Post by Jonathan Anderson on Dec 1, 2011 16:40:40 GMT -4
You all have Allie-chan to thank for the following article/monologue/infodump. ;D
I have long maintained that there is only one stupid question: the one you don't ask, but thanks to Allie, I have come to understand the other end of that extreme: what is a truly great question. Questions are asked in all manner of situations, between people of all kinds of positions in life - questions for clarification, questions between peers, and questions about situations... questions, questions, questions. Questions, it is said, are the beginning of understanding, and to me, the most important questions, the most critical questions, are those asked of someone we have placed a very special level of trust - the person we look to for instruction, guidance, and knowledge. We trust in those people to impart their knowledge, experience, and wisdom to us in the best way they can, and we open ourselves to them every time we come to them seeking to eliminate our own ignorance.
And you guys continue to come to me... wow...
To me, what marks a truly great question - what marks a great question from one that is merely good - is a question that inspires the sempai to deeply, thoroughly consider the subject of the question for days after the kohai asks.
That is not the main point I'm driving towards here... that was a light warm-up.
Recently Allie asked me what, in my opinion anyway, is a tremendously great question: "How do we build fighting spirit?" Such a seemingly simple and obvious question for one training in the martial arts: How do we build our spirit?
One's spirit, like so many other things in life, can be roughly though accurately likened to a muscle. It can be exercised, refined and if not used, will atrophy. This though, feels like too simple a metaphor for so fundamental a concept, and one that is so integral to what we do. The particularly astute of you may have noticed that I haven't referred to it as "fighting spirit," since quoting Allie - I'm not simply trying to stay within the arbitrary character limit. I am only referring to spirit quite deliberately at this point. That is because in my mind, there is a great difference between spirit, and fighting spirit. To return to the muscle metaphor, a muscle can be trained for many different tasks – flexibility, strength, endurance – but a truly effective muscle is one in which all aspects are trained, and in which those aspects can be focused into a single task. Spirit is no different. A person that constantly strives to better themselves has spirit without needing to yell, carry on, or be generally “larger-than-life.” A person that simply accepts where they are in life and feels that there is no further room for growth or learning is a person whose spirit has atrophied, or is lost entirely. To put it more simply, those who are not busy being born are busy dying. To switch metaphors, the power unleashed when a single atom is split is truly amazing, but in an uncontrolled chain reaction, all that is achieved is Omni-directional destruction. However, in a controlled reaction, with focused results, we have electrical power that maintains climate control for people, preventing injuries or death due to extremes of temperature; or keeps the machines operating that maintains a person’s body while medicine works to heal them. I realize that I’m getting a touch off topic here, but the point I’m laboriously attempting to make is that a person can have great spirit, but without focus and direction, that spirit falls short of its potential, becomes wasted energy, or worse could even become destructive. A person can have immense focus, but without sufficient spirit, that focus will remain unrealized.
My initial answer to Allie's question was to yell, to kiai, during gi-keiko. Unfortunately, such a simple answer to such an important question is not remotely what Allie deserved, and merely illustrates how much further I have to go. When people say that someone has spirit, what does that mean? What are they referring to? To me, the most basic, general, non-religious answer is an intangible energy; an energy that we work to be able to exude and direct in both Kendo, and more importantly in Iaido. Some people are explosively energetic, while others are more reserved. The former are likely to be referred to as "spirited" by those of generous descriptive habits, but are the latter un-spirited by default or comparison? Granted, kiai’ing is an integral part of Kendo – it is one of the key ways we demonstrate our spirit, and it is an excellent way to build our spirit, but it is not our spirit. Further, the kiai is not the only way by which we can build our spirit. In shiai, only one person can leave as the victor – granted, a fight may end in a draw, in which there is no victor, but otherwise, there will be one person leaving the victor, and the other, the vanquished. Does this mean that the winner completely and perfectly defeated the other? True, their skill was superior, but on the surface that only proves that the winner’s physical skill was the greater. There is a saying that goes something along the lines “You may defeat my body, but you will never defeat my spirit.” This speaks to the difference between gross physical victory, and total victory – but not necessarily perfect victory. An enemy may overcome our physical body, but if we remain strong of mind and spirit, fighting to the last, no opponent can ever defeat the true self. It is the moment that one gives up and mentally submits to whatever is happening that they are totally defeated.
Okay, let’s step away from the meta-physical for a bit, shall we?
One of the ways we build spirit by building self-confidence. The body follows where the mind directs. If you really believe that you cannot do something, whether consciously or subconsciously, you cannot do that thing; but if you believe that anything is possible, you will be amazed at what you can do. I believe that one of the common traits that every historic person had, whether they were benign or malevolent, is that they did not believe that they had limits to what they could achieve. Genghis Khan, Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Adolph Hitler, Alexander the Great, George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.… they all achieved immeasurable things, and each, for one reason or another, didn’t seem to believe in limits to their potential, or at the very least, refused to accept limits. Additionally, let’s take a step back from world-famous and changing people. Numerous are the stories of prisoners of war taken captive and subjected to some of the worst treatment, not to mention examples of how brutal one person can be to another; yet continuing to work at subverting their captors and attempting escape. No doubt there were captives that decided to accept their situation and “make the best of it,” but the ones that actively tried to continue fighting, even in such a horrendous situation demonstrated their spirit with every act. In World War I, in a place called Belleau Wood, France, the United States Marine Corps earned one of their nicknames: “Teufel Hunden,” or quite literally “Devil Dogs.” This due to the battle cries of the Marines across the fields sounding to the Germans as similar to the barking of hounds possessed by the devil. Bear in mind, the Marines were fighting in a foreign land, had suffered heavy casualties (this battle is considered the deadliest in the history of the Corps to date), and were pinned down by German machine guns. Rather than be demoralized and surrender, they counter-attacked with bayonets affixed, and won the battle. In fact, Captain Lloyd Williams said “Retreat? I need a better vocabulary, we just got here.” Bear in mind, the Germans had just executed a crushing offensive, had re-enforcements from the East, thanks to the fact that Russia had just signed a treaty which took them out of the war, and they had a superior position specifically set up to prevent exactly what the Marines did. Further, this was the German Army at the beginning of the 20th Century – war was what they did, and they were so frightened by the counter attacking Marines that they likened them to I need a better vocabulary hounds. Of course, these were Marines, and war was also what they did. That’s just one out of countless examples of military people showing exemplary fighting spirit – the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, the Battle of Saragarhi, or the Battle of Shiroyama just to give three good examples. What about people that aren’t warriors? What about so-called ordinary people? People that can barely pay their bills, work two jobs, and are putting themselves through college in order to better their situation. What about single parents? Fathers or mothers that struggle every day just to make ends meet, bone tired and sometimes going hungry to see that their child/children don’t. They’re in an entirely different sort of fight, and they may sometimes feel that they’re losing, but they don’t give up. They could give their offspring up for adoption, or even take their own life, but on some level they choose to fight on to provide the best life and future they can for their family.
That is Fighting Spirit, ladies and gentlemen. Taking the strength of our own will, and applying it to becoming an indomitable force resisting whatever seeks to oppose us. Naturally, this can become a negative thing if misapplied – see Adolph Hitler above for the most obvious example – which is why we must also use wisdom, gleaned from experience, to have the proper perspective to know what is, and what is not, a cause worth fighting for. Now I grant that I’m using some pretty lofty examples here, and some may feel overwhelmed by the scope of everything involved. After all, I’m talking about training one’s spirit, developing wisdom, and listing some pretty big names as examples – as I said, this was a great question. If you do find that this concept is all but overwhelming in scope and depth, congratulations… you’re really thinking about it. That’s why I felt compelled to write this up, and why it took so long – Allie got me really thinking about it. The trick here is to not allow it to overwhelm you, and to help you not allow it to overwhelm you, I’m going to go back to my muscle/physical training analogy. Take, for instance, a marathon runner; they didn’t wake up one day and think to themselves “I think I’ll run 26 miles today.” They worked themselves up to that bit by bit by tackling small goals over time. As a different example, the world record for a raw deadlift is 1,015 lbs, set by Benedikt Magnússon. Similarly to our marathon runner example, it’s a touch unlikely that Mr. Magnússon simply woke up one day with no previous strength training and decided to lift almost half a ton. What I’m getting at is that as you strive to improve your fighting spirit, as with all things, set reasonable goals and work to steadily progress over time – don’t try to do a decathlon immediately after a 2 year coma.
Fighting Spirit is one of those concepts you could spend years just thinking about and never fully be able to articulate. My sensei once said that zanshin is like that; you learn about it, but you can’t ever describe it in words and hope to do it justice. I’ve done the best I can here given my level of knowledge, intelligence, and experience. Perhaps in 5 to 10 years, I’ll review these words and marvel over just how clueless I was. Truth be told, I desperately hope that’s the case, as it will mean that I have learned even more in that time, and I’m not finished being born yet.
Now, discuss…
I have long maintained that there is only one stupid question: the one you don't ask, but thanks to Allie, I have come to understand the other end of that extreme: what is a truly great question. Questions are asked in all manner of situations, between people of all kinds of positions in life - questions for clarification, questions between peers, and questions about situations... questions, questions, questions. Questions, it is said, are the beginning of understanding, and to me, the most important questions, the most critical questions, are those asked of someone we have placed a very special level of trust - the person we look to for instruction, guidance, and knowledge. We trust in those people to impart their knowledge, experience, and wisdom to us in the best way they can, and we open ourselves to them every time we come to them seeking to eliminate our own ignorance.
And you guys continue to come to me... wow...
To me, what marks a truly great question - what marks a great question from one that is merely good - is a question that inspires the sempai to deeply, thoroughly consider the subject of the question for days after the kohai asks.
That is not the main point I'm driving towards here... that was a light warm-up.
Recently Allie asked me what, in my opinion anyway, is a tremendously great question: "How do we build fighting spirit?" Such a seemingly simple and obvious question for one training in the martial arts: How do we build our spirit?
One's spirit, like so many other things in life, can be roughly though accurately likened to a muscle. It can be exercised, refined and if not used, will atrophy. This though, feels like too simple a metaphor for so fundamental a concept, and one that is so integral to what we do. The particularly astute of you may have noticed that I haven't referred to it as "fighting spirit," since quoting Allie - I'm not simply trying to stay within the arbitrary character limit. I am only referring to spirit quite deliberately at this point. That is because in my mind, there is a great difference between spirit, and fighting spirit. To return to the muscle metaphor, a muscle can be trained for many different tasks – flexibility, strength, endurance – but a truly effective muscle is one in which all aspects are trained, and in which those aspects can be focused into a single task. Spirit is no different. A person that constantly strives to better themselves has spirit without needing to yell, carry on, or be generally “larger-than-life.” A person that simply accepts where they are in life and feels that there is no further room for growth or learning is a person whose spirit has atrophied, or is lost entirely. To put it more simply, those who are not busy being born are busy dying. To switch metaphors, the power unleashed when a single atom is split is truly amazing, but in an uncontrolled chain reaction, all that is achieved is Omni-directional destruction. However, in a controlled reaction, with focused results, we have electrical power that maintains climate control for people, preventing injuries or death due to extremes of temperature; or keeps the machines operating that maintains a person’s body while medicine works to heal them. I realize that I’m getting a touch off topic here, but the point I’m laboriously attempting to make is that a person can have great spirit, but without focus and direction, that spirit falls short of its potential, becomes wasted energy, or worse could even become destructive. A person can have immense focus, but without sufficient spirit, that focus will remain unrealized.
My initial answer to Allie's question was to yell, to kiai, during gi-keiko. Unfortunately, such a simple answer to such an important question is not remotely what Allie deserved, and merely illustrates how much further I have to go. When people say that someone has spirit, what does that mean? What are they referring to? To me, the most basic, general, non-religious answer is an intangible energy; an energy that we work to be able to exude and direct in both Kendo, and more importantly in Iaido. Some people are explosively energetic, while others are more reserved. The former are likely to be referred to as "spirited" by those of generous descriptive habits, but are the latter un-spirited by default or comparison? Granted, kiai’ing is an integral part of Kendo – it is one of the key ways we demonstrate our spirit, and it is an excellent way to build our spirit, but it is not our spirit. Further, the kiai is not the only way by which we can build our spirit. In shiai, only one person can leave as the victor – granted, a fight may end in a draw, in which there is no victor, but otherwise, there will be one person leaving the victor, and the other, the vanquished. Does this mean that the winner completely and perfectly defeated the other? True, their skill was superior, but on the surface that only proves that the winner’s physical skill was the greater. There is a saying that goes something along the lines “You may defeat my body, but you will never defeat my spirit.” This speaks to the difference between gross physical victory, and total victory – but not necessarily perfect victory. An enemy may overcome our physical body, but if we remain strong of mind and spirit, fighting to the last, no opponent can ever defeat the true self. It is the moment that one gives up and mentally submits to whatever is happening that they are totally defeated.
Okay, let’s step away from the meta-physical for a bit, shall we?
One of the ways we build spirit by building self-confidence. The body follows where the mind directs. If you really believe that you cannot do something, whether consciously or subconsciously, you cannot do that thing; but if you believe that anything is possible, you will be amazed at what you can do. I believe that one of the common traits that every historic person had, whether they were benign or malevolent, is that they did not believe that they had limits to what they could achieve. Genghis Khan, Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Adolph Hitler, Alexander the Great, George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.… they all achieved immeasurable things, and each, for one reason or another, didn’t seem to believe in limits to their potential, or at the very least, refused to accept limits. Additionally, let’s take a step back from world-famous and changing people. Numerous are the stories of prisoners of war taken captive and subjected to some of the worst treatment, not to mention examples of how brutal one person can be to another; yet continuing to work at subverting their captors and attempting escape. No doubt there were captives that decided to accept their situation and “make the best of it,” but the ones that actively tried to continue fighting, even in such a horrendous situation demonstrated their spirit with every act. In World War I, in a place called Belleau Wood, France, the United States Marine Corps earned one of their nicknames: “Teufel Hunden,” or quite literally “Devil Dogs.” This due to the battle cries of the Marines across the fields sounding to the Germans as similar to the barking of hounds possessed by the devil. Bear in mind, the Marines were fighting in a foreign land, had suffered heavy casualties (this battle is considered the deadliest in the history of the Corps to date), and were pinned down by German machine guns. Rather than be demoralized and surrender, they counter-attacked with bayonets affixed, and won the battle. In fact, Captain Lloyd Williams said “Retreat? I need a better vocabulary, we just got here.” Bear in mind, the Germans had just executed a crushing offensive, had re-enforcements from the East, thanks to the fact that Russia had just signed a treaty which took them out of the war, and they had a superior position specifically set up to prevent exactly what the Marines did. Further, this was the German Army at the beginning of the 20th Century – war was what they did, and they were so frightened by the counter attacking Marines that they likened them to I need a better vocabulary hounds. Of course, these were Marines, and war was also what they did. That’s just one out of countless examples of military people showing exemplary fighting spirit – the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, the Battle of Saragarhi, or the Battle of Shiroyama just to give three good examples. What about people that aren’t warriors? What about so-called ordinary people? People that can barely pay their bills, work two jobs, and are putting themselves through college in order to better their situation. What about single parents? Fathers or mothers that struggle every day just to make ends meet, bone tired and sometimes going hungry to see that their child/children don’t. They’re in an entirely different sort of fight, and they may sometimes feel that they’re losing, but they don’t give up. They could give their offspring up for adoption, or even take their own life, but on some level they choose to fight on to provide the best life and future they can for their family.
That is Fighting Spirit, ladies and gentlemen. Taking the strength of our own will, and applying it to becoming an indomitable force resisting whatever seeks to oppose us. Naturally, this can become a negative thing if misapplied – see Adolph Hitler above for the most obvious example – which is why we must also use wisdom, gleaned from experience, to have the proper perspective to know what is, and what is not, a cause worth fighting for. Now I grant that I’m using some pretty lofty examples here, and some may feel overwhelmed by the scope of everything involved. After all, I’m talking about training one’s spirit, developing wisdom, and listing some pretty big names as examples – as I said, this was a great question. If you do find that this concept is all but overwhelming in scope and depth, congratulations… you’re really thinking about it. That’s why I felt compelled to write this up, and why it took so long – Allie got me really thinking about it. The trick here is to not allow it to overwhelm you, and to help you not allow it to overwhelm you, I’m going to go back to my muscle/physical training analogy. Take, for instance, a marathon runner; they didn’t wake up one day and think to themselves “I think I’ll run 26 miles today.” They worked themselves up to that bit by bit by tackling small goals over time. As a different example, the world record for a raw deadlift is 1,015 lbs, set by Benedikt Magnússon. Similarly to our marathon runner example, it’s a touch unlikely that Mr. Magnússon simply woke up one day with no previous strength training and decided to lift almost half a ton. What I’m getting at is that as you strive to improve your fighting spirit, as with all things, set reasonable goals and work to steadily progress over time – don’t try to do a decathlon immediately after a 2 year coma.
Fighting Spirit is one of those concepts you could spend years just thinking about and never fully be able to articulate. My sensei once said that zanshin is like that; you learn about it, but you can’t ever describe it in words and hope to do it justice. I’ve done the best I can here given my level of knowledge, intelligence, and experience. Perhaps in 5 to 10 years, I’ll review these words and marvel over just how clueless I was. Truth be told, I desperately hope that’s the case, as it will mean that I have learned even more in that time, and I’m not finished being born yet.
Now, discuss…
