Hello good readers. It has been a long time since I put my fingers to the keyboard. My words may have gone into a state of coma, but I had not. Life and budo move on. Much has happened to me in the meantime. Much of it I can’t recall. Much of it makes me smile and makes me younger than I was.
I have been, for some time dubbed ‘remarcmoorable’ by some of my students. I don’t tell you this to surprise, shock, or to worry you. I tell you this because it still surprises, shocks and worries me. These students hold me, their budo instructor to the high standard of my words thoughts and deeds, and it is my stringent duty not to disappoint them, if at all possible. What do they, see in me, and what do they aspire to be with me as their short, muddle aged, and increasingly forgetfully instructor, guide and keeper of the way? I have no idea… But, I suppose that being ‘remarcmoorable’ means strangely little more than the aptitude, and capability of observing and moving in an un-habitual way. It’s not theoretical physics and I’m not a theoretical physicist; I’ve just been around for a long while and I’ve led and still lead an interesting and non conventional life. Anyone can do it, if I can because I’m certainly not remarcmoorable. I just firmly and religiously believe in the incomprehensibility of love and budo, and that with love and budo, I will live forever. So far, so good (fingers crossed).
I have a simple yet powerful idea for you all and that is, don’t squander yourself in rejection, back stabbing or politics, or scream into the night, or rant and shout at those most close to you, but sing the beauty of the good, pass on the positivity and spread the love. Those of us who continuing to strive and put ourselves on the line every day, will always have our ups and downs. That is only natural and it is the way of things. Only the characterless and the second rate are always at their best.
If we are unable to find harmony and contentment within ourselves, it is pointless to set out on the great hunt for it elsewhere. Most of our miseries spring from stupidity, bitterness and those great motivators and justifiers of bitterness and stupidity: idealism, discrimination and polarising fanaticism on behalf of religious or political ideas. We must strive to go someway beyond what we have already mastered and have understood. Onward and upwards to new plains of ideas and understandings, to stretch the elasticity in our minds and souls, because once stretched to new capacities they will never recede to what they were before. This is the only sustainable growth for our souls and psyche.
Have calmness and composure with others, because this is the way to harmony and contentment, and in this way we show and spread the love. Otherwise by means of shrewd falsehoods and lies that is to lead you and them to believe that black is white, and that heaven is hell; the greater the lie, the greater the certainty of its truth. To have and to appreciate achievement and ambition is to have calmness and composure with ourselves, and finally to have calmness and composure with budo is acceptance and belief. The green shoots of growth can only ever come from the readiness to take personal responsibility. There are many people who can only be happy when they hate. There are many great haters that I have met, and I pass them by, as I do to a careless fart, never to become Farcebook ‘friends’s’. 🙂
Budo should always be the practice of strategy, by reasoned thoughts and actions governed by natural laws that pit your strengths against the studied weaknesses of your enemy or antagonist, by means of fear, doubt, surprise and confusion, for the general benefit of mankind. And love should be the reason for it all. It is not what you know, but what you feel that concerns budo. The rest is just style and window dressing. While you are enjoying your budo, you are not failing it, and it is not failing you, and by not failing in budo you will never know what it is to become old. Do not desert your budo, keep it to your heart and make it your thread of talent, and you will become what nature intended for you, and you will know the embrace of success. Let others find their standard by which they will judge you, as the very breath and essence of budo is in it’s creativity and permutations, and so their standards will never apply. Because that which is understood and acknowledged by everyone is usually a lie. Budo cannot be manipulated. Budo won’t go away; push budo away, or pull it apart and it will always instantly regroup and reform, like smoke slipping through a firm grasp. Technical skill is in the mastery of that which is complex, while creativity is mastery of that which is simple. Be the first to training and the last to McDonald’s. There is nothing marvellous in budo, anyone can do it, and they usually do.
When you become truly skilled in budo it will be like seeing through the smog while still enjoying the view. To master budo is to master your destiny, and so for some people you will have to take an unpopular stance. The greater your kamae, the greater your progress. Budo is truth, and armed with the truth you will have infinite power supporting you along the way and illuminating your path. If you don’t like your current path you can change it, indeed you have an obligation to change it, one small, singular step at a time. The truth of budo is only in it’s credibility, and the credibility of budo is in it’s believability, and the believability of budo is in it’s persuasiveness. Budo taught and performed correctly is very persuasive. Budo is change, budo is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun. Budo is also about discomfort, don’t waste it. Discomfort is one of natures most precious gifts. This is the truth, the good, the bad, and the budo.
The way of learning is to observe and ask questions. When you have more knowledge, observe more closely and ask more questions. He that cannot observe can only make excuses and he that only makes excuses cannot make anything else. Do not concern yourself about other students and instructors stealing your ideas, for the solid and simple reason, that If your ideas are as good as you think they are, you will have to ram them down their throats, because if you want to create enemies and a whirlwind of politics, just try and change something. Have courage and do not let anyone turn you around; courage is the art of being the only one who knows the truth and the truth is you are scared to death. Courage is perseverance in a heavy coat on the hottest day of the year. Courage is the integration of what you believe in, into every facet of your life. Courage is being prepared to see both sides of the story. Courage is protecting your students from your prejudices. Courage is taking the hits and the criticisms aimed directly at you, although the slings and arrows may well be fired at those you love. It is said that it is difficult to differentiate between who gets criticised the most, the successful person or the failure. Whoever it is, it’s a close run thing. It is useful to ponder on the fact that success and failure are never permanent or final, and that faults are sooner copied than correctness, bad habits, they say are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of. Success and rank should not wield power or privilege, yet it is the weight of responsibly that is the prize and price of success. Whatever success you have, be good at it.
Because what our minds can take in is governed by our endurance, we will continually makes lots of mistakes. That’s a promise. But as long as you are true to the correct path you can do no lasting harm, as you are working within the universal laws of nature, because when you pull at a single chord in nature, it is always attached to the rest of the world; you can never lose by pulling those strings, you can only lose by not pulling them. Curiosity is the key to the big engine. Success is something that everyone should try, more than once.
Until you can measure something and then express it in budo, you have only the begining of understanding. Enthusiasm without knowledge is a bucket with a hole in it. Every step of budo is taken from the kamae that makes the conscious into the unconscious. Budo must combine the toughness of the tiger and the softness of the kitten, a strong mind and a playful heart. The self, yourself, myself, the I, me, mine is not something ready-made, and preordained, but rather something in continuous formation through the practice of budo. One side effect of studying budo, is that it peels away at the layers of fear that endure through our existence. There are a lot of people who are healthier then they have ever been before, because a lot of their fear is gone, and replaced by the faith of budo. The history of budo is not the history of fighting, budo is the rich history of stories, the stories of man. The stories of men alone can become too small a peg to hang history from. If you acquire the learning of budo and if you do not practice, daily in your life of what you have learned, you will become like a fireman without a hose, an officer without authority, a bird without its wings. Life with budo is the balance of justice, control and power. Without justice, control and power you will only find a hole in the world, one which you will constantly avoid in your waking hours, and yet fall into at night.
marcmoor 