Welcome to AikiWeb Aikido Information
AikiWeb: The Source for Aikido Information
AikiWeb's principal purpose is to serve the Internet community as a repository and dissemination point for aikido information.

Sections
home
aikido articles
columns

Discussions
forums
aikiblogs

Databases
dojo search
seminars
image gallery
supplies
links directory

Reviews
book reviews
video reviews
dvd reviews
equip. reviews

News
submit
archive

Miscellaneous
newsletter
rss feeds
polls
about

Follow us on



Home > AikiWeb Aikido
Go Back   AikiWeb Aikido Forums > AikiWeb AikiBlogs > Young Grasshopper

Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history, humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced features available, you will need to register first. Registration is absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

Young Grasshopper Blog Tools Rating: Rate This Blog
Creation Date: 01-28-2011 01:49 PM
OwlMatt
Offline
rss2
A blog written from the point of view of a martial arts beginner, which I am. You can find the full blog at http://yghmartialarts.blogspot.com. Here on AikiWeb, I'll post only those entries which are relevant to aikido.
Blog Info
Status: Public
Entries: 28
Comments: 78
Views: 131,880

In General Facing the Music Entry Tools Rate This Entry
  #10 New 02-20-2011 09:50 PM
There are various Ways. There is the Way of salvation by the law of Buddha, the Way of Confucius governing the Way of learning, the Way of healing as a doctor, as a poet teaching the Way of Waka, tea, archery, and many arts and skills. Each man practices as he feels inclined. It is said the warrior's is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways.
- Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings

My journey into the martial arts has been nothing short of an obsession over the past fourteen months. I have trained, I have exercised, I have read every book I could find, and I have researched every available source on the internet. There are days when it seems the martial arts are the only thing I talk about. My wife, bless her heart, has managed not to complain much, because she knows the martial arts make me happy.

But not so long ago, music made me happy. I spent my evenings in the living room with my guitar, playing old songs and writing new ones. I spent my weekends in the downtown shopping district of Waukesha, Wisconsin, singing at bars or playing outdoor concerts during the summer. My guitar never used to get put away; it would live in a chair or on the couch for days at a time. Music, more than anything else, has been my life's work to this point.

The opportunities in Waukesha have slowed to a standstill this winter, and the guys in the band have bigger economic problems to worry about than reviving our schedule of low-playing bar gigs. And all the time I spent working on music at home has been replaced by training martial arts, working out to condition for training martial arts, reading books about the martial arts, and now writing a blog about the martial arts.

I haven't written a song since I started training. I'm not sure I've even learned a new song in that time.

There are some, no doubt, who would ask why replacing one passion with another is such a horrible thing. The martial arts are certainly a worthwhile use of time, and the money I was making as a musician was drying up anyway. Why not take things in a new direction?

For starters, as I have mentioned before, I have a talent for music that I do not have for the martial arts, and it bothers me to squander it. What's more, music has been an important part of my life for a long time: it's the legacy that my mother and father passed to me, it's what brought my wife and me together, and it's how I met many of my friends. It's not something I can just throw away now.

There's more to it than that, though.

According to the samurai Confucianist philosopher Nakae Toju (Cleary, p.31-42), a man's practice of the martial arts is an extension of his sense of justice, while his practice of the cultural arts like calligraphy and music is an extension of his sense of humanity. Furthermore, says Toju, the sense of justice and the sense of humanity must inform one another to be complete and genuine: humanity without justice is weak sentimentality, and justice without humanity is cold ruthlessness.

In order to be the man I want to be, the man I want the martial arts to help me become, I need to cultivate my humane self and my just self, in order that they might cultivate each other. I need to be an artist and a warrior. To abandon my music in favor of the martial arts would, in the end, be a betrayal of the cause the martial arts were intended to serve in my life.

So what am I going to do about it? Well, in the long run, I'm not sure.

But tonight, I think I'll reacquaint myself with a few old songs.
Views: 2685 | Comments: 2


RSS Feed 2 Responses to "Facing the Music"
#2 02-21-2011 01:25 AM
guest1234567 Says:
I think you should find time to do both, one complements the other, as you wisely mentioned
#1 02-20-2011 11:09 PM
Love it. As I see it Aikido should result in the three r's. Realignment, Rehabillitation and Restoration. Regards.G.
 




All times are GMT -6. The time now is 10:59 AM.



vBulletin Copyright © 2000-2024 Jelsoft Enterprises Limited
----------
Copyright 1997-2024 AikiWeb and its Authors, All Rights Reserved.
----------
For questions and comments about this website:
Send E-mail
plainlaid-picaresque outchasing-protistan explicantia-altarage seaford-stellionate