Reviewing your practice...

[dwez]

I've been jotting down thoughts after practice, hopefully to see where I've improved as a record that I have actually improved. However, my sensei asked me to read the Sword of No-Sword about the Master warrior Yamaoka Tesshu [new book (http://www.kendo-world.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18828) available from kendo-world if you didn't know ;)]
where-in he often talks about approaching your opponent with no-mind.

There-in lies my question, for those that reach that point would they be able to review their own practice. If their ability is such that everything is instinctive and without thought would they then know what they have done?

I'm definitely over-simplifying and have no doubt mis-understood the particular reference but the concept of having 'mu-shin' must surely make it difficult to remember what you did during practice. I easily forget what I have done by the time I'm finished, I'm either enlightened or have developed a goldfish sized mental capacity.

So would one be able to review their practice afterwards if one had attained true no-mindedness. [Is this a koan?]

[dohrt]

A couple years back, I overheard a sensei telling a story about when he was much younger, studying kendo from *his* sensei.

As the story went, he had a keiko where he felt extremely good - he was getting lots of ipppon, his footwork was great, his men was great; he was doing great; he finally felt like he was starting to understand some of kendo! As keiko finished, he had a feeling that he was making some good progress. And yet, when he bowed to his sensei after keiko, his sensei expressed a lot of disappointment and told him a great deal of things he was doing wrong, and asked that he work on improving them.

Weeks passed. At another keiko, he was having a very bad day in the dojo. During keiko, he had been doing *everything* wrong. Nothing felt right! He couldn't do one thing without another feeling completely out of place. He didn't even want to talk with sensei after keiko, but he found himself with little choice. However, instead of the sensei pointing out more flaws, sensei only said, "I see you are finally starting to understand, you are improving a lot."

Moral of that story?

As I heard the story from sensei, it occurred to me that a sensei often times teaches us as much about our own egos as they do about kendo. However, after finishing the story, sensei made his point very clear to the student he was telling the story to.

You cannot judge your own kendo. Your own sense of what is great is probably wrong, and your own sense of what is wrong is also probably wrong. Don't try to judge yourself. Don't feel that you need to make "progress". Don't even worry about what rank you are; rank is simply a rough guidepost of who you should be doing keiko with and how, rather than any sort of accurate measurement of any kind of progress.

Of course, having heard that message loud and clear from sensei, the fact remains that I am a westerner, raised on analyzing to death everything in my path, then analyzing it some more; it's the way I've been, born and bred, since I was a young child, and molded even moreso into that by my education and peers. Trying to turn that off for kendo is often times an exercise in futility. So I too often try to analyze my keiko afterwards, and find myself listening to things sensei say, or that sempai or even kohai say, trying to determine if I'm doing them or not, improving or not, etc.

But, I am constantly remembering what sensei said about one's own ability to judge their own kendo, and so at the end of the day, I try to just accept that my brain is going to analyze, but what I come up with through that analysis is pretty much meaningless compared to just showing up to keiko and being open each and every keiko to whatever the sensei teaches, and to whatever I am exposed to through keiko with sensei, sempai and kohai.

So, my feeling is that it's fine to keep a journal, but probably not because it actually helps you improve. I would probably say that the best thing a journal can offer is simply because it helps you to "do not forget the feeling you had when you started".

Anyways, just my thoughts.

P.S. to answer your question... I find the chinese parable of the ox-cutter to be very valuable ... wu wei, mushin, all those kinds of concepts seem to defy anything we can cling to or grasp mentally. So the short answer (from me anyways) is: Yes, but it's meaningless.

When I think of trying-to-get-to-mastery, I think of someone going to a well and getting a bucket of water and trying to splash it all over everything. Lot of effort (both mentally and physically) resulting in ... well, some wetness, I suppose.

When I think of looks-like-mastery-to-average-people, I think of rain. A strong rain is a lot more impressive show of getting stuff wet than someone with a bucket of water. However, it is not true mastery.

When I think of real mastery, I think of the morning dew. It is there, each morning, because it just is. You don't even see any water falling. Dew in the morning is a much more "common" event than rain. But that's precisely why it is so much more impressive. No effort is put forth to make everything wet. The world doesn't have show anything; no thunderstorms, no clouds needed. Water just is there, and everything is wet.

Wu wei "non action?" (chinese word, don't know the japanese equivalent) and mushin "no mind" both seem to echo this same ideal. That the very act of *doing* a thing detracts from the purity if it simply being.

Personally, this is relevant for me in my recent over-analysis of zanshin/seme, in that the relaxed (unfettered? haha) mind is more ready, more threatening mind of all. But I digress :)

[Zornocology]

i think it helps to remember that zazen is a little different from other forms of meditation. other forms of meditation encourage you not to think whereas zazen is more like... acknowledging your thoughts but not following them...

reviewing your kendo IMO is much the same thing. You acknowledge the steps you have made but don't dwell on them, when it comes time to face your next opponent, those thoughts should be allowed to flow away and leave you with mu-shin.

at least, that's my understanding.

[Masahiro]

So would one be able to review their practice afterwards if one had attained true no-mindedness. [Is this a koan?]



i don't know, but I'd venture to guess that the series of events in the exact sequence that they happened in are "internalized" very briefly and completely. like the ripples in a pond, no matter how significant disappears after its "due" process. In that sense, you don't need to remember everything just that the distance was too short *this time* because the aite was too fast, so i need to be faster, or the movement of *suriage* needs to accommodate the aite's strike. etc.

although by the time any of us get to "true no mindedness" we'll also have acquired "true Alzheimer's". .. so, yes it might be a "true" koan.

[turboyoshi]

If their ability is such that everything is instinctive and without thought would they then know what they have done?
[...]

So would one be able to review their practice afterwards if one had attained true no-mindedness.

I think Masahiro is on the right track.

When we say to act without thought, I suspect what's being implied here is that there is no "conscious" thinking but rather that you're allowing your mind to receive input and direct the correct output according to it's already trained subconscious.

The bold part is important I think, because many people seem to worry about mushin too early. People who try to achieve that mental state before their body is already fully trained will find it useless. If you just practice mindfully, by the time your mind can get to that mushin state, the body will already be well trained enough to make use of it.

This is all guesswork for me too though so make of it what you will. :smiley:

sean

[Maku-san]

My sensei said he kept notes when he was being trained. It helped him reinforce his lessons.

OTOH, I just go through keiko weekly and try to remember my past lessons. Not everything, but the important things, like: foot positioning, maai, put a little snap into the strike, tenouchi, tenouchi, tenouchi, strong kiai, and...

"TAKE IT SLOW!" :jaguar:

I have a bad habit of trying to keep up with my sempai. :emb:

[Josh Reyer]

Mushin is not about thoughtlessness. It's about attachment-lessness. Having mushin doesn't mean you're on autopilot. It doesn't mean that everything's instinctual, a purely muscle-memory based reaction. In Shinkage Ryu, students are encouraged to perform with mushin from the very beginning.

[Nik.Koch]

Mushin is nothing you can aquire. If you fight in the state of mushin you will be unbeatable in Kendo. Unless your opponent is also fighting in Mushin. Then it depends on who has more skill. In the state of mushin your mind is not working conscious but unconscious. You don't remember the fight in detail and the actions you took. It just happens. There is no thought like "Now I can Stike debana Kote" or anything like that.

That is just my 2 cent.

[G-CHAN]

Interesting thread. I remember as a kid my sensei telling me not to think too much during jigeiko. He mentioned something about mushin. What he was really telling me was not to hesitate, just go. You see, back in the day I didn't feel to comfortable/confident doing keiko with some of the senseis. I felt intimidated by him.

Everything I did he would just parry or block, nothing I tried worked. Sure he would give me freebies, but doing keiko with him was tough. As a matter of fact he was so tough that me and some(ALL) of the other kids would avoid him like the plague. But he always seem to find me in someone elses line.....Hey, this could be a thread:)

The point I'm trying to make here is this.....It's not about clearing the mind, it was about execution. You see, at my level(kyu)at the time, sensei would stress fundamentals. He would say things to me like watch your striking distance, don't wait(if I did, he'd hit my men), you're swinging the shinai with your right arm(he would parry and tap his shoulders, to remind me to swing from the shoulders) footwork, balance, timing etc. etc. This was all very intimidating to me.

But in time, my kendo reached a point where I did jigeiko with sensei, he'd just say 1 or 2 points.
Mushin? Nah. Kendo to me is a sport, not life or death. In shiai, you have to think about what you're doing. Creating opportunities requires thought and skill. The more skilled you are in kendo, the better understanding you'll have with terms like seme, zanshin etc. etc. Just my opinion....I gotta go now....my wife is bitchin at me to mow the lawn...sigh