I just read a question on Quora that asked about the problems with the roundhouse kick. There were some good answers.
But,
What amazed me is that the accurate analysis provided by my peers lacked a fundamental aspect.
First, to the point – For my students and me, the most fundamental flaw of the roundhouse kick, is that it compromises the fighter’s balance, especially over imperfect terrain. That doesn’t mean we don’t use it, we do use a modified roundhouse in Ninjutsu, it means we refrain from using a Mawashi kick on precarious surfaces.
But there’s more, why? because my peers’ answers reveal a deeper flaw.
Now, I guess that most of the people reading this online, live in cities and put their feet on pavement or floor more than they step on turf, gravel or rock. but I am really sorry to see such a big part our heritage evaporate.
What disappeared from our culture and most martial arts, and what I am desperately trying to save in my dojo, is the connection to nature. By nature I do not mean downloading a nice desktop view of the Alps or even an actual wonderful breath of fresh air in the park.
Nature begins with BEING OUTSIDE, WALKING OUTSIDE. (I think that this is the first time I am using Capital letters like this, that’s how involved I am in this)
I want to be clear on this – all the New Age jargon about connecting to nature makes me sick. It makes me sick because one can imagine anything and this imagination can then be an excuse to abstain from activity. So if one imagines she is “one with nature” because she just bought an organic iPad bamboo cover, she’ll be less inclined to actually poop outside and cover it.
But what does pooping outside have to do with martial arts? you might ask. Everything. It’s the small details that betray an instability. Instability of the roundhouse kick on gravel, instability and unsustainability of our technological culture, instability of what many martial arts have become – a gym activity, boxed existence.
Not so long ago everyone walked, walked to bring water, walked to see friends, walked outside. In ancient Japanese budo, pupils used to walk for days just to reach a teacher. And I am not even starting on the necessity of moving on foot, to this day, for soldiers. Walking outside is a part of the human heritage that is becoming a novelty. Just as we preserve ancient martial traditions we should preserve this outside backdrop. The outside was once ingrained in our lives and so taken for granted, now we need to make the effort.
And it’s not just the therapy of walking, let’s go back to the details. Not so long ago everyone used to crouch down when going to the toilet, Moses, King David, Mark Twain, everyone. Now we sit on a toilet seat, so our bodies forgot to squat. I see students coming to my dojo who can not squat, that is bad not only for their health ( 1, 2, 3 ) that makes proper stance in Ninjutsu impossible.
And there’s more harm done, not only on a physical abilities level but on an ethical level.
Only kings were carried on a palanquin and defecated on seats. Now we are all kings or, more accurately, about 40% are kings and everybody else, from the child laborer to the domestic help are paying the real price. Everything serves us because we force it too. We force the environment, even though because of global warming, temporarily, we force the temperature of the air, we force people, far away, to do our bid. And, like the steak eater who never butchered a cow, we think there is no force involved because we never actually sliced a cow’s neck.
So on many levels, just being outside, moving outside, without vehicles should be top priority because of mental health, physical health, martial abilities and ethics of mutual interdependence.
Martial arts appeal to something real, the feeling of being protected by one’s own ability, but the backdrop that was in the past to our craft, the outside, is gone now. That backdrop of being outdoors, living and practicing in a non airconditioned environment, on gravel, on rocks, that is disappearing now – it’s a novelty.
Though more people now live in cities (4) than rural areas, most of our planet is not covered in concrete. We should make every effort to spend time outside, to practice outside, to take only what we need.
This is ingrained in my craft but should be so in many other crafts.
When more is done outside, less is wasted, more insights gained and simple things like the proper kick at the proper settings are obvious.
Information can be embedded into many things. If it’s an obvious, modern, WYSIWYG stuff, then even our slowly evolving wiki might not be enough. As one of the students complained: “isn’t there a way to make the Ninjutsu clearer?”.
I thought: “Clearer then this start of a Ninjutsu portal? clearer? I have to think about it, I thought it is too clear”
But sometimes people are not afraid of ambiguity, do not rush through fog or gifts that come wrapped. Sometimes we rejoice in a little mystery. Instead of trying to reveal it all one can embrace the intangible. It is happier this way, more exciting.
When I was young, years ago, we played a bad game. My kindergaten teacher gave a kid a wrapped box. Then one kid would open the outer wraps, pass it on to another kid and at the end the so called “winner” would be left with some stupid eraser. Why open it? The box can sit, unopened, till the very end of time.
It makes me smile, hiding is such an un-cultural thing to do, the exact oposite of my wiki effort. Reveal nothing, and love it.
Insights about martial arts can be this wrapped secret, this is why I love Ninjutsu Kata.
To us, modern guys, it should all be revealed as quickly as possible. This lack of patience is the mark of very disturbed kids. Everything should be understood immediately. The girl should be undressed A.S.A.P.
Hah, this is porn. Porn everywhere. Watching the unwrapped humans reveal it all, either in an adult site or inside the UFC octagon. And at the end we get nothing, less then the kindergarden eraser.
Why open it?
Maybe just a little bit, a hint. When I look at the video my Yoga teacher, Nir Adin, posted I see the Yoko Aruki step, I see work against several opponents, but even more – I see harmony. As we, martial arts practitioners sometimes guess, not all humans come to attack us, the majority just want to interact.
These insights, these experiences, are embedded inside many folk dances, from Egyptian Tahtib to the dance done during the Holi festival in Rajastan. Here is the mesmerizing thing.
Video of multiple friend – opponent dance, Rajastan
A student asked me: “Can I do the warm-up with a T-shirt and only then put a Gi on? It’s too hot inside this heavy uniform”. “That’s only logical” I thought, “only logical”.
We wear a Hakama, a little black skirt, and also a heavy Gi, we put our big backpacks and walk the desert for the desert gathering, we do not use GPS. It’s just a taste of the many unexplainable things we do. There is more to these then tradition or toughness.
I acknowledge the fact, many of these habits are unnecessary and can be made easier, but there is a place for it, it has to do with the concept of respect. Work, respect, must always border the unnecessary.
When I recounted the dialog above in the Dojo, one veteran told me: “In the Suez canal, in the Yom Kippur war, we knew it’s the end – either we’ll die or we’ll get captured by the Egyptian army. We felt like it’s the end of the world. We didn’t know if we’ll live to see tomorrow”.
I looked at him; I didn’t know what to say in front of the veterans. I’m kind of an ancient guy, but in the Yom Kippur war I was a kid in elementary school.
“And then what did you do?” I finally inquired.
“We cleaned our weapons, we checked the platoon’s machine guns, and then we tidied our uniforms and meticulously shined our shoes”. I took a good look at him – he never misses a class and in the Yom Kippur war he polished his shoes.
In our culture the question asked is: “What’s in it for me?” that’s a different way of saying: “why should I do it?”.
In any old school, the question is completely different. Rather then ask about the the functions of the anatomy we sing to the heart. When one answers a question about roses with a mathematical equation one is stuck, there is no perfume in the answer.
If a practice, a Budo, is completely logical and necessary it’s good but not powerful. To be powerful is another realm, to be powerful it has to earn the statue of a rose. It must not be fully explainable. Treating our elders well, not stealing even when no one’s looking, putting on a Hakama and a Gi especially on a hot day and, please do not forget – practicing a traditional Martial art in the modern battle field of the middle east.
Budo, with it’s health benefits, with the level of security it allows its practitioners, gets its power from somewhere else. Practicing for many years is the essence of the unnecessary, and so is the seed of personal freedom, the freedom to work hard. Zorba the greek summed it up: “This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition.”
“Why didn’t you put the nutrition program on the website along with the fitness program?” a student once asked me.
In 1985 I lived in retirement home for the elderly, for a few weeks. I slept in my dear grandmother’s room to look after her. Back then I don’t think there were foreign nurses for that. So I had to do it. The old people had three meals a day and I had to mentally brace myself for these meals. Every meal was a tough event, a herd of old people storming – I am not sure it’s a strong enough word to describe it – the food.
The tenants were focused on the goal – to eat well, lots of it, and fast. There was this one old woman who helped those who needed help sitting down, washed hands and served food for others in her table. “That’s the Rebbetzin, the woman-Rabbi”, they told me when I asked.
I know a guy, Danny, who only drinks water and a specific kind of water- spring water he drew himself and stored in glass bottles. It’s the same thing I’ve seen with the Rebbetzin at that retirement home in Katamon, Jerusalem. something that in our culture is usually directed toward another person – happens with them towards something else, to an action. I will give a name for this treatment, I call it: “Respect”. Respect like this is the un-necessary, the un-reasonable, the un-expected respect and thus – a rare commodity.
Usually respect is directed to another human being as an expression of hierarchy and that person’s social status. But there is another form of respect. In the old school regime, respect is expressed also to a technique, an object, to a way of life. Through the observation and the action one can practice respect to movement, to someone, to something.
Respect, “re-spicere“ in Latin, means “to look, to observe again”.
What are we looking at again and with what intent? What is this useless action we voluntarily take? How do we look and from what reasons? It’s very important, it’s the fundamental root of our art.
The actions can many, but not the intention. One can take the sword and perform the bowing ceremony. But early in the morning, if I myself draw it, I just hold the sword in the scabbard with both hands, I balance it and look at it, I don’t bow to the sword, I just look at it, I carried it in my backpack for many desert gatherings and I don’t bow to it now, but I remember the intention of bowing. After many years it’s not just a sword for me, the repetitive, useless observation made it into something else. And it’s not just the sword, it’s the kick in the morning, the tsuki in front of the opponent.
What are these? To what dimension does everyday act transcend if it’s respected?
“You need to work for respect” they say in Hebrew. It doesn’t just show up, it’s an effort. And this effort outlines the road between respect and weakness. To ogle pretty ladies might be re-spicere, but it is no respect. It’s not an effort.
The Rebbetzin just wants to devour the food too, but she has years of work expressed in every single action, in an elderly home of all places.
Respect does not have to be based in morals or ethics, it is based on power, the only power we can independently develop. Gideon in the bible knew enough to use it to separate the people from the warriors. Giving your seat to an old man is useless, un-necessary work and thus Powerful.
To respect the food we eat, to respect the technique or the stranger is not an easy work and not an easy choice. We don’t look for easy choices, in Akban there are no shortcuts, it’s not a catch phrase, it’s the ability to work.
Yesterday some young guy came to practice, he broke his hands three weeks ago and they took his cast off. So he came with the bandages and just did kicks and sit-ups. That’s what he did to himself and to his own core, thorough this he can breath a master’s air, through this he’s more than just a guy.
And for us, martial arts practitioners, there is an added barrier; we are supposed to manufacture respect in the midst of strife.
A year ago ten people attacked an Akban veteran from Jerusalem. They came with sticks, brass knuckles and knives. He lived to tell the tale: Just when they showed up he took the Kukishin standard battle stance- Doko Ichimonji.
In his greatest stress somthing in him remembered his genetic code. This is how he started, this is how we start being marvelous – from something we do anyway- there is no shame in our everyday practice, with us it’s Ninjutsu, for someone else it’s Karate, Tai chi, Vegetarianism, Judaism or Islam. They are all good. Respect and shame do not live together, shame and inner weakness do. The useless action, the additional look, the attentiveness – they go against the bon-ton, respect is not fashionable, it is my grandmother.
The same respect monitors the heart beats of the martial artist, the carpenter and the poet. And for this ancient monitor we set the clock a few hundred years back, with the right awareness, with useless repetition. In the Dojo it’s the Kata, in the music class it’s the ancient instrument, an old music score. In another place it’s a quill and a parchment. And when the practice walks the same path for hundreds of years, it’s a potent journey.
Our path is a deep desert gorge. There the rocks lie and wait for the careful step to move them. You put your feet in the the old Ninjutsu kamae and it happens – There are ancient footsteps on this road, quiet ones.
No need to look for it in monasteries, quite the opposite – here’s the nose and it’s right under it.
And if it’s a meal than it’s the respect for the food, it’s not a given – something died for it, someone worked hard for it, it’s the food and it can get better. If someone shares this attitude then it becomes better, hench our community.
So this is what I know, this is how the nutrition program starts, this is how the martial art I learned from my teacher goes. It’s no wonder I didn’t dare yet to publish it like the fitness program – a nutrition program that is based on respect for food can only be understood by someone who was hungry and chooses to be hungry again.
This is the obvious and also the hidden side of ‘practicing respect’ in my Dojo. Only a person who was hungry will practice correct eating without acting as if he’s practicing correct eating. Only a person, who witnessed the un-separateness of violence from life, can practice non-violence.
Respecting food starts with sometimes being hungry, when have you been hungry lately? Respect for our Budo is not punching The Buddha.
One practitioner, the head-teacher of a Zen temple, was trying to make a sign for the temple’s gate.
Calligraphy is Dō. More accurately it’s a Dō called Shodō. I think it’s interesting that calligraphy is Dō not only in Japan but in many places, From the Benedictine monks in the middle-ages, through the beautiful Arab calligraphy and to the ancient Jewish profession of hand writing the whole Bible – Sofer Stam. Maybe that is how Dō develops, out of the need to write down a grocery list, out of the duty to write in your tax form, out of the wish to preserve the scriptures.
I firmly believe that these are the precursors for Dō: when the necessary allows itself to become a matter of choice, and the will attends a repetition of that choice, morning after morning, day after day, decade after decade, Then the alchemy happens. The respect, the awareness and the repetition transform the mundane deed into gold.
These ingredients are known to every calligrapher, every Zen monk, every pianist and every Sofer Stam: repeat, attend, respect. But there is something else, I have to use a Hebrew word for this because I know of no other equivalent, I’ll use the term “Kefitzat Haderech”.
I’ve read this story somewhere – Kossan dipped a huge brush into the ink.
The temple’s head student was there to assist and hand the big sheets of paper that were on the meditation room’s floor.
Kossan wrote down the words: “The first principle”.
The student watched and said: “Not bad, but it can be a bit better”, and handed a new sheet of paper.
Kossan concentrated, and wrote down the words: “The first principle”.
The student watched and said: “this was not as good. I think the lines are a bit forced. The first one was better”.
Kossan helped move away the paper and prepared the brush for another attempt.
Kossan, again, wrote down the words: “The first principle”.
“Terrible” said the student, who probably had some Israeli hutzpa genes.
Kossan wrote forty-eight first principles.
Then the student had enough of his teacher’s failures. “Excuse me, teacher”, he must have said, “I need to take a pee”, and left.
The teacher took this opportunity and with a worry-free mind he quickly wrote: “The first principle”.
“Wonderful!” exclaimed the student upon his return. “Masterpiece”.
And it’s there, to this day to remind me: “There are no shortcuts”, but there is a Kefitzat Haderech.
In the early 90s arrived to Israel for the second time Masaaki Hatsumi, the teacher of my teacher, Doron Navon. Hatsumi arrived with the Japanese shihans.
It was a great Ninjutsu seminar; it’s just that I missed it all. I got sick a day before the seminar. My fever was so high that most of the time I was almost hallucinating, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t watch TV, I just lied in bed for a few days and looked out the window.
At the last day of the seminar all the veterans met and Moshe Kastiel called me on the phone: “Sheriff, we are having dinner for the sensei before he flies back to Japan, maybe you can come over?”.
“Forget it Kastiel,” I told him, “I’m sick to my bones, it won’t work for me to sit through dinner and chat in Japanese”.
“Sheriff, stop with your nonsense. Tonight at seven we’ll be in the ‘Turquoise’ restaurant in Jaffa. Don’t miss the sensei. You’ll be there.”
Moshe was right- I was there. My spouse helped me get my clothes on, put on a jacket and a tie and drove me to Jaffa. I sat in the restaurant next to her, feverish. Everybody ate fish and sish kabab. I was sipping slowly mint tea and wiping the sweat off my face.
Throughout the dinner the sensei made jokes and had some drinks. All of a sudden he looked at me and said: “Godan!”
I didn’t get it.
The Japanese and all the Israeli instructors were there so I thought he’s pointing at someone next to me. Doron Navon said to me: “You’ll have Godan now”.
“Godan” in Japanese means “5th Dan”, a test that’s also called “Sakki” – testing the killer intention. Sensei is standing behind the person who’s taking the test, raising a sword made of bamboo called “Shinai”, closing his eyes and striking down with it. The person taking the test is supposed to dodge it.
I told Doron I can’t do it, sick, next time. Doron heard me but said: “Your Godan is tonight”.
Everybody paid, put on their jackets and coats and started walking to the ruined houses, between the restaurant and the Arab neighborhood.
There was a piece of land there, next to some broken-down walls, and the rising moon lit it beautifully.
I gave my spouse my jacket, took the tie off and set in Seiza.
There was a small problem though- the sensei’s Shinai was already packed in the van that will drive them all to the airport, so Uri T- a sharp student of Doron’s, ran to a pine tree near one of the houses, clung to a big branch and broke it from the trunk. Then he cleaned it off all the small branches and gave it to Hatsumi sensei.
There was another problem- the neighborhood was near-by and we were a big group of Japanese and Israelis- a strange sight. I kept sitting and the Shihans, my spouse and the Israeli instructors formed a circle around me so no one could see through. Hatsumi sensei burst out laughing seeing the huge branch Uri handed him. He gave the branch to Doron and walked behind me while him and Doron were laughing. I already closed my eyes sitting down and thought that I should have opened the top button in my collar. Still sitting.
For years I’ve trained for this test. Even though Doron said there is no way to prepare for it. I’ve always tried to sharpen the senses in order to hear or feel the strike and the intent behind it.And that’s what I did that night, in old Jaffa. I sat with my senses sharp- prepared for everything. At some point I felt something and jumped to the side on the ground- when I turned around I saw that nothing happened yet- Doron and Hatsumi stood far from me, looking at me silently.
I jumped because I thought I felt them. Then it got very quiet. I sat in Seiza and the sensei said behind me: “Leave everything”.
I don’t know what happened to me – suddenly, after many years, after many fists fights and one war, I stopped being prepared – I suddenly found myself to the side on the ground and everybody clapping.
While I’m writing this I’m thinking about what Dan, one of Akban’s veterans, said to me. A good summery for every method and practice.
He said: “If you’ll prepare for everything, you’ll be ready for nothing- so prepare for nothing”.
In the year of 1703, forty six Samurai cut their own stomachs open. I believe they did it happily. They left another Ronin to tell the story. That’s what happened, a guy named Kira Yoshinka caused a Daimyo to cut his stomach, commit sepuku. The Daimyo, Naganori, left 47 samurai that swore to avenge his death. After two years of working in various jobs the ronin gathered in a snowy night, penetrated the stronghold, killed Naganori’s retainers and slit Yoshinka’s neck after he refused to commit suicide.
The modern visitors who, till this day, visit the graves think of the immense loyalty, but hidden inside this myth is another, twisted, value: the ancient solution to injustices in this life – death. Ruth Stein, in her invaluable book, explains the logic of the shahid, she sums it up with the header of the first chapter: “Evil as Love and as Liberation: The Mind of a Suicidal Religious Terrorist”.
It’s Thursday today, the 17th in March 2011, 308 years ago, at the 20th, very near to Sakura, forty six smiling heads rolled on the ground. Reluctantly I join the myriad of people who got inspired by this horror. This is a horror myth that is cross cultural, from the Philistines’ Dagon temple to Karbala – death of other as the solution to unsolvable problems.
Death as the riddle solver: a peasant from Frigia ties a knot that can not be opened. Alexander of Macedon, the person who later kills hundreds of thousands, starts by killing the knot, he cuts it with his sword, and for this symbolic solution some people highly commend him.
Alexander dies at the age of thirty three from an illness or poison. In his private battle he does not dance with the sword, he dances with microscopic bacteria. It seems that he would be happy to exchange manner of death with the forty-six Ronin.
Presumably it seems like a similar thing, in essence it is deeply different. The difference between the shahid and the technician is in the right the first one claims over another person’s life. The shahid and the ronin feels just when he kills, that is the hole in the logic of the killer. To hide the illogic this hole must be shut completely with anger. Anger and hatred are strong, much stronger then many other things, but not from all things. Anger and hatred are losing this week.
Today Japan is in the wake of a terrible disaster and on the brink of a possible nuclear tragedy. At the Fukushima facility the cooling water evaporate and the fuel in the reactors slowly heats in a process that might lead many people to death they did not choose. In Fukushima there are some technicians still trying to solve this impending catastrophe. They say that there are fifty, Fukushima’s 50. I am looking at the fifty and looking at the 46. It will not be the same kind of death because the process is different.
Hatred, loyalty and bravery are watching, astonished, right now on the Fukushima compound they are loosing. Something for which we have no words for is taking place right now. Loyalty, bravery and love are getting a deadly dosage of radiation. My heart is with Fukushima 50.
Many veteran practitioners already know our multi personal work method: maintaining the last item on The AKBAN Code is too much for a single person cooperation is needed. Cooperation among people is not some simple dance. It entails some heavy arguing and disagreement. I wanted to explain why this aspect should be documented, why arguing is necessary.
Martial art and AKBAN-Wiki
One of the reasons for creating the AKBAN-Wiki is the fact that we are not sure of the precision of our technique, we are not sure of our fighting conclusions and perspectives. It might be more correct to say that we are sure of some of the conclusions and techniques but tend to sanctify their discussion, and such discussion might refute some of them.
Can martial art profit from discussion, from scientific disagreements? I believe that any field of knowledge not only needs but must have criticism. Therefore we use critical point of view to preserve the old concepts, examine them, find more adequate ways to practice and argue, we argue a lot. Sometimes politely.
Just two days ago I tried to show how to perform an ancient kata. The Tel Avivian veteran practitioner with whom I worked did not have to argue loudly with my point of view. He simply disturbed me. With time, we might find ways to do it together. This is serious work that requires years of patience: patience for the difficulties of fighting, and patience towards people.
The reasonable amicable relations in AKBAN and the many capabilities of the veterans have helped us build a structure of distribution, gathering and examining of fighting knowledge and techniques. Through semantic Wiki we created a database that enables change, improvement, comparison and further investigation. We have opened our discourse to anyone interested.
Someone might criticize our whole endeavor, saying: “This is no longer a traditional martial art.” And we can answer: “Tradition is a complex cultural structure, especially for those who rigorously observe tradition, especially people like ourselves.”
I’d like to shake up a bit the usual take on tradition, by bringing two different examples that are unrelated – neither to each other nor to traditional martial art.
Through these strange examples I thought I would show at least three things:
1. Traditions that seem frozen have undergone long periods of change and accommodation.
2. Tradition is the result of multi-voiced discourse.
3. Proper results require specialists.
Wikipedia and multi-voiced discourse the need for specialists
Writing encyclopedias is a tradition that is well-worth using for observing the process of opinion exchange and transformation. The editors’ work involves gathering information, writing, editing, cataloging and publishing. This practical work is founded upon a tradition that is hundreds of years old. The process of writing encyclopedias took place in groups that were committed to the idea of gathering information and considered themselves authorized to voice their opinion or edit the opinions of others. The encyclopedia would seem like an example of frozen knowledge after it was completed. However, the actual gathering of information is an accumulative action. The Encyclopedia Britannica epitome of knowledge and order published annual update volumes.
A look at the work process on Wikipedia discloses both the power of exchanging opinions and the reservations as to the free exchange of opinion. Many articles on Wikipedia and central entries are regularly monitored by an elite of editors, Sysops and bureaucrats. Free editing today is only possible at the periphery of knowledge. Anyone can write an entry about their favorite chocolate. But changing a single character in a central entry such as Islam or USA might immediately sound the alarm among a large number of people in charge who will then immediately provide a return to the former state.
The tradition of gathering information relies upon a backbone of entries as exact and objective as possible.
Multi-voiced discourse serves this backbone of entries and exact knowledge with one reservation the discourse must be supervised by responsible experts.
Talmud not everyone participates and the debate is worth showing
A Gemara page looks like this: a central text, itself a discussion of a passage in the Torah or of resulting texts, is framed by other texts written in later periods. Some of the texts are in Aramaic, others in Hebrew of various epochs.
Visually, the Gemara page is a rare phenomenon in religious writing. The Talmud page uses not only different languages and scripts but goes further a-field and even presents disagreement and differing points of view on the same page.
One might look at the page and see far beyond its contents see the editing considerations. The editors of the Talmud, those who signed the Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud), took a decision: rather than a canonic text, they presented a mosaic of interpretations, all perpetuated upon the same, single page.
A critical overview of the contents exposes the limits of this multi-voiced discussion. Not everyone is invited to join it. The Karais, for example, are not direct writers. Their opinions are always presented in a roundabout manner, and always by one of the authorized writers. The Karais are a good example in this context since in spite of their belief in the five books of the Torah, they are not partners, by choice, in the Jewish multi-voiced discourse. The community of writers in the Talmud believes in scholars connected to the source of knowledge, on the one hand, and to the reality of community life, on the other.
The Jewish prayers, dress codes and blessings before meals are all products of a multi-voice discourse, not of Scriptural edicts. Wearing a skull cap is not dictated by the Torah. The Bible hardly mentions prayers. Until the sages wrote contents and turned them into permanent tradition, Jews hardly prayed. They offered animal sacrifices.
Karai dialogue perpetuated Orthodox fixation. According to the Karais, if the Torah says “an eye for an eye”, one must take the Law literally because of the text’s sanctity. But a community that tries to live in reality understands that the law must be interpreted so that it accommodates changing life circumstances. The Talmudic discussion surrounding the strict revenge verse indicates that the meaning intended here is proper financial restitution.
The Jewish multi-voiced discourse has never ceased in spite of the tendency on the part of a good many to declare certain of its versions sealed and signed. The rabbinical books of Q&A (questions and answers responses and later interpretations of sages) are a part of this interpretative multi-voiced discourse. Naturally, Jewish tendencies that have been pushed aside from the mainstream created separate textual and interpretative trends.
This is a big question: Is it better to debate in that same studying space, in the same dojo, on the same Wiki page, or perhaps behind one’s back? Perhaps the momentary position should be perpetuated, or a new method developed? A new dojo maybe?
I believe that taking the argument somewhere else smells of psychological difficulty. It does not serve knowledge, only the fragility of some of our features.
Someone who removed himself from our studying space in AKBAN, Mr. H., concluded this well by saying: “I prefer to walk all the way to Afghanistan to change batteries in a listening device rather than sit at my aunt’s with my family for a holiday dinner”. And this is the crux of the code: friendship is physical presence, on the same page, in the same dojo, around the same camp fire, and that is no simple matter.
Budo Ninjutsu is doing with the body, doing physical work.
Although Martial art helps us develop and maintain strength, power, speed, physical and mental health and ultimately becoming fierce warriors, most of these fade in time.
We can only hope for “something†to accumulate over time. This sediment presents itself to us under the Japanese mantle: Do.
Simply put, Do is the Way, the Path, and the path requires work.
At the end what remains is the “Do”. What this means for us is that the effort is lifelong.
There is no “Kfitzat Haderech” here, this path has no shortcuts, although there will be times when progress will come in jumps, when small understandings will lead to bigger understandings.
Recent years has seen the number and spread of video and surveillance cameras on the rise. We can safely assume that the number is going to grow. The current terrorist fright that effected the western hemisphere since the September eleven attack, has given a green light to the explosion of surveillance and surveillance cameras. The state sanctioned videoing, and the fact that many cellular phones have video cameras, leads to a level of transparency unheard of: in youtube alone, 523,000 videos tagged with the word “street”, 15000 tagged with the word “neighbor”, 97,400 tagged with the word “violence”.
What we do can become visible and recorded. Exposed Recorded Action ( ERA) will be a feature of modern life.
Only three decades into the internet-cellular revolution, the lives and actions of an individual are more public then ever. Community and institutionalized surveillance present an immense cultural change. We in AKBAN try to factor this major change in our eclectic discipline. ERA is intriguing because it has not yet passed the test of time, documented visibility did not have time to evolve and integrate itself into personal habits and individual lifestyles (1).
When we imagine surveillance or as we call it, Exposed Recorded Action (ERA), what might spring to our thoughts is a government taking satellite pictures of terrorists in faraway mountains (2), or the mall or municipal security handling disturbances using CCTV cameras (3 PDF) . But in addition, there are new concerns that rise due to the increase of documenting devices. For example, camera equipped cell phones (4) in private hands.
Whether it will be through “Google street view (5)”, cell phones posting or the far reaching percolation of youtube clips, more parts of our lives are going to be public. It can be safely predicted that new software capabilities will filter, search and sift through visual information, video and images. Some initial projects already exist. These have rudimentary abilities to do basic image processing. For example, search for a specific face in many images. Andy Warhol predicted: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” We might guess that this fame will be immortalized (6 PDF) and searchable using the World Wide Web.
Through legislature, communities might try to control the amount and scope of knowledge that various organizational institutions have on our lives, but controlling the crowds is not only a different problem but one of a completely different magnitude. Transparency will probably be a dominant feature of our life.
What has this to do with martial arts practitioners one might ask, well, we think, a lot. This immense cultural change has to be reflected by a change in practice, a change in that part of martial arts that is labeled as “self defense”.
Now, web literati are thinking about many ramifications of the exposure of the most private data (7), but what we suggest focuses on this part of personal security, our document-able visibility. The visibility problem is a small but significant part to the more generalized problem, the loss of privacy. Documented Visibility is not only martial artist’s problem, it’s everybody’s problem. Here we focus on the implication to the practice of “self defense”. We use our structured methodical practice to highlight the new challenges and to suggest some new solutions.
In a fight, most of the times, the proceedings are not always clear-cut. Sometimes something was said before, an incendiary remark, sometimes, way after there is no danger from the opponent, one of the involved hits again, carried by a wave of adrenaline, rage and fear. The possibility of the fight being documented must be factored in. Making the correct decision and protecting ourselves and dear ones from violence is one big part of what martial arts are. In AKBAN, we try to look at things from different perspectives. A confrontation does not end when the physical clash stops, it can reverberate for many years.
In this era, all actions of self defense oriented martial arts should be conducted accordingly. To put it clearly, we suggest a lower level of violence in all possible scenarios. Martial arts have many aspects and specializations, in the field of reactions that are intended for defensive use, whether the user is a cop (8), a security personal an soldier or a regular civilian – the possibility of Exposed Recorded Action must influence the level of aggression and the actual nature of the techniques used. Everything has to be moderated down.
Many koryu (traditional Japanese martial systems) techniques are not defendable under any scrutiny in the court of law. Western self defense law prohibits any violent action that is not in response to threat. Old style martial arts carry ancient messages that are just the opposite, for instance, Kendo seitei gata, that initiate a sword cut, cannot be legally justified under regular circumstances.
Even more potentially dangerous are sport oriented martial arts. In sport oriented martial arts a practitioner learns to do the routines, combinations and techniques under stress. Drilling and competing under stress enhance memorization and assist in automatic retrieval under stress (9). In duress, the adrenaline and usability that are gained in competition might prove to have a carryover effect: from the competition to the confrontation. Any automatic level of devastating responses might not be legally justified.
What we, in AKBAN, try to teach in recent years is a segregation of ancient and sport techniques from techniques that are self defensive. We can continue to learn tradition and accumulate a wealth of very devastating techniques, but we must try and separate these from those that will protect us both during violence and afterward, when the video of the confrontation will be public.
Failing to segregate sport techniques, or aggressive illegal ancient patterns might cause severe legal problems, even to an innocent defender.
Not all the time, but many of our actions, especially the dramatic ones will be watched. We must learn new strategies, ones more adaptive to the new circumstances, keep what is appropriate and legal and preserve all the rest as a relic in the training ground only. Failing to do so can get us into deep legal and monitory problems. The era when nobody was watching is gone, now comes the time when we all will be watching.
