senshincenter

One thing though - doesn't their have to be some level of "being uncomfortable" in oneself, some aspect not being touched by one's training, made visible in the urge to pass judgement, discredit, compare, disavow - even when, or especially when, we use devices like, "for your own good," "for the good of your students," "for the art's sake," etc., or when we try to "help" and ask folks to "wake up" to (our) reality? Isn't being comfortable in some way akin to being satisfied "as is." For me, definitely so.

I'm all up for offering one's opinion - especially when it's being asked for, and/or for sharing and contrasting one's experience, but I just have no urge in me pass out universal condemnations according to my (by default) miniscule existence and/or experience. If we want to talk about what we like to do, or even why, that is one thing, but it just seems pointless to train ourselves to get folks to train like us.

The way I see it, folks can do their own thing - they are not my students, I have no commitment to them, nor them to me. I don't need one flag, with me holding it, and everyone else under it.

I'm comfortable with many flags, and even with folks that have no flags. I thank my training for that. I don't need folks to wake up to my reality - for me, that's part of me waking up myself.

I hope folks are always self-reflective in their training, as that is a huge part of progress, but I don't need folks that don't train under me to be, nor do I have a desire for them to be. My hope for self-reflection for others comes only from being a fellow journeyman myself. For me, it's a sincere hope - an act of sharing.

For me, it's no different from finding a fellow hiker on a trail. I'll share my water if they ask for some, I'll give it to them if they say they need it, but I have no urge to tell them how to hike or where to go or even where they cannot go. We meet, we spend a moment, and then our moment together ends. I don't walk the trails, telling folks what is possible and not possible. If I feel they are truly in danger, then I do more than simply tell them they are in danger.

Real help is always proactive and constructive and takes great effort and sacrifice by the one providing it. It cannot happen in this setting, for better or for worse, and we should stop trying then to "help" folks.

Just felt this needed to be said, otherwise I can't see this discussion going anywhere but straight to the ego and all its delusions. Just thought a conversation on the "real" should notice this, and try to get away from such trappings, such delusion.

I'm sure that there are plenty of folks out there that gain skill in acquiring comfortability through their training though their training seeks no skill at surviving an urban attack. Additionally, I'm not sure one is ever "comfortable" within an attack - it's more, at least for me, an ability to do what needs to be done. For me, that's not "comfortability," it's control. Control does not guarantee victory and so I do not enter or face an urban attack with some sense of confidence that I will, or even can, survive. I just do what I do, from a state of control that I am able to maintain.

"Comfortable" is me laying in on that hammock in the Corona Beer commercial, my wife standing in front of the ocean wearing her bikini, and my three kids playing around me.