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Old 10-20-2008, 09:51 AM   #6
C. David Henderson
Location: Santa Fe New Mexico
Join Date: Sep 2008
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Re: The HA in SHU-HA-RI

Quote:
David Soroko wrote: View Post
Potentially there is a tension between the "personalizes" and the "preserves", how would it be resolved?
David -- Thanks for going ahead and starting this thread, and for linking to the article by Chiba Sensei. I agree with you that there is a tension here. Does this make any sense or provoke further thought in thinking about the issue:

The tension is resolved ultimately through continued training, including specifically training in basic form. When the individual gets to a certain stage of understanding, however, the focus of training shifts from absorption-through mimicry towards integration in one's own body the patterns [principles] of action embedded in kihon.

I seem to recall Chiba Sensei wrote that the HA stage of training, like the SHU stage, is "protected" by the teaching, and come "under" the teaching. To me this suggests the form as-taught still forms a template against which one acts and examines one's acts.

In part, "preservation" limits "personalization" precisely because it is in tension with it. "Preservation" rests both with the student, who has internalized forms of action, and the teacher, who continues to transmit form to the student in teaching.

As I read the article, the "tension" you address may appear as an element of "destruction" as to some aspects of the forms one has learned.

I think this destruction may be of the kind often necessary to the creative process -- in this instance, of adapting what has been burned into the body and making it more fully one's own.

Nor does tension necessarily connote instability -- think of how the spokes of a bicycle wheel keep the shape of the wheel through balanced tension. Without balance, the wheel "tacos's."

What do you think?

Regards,

DH
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