I like Chris' line from his post:
Possible that instead of counting just the "time" one trains it might be a good idea to look at how perceptions of "training" might have been very different back in the day.
In my job, I don't spend much time training horses or practicing horse-riding or horsemanship. I just ride. I'm sure that some so-called "hobbyists" who have the time and the money are better than I am at riding a horse. And I am envious of their skill. But since the kind of riding I do is fairly intense albeit sporadic, I'm sure it has some things they are not as accustomed to, such as terrain, decision making, stock-sense and so on. I am not saying it is a better way at all, but that it is a different perspective. While it is always pleasurable, it isn't at all pleasure-riding. I think that when you do things as a job rather than as a extra-curricular event, so to speak, there is a difference.
Of course there are others in my job who are better riders than I and spend more of their time with it I suppose.
Shooting is another example. Actually, I wish I had more time to develop these skills, but I guess they just come along through doing it over the years. Only so many hours in the day. There would be quite a difference between me and a nineteenth century rancher, sheeptender or cowboy again, maybe analogous to sendoku jidai and edo samurai. Those much-maligned, inferior, wussy edo samurai actually were living in quite different culture with the rise of bureaucracy and merchant class. I don't see them as soft. Takeda Shingen may not have lasted long with the nineteenth century strictures. Shooting off the mouth here (which I have a bit too much practice in).
Anyhow, it was a thought based on Chris' quote. Not very helpful to the original poster I suppose.
J. Nicolaysen
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"I value the opinion much more of a grand master then I do some English professor, anyways." Well really, who wouldn't?
We're all of us just bozos on the budo bus and there's no point in looking to us for answers regarding all the deep and important issues.--M. Skoss.