-induced thought is to think he is a homosexual. I talked to Fed later, and he said that he thought the guy was a pedophile! In any case, we had to be ready to counter anything that he might do so we both placed ourselves on alert by higher-awareness meditation. At least, that was what I was doing. I stared straight ahread, placed my arms in a ready but relaxed position, and silently controlled my breathing.

So we were both in serious medition and using my periphial vision, I noticed how the guy was also intently concentrating ahead, blinking rapidly. I blink a lot, but this guy beat me out hands down. It ws so abnormal that I got a little paranoid and thought that he was trying to hypotize me with patterned blinks. I then commenced to occupying my mind with other thoughts trying not to get hypotized.

But as the bus drove on, I had a chance to fully analyze the man. I suddenly perceived that he could be a martial artist. Perhaps an aikidoka. He had a benevolent face and seemed relaxed. His physique and body type would be acceptable in a soft art such as aikido when strength isn’t an issue. With his hands folded in front, it looked as if he was almost meditating. Considering that I was traveling to an aikido demonstration, this man might as well be a martial artist doing the same thing.

When we finally arrived at Philadelphia University (an hour and a half later), we wandered around the campus a bit looking for where the demonstration was held (presumably the gym). Fed whispered to me, “That guy is following us.” I replied, “Yeah, I noticed.”

As we turned around, the man came up to us and asked us if we were here for an aikido demonstration. He asked us if we were martial artists to which we replied yes. He turned out to be an aikidoka (I guessed right) with a background in Karate. He trained with Utada sensei in the 80s and came back to visit. He exclaimed: “When I walked on that bus, I knew you guys were martial artists.” We were all grinning by then. I think when martial artists meet each other, one can sense the other. Usually, martial artists carry an air about them that can be discerned if carefully scrutinized. There is a samurai quote that follows: “A true martial artist will display his (or her) art in every facet of his (or her) life.”

The demonstration lasted two hours and featured many Yoshinkai dojos or affiliated dojos performing. The first 15 minutes was great. Then the display began to seem repetitive. Most of the demonstrations were given by Brown to Black belts, and I had the chance to see firsthand what aikido was like in a training hall. I was disappointed, actually.

Most of the techniques (save for 1 or 2) were highly impractical and demonstration of other techniques by black belts seemed extremely weak. My biggest gripe is that aikido seems to be a mutual art. The receiver of the technique must go along with the attacker. If the attacker places the receiver in a lock, the receiver will usually flip to get out of the lock. Therefore, in the aikido demonstration, a simple wrist lock will manifest itself as a flip making the move seem extremely powerful (as if a subtle move by the attacker caused the receiver to flip). In reality, this is definitely not going to happen. A few of the aikido techniques I saw in the demo were ones I have actually tested. In a situation where the receiver is resisting attacks, the locks are extremely difficult to execute and the receiver will definitely not flip over on application of a lock. Rather, the receiver would, at worse, receive a broken joint or fall down.

I saw demonstrations of knife self-defenses and cringed as I saw high ranking aikidokas work in idealized situations with cooperative attackers. The moves were pretty, but lacked practical use. In one demonstration where the receiver was attacked from the back, she reached for the knife before she even knew it was going to be there! When a knife is coming at you from the back, there is hardly any way to know which direction it is coming from.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to learn aikido. I wish to take from it what works and discard what doesn’t work. I did see a few techniques that had practical use, but I wasn’t totally convinced by the students. That’s when the master walked out.

Fairly short, the japanese master, Sensei Utada, spoke calmly about aikido for a few minutes. He talked about aikido coming from the samurai’s unarmed combat art called ai-jitsu. He demonstrated what ai-jitsu looked like. In about 3 seconds total, he hit one of his students 6 times, grabbed the man by the neck, flipped him over, hit it in the pressure point centered on the crease of the legs and elbowed the guy in the stomach. The student was out cold for 5 seconds. My mouth was hanging wide open. Utada sensei was fast, very fast.

Utada could use aikido like a combat art. When he slapped students on the side of the face, the students landed hard on the mat. A slight movement of the arm sent another student flying. To demonstrate the effectiveness of aikido on big people, Utada called on two huge guys to push him. Normally, the guys pushed him across the mat easily, but when Utada used aikido, the two guys couldn’t move him at all. Even when Utada stood on one leg, both of them exerting all of their forces could not move him. Now that is mastery. Utada dropped his hands the the two guys flipped. They seriously flipped–not voluntarily flipped. That was the difference. Utada was amazingly fast and powerful.

I want to study under someone like Utada.

That ended the demo, and the trip back home was uneventful.

I was browsing AikiWeb’s forums yesterday and came upon an interesting post by Furuya Sensei from the Aikido Center of Los Angeles that was very heart touching. After reading it, I got off the computer and started practicing my art with a bit more dedication. For all martial artists who trained through hard times, I will work harder and make sure I have a little time each day to train. The post is mirrored below. I bolded a few things:

A good friend who has a dojo not too far from me wrote me the following letter yesterday. They came from an oppressive, war-torn country where they were not even permitted to bow to O’Sensei’s photo in practice. They have struggled so much with so little and now finally they have made it to this country where they can practice Aikido freely as they like in this land of opportunity. . . . . .

10-30-03: Dear Sensei, I wish this letter will find you in good health and your work is still fruitful in many ways for those who are walking on the Path. On this cloudy morning, I am sitting here and try to review my Aikido in the last several years since i started to establish the Dojo …….and somehow i feel kind of depressed and not so hopeful when I look far in the future.

As you know, we all aim to cultivate Aikido and the old cultural values for our next generations to look up and more or less they can live by. But so often, we feel like our work is treated badly and sadly somehow by the students these days. I often see students come and go as they please, dash in the Dojo and dash out just like a McDonald. It is so different between now and my old days when even rain or shine, dawn or dark I put my gi on my little bike and rode to dojo and there I saw alot of Aikido friends practicing on half of the mat since the other half was filled with rain water (the roof of the dojo had plenty of holes on it).

At night, we had to sew holes on our old gi since we were so poor and the gi is too old and usually got torn up during practice and we could not afford the new one or ask parents to buy for us since that request would be a burden for family’s finance. It is so different today, when everything is there and ready to grasp …..but no hand reach out ….students are treated much better today with all of the democracy and courtesy from teachers, students are more well-built than we were before with all the nutritions, students can dress better with Aikido gi in good condition, they can buy almost any books about Aikido to read to enhance their knowledge, students can practice in a decent dojo with lights and at least there is no holes on the roof that the rain water can fall through ……but there is something else that most of them don’t have …..how could i say this ? Spirits ? Aspirations ? Something that they could make their practice alive in every thoughts and breaths. Something that could make them come to practice days or nights, rain or shine.

I have some students that have good potential, well behavior, and they absorb Aikido pretty good, after all our efforts to teach and correct their techniques and etiquette every details at our best knowledg . Suddenly the parents pulled them home with reasons such as : My son is so busy at school now, my son has to play piano twice a week ..etc….and they simply left Dojo no matter how hard we try to explain or try to work out a schedule for them, or reduce their tuition. They just left, sometimes those things make me hate teaching so much, sometimes i just want to retire and ride a bike with my gi on it to a certain dojo and there I will be a lowly student under a Sensei like the old days, what I learn, what I value, what I appreciate will always be mine and I will keep them to my heart and soul until I bring them down to dirt. Or even somehow I just want to teach with an attitude ” Ignore them, who wants something, try to get it ” but as you know, we are human and we have to struggle to do our best when we learn or we teach …..I thought the way of Aikido should be calmness in our minds and bring peace to our souls but sometimes walking on this Path our minds are full of strugglings. . . . .

Furuya’s reply: I really understand your feelings completely and I wish I can say that it gets better as you continue to struggle in your Aikido and keeping your dojo going but I must admit, from my own experience, even after many decades and years, the struggle still remains the same. I experience what you experience in my dojo every day. People are always coming and going and it seems that people do not have the same patience, perserverence and committment as they did years ago. I know in your home country, these are highly valued and treasured ideals of a human being. However, in this society today, it seems that it is all about “me, me, me!” and it is so hard to reconcile and accept this. Coming from a country where it was so difficult to a country where we seem to have “everything,” no - “too much of everything,” only seems to bring on a different set of problems. I can understand this. . .

I hope you don’t mind that I publish your very beautiful and touching letter here so others can read and learn. I know that there are many veterans of Aikido and teachers who feel exactly as you do,and I am sure that they would want to reach out to you and support your feelings, just as I do. Please know that you are not alone by any means. I also print your letter here to hopefully help the new, younger generation of Aikidoists to know how some of us feel in our hearts.

Japanese today do not talk about their wartime experiences too much but one day Doshu began to relate to me some of his experiences during such difficult times. He recalled that the army had taken many young students away in the draft and he never saw any of them ever return home. Only a very few survived and returned to Hombu Dojo after the war. He said that Tokyo was burned and bombed out and there were hardly any walls and no roof. Not many students around at all, each time he took ukemi, he could see the stars in the sky through the openings in the ceiling. Always hungry with not enough food, they continued to practice everyday whether students came or not. When it rained, he said the mats were covered with water and when it snowed, the ice on the mats cut into their skin. He said it was so difficult and hard in those days but they continued to keep up the dojo no matter what. O’Sensei had retired to the countryside during this time so 2nd Doshu kept up everything by himself and a few students. When you see Hombu Dojo today, you can hardly believe that such a time ever existed at all. Although it is so tough for you, I hope that you can be so “proud” that you suffer the same hardships and difficulties that 2nd Doshu and the great masters of that age did many years ago.

I am getting old and tired too, it is still a struggle each day in the dojo but somehow, I feel so grateful and blessed to have a few students around me practicing very hard and doing very well. Whenever I feel down, I think about what O’Sensei and 2nd Doshu and many, many others went through before us. . . . Please keep up your struggle and endure all hardships, I have great faith in you. . . . . In the old days, the proper attitude for a teacher in our art such as ours is, “if they come, they come; if they go they go.” Whenever you need to vent your thoughts or let off some steam, write to me anytime. . . . . .Always and faithfully, and many thanks, Kensho Furuya

How true. As I read the letter I could not help but agree with the author. These days the dojo is like a gym. It’s like a chore that people try to complete as quickly as possible. No one respects a dojo anymore. Perhaps certain dojo’s contributed to this effect by their vehement commercialization. The art is even scorned by certain teachers. In pursuit of money, the true values of the art are neglected.

I worked and taught at a local dojo for roughly two years. When I first started, most of the original members of the dojo were still training there. Classes were offered 6 days a week and the instructors were very knowledable and dedicated. I felt good about the training at that time.

But as time went on, the best martial artists left. Some went off to college. One instructor served in Iraq. Another instructor left the dojo after a dispute with the owner. The quality of the dojo declined but the owner did not seem to care. He and his wife kept the commercialization. Young children and teenagers were attracted to the art of karate and their enrollment expanded, but the adult enrollment was not as impressive. So the dojo became mostly a place for children to train–many forced to come by their parents as an exercise or activity. The new adults that enrolled were dedicated, but without good instructors to teach them, how could they improve?

I assistant taught the junior classes for all ranks on Fridays. 99% of the kids there did not want to be there. It turned out that training was analogous to “school” for them where they resisted learning. They treated martial arts like a social event, a gym activity, and a game. Some instructors let the kids play a karate game if they behaved. At the beginning of every class, the kids would pine about a game that would later come. Teaching them was like forcing them to eat something disgusting. Every technique thrown was weak and without spirit. I’m reminded of a quote by karate founder Gichin Funakoshi:

You may train for a long, long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning to dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do.

They moved their hands up and down like a puppet. Teach them one technique one day, and they forget it the next. Techniques were sloppy. Sometimes I didn’t bother correcting the techniques. I wanted them to develop the spirit.

Every once in a while, however, there was that one student who trained seriously. Any instructor can tell quickly. He or she is the one who executes everything with a purpose and listens intently to what you have to say. Teaching that student was worth it. Teaching kids who wanted to learn and had the right attitude was a great pleasure and honor.

Reading the letter, I also drew parallels with my own situation. Back a few years when I lived in Drexelbrook, I lived about 2 blocks away from the dojo. I used to run over every day and train. For almost 4 years straight, I had next to perfect attendance. I trained 5-6 days a week, 48 weeks a year (the dojo was closed during holidays). No matter what I was doing, I was there for class. The instructors expected me every day, and I came, practiced as hard as I could, and left. I loved training.

Then, my family moved, and I could no longer run to the dojo. My parents were too busy to give me a ride to the dojo. My training suffered and for the first time, I only attended class about twice a week. Very soon, my family ran into a tight budget after the purchase of our new home. My parents forced me to quit my training. However, my solace was that I stilled worked at the dojo and entrusted with the key, I trained whenever I could.

This is such a long post, but I guess my point is that I should train with much more dedication. I have been training mentally for a long time. Every day I use martial arts in everything I do from opening doors to dodging people in the hallways to constructing simulations in my brain when I am bored. Morally, I follow the code of Bushido, and I take facets of Buddhism to enrich my life. I meditate on a few breaths before going to bed. However, with all of my homework, web site work, and clubs, I haven’t been physically training as hard. I know this, and I can feel that my energy is disturbed. After reading that letter, I realized how lucky I was to be able to train. Any place can be a dojo. I make a personal promise to practice at least one kata every day.

I was procrastinating today and found a big sheet of lined paper so I started solving some math problems, then started writing part of next week’s lecture for the Science Club, but finally settled on….writing a poem?!?! Yeah, I know, me and poems don’t mix, but I decided to give it a try in mock epic style: iambic pentameter rhyming lines. The result is below. At first, I was going to write about being bored (1st stanza) but the poem quickly transformed itself into a “Maggie: Girl on the Streets” type of poem (2nd stanza) so going along with the flow, I kept writing. In the last stanza, I was thinking about a particular story in Lone Wolf and Cub where Ogami thinks about when his path with reach peace. For any part that doesn’t flow as well, I cite literary license and the fact that I did that on purpose to create a special rhythm and tone. If you don’t believe me, you probably have a point.

the Blind and Tea

Sitting at one spot with nothing to see
staring at white walls, what should she be?
The smoke curls carefully to skies it flies.
The tar runs into lungs. Soon, she will die.
Bored and listless she lounges free from thought.
Through beauty born and can always be bought,
knowledge none and never to gain again.
Will weak, nothing to weep, easy to bend.

She walks along the streets at night searching
for a living. Standing at corners perching
for a man, any man, no, not any
for she wants better than to scrounge pennies.
Offers herself to a handsome fellow;
he hesitates but leaves. Another fellow, hello.
Nothing. Desperate, she asks the fat man
who boisterously laughs and says he can.

It’s another day in her gloomy life.
Every minute slices her like a knife.
When will her path end in glorious light?
When will the blind finally gain their sight?
Oh troubled world, stormy seas guide our souls
so that peace will finally take its toll.
Another girl on the streets cannot see.
Another man at home drinking his tea.

Good? Bad? Never write a poem ever again?