Asking the Right Questions

There is a say­ing I’ve heard in var­i­ous forms that goes like this: do not do what the mas­ter did; seek what he sought. The wis­dom here is very applic­a­ble to us in Taido.

Who's the Master?

Who’s the bad­dest mo-fo low-down this side of town? Well, that would be the Shogun of Harlem, but in our case the mas­ter was Shukumine. I don’t feel that’s the end of the story though, because I think the entire point of prac­tice is to attain mas­tery for ourselves.

I know it’s taboo in mar­tial arts to aim for mas­tery. We’re sup­posed to “fol­low the path” with­out think­ing of the goal. Goal fix­a­tion and the lust of results are sure ways to stul­tify our devel­op­ment. But I’m talk­ing about some­thing dif­fer­ent. Mastery is not a result at which we will some­day arrive; it’s a process we live. I believe that thought­ful prac­tice of Taido is one means by which one can choose to live the path of mastery.

To live on “the path,” we have to have some goal, even in the knowl­edge that our goals may change. Without a goal, there is no path, it’s only a long, nar­row field. Paths, by def­i­n­i­tion, exist for trav­el­ing between your cur­rent location/state and some­thing else. Understanding our goals allows us to move on the path in one direc­tion or another — oth­er­wise, we just drift back and forth with no pur­pose and no meaning.

We all have rea­sons for prac­tic­ing Taido. Looking how and why we have these goals for our­selves can be a dif­fi­cult process, depend­ing on how deeply we choose to dig into out fun­da­men­tal moti­va­tions. Whatever we find, we can get more out of our Taido prac­tice by com­par­ing our goals with those of our art’s cre­ator. By doing so, we can “seek what the mas­ter sought” in light of our own per­son­al­i­ties and sit­u­a­tions in life.

What did he seek?

Shukumine’s life cen­tered around try­ing to answer cer­tain ques­tions about how a per­son could respond prac­ti­cally and cre­atively to the var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions that arise in com­bat and in life. How he answered these ques­tions for him­self will offer us few clues as to how he achieved his mas­tery. Doing thou­sands of rep­e­ti­tions of kushanku and bas­sai kata will not improve our con­cepts of Taido, nor will learn­ing to pilot sub­marines, nor will fight­ing many larger opponents.

What, specif­i­cally, did Shukumine seek? The 5jokun should give us some clues. As I’ve writ­ten in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle, the prin­ci­ples show calm aware­ness, syn­ergy of mind and body, skill­ful use of our bod­ies, judg­ment, and adaptability/creativity as val­ued attrib­utes. In order to seek what Shukumine sought, we should apply our prac­tice to devel­op­ing these high­est ideals he held.

Doing 10,000 sengi will not teach us what Taido is. It will make us very good at mim­ic­k­ing the out­ward form of Taido, but to under­stand what Taido is, we must seek Taido’s val­ues. If we seek these val­ues in any action, then we are to a greater or lesser degree apply­ing Taido to what we do. Application is a much bet­ter study method than mim­icry is.

How can we find mastery in Taido?

Things that will help us under­stand Taido bet­ter include think­ing about the design of the hokei we prac­tice, imag­in­ing ways to move in 3-space, and apply­ing our cre­ativ­ity to meet­ing the chal­lenges we face in life. Asking sim­i­lar ques­tions to those asked by Shukumine will put us on the path to achiev­ing his level of mastery.

Here are just a few exam­ples of ques­tions we should be ask­ing our­selves as we prac­tice Taido:

• How can I develop the val­ues expressed in the 5jokun?
• What was Shukumine try­ing to accomplish?
• How would I go about seek­ing that for myself?

There are lots of other impor­tant ques­tions too, but the most impor­tant thing is to ask them of our­selves, and not get caught up in how oth­ers have answered them. My answers are already writ­ten ad nau­seam on this site, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t sub­ject to change. Einstein said that “the most impor­tant thing is to keep hav­ing ques­tions.” Let’s ask high-quality ques­tions about Taido so we can find our own mas­tery through the process of seeking.