By Other Means

This past weekend Larry came to NYC for his annual seminar at Muzosa, bringing with him one of his students, Matt Hazen. As usual, the training was fantastic and the camradrie was invaluable.

When Larry teaches, it’s guaranteed that your ichimonji will improve. His attention to the finest details of movement can be intimidating, making him capable of subtle skills that can seem perplexing — if not impossible — to understand. There are very few people who can knock over a punching uke by simply settling into an ichimonji, with only light contact against the uke’s punching forearm. No strike, no violent movement, no speed. By simply calmly settling into kamae, Larry can effortlessly make his uke crumple to the ground, all balance and structure lost.

It looks like an impressive trick, but it’s even more impressive to feel it happen. The effortlessness is astounding.

As Muzosa has grown, the number of students who get to experience Larry’s taijutsu increases every year. There’s no question that this is a good thing. If you’re looking for flashy stuff — well, that’s just not Larry’s style. Instead, he uses solid fundamentals to control an opponent’s space and alignment. His techniques all look very simple, but have enough complexity to keep even highly experienced practitioners busy scratching their heads.

In an age where so many people are trying to draw attention to themselves, it’s refreshing to have a practitioner who is just so freakin’ good, and at the same time so humble and modest about his practice, that many people have never heard of him. That’s just the way Larry likes it, which is why we’re even more fortunate to have him help us in NYC, when he would probably in all reality be just as happy to never leave his back yard, perfecting his art the same way he has done it for 30 years now.

The idea of “environmental awareness” suggests something different to martial artists than to most people. It’s not to say that martial artist’s don’t care about the environment; it just speaks to the immediate concerns of how the environment can help or hurt us.

Case in point: during the wet, heavy snowstorm in NYC this past February, a man was killed by a falling tree branch while walking in Central Park. One witness said the branch looked like it weighed “100 pounds.” Whatever its weight, the weighted branch was enough to kill him nearly instantly.

The danger of falling branches isn’t exclusive to heavy snow seasons. Last summer in Central Park, a man was struck by a rotted branch that finally broke, sending him to the hospital with head and spinal injuries. A freak accident, for sure. Not enough to keep people from their normal routines, but it certainly points to the randomness of the environmental dangers.

When the first blizzard of 2010 hit NYC, only two students showed up for the Wednesday night weapons class in Central Park. It was an absolutely beautiful night for training: the snow had stopped falling, and the lights made the snowscape look like something out of a picture book.

It was also a dangerous night to be out. In the 2 hours of class, 3 large branches snapped and fell nearby. If we had been standing under the trees for shelter (not an unusual circumstance), there’s a high chance one of us could have been injured. Fortunately for us, we had decided to train out in the open because the snow had weighted the branches so heavily that they touched the ground — even though they were 10′ off the ground.

It’s easy in this city to become complacent about the dangers from nature. We’re much more likely to get injured by an errant cabbie or debris falling from construction sites. Now we have to watch out for Mother Nature dropping things on us? But if we’re actively working on our Environmental Awareness, we can (hopefully) reduce the random dangers that our surroundings sometimes place in our way.

An interesting article in The New York Times yesterday mixed martial arts  and the evangelical movement. Apparently it’s becoming increasingly popular to use mixed martial arts as a means of appealing to young men, who are traditionally underrepresented in churches.

What I found most interesting about the article was how frequently Jesus was equated with being a “fighter,” which apparently is equivalent to being a competitor in MMA matches. This image is ironic, considering that Jesus’s claims of being a Messiah were met with skepticism in his own day, since it was widely assumed that the Messiah would be a military leader who would free the Jews from Roman rule. Jesus’s refusal to use violence as a means of advancing his cause — specifically rebuking Peter using force against Roman guards who were coming to take Jesus away — doesn’t seem to reconcile very well with the idea of expanding a church’s membership by encouraging young men to beat the crap out of other young men.

Language is a slippery thing. Everybody who struggles is a “warrior,” and everyone who participates — regardless of effort — is a “winner.” When one lead pastor says that “what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter,” I think he’s engaging in slippery wordplay. Do I think Jesus was a fighter against injustice and outmoded customs of his times? Absolutely. Anybody who continues to do good deeds despite the overwhelming threat of death is a fighter in my book.

But the ways and means of things matters. The choices that Jesus made about using violence to further his mission, his gospels, are very clear. There’s very little ambiguity about this. People who take words like “fighter” to justify the use of violence as an evangelical tool are even further from the Truth of things than those Jews — and not just the Zealots — who believed that the Messiah would be a military leader, not just a spiritual one.

The goal is the What. But the How can be just as important. By definition, evangelical movements are designed to expand their members, so the What is pretty clear. But the How should also be pretty clear, and using slippery words like “fighter” to obscure the How is ignoble. As the head of Muzosa, I spend a great deal of time thinking about How we do things, not just What we do. This is a good reminder for all of us, I think.

Clearly I have no problem with people learning martial arts. Why not use martial arts as a way of building community, of training young men to protect their families, friends, churches, communities? How much more productive would that be, rather than sitting around watching UFC on Friday nights, or screaming ” ‘Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!’ ” as Pastor Renken does from the sidelines of an MMA match? Is this truly how we appeal to Humanity’s best nature?

Anybody who grew up reading “Calvin & Hobbes” (and by “grew up,” I mean old enough to feel child-like joy reading this comic strip) will appreciate the short interview that creator Bill Watterson gave in his hometown newspaper, Plain Dealer columnist John Campanelli.

It’s not just the usual interest in celebrity giving an interview. Watterson is notoriously reclusive, in a J.D. Salinger-esque sort of way. Campanelli’s accompanying article writes about how C&H fans are still missing the comic, 15 years after Watterson called it quits.

I think all of my friends can identify with this sense of loss. I was in college when I first read the strip. In fact, I even remember which one it was: Calvin uses a can of tuna to trap Hobbes.

The entire C&H phenomenon is interesting, because the books continue to sell with virtually no marketing, and the strip is still as popular as ever. But it’s also interesting because Watterson is the antithesis of the modern successful celebrity, who immediately tries to capitalize on any success while it lasts. Given the ADD nature of modern pop culture, anyone who wants to actually make a living — let alone find commercial success — in the public eye will by necessity have to keep feeding the publicity beast.

Watterson’s response is unusual for that of a modern celebrity, which is what he certainly became. But it’s a completely normal response for a traditional visual artist, like a painter or illustrator. Al Hirschfeld is certainly an important illustrator, but there’s probably not that much bootleg Hirschfeld merchandise floating around college campuses or bumper-stickered to cars. Certainly Watterson sees himself as an artist, not as a  pop culture celebrity. The public’s reaction was no doubt a surprise, and Watterson’s hard-fought battles to control merchandising and other rights were surprising — not just because he won, since a lot of people didn’t make money off his work, but because it shows remarkable restraint in a culture that often celebrates excess.

Martial artists would do well to examine Watterson’s case with interest. By and large, the vast majority of martial artists toil in obscurity and are happy to do so. But if fame suddenly comes upon you, whether as a practitioner or as a teacher, what path would you take? Would you show restraint and attempt to continue training quietly? Or would you ride the wave of acclaim and recognition? If so, what would the benefits? What would be the costs?

If I have  to be a jellyfish, I might want to be either really deadly or really awesome looking. Preferably both (the ego part of my animal brain that also would enjoy a prehensile tail and wicked teeth).

National Geographic’s got some great photos of a jellyfish 8,530 feet under the Arctic Ocean.  No word on its poison potential, though.

Crossota norvegica jellyfish

As you would expect from Cracked, their article on 6 Lord of the Rings Characters Who Totally Dropped the Ball is pretty hysterical.

Some of the objections are the result of trying to dramatize on film something that was originally dramatized on paper. Sometimes when things get doubly dramatized, the effect gets a little over-dramatized, if you get my meaning.

Some of it is just the genre. Fantasy fiction just lends itself to “Whew, was that lucky or what?” kind of moments.

For what it’s worth, we should be careful about mystifying what’s already mysterious in Soke’s taijutsu. The result can be an over-mystification of things, which really doesn’t do anybody any good.

For all you new parents out there (talkin’ to you, Rob!), this item should be near the top of your baby’s Xmas list. Guaranteed to clear plenty of space on the sidewalk. Also a  way of getting your baby in the right mindset toward world domination when they reach Stewie’s age.

Give me milk now!

The only thing constant is change . . . and Hollywood’s need to remake the classics.

The 2010 production of Karate Kid is in swing, starring Jackie Chan (as Mr. Han, as the new Mr. Miyagi) and Jaden Smith (as Dre Parker, as the new Daniel Larusso).

Jackie doesn’t do karate, you say? Funny that. How about we locate the movie to China instead?

Ah, well. In case you were wondering, “Kung Fu Kid” is one of the working titles, apparently.

Isn't Jaden already cooler than Ralph Macchio?

Magicians hide things in plain sight. Genjutsu 幻術 is the art of magic or witchcraft (at least according to Jim Breen’s site). Helping watching eyes to see only what’s apparent and not what’s real is the key to 虚実 kyojitsu.

Some interesting Cold War applications of misdirection are very simple to implement but difficult to detect. Confusion can be increased when an experienced observer sees signs that may or may not be deliberate signals.

Sun Tzu argues that all wafare is deception. His emphasis on the importance of spies reinforces the primacy of deception as a tool for intelligence gathering and sowing misinformation. But as a combative tactical tool, it can be difficult to understand this use of kyojitsu, since it requires some knowledge of what your opponent will perceive. If your opponent misses signs that you think are clear, then the deception is lost and wasted. If your opponent thinks they’re seeing signs of deception where none are intended, they may change to paths that are unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Lauren Brandstein and I were having a great discussion about the use of kyojitsu, where we both agreed on its importance within the Bujinkan, but maybe were unsure about the actual teaching and implimentation of kyojitsu within the dojo. In any case, I think the study of kyojitsu — no matter what form — requires learning to be an excellent uke, since that’s really the only way to understand what your opponent is perceiving.

This one looks cool: an umbrella with a katana handle. Don’t get too excited, though — it’s not a real sword, which is probably a good thing. Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, Ray!

On the other hand, if you ever did need to use your umbrella as a weapon, this might feel more comfortable in your hand than a regular umbrella handle, eh?