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Thread: "Let's see you do that with shinken."

  1. #151
    Dan Harden Guest

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    I finally had some down time over Christmas holiday and was reviewing this thread. While I feel there is no need to correct anything that was said regarding tea serving and its ability to prepare someone for sword- perhaps our dismissive tone of such falderal left too much unsaid and/or presumed to much background knowledge of our younger reader and/or new practitioner.
    I think the tea serving posts was really meant to denote refinement of a warrior. It was carried a bit too far in saying the spirit of it is the same or can prepare you for conflict. Taken as a whole, there is much to be said for the warrior sage as a goal or ideal. It is a well established principle in many cultures and is essential in our study of the Japanese arts. While ideal, most-if not many, fail to achieve this lofty goal, but the pursuit of it is nonetheless - time well spent. No one, I am sure wants to deal with an effeminate warrior just as much, if not more, than we want to deal with a poet who espouses the depth of understanding of war. But people- being who they are- will always pick one of the two sides to make the case they wish to stress on any given day.
    For those of us pursuing the Japanese arts it is enough to say that many generals and warriors wrote of these things. One of Hojo Nagauji’s “twenty one precepts” states: "A person who is lacking in the ways of poetry is truly impoverished. The cultural and martial are the constant way of the warrior. It is hardly necessary to note that the ancient law has it that the cultured arts should be held on the left and the military arts on the right.” Author William Scot Wilson makes excellent use of this precept in his book “The Lone Warrior” available through www.Koryu.com by citing the Kanji for Uruwashi.
    “The left side of the character is Bun which originally meant something like “pattern” in the sense of the patterns of birds in flight or ripples in water, but eventually came to mean “literature” or the patterns of human culture, and finally "culture" itself.
    The right portion of the character (Bu) means martial or warrior and can be further broken down to mean to the radicals of “stop” and “halberd”......the entire character uruwashi, then, connotes a balance of cultural and martial abilities in a single person.”

    To further my own point, it interesting that the character Bu is, in itself, often described to fit both a peacenicks view of war being meant to stop the spear or “end war” and the warriors view of having to stop WITH the spear, as in, “preparation precludes war” or go out and fight to win.

    OK, that said, we have to understand the lessons we are supposedly being taught within the Japanese culture archetype. That meaning- there are any number of more practical explanations, but we use the Japanese “mystique” to.......explain the mundane.

    We have all read the stories of our intrepid warrior heroes going off to learn calligraphy and being given the brush and facing the foe which is, in this case, supposedly the paper- made the decisive “one stroke” that evoked mastery!
    I, for one, can understand the lesson of his focus and ability to be decisive in an instant. I can even understand the use of his fine motor skills, but this does not mean he understands the mixing and making of inks, use of papers, different ages and types of calligraphy, or any other nuance involved in calligraphy without a proper study.
    As well, we may enjoy the stories of the tea server who is admonished to go out and face his adversary with the same focus he brings to tea serving without any regard to his life. With this supposed advice being brandished within his countenance so well that his (evil; of course) warrior foe is completely undone by this tea servers "presumed" martial ability.
    The real lesson being-“fight as if you have realized your own death, made peace with it and are willing take him with you.”
    But of course if we said it that way we would not have had all the delightful stories of tea serving to share.

    So, can I interest you in some tea?

    Cheers and happy holidays
    Dan
    ".....Misconduct in the common affairs of life may be retrieved. But, it is quite otherwise in war, where errors are fatal and without remedy, and are followed by immediate punishment.".....vegetius Book 1
    Last edited by Dan Harden; 27th December 2004 at 14:52.

  2. #152
    Dan Harden Guest

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    Carlos
    I tried the coconut Mojitos....ooohh noooo!!
    And thanks.....I think!

    cheers
    Dan

  3. #153
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
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    Huntington Bch, Ca.
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    Hey Dan,
    I want in on this drinking party too!
    Wait a second, am I still allowed to drink. Neil?
    I promise not to make anybody shat themselves like the last time Johnny, Ferman and I went drinking together.
    BIG TONY

    Senpokan Dojo
    Tozai Imports

  4. #154
    Dan Harden Guest

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    Hi ya big guy

    I am going out to train-But I say we try to arrange a "bash-o."
    I am s-u-r-e there are a lot of folk who would come out for dinner and to tip a few.
    How to organize?
    I will be out there the weekend of jan 14th (Friday) and the leaving the 18th a Tuesday

    I will be available friday, and on sunday and monday

    I will be with friends on Sat all day

    Anyone care to get together on Sunday night?

    cheers
    Dan

  5. #155
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Philadelphia, PA
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    No prob Dan... glad you, um... liked them <g>.

    To all of you E-Budo-ers... Happiest of New Years! Don't deplete the world's alcohol supply in one night guys and gals!

    Carlos
    E. Carlos Estrella, Jr.

    The strength of a man is not measured in how much he can lift, how many he can fight or how much he can endure, but in his capacity to admit his limitations and learn to successfully circumvent them.

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