We train to detect threats before they emerge, and to deal with them effectively if they do. Threats are always present in our environment, sometimes in the distance, sometimes up close. Opportunity is around us too. At our Tuesday evening class on September 11, 2001, pretty much every member of the dojo showed up to train.
Training in Time of Plague and Panic Read More »
Researchers have identified a phenomenon they call “group flow” which emerges in the performance of well-trained groups. In traditional martial arts we know it well. When members of a team, band, military unit, business or dojo “cooperate, agree on goals, skills and patterns of action”, then “group flow,” or group cohesion, emerges. Pioneeered by psychologist
“Group Flow” in Kata Read More »
Ranks and titles have value Ranks are a tool. They can help us preserve the knowledge of the past, and focus on our challenges in the present. Ranks reward effort. They can be a mark of achievement and respect. It shows a newer person where to turn for advice, and who to imitate. Ranks help
It’s good to get together with a few or a few hundred of your closest friends and train real hard for a long time, together, everyone doing the same thing, in their own way, at the same time, of their own free will. And together, in an ecstasy of sweat, burn out all the junk
An Ecstasy of Sweat Read More »
