Hi there,
I want to talk about spirit, I dont mean ki I mean ''fighting spirit''. The head of british training in the organisation I train with talks about this a great deal. He feels its the most important thing to cultivate during training ( I agree with him).I also got the same impression when hearing about the yoshinkan instructors training. The idea being that ''the mind controls the body, and not the other way around''. This is why our warms ups etc in training are very difficult, as this cultivats our ''fighting spirit'', our bodies may be telling as to stop but if our mind is strong we can continue. A good quote from one of our sensei's is ''you can give up when you are unconsious''. Now dont jump to conclusions it is NOT a macho thing, of course if your gonna cause an injury stop...probably. The idea is that in training you must always push yourself out of your comfort zone. Gozo Shioda stressed this point, explaining how a great deal of aikido is ''hollow''. This is why I think good aikido has an edge over thing else (my personal view).We had many jujutsu people down on seminars etc (nice guys) but I felt out resistace to pain, our hard training, form and spirit shone through. The sensei asked if he could speak at the end and say how impressed he was. Thw way of the warrior is what we our aiming for, well never get there but we are striving for it. In fact thats what the organisation name is about...shudokan ''the school striving for the ultimate''. ''roughly''. All the great martial artists had this '' a samurai fighting spirit'' all the greats. Name one and they all aimed for it. This is why in our syllabus there are things like live knife gradings for shodan etc, this is because there striving for the way of the warrior. I know many dont agree with this Im just attempting to get another view across. You can have the best tecnique in the world but if your mind is not there, when you come into conflict, net neccersarily diffcult you will not prosper. This is the idea of holding fast your centre. The saying often said in meditation ''If I have a consience that is clear, I dare to face an enemy ten thousand strong.'' Im told this means more than the literal meaning.
Has anybody any views on the above subject?
Matt Banks
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