Mind of a warrior

So...it's been a busy couple of weeks. Here in the US, there have been protests over police shootings of unarmed black men, and then...the torture report. Weirdly, I have also just finished reading The Heart of Everything That Is, a biography of the great Sioux chief Red Cloud. All this stuff is combining in disturbing ways, and at the center of my thinking is: who are we that study how to wield weapons?

To go somewhat chronologically, let's start with the book. In the course of telling the story, the authors lay out, in graphic detail, the brutality of Sioux warriors. In the Sioux worldview, a man (or woman) who was not physically intact in death would be similarly maimed in the next world. Sioux warriors rarely left a dead enemy intact, whether members of rival Native American bands or later, white soldiers and settlers (men, women and children). The authors note, while citing grisly catalogs of atrocities (some committed while their victims were still alive) that the Sioux were no different from other warrior bands. Not surprisingly, US soldiers, towards the end of the war against the Sioux, while not sharing this worldview, inflicted similar atrocities in kind. Torturing and maiming enemies was a commonplace thing among the Sioux and other warrior groups, even the warriors of the US government.

Tellingly, the Sioux looked upon agricultural bands of Native Americans as being weak. They had a point of course, seeing as how the peaceful bands were herded off, and killed off, as America expanded west. At least the Sioux fought back, even though the end result was the same.

Next, the grand jury refused to indict the officer in the killing of Eric Garner, after a similarly convened panel did the same in the case of Michael Brown. The blowback I was seeing on FB by some of my more righty "Friends" was that if a cop felt the need to take you down, it must be because YOU MUST BE DOING SOMETHING WRONG. I know, from some of my actual friends' experiences that you can be stopped, and held, by the police in this town for walking down the street on a Friday night, or sitting on a park bench in the middle of the day. Or for joining a legal (as in permits and everything) protest march. (That last one was me - punched in the chest by a cop who wanted to prevent me from joining an antiwar rally years ago. I give her credit for some restraint - it was enough of a punch to convince me she meant business but not enough to knock me down. On the other hand, if I had been a less-sturdy person, I would have been on the pavement, and she had no way of knowing which sort of person I was.)

The news of the torture report provoked a similar reaction from my righty FB Friends: they were terrorists, right? So they got what they deserved, right? Anything to "keep us safe," right? Except that some of those detainees were no more guilty than some of my friends, or me; i.e., they were in the wrong place while being the wrong shade, or simply going about their business. And, as has been shown time and time again, torture does not result in good intelligence. Torture is just torture. At least the Sioux had a cosmological reason for what they did. As much as I have kept some righty FB Friends because I think it's a good idea to see other points of view, I "unfriended" one (so far) for the perfect ignorance of his reaction ("torture is too good for the enemies of the US" - type thinking), and more could follow.

And, because of my experience in budo, I know a lot of people involved in, or retired from, law enforcement or the military. Not all of them are righties, though some of them are; and that has gotten me thinking: all of us who do traditional budo on some level are buying into some aspect of what it means to be a warrior of some sort. But what does that mean?

For some people, the codes of Chivalry or Bushido figure large. Those ideals (laid out here in a previous post) are not entirely similar, but did share certain ethics, such as caring respect for the weak; but we know that the ideals were just that. There are just as many stories of unchecked power and the harm it caused by marauding knights and samurai as there are stories of dignity and compassion.

And no matter how much philosophical veneer we put on our practice, we are all of us learning techniques that can maim or kill people. Last night, during the Daito practice, the students were practicing what in fencing we would have referred to as a "stop hit." The attacker throws a punch (with or without a knife) and the defender evades it. The defender then responds with a punch to the attacker's upper chest. Towards the end of the practice, the teacher pointed out that the target they were practicing was not the actual target. The real technique was to punch, and crush, the attacker's windpipe and kill him. While the timing was difficult, the technique itself was fairly simple. This technique was defensive (after all, the attacker was attacking), but I suspect that somewhere in that practice there are techniques for taking down someone when there are orders to do so. I know, in my practice, there certainly are.

My teacher used to say that swordsmanship was the study of philosophy. I suppose it is worthwhile to remember that philosophy is not a bunch of proverbs (or worse, Facebook aphorisms), but a series of questions and arguments. And no real answers.

The book:
The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend
by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

You didn't write that (by yourself)

In a follow up to my consideration some time ago of Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" stuff (it seems like such a long time ago; I think of cultural ideas like this as a "mini trend" - not around long enough to become an actual trend, but anyway...), I have some follow up thoughts.

As I recall, I focused on the fact that, at "lean in" type forums, women have a tendency to credit others for their career successes, whereas men, asked to explain *their* business successes, tend to focus entirely on their own efforts. Why why why, the "lean in" people want to know, do women not want to give themselves credit?

I'd like to turn this thought around and ask, "How do men get away with ignoring the contributions others have made to their successes?"

To pick an ancient history example, when I was finishing grad school, my dad, who was career academic, kept hounding me to finish my final requirements. I was making steady progress, mind you, just not fast enough (I guess). Finally, in exasperation, I pointed out that even though I was (thankfully) living alone, I was also working full time and running my household. When he countered that he finished his Ph.D. while carrying a full teaching load, I responded, "Yeah, but you had Mom working full time, and YOUR MOM cooking, cleaning, and washing your socks for you."

I still remember his reaction: utter silence on the other end of the phone line. Oh. Yeah. Then he said, "You know, I never thought about it like that." Kudos to my dad for at least thinking about it once it was pointed out to him.

Several writers I know rely on their wives' steady income in order to be freelancers. I hope these women love their jobs, though I don't actually know. Other male writers I know take the contributions of volunteer editors and helpful spouses, as well as the female colleagues they bounce ideas off of as being something that is just there, you know - like the air they breathe. Other men's contributions are more frequently acknowledged.

I recently commented (I believe helpfully) on a colleague's draft, and he thanked me. He did. But when the post was published and the fanboys started lining up, I admit to having been a little annoyed for perhaps, just perhaps not getting a little public acknowledgment (c'mon, published book writers always, ALWAYS publicly thank their editors and colleagues, and sometimes even their family members, in the Acknowledgments, even the female ones). He then publicly thanked me for proofreading his piece. Okay, but proofreading is checking a finished copy against a markup. I made substantial comments that helped clarify the thought process that went into the successfully finished post. That is not proofreading. That's a Sheryl Sandbergian nightmare.

I am not saying that the male writers I know are not hard-working, talented people, who in all likelihood deserve much of the credit for their brilliantly presented, I-wish-I'd-thought-of-that output. The abovementioned author has received a number of calls that he should turn his blog into a book, and I am happy for him; but the best ideas in the world will never be read unless they are stated clearly enough for readers to understand. And the women who wash, cook, clean and shush the children so the Great Men can concentrate don't get nearly the credit they deserve, either.

So, guys - you didn't get there all by yourself.

However, I might as well be shouting in the wind. Remember, during a recent presidential election, the Democratic trope aimed at Republicans - "You didn't build that"? The slogan was meant to raise the point that all of that entrepreneurial energy that gave rise to innovation that the Republicans were so anxious to protect with tax cuts could not have been done without infrastructure - roads, rails, bridges, the internet, that sort of thing. Their projects relied on public effort which, in turn, allowed so many of those individual ideas to come to fruition. Remember the reaction? The slogan died. Just because it was true didn't mean anyone who counted actually gave a rat's ass.

And the reason why is the answer to my rhetorical question above - How do the guys get away with blowing their own trumpets at the expense of the rest of us? We let them. Why do we let them? I need to give that one a little more thought.

I have been told that my blog is "too controversial" to be published as a book. Fair enough. It is not intended, really, for general publication. This is just stuff I write down to get off my chest. As for the "big ideas" that might be worth seeing in actual print (or, these days, e-print), I keep those ideas to myself, for now. But if that MS or a few others that are kicking around my desk, collecting dust, do ever see the light of day, or at least the light of a computer screen, I vow right here to give credit where it's due. I wrote it, but I didn't do it alone.

Yet another take on the gender conundrum

I spent a little time training in the old country lately. I was fortunate, this time, in that the training seminar was sparsely attended, so I got my butt roundly kicked by some of the most senior people in the organization (as in, the most senior on the planet). This was priceless experience. There have been times, depending on attendance and whether there was a grading in the offing, when I have been thrown into the mix, well above my head, being shown things that I had very little possibility to follow up on, because literally no one on my continent with whom I had contact would know them well enough to teach me (even if they wanted to).

So, as I said, there I was with my own, semi-private menkyo teacher, steeped in tradition. Awesome stuff. And, inevitably, when it came to the two-knees-up (ostensibly male) or one-knee-down (ostensibly female) kamae, I was instructed to put one knee down, or, in some cases, to put both knees down, though with my heels up (i.e. not strictly seiza). Naturally, being in the presence of senior instructors, I did what I was asked to do, even though, as I said in my previous post on this subject, I frequently keep both knees up, since I teach the guys that way. I have also found that it is easier to move from the two-knee-up position than from one knee down. (Incidentally, the position is not iaigoshi, with the heels close together. The knee that is down is even with the other foot, making quick movement, in my opinion, still more difficult).

What interested me was the menkyo kaiden instructor's reasoning for the difference in position. In the US, I have been told that a squatting position for females is "immodest." I find this a little difficult to follow, since in Japanese dance, for instance, both men and women do male and female styles. No one suggests that a woman performing in male style is immodest even though the movements are broader and more spread out. Nor does anyone assume that a man who prefers to perform in female style is somehow - well - incorrect, anyhow.

Instead, the menkyo kaiden explained that women kneel or put one knee down "because they can," and that men squat with knees apart "because they need the room." The implication was that the men were actually being less polite than they should be, but that it was somehow necessary. This actually made everyone within hearing (men and women) laugh.

I laughed too. I don't think the menkyo kaiden was being PC, since he had no need to be; he was offering a completely different, and plausible explanation for the difference in kamae. I mentally considered his comment in light of the list of other things I had heard in the US that turned out to be incorrect (or half correct) - that "Women in Japan don't do long sword" (not true); that "Japan is so sexist, women aren't allowed to train" (ditto); or that "Japanese hate foreigners, so you would not be welcome to train" (also not true, though it would be considered incredibly rude to show up at a dojo in Japan without an introduction, a nicety that is lost on any number of non-Japanese).

I chalk these truisms up to what I call the Cultural Knowledge Gap. There are two reactions to not understanding something: (1) try to find out; or (2) fill in the blank yourself. In my experience, the second of these two reactions seems to be the most common. Fill in the blank, then teach it that way. After all, what is the likelihood of your students ever going to Japan and experiencing the real thing, anyway? Eventually, the person filling in the blank him- or herself thinks it's a probable explanation, and, like a lot of truisms, comes to believe it. As a researcher, I can't tell you how many times I have almost fallen into the same trap. The first time it happened, I was so convinced of my half-baked position, I was really disappointed when I turned out to be wrong. After that, it was easier to accept that I didn't always understand something. Realizing that made me a better teacher, and a better student, able to ask questions instead of making assumptions and sticking to them.

We have this myth in American dojo that the teacher must be right all of the time. In my experience in the Old Country, there seems to be a strong sense, in traditional dojo at least, that even the teachers are just a link (albeit an older link) in the chain of the tradition. Every teacher had a teacher. Some of the students will (hopefully) become teachers. The job is to pass the tradition on in the best and most complete way possible, while realizing that stuff is not exactly frozen in amber.

That's not to say there isn't misunderstanding among teachers in Japan. Countering yet another American myth, not every teacher there has a lock on the correct teaching, or that their personal prejudices don't influence them. (For example, it is possible that another teacher may have come up with "immodest" explanation.) But the higher up the chain you go, the more consistency you find. However, just because it's a tradition doesn't mean it's a monolith. Disagreements regarding technique among senior teachers are fascinating, I can tell you. Which is, after all, part of the fun.

What are we looking for?

I belong to a Facebook group made up of people who are also interested in koryu budo. Several times a day, someone links to a video of a demonstration of some ryuha or other (by agreement, videos of classes not approved by the instructor are forbidden and taken down, as are shameless promotions). "WTF Wednesday" showcases odd or bogus or just plain funny videos.

I should say that my job blocks YouTube, which means that, unless I am truly at leisure (which doesn't happen much), I don't watch anything - neither the good, interesting or rare video, nor the silly Wednesday fare. Stuff on FB is buried in a matter of hours, so even if I am really interested in something, by the time I get home, I will have a hell of a time finding it anyway.

It was not always thus. Long ago, before the heyday of Web video, several of my colleagues and I used to trade around "bad budo" video on tapes, and later, dvds. When we would get together, we would watch some of this stuff and laugh our butts off. Back when there were also real fora, such as paper journals, for which I would write reviews, I realized I could not review videos, for the most part, even when asked. Copyright issues really upset me - commercially released videos often violated copyright rules, such as including music used without permission. One even included film clips of dramatic fight scenes lifted from Japanese chambara movies. Not wishing to either criticize or support minor criminal acts of copyright infringement, I refused to review videos altogether. I believe in the above case I actually wrote to the Japanese film distributor to alert them to the infringement. As a writer, I was unnerved by the amount of pirated material, which generally had nothing to do with techniques or history of the ryuha which was the purported subject of the video.

Being theatrically trained and having done some film work, I was also frequently annoyed by the production values (and I am using the term loosely). One person shot his video in what looked like his living room, festooned with souvenirs from Japan. Another video, a double-set of a seminar, was not bad. I actually published a review of this one, but had to point out that the background clutter of jackets and equipment bags scattered around the space was distracting, and that, surely, if this video was being offered for sale, the least the producer could have done was hire a director.

So it's not just that I don't have much time for video clips, I don't have much interest, even in the good ones. Since everyone else finds them so entertaining, however, I have started wondering, about both my lack of interest, and why everyone else is so interested. What are we looking for; or, in my individual case, why don't I care?

And, having written that, I can't say what motivates people to watch videos generally, except to assume it is for the same reasons that everyone watches everything - something that moves attracts our attention, and we are both bored and curious at the same time; like cows who stare at everything that does not have to do with themselves, or drivers who slow down when passing the scene of an accident. I actually do not slow down, unless I have no choice in the matter. I saw enough driver's ed videos of ghastly car wrecks, so I've decided I can live without the sight, unless I actually have to stop to offer first aid.

With regard to budo videos, however, a distinction should probably be made between people watching videos for instruction in their style, rare video that has some historical significance, and stuff that is only for entertainment. I take notes from videos that depict techniques I'm working on and then tend to work off the notes. I am interested in rare or old video if it has to do with my own style; for example films of Nakayama Hakudo or other teachers of Muso Shinden Ryu. Given my lack of leisure time, other historic footage will probably have to wait until I retire, by which time we will probably be able to have it wired directly to our brains, Total Recall style.

As for the goofy videos of amateurs performing made up techniques, I got over being entertained by them. Now, they either annoy or depress me. In picking apart the reasons why, one big one is that some of the fakers seem so confident that they know what they're doing, when they clearly have very little real understanding. I am not interested in hooting over someone's lack of actual expertise, nor can I excuse it, as a commenter in the group once contended after a pretty egregious posting of made up stuff provoked a tide of snark. People who misrepresent their practice cause damage that should not be excused as "self expression." They can be free to express themselves until they start deceiving others into believing the practice dates to hoary antiquity (hint -nobody's practice does that).

So, to get back to my original question, what are we looking for? When I look at videos, I am looking for knowledge. I am looking for expertise. I am not looking to feel smugly superior to someone spouting some made-up stuff about "the deadly art of the samurai," or similarly themed nonsense. As a practical matter, I am a small person. Being a small person means you are respectful of large people, even if you don't like it. Snarking about someone else's ineptitude is frankly a waste of time. After all, it's not like I am going to track down some self-taught poseur and offer to enlighten him with my "authentic" technique. As for entertainment, I'll look to renting a chambara film any day of the week.

The gender conundrum

I was practicing a kata wherein the shidachi begins in a squatting position (both knees up) at an American sempai's dojo.

"Women put one knee down," he admonished me.

"I'm a hermaphrodite," I replied.

I tell other people this story and get knowing snorts in response. They know me, so it's funny. They also know the American sempai, who's a great guy, but is also something of a stuffed shirt (stuffed gi?), so that also contributes to the laughter. But the story also brings up, in a small way, the subject of gender in budo, and how it is treated, both here and in the Old Country. This is not my favorite subject. I circle back to it from time to time, because I have to - gender issues in practically anything is the gift that keeps on giving, whether I like it or not.

To return to my story, I explained to my sempai that I was well aware of the one-knee-down kamae for women (which, by the way, also exists as an option for anyone with knee problems, male or female), but I teach men. I have a little trouble maintaining the two-knees-up position because I have a lot of tightness in various leg muscles, so I *want* to practice it, the better to teach it to my male students. He was fairly satisfied with this explanation, or maybe he wisely did not want to make an issue of it, and practice continued, with me being a "guy" the whole way.

The same difference in kamae occurs in kendo sonkyo, but, when I began practicing, being the only female in my group, I learned the same sonkyo as everyone else. Even my Japanese instructor did not bother to explain it; it took a different Japanese instructor to tell me after the first one went back to Japan. But he didn't insist. My American sempai, on the other hand, did.

I practice in Japan with a large group of people. The group is probably about 1/3 female, with many senior practitioners represented. Most of the women take the one-knee-down kamae, but no one seems to care whether I do it or not. Some (male) sempai have taken care to point out this kamae to me when I am first learning a kata where it comes up, but they don't insist either. For my part, I try the kata that way, then I try it the other way. For me, as I said, it's a pedagogical issue. I also can't help but notice that personally, it seems more difficult to rise from a one-knee-down position rather than a simple squatting one. One other female foreigner who holds a menkyo in the style *never* puts her knee down. No one at the Japanese okeiko seems to care one way or the other.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I was practicing in the US with a large group. At first, the instructors (all Americans) pointed out the difference in kamae, but said that we should simply be aware that the difference existed, and the women present could use their own judgment. The second day, they flatly stated that two knees up for women was considered "immodest." Of the 6-8 women present in a sea of men, most of them complied, while I did not.

I don't do this to cause trouble. I realize there are customs everywhere. If I were to be at a dojo in Japan with an old-fashioned teacher who insisted, of course I would comply with his wishes. But I practice in Japan with a liberal-hearted teacher who seems to feel that it's more important that we practice, rather than to insist on gendered kamae. On the days when I have a stiff knee, it's knee down. Other days, both knees up. I have an older male student with knee trouble who does the same thing.

I find this generally to be a problem from time to time with Japanese art forms that make the jump across the pond to the US. There's a lot of mythmaking that focuses on minutiae rather than on the substance of practice. Sometimes it really expands - one of my original sempai once told me that, in Japan, it was considered "not proper" for women to learn Japanese sword. Our teacher, who was Japanese, had welcomed me warmly in the dojo, so I decided my sempai was, to put it simply, full of it. And since then, of course, I have met many Japanese women who hold dan rankings in swordsmanship. Sort of like Bruce Lee's famous finger-pointing-at-the-moon line, if I had listened to my old sempai long ago, I would have missed out on a lot of heavenly glory...

Inflexibility, Part 2

It had been a very long and pleasant evening. We had a nice sushi dinner, sipped beer and sake', and now, here we were, at a little place on the same street as the hotel, having a last round (or two, or three). The teacher's eyes were somewhat unfocused, though his hand was steady as he held his glass. He complimented the progress our fledgling group had made at learning his style. Then he said:

"D (his wife) and I are looking forward to the day when you make this style your whole practice."

Say what?

I wanted to chalk up what he said to how much we had been drinking, but inside me, I knew better. He meant, of course, that we should give up our entire current curriculum, as taught by my original teacher, and focus exclusively on the style he practiced. The problem was not the style - a documentable form that reliably dated back to the end of the 16th century. We loved it. The problem (outside of the rather major point of being a real diss to my teacher's memory - he being only recently deceased) was that the idea of a mono-practice was entirely outside of my training experience.

To be sure, there is precedent for affiliating with a single teacher, and many people still only affiliate with one. Back when, the techniques taught in the training hall were kept fairly secret in order to (hopefully) have an advantage over possible opponents when that actually meant something, as well as enforcing Confucian ideas of loyalty. It was also a time when training halls taught multiple types of personal combat - horsemanship, grappling, swordsmanship, spear, glaive, etc., etc. A samurai's service to a particular house was bound to that house, and training was a part of it. People who wanted to practice with another teacher went "on the road," seeking new types of training, and held loyalty to no one. The down side, of course, was having to fend for themselves, without real employment.

But that was a different time. Nowadays, it's not unusual to find practitioners (including teachers) of multiple arts, both here and in Japan. Of course, discretion is called for - it's bad form to arbitrarily blow off an obligation to one teacher in favor of another (and, if it is truly a problem, then a choice has to be made between them). And, in spite of international membership associations, dojo-hopping in Japan is frowned upon, and not well-tolerated here either. Some teachers are jealous, and some are extraordinarily generous - it's up to the student to figure out whom to study with.

In my own training, we did whatever my teacher or sempai felt like during a given night, whether sword, jodo, empty hand, or the latest techniques someone may have picked up at some seminar the week before. One time we hosted a visiting naginata teacher on her way home from a seminar in Canada (which was really cool). To be honest, we did not always retain the seminar stuff, but it didn't matter. We learned to adapt all the time. No one complained. If we didn't like it, we could always go elsewhere, except, at the time, there wasn't really any other decent place to go. If we were truly interested in something not taught at our dojo, the "unwritten rule" was that it was courteous to have shodan rank at least before branching out. When I told my teacher about my interest in the above-mentioned particular style, he said, "That's okay. Once you know the principle, the technique doesn't matter." He knew me well enough to know that I was not going to abandon his dojo. In fact, it was this generous sensibility that allowed us to host this teacher (among others) to give a seminar with us in the first place.

So, I was rather shocked at the drunken teacher's assertion (I can't really call it a request, because it wasn't one). He was the highest-ranking practitioner of this style in the US, so while I figured he was serious, I decided not to bring it up again anyway. I was hoping that he would be okay with our budo academy approach once he got to know us better.

However, as our training progressed, I began to chafe under some of the rules imposed on students. It was not the monthly per-student charge sent to the American honbu. It was not even the silly uniform gi we had to wear, with its patches sewn on precisely in the same place, or the fact that only students at certain levels could wear certain colors (none of this stuff was done in the Japanese honbu, by the way). It wasn't the regular video-taping of classes sent in for the American teacher's review, which was picky, but helpful. The problem was that some rules were written to control our little group alone, being, as we were, at some distance from the American honbu. Monthly reports became weekly reports. After years of successfully teaching according to my own experience, I was given a standard curriculum and told I had no choice but to follow it.

Eventually, I got tired of adapting to their increasing inflexibility, as did my students. A mild, polite protest produced a threat of expulsion unless we complied with everything. We did not comply; and, while we were disappointed, we were also relieved.

So, I thought this was an anomaly, until, several years later, I was informed by a teacher from Japan, with whom I had had a very long association, of the same thing - that in order to progress further in his style, I would have to exclusively devote myself to it. What struck me odd about this request was that I knew this teacher had other students in other locations who had added his practice to their existing curriculum, with his approval. Moreover, he himself practiced and taught other budo forms. Interestingly, my old group did throw out our teacher's original curriculum in the new guy's favor. Perhaps he thought I would follow suit. I did not. I politely, but firmly responded that my teacher's generosity was the reason why I was able to train with him in the first place, and I had no intention of abandoning that legacy.

Previously, I wrote about inflexible students unable to adapt to new circumstances or techniques. I constantly meet people whose inflexibility limits their options in life and causes them anxiety. And I try like hell not to be one of them. A colleague, who studies calligraphy, gave me a sample of his work, which reads, "ju nan shin" - flexible mind. Good advice for both students and teachers alike.

Inflexibility

My colleague, the Budo Bum, once said that it is easy (and, I would say, maybe even expected) to adapt a modern martial art (judo, karate, kendo) to yourself as you are, but that when dealing with old-style (koryu) arts, the opposite was true - the practitioner had to adapt him/herself to the art instead. From this, it would seem the issue of inflexibility would apply to the koryu arts, but that is actually not the case. In fact, the opposite is true.

Several weeks ago, I hosted a joint practice that included an old sempai of mine and some of his students. The idea was for me to show some of what we practiced by leading "miniworkshops" of about an hour or so, culminating in about an hour of tameshigiri practice (after which, it was party time). The main practice of this other group is karate, one of the modern martial arts that my colleague was generally referring to in the above paragraph. For the first two hours, everyone, to their credit and good manners, did their best to make their way through the jodo form I offered, as well as several sword forms that followed (they did better at the iai portion than the jodo, a point that did not at all surprise me. I have written here and elsewhere how frustrating it can be to control a plain, wooden stick). My sempai, at 71 years old, is still strong and well-coordinated. With allowances for the difficulty of maneuvering a featureless stick, he did just fine with the workshops.

The very interesting part of the day was the tameshigiri (practice cutting), because this was where the proverbial sheep were separated. None of them, with the exception of their teacher, had ever tried cutting before. This surprised me a little bit, but the plain fact is that, as karateka, even though they owned a variety of gunto (Japanese swords made for use by the military in WWII) and Chinese-made "sharpies", their main practice is not in sword arts. As I worked with them, one-by-one, leading them through the basics of how to cut a target, I found there were two kinds of people in the group - those who listened and followed directions, and those who pretended to listen and then did whatever the hell they wanted. Following good practice, I made everyone stand well out of the way of the target-cutting, and was doubly glad I did so, given that about half of the guest students variously wailed on the targets, ignoring advice on safe footwork and proper cutting techniques as they did so. I tried to correct them, but it was useless. Since they were using their own equipment, I decided not to interfere, and let them do whatever they wanted (since I was powerless to do anything about it anyway).

But it did leave me thinking afterward (and I am still thinking, so this may not be my last word on this subject). All of them (with the exception of some sort of "assistant instructor," who thought he was much better than he actually was, in all aspects of all things that we did) were fairly nice guys, and on good behavior, but for the half that were "wailers," they reverted back to what they knew best - apply power to the punch - even if the "punch" was being delivered by means of a sword.

I know many, many budoka who do more than one art form, both traditional forms and other modern ones. One does Daito (traditional) and iai; one does judo (modern), jodo and iai; one does kendo (modern) and iai; one does aikido (modern) jodo and iai, etc. etc. My colleagues in Japan also study multiple art forms, modern and traditional. The difference between them and the wailing guest students was that they were adapting themselves to their traditional art forms, not trying to bend those art forms to themselves.

As I said, I am still thinking over the implications of this experience. It's not that people who do modern art forms can't do koryu - I see that all the time. It's not even that karateka are particularly stubborn. I simply find it worth thinking about that the presumably "rigid," traditional forms of budo seem to inspire the most flexibility in their practitioners.

More to come, no doubt...

Teaching one corner

"If I have brought up one corner and he [the student] does not return with the other three, I will not repeat..."(Huang 1997, in Takagi et al., 2010, p.91)

I am currently reading a very geeky book on Buddhist thought co-written by a colleague and former sempai (actually, once a sempai, always a sempai). It was so difficult for me to follow, that I read the entire glossary first, in preparation, so I could pick my way through discussions of the Three Mysteries, the Six Elements, and endless references to the Mahavairocanabhisambodhi-sutra. I am convinced that somehow this is good for me; but even if it isn't, I promised my sempai I would buy the book, and, having bought it, I feel compelled to at least try to read it.

In wading through some of the more obscure discussions, however, the above quote hit me like a vajra. The reference was made in the main text and the above quote in a footnote from the Analects of Confucius. If I ever needed a metaphor for teaching a martial art form that consists only of kata, this is it.

Kata, in koryu, is theory. It holds out hypothetical situations of attack, defense, counterattack, and counterdefense. I have met more than one practitioner of more "combative" martial arts (i.e., ones that allow free-sparring), that a kata-based practice is somehow "impractical" - that kata is boring and repetitive, and that sometimes the hypothetical situations make no sense. The pedagogical sensibility of kata is forgotten in the rush to make practical sense of it.

The biggest criticism of iai, for example, is that the first set of kata in many ryuha begin from the kneeling posture of seiza. Actually, there are many practical reasons for using this posture for beginning students, but of course the criticism settles on the idea that swordsmen did not sit in seiza while armed; therefore, this is a bogus and "inauthentic" practice.

Then there are the scenaria themselves. I remember a mid-level student leading a new one through the unfamiliar steps of a particularly challenging sword kata. The new person asked the meaning of one of the movements, and the mid-level guy replied, "I don't know - it's kata - it's not supposed to make sense." Overhearing this, I responded, loudly enough for everyone to hear, "Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it makes no sense!" Grr.

This mid-level student was never a favorite of mine, actually, because, unlike the suggestion in the above quote, he could never bring himself to consider what might be beyond whatever he was actually shown, like the dummy in The Analects. I could not bring myself to repeat anything beyond the movements of a given kata, which he already knew, because he was too lazy to figure out the other "three corners" of the kata on his own. As a result, he never got beyond memorizing the movements of many of the kata; their meanings were in the other three corners, which he could not be bothered to figure out. Eventually, he became incredibly bored.

There's no question that beginning students have their hands full just trying to follow and ingest the most basic aspects of kata, the physical techniques. Some, who have become acquainted enough with basic kihon, may be astute enough to figure out where the kihon and its variations fit into the scenario of a particular form. This is, actually, as it should be. No teacher that I have ever met ever expected a student to come back with the "three corners" of understanding during the first week of practice, or even the first year. In fact, the occasional person who infers meanings too early in practice is, in all likelihood, wrong. At best, she will have to discard these early inferences; at worst, she will be stuck with them, unable to change her thinking even as her understanding deepens. But sooner or later, the teacher will expect the student to be able to take kata and figure out what its underlying meaning is, and in the case of iai, there are many, many meanings layered underneath drawing, cutting and resheathing a sword. Of the three corners, after 27 years of practice, maybe I can get two, but I would not bet the farm on it. Figuring out the three corners can take a very long time.

I notice the writer of The Analects did not attach a time frame to "returning the other three," so I won't either. But I hope it happens eventually. Swordsmanship is not just about swords.

The book: Takagi and Dreitlein, Kukai on the Philosophy of Language, 2010, Keio University Press.

Tameshigiri stories

[I suppose I should issue a disclaimer - no part of this entry should be used as instruction for readers to teach themselves practice cutting. Tameshigiri should only be practiced with an experienced teacher in a proper setting.]

Everyone seems to love tameshigiri (practice cutting). To those who don't know, tameshigiri involves setting up some sort of target (or targets) and then using a sword to cut it (or them). Targets can be made of paper, rice straw, bamboo, or materials in combination. The idea originally was to replicate in some way conditions of cutting human flesh and bone. In the past, some (though not all) swords were tested at execution grounds, on actual bodies. The swords were then engraved with the results of these tests, as though advertising the toughness, durability and sharpness of the blades. There are some gruesome illustrations which readers can look for if they have a mind to. I am not going to post any of them here.

I bring up the history of some practice cutting to make several larger points: (1) tameshigiri is serious business; (2) it is not a game, or even a sport (though there are competitions in tameshigiri); and (3) it is potentially very dangerous, both to the participants and any spectators, including students awaiting their turn to give it a try.

On the other hand, tameshigiri is important to the practice of swordsmanship. It helps to clarify technique. No matter how many fancy kata you may know, if you do not have a decent cut, the kata is meaningless. Likewise any armchair speculation about what makes good technique has no meaning if it cannot be borne out in the practical sense. Moreover, realizing that a sword can actually cut (and inflict major damage) should be a way to show students just how deadly serious the practice can be, and how showing both politeness and respect as part of practice is not just empty ritual, but vital to developing a good understanding of what the practice of swordsmanship is, and what it means.

I should say, at this point, that my teacher did not particularly care for tameshigiri practice. Some of my sempai loved it (and one of them became positively obsessed with it for awhile). After many years of practicing it myself, as well as watching others, I think I have a good idea why he was not terribly impressed. To be honest, it is not that difficult to teach someone to cut a target with a sword. Give someone a sharpie, line the person up with a target, position his feet so he won't cut into his legs (and position everyone else out of harm's way), and let him try it. In that sense, it's not as difficult as many of the other aspects of swordsmanship - the history, the philosophy, as well as the meaning of the scenaria of the kata, along with any aesthetic principles and movement principles involved. Moreover, if you practice good technique, you do not need to prove it by cutting an actual target. How do I know good technique? I can both hear a good cut, and see it. But, as I stated above, I have no objection to people gaining some insight into proper technique by practice cutting, and I don't mind trying a few myself to see if any bad habits have interfered with what we are actually doing in our practice.

While making an effective cut can be done with some basic instruction, making a proper cut is more complicated. I know some lovely people whose practice is shaped around target-cutting. I have seen photos of more than one of them making a good-looking cut while employing improper technique. In particular, leaning forward so that the right shoulder is angled towards the target. To paraphrase Bruce Lee, targets don't cut back. If one were to apply that technique in the practice of an actual kata, the teacher would (or should) point out that pitching the body forward makes the swordsman vulnerable to a counter attack. We practice a number of partner kata where the attacker evades and counters a defender's cut. Keeping the sword in line and the posture erect helps minimize the effectiveness of the counter attack. A straw target will just sit there whether you succeed in cutting it or not, and it's not going to try to cut you if you make a poor show of it. While kata scenaria are hypothetical, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that an opponent who evades a counter will take advantage of any mistake the defender may make.

It's not difficult to figure out that target practice must be absolutely made as safe as possible for everyone involved, from the condition of the swords being used to the positioning of the person cutting as well as anyone else in the room, but, time after time, I have been surprised by the seeming lack of basic precautions during practice cutting. As I have been able to assume more responsibility during cutting sessions, I have worked very hard to contain students' understandable enthusiasm. I have seen people become very reckless during a cutting practice, or (perhaps worse) treat it as some sort of performance. To me, it is simply another aspect of practice, and not an end in itself. And it needs to be treated with utmost seriousness, about which I have some thoughts.

First, practice must be closely supervised. I cannot emphasize this enough. Something happens to people when they realize that a cut actually works. I have seen students get a little goofy, or giddy, and their concentration erodes accordingly. I never let inexperienced people try "fancy" cuts; I never let them try nukitsuke (drawing and cutting in one motion). A bad draw can allow a sharp blade to cut right through its wooden saya (sheath) and into the swordsman's hand. I will never forget a video shown by a colleague of a competition in Japan where participants paid an entrance fee and got to try cutting. One guy drew the sword recklessly, and we could just see a small object fly across the bottom of the screen. It turned out to be his thumb. I am hoping no one is doing stuff like that anymore. I also heard about an exhibition a number of years ago in NYC where people from the crowd were able to pay a fee and try to cut a target. Even though I did not hear of any accidents; to me, stuff like this is unforgivably stupid.

Students should at least know the rudiments of what they are doing. At yet another exhibition, held at a seminar, which style emphasized the use of actual swords as opposed to practice swords, the teacher cut beautifully. His student who hosted the seminar tried next. He also cut well, but he needed to watch the sword and his hand as he attempted to sheathe the sword. I am not making this up. This teacher refused to allow his beginner students to use practice swords (which imitate in weight and fittings the real thing, but less dangerously and less expensively). He would only allow them to use wooden swords of his own design. As a result, the students at this particular seminar had never learned to either properly draw or resheathe a sword. I was horrified, torn between wanting to leave the room so I would not have to watch someone badly injure himself, and feeling the need to stay in case I had to apply first aid.

Building on the foregoing, I am not a fan of tameshigiri being done as part of a demonstration of swordsmanship. There are simply too many variables - the position of the crowd, for one. No spectators should ever be positioned anywhere near the possible trajectory of the cut, or even the sword. Should the practitioner lose control the force of the cut could result in causing a loose blade to fly through the air. This means, really, that the person cutting should have his back to the audience. Not that much fun to watch. In fact, I have spoken to spectators who relate that watching a cutting demonstration is boring.

In addition, though I have seen some successful cutting demonstrations, there is not much control over the condition of the targets. The straw mats used for cutting practice need to be wet, but not too wet. A too-wet target is not a good target, and a dry target is more difficult to cut. Again, I observed a demonstration where the swordsman was unable to cut through his target (probably because, while waiting for his part in the demo, his target became too dry). His reaction, once his first cut was unsuccessful, was to reset the target and try again, with more force. He succeeded in knocking over the target and the stand, at which point he thankfully gave up. I was once at a group-dojo practice that included tameshigiri. I was given management of the second round of cutting. By that time, the other students (led by some of the teachers) had started applauding each successful cut. I asked them to stop, since this was practice, and not a performance.

A sword is a tool. When it is sharp enough, and the target is properly prepared, the tool will work quite well, without any undue effort. Forcing a cut causes damage to the sword, and could injure the person cutting. It's like trying to put in a good screw with a broken bit, or trying to put in a damaged screw with a good bit. No matter how hard you try, you need a new bit, and an undamaged screw. Both items need to be in working order.

I am not even going to discuss in any detail people who "cut" watermelons or other fruit (there was a story some years ago about a karate teacher who attempted to cut a pickle against a student's neck on video, with predictable results. I did not see this tape, so I am not sure if the story is not apocryphal, but even the idea is appalling). Many stupid examples are now available on YouTube, if you care to watch. And they totally miss the point, beyond the obvious - there's no cure for stupid, and if any teacher you ever meet suggests anything similar, get thee to another dojo - stat.

Learning Ukemi

Last week, while waiting for the start of our tiny iaido class, I witnessed a scene in the Daito ryu class that, though not quite unique, has been quite rare. The class was a combined one, in that it included members of the teacher's karate practice. Usually, the two classes share the same space, but work on their own curricula. A sempai usually handles teaching the karate group, and the head teacher instructs the Daito group, but occasionally wades in to the karate group to make a point or a correction. Now and then, the two groups work together, which creates interesting situations and opportunities for everyone, since the movement vocabulary (on the surface at least) is somewhat different. I find these practices most interesting, as everyone tries to adapt to whatever techniques the teacher feels like introducing. I don't know about him, but I always think the deepest learning is going on in the mixed classes.

There are maybe three women in the karate class; or, at least, three women whom I have observed. Of the three, I see two more often, and, of that pair, I have seen one who comes most often, even by herself. She is very small (shorter than me, which is saying something), though she is sturdily built. She appears to be about 18 or 19 years old.

The group was working on taking down an attacker, typically for Daito, by unbalancing him/her. At the end of the technique, the defender reaches to the knee of the attacker and "helps" him into a throw. The attacker knows to roll out of the counterattack (ukemi).

Does it go without saying that nearly all of the guys in the class were taller than she was? Larger than she was? One can debate relative size of participants when it comes to unbalancing techniques, and since she is a beginner at karate and even more of one in Daito, like everyone else there, when she did the correct defensive technique, her opponent dutifully sailed through the air, and rolled out properly. If she had the angle of defense wrong, and started to struggle with the technique, the teacher would step in and correct the angle and the technique would work; but let's face it - a large guy would be unlikely to be that cooperative in a real situation (unless she reacted very, very quickly to the attack situation).

I did not find this very impressive (beyond the idea that this young woman, though she showed some trepidation at having to play with the much bigger boys, trusted the teacher enough to try). What impressed me was the dynamic when she was on the receiving end of the defensive technique. With the exception of one guy besides the teacher, they were all relative beginners. Any one of those guys could have easily sent her flying to the edge of the mat, whether through lack of control or in order to "prove" something. All of them were more experienced, stronger, and had more mass than she did (in the sense that a larger defender dropping his weight could severely off-balance her). Instead, the whole class, being as it was about practicing proper technique, performed in the best possible way to teach her to roll out safely, something that one doesn't do much in karate. The teacher corrected her form (as in, don't extend your hands to try to cushion your fall, and other points), but felt no need to either pamper her or warn the guys to go easy on someone smaller and less experienced than themselves.

I have been in classes where, when a new female student showed up, the senior student would immediately take command of her "orientation." While I never saw anything untoward, I often wondered if things went so benignly after okeiko, especially when the new person stopped coming after a few weeks. I always gave the sempai the benefit of the doubt, since many people don't find swordsmanship to be their thing after trying it (it's more difficult than it looks). But all the same, I used to wonder. He never tried that with me, because he was on indefinite leave when I first showed up, so I had the benefit of several years to find my footing in the place before I met him (and endure other kinds of discrimination - though NEVER from my teacher - but I am a very stubborn person, and I really wanted to learn). And of course I've heard stories about other dojo. LOTS of stores. Some end well, some not. With all the cultural chatter about women feeling vulnerable in mixed situations - on college campuses and in the work place, I am dismayed, but not surprised, that not many women practice budo in the U.S. I really think it is up to the people who are already practicing, not to extend women any special privileges, or treat them like some alien creatures, but to give them exactly what they want - which is to be treated exactly like everyone else. I am fairly certain 99% of guys who walk in to a dojo don't expect to be hit on, but speaking as a female, we know it's a crap shoot.

A female student being treated exactly like everyone else is what I was witnessing in the Daito class last week. The fact that I am writing about it like I am is evidence that it was a rare occasion, but it should not be.

Matters of Faith

Last month, several fellow budoka and I went to an exhibit that specifically dealt with art as it related to the samurai. I enjoyed it; though there were a few aspects of the exhibit that upset me a little bit - a very clear fingerprint on a fine antique blade (moisture from a fingerprint will cause the blade to rust at that point, often in an impressively detailed image of the offending print), lots of fingerprint marks on an ornate, lacquered helmet (doesn't anyone wear cotton gloves when setting this stuff up?) and a museum-wall blurb claiming the "special relationship" that samurai had with "Zen."

I was further dismayed when I read essays in the museum bulletin (more like a quarterly journal than what lay people normally think of as a "bulletin") that additionally extolled the relationship between "samurai" and "Zen." I guess art historians don't read much beyond their fields. Or, like a lot of busy people, they find it easier to simply lump individuals into large groups, and then make generalities about the large groups they have created.

I understand. I used to think the same way. When I was first starting my budo study, being the geek type, I started reading books about it. Since I did not read Japanese, I read books written by English-speaking writers, and books by Japanese writers (and others) in translation. Among other things, I read D.T. Suzuki's Zen in Japanese Culture, with its sections that seemed specifically to address just what I was looking for. At the time, I was living alone in what was then Dangerous New York City, and I found a certain amount of comfort in Zen stories. After all, anything could happen in the Big Bad City - anything, from getting hit by a bus (happened to someone I knew), to getting mugged (ditto), and the kicker was - everything moments earlier was perfectly normal. It is not much of a stretch to consider that a samurai warrior, sworn at any moment to give his life for his lord and master, should be prepared for whatever might happen at any time. And it was in practically every samurai movie I had ever seen up to that point. Add to that Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery, and it isn't very surprising that I thought I had the spiritual side of my practice nailed down, and it all made perfect sense to me.

But grad school has this annoying way of making one see nuance in everything. So does reading more accurate research. So I found out stuff - like that samurai were not a monolithic class, but had many subdivisions, and not just damiyo and footmen. There was a whole spectrum of classes and subclasses, and these in turn varied by local domain. And then there was the march of time - in considering "samurai," are we talking about the ruling class of the Ashikaga shogunate or the Tokugawa shogunate? They were more than a hundred years apart, and many things changed over time. Suddenly, truisms like "samurai had a special relationship to Zen" started to ring hollow.

Most importantly, as I went to Japan from time to time to train, I met people who were descendants of samurai families. I found out that their belief systems were all over the map. Japanese religion is syncretic, in many instances. There are certainly people who identify as either Shinto or Buddhist, but in practice they may burn incense in front of a butusdan (a cabinet with an image of the Buddha inside) and also put a cup of rice on the kamidana (a place where traditional gods and ancestors are honored). One family I stayed with in December also mounted a Christmas tree in the living room. And at New Year, everyone goes to the shrine to throw coins for good luck and prosperity in the coming year.

The syncretic nature of Japanese religion seems rich now, but back before 1868 it was an even more indiscernible blend of Shinto, Buddhist and folk beliefs. The Meiji Emperor, in wanting to create a modern state, decided that Shinto should be the state religion, and he set about either purifying Shinto to make it more "Japanese," or creating a state-sponsored version out of whole cloth, depending on one's point of view. But the result was a wrenching apart of a heterogeneous belief system that had existed up to that point, making Shinto and Buddhism more distinct from each other. So, the very concept of "Shinto" or "Buddhism" 400 years ago did not resemble the practices that we recognize now.

So what about Zen? Yes, some famous and high-ranking warriors followed the teachings of Takuan Soho, and some supported Zendo as well. Many middle-ranking samurai seemed to favor Mikyo Buddhism. There has been some scholarly work that suggests a "secret" cult of Marishten, a minor deity in the Buddhist pantheon, but at this point, it does not seem to have been a widespread phenomenon. In an autobiographical sketch of a low-ranking, late Edo period samurai which I recently read, the author described his belief system as an amalgam of practices, primarily rituals to ensure good luck, seemingly from any deity that might listen to him, regardless of origin. This same individual did not seem so overtly religious as to not descend to selling "mystical" objects that buyers hoped would make them luckier, either. A guy's gotta make a living somehow.

A short while ago, I went back and revisited both Herrigel and Suzuki. I was surprised to recognize my beginner's naivete. Suzuki in particular seemed, in the vernacular, to be "full of it." (A scholar-friend of mine once described him, *very charitably,* as "not mainstream." Indeed). Some Japanese scholars have pointed out that Herrigel's archery teacher, upon whom he had based his book, was an eccentric, both in archery technique and belief system, and not at all considered typical (whatever typical means).

I am not a sociology of religion person; just someone who reads books, talks to people and makes observations. And all of that tells me that the nuance of multiple beliefs, though messy and hard to parse, is a lot more colorful and interesting than the homogenous groupthink ascribed to millions of people, over several hundred years, as a whole. When I go to Japan, I throw a coin at the local Buddhist temple, clap my hands at the shrine, and mutter a short prayer to the spirit of my mother. It's nice to know that I am not alone in my eclecticism, either then or now.

Tanaka Sensei

"We can wear our gi. We aren't smelly like those judo guys." It's weird how the mind works. When I heard about the death of Tanaka Miyako sensei, naginata teacher from San Francisco, this was the first thing I remembered. I heard her voice, after a morning of training in Tendo ryu naginata, as a small debate arose over whether we should change our clothes before heading out for lunch.

Tanaka sensei was small and compactly built, sort of like a miniature tank. She did not seem to have any wrists - her hands came directly from her forearms, a result of many years of training and teaching Tendo ryu naginata and the sport form, Atarashii Naginata. Her steel-grey hair was parted on the side and held back with a single barrette. She wore blue hakama and a white, short-sleeved keikogi. Her voice was loud (and could be louder) and her manner was very, very direct.

I had heard of naginata, and that women primarily practiced it in Japan. I had also heard that it was disappearing (happily not exactly true). So when I found out that Tanaka sensei was teaching an intro seminar at a "sword camp" in eastern Canada, I was happy to go and find out for myself what it was like.

This camp was unique. There were no tests for rank. There was just a crowd of curious koryu budo practitioners, and a teacher with access to facilities at a university campus who shared our curiosity. He invited teachers to come show what they knew to the rest of us. The fee was minimal, as was the cost of the Spartan dorm rooms where we stayed. A teacher of one seminar would teach, say on Saturday morning, and by Saturday afternoon would come to another seminar as a complete beginner. Everyone trained together. Different styles of swordsmanship, naginata, kendo, jodo - participants could pick and choose what interested them. Saturday night, we commandeered the main gym and everyone showed off their styles for each other. No hierarchy. No ego. So. Much. Fun.

Over the course of several summers at the camp, I learned some rudiments of controlling a seven-foot long pole with a "blade" attached (the entire thing - a practice weapon, was made of white oak). "Tendo ryu is always a sword against a naginata - the naginata always wins" Tanaka sensei told us. I was fascinated with this art form, in which the kata had been adapted to actually work with women's bodies - with my body. It seems oxymoronic that such a large weapon would be adapted to people who are generally smaller (as in - women. With the exception of my college women's hockey team, let's face it - women are generally smaller than men. And Japanese women are smaller than many others). Tanaka sensei showed us how to balance the weight, including, from time to time, using our chests to help support the weapon during kata.

And the kata were serious. At the end of one, the naginataka pushes the blade into the swordsman's abdomen, then twists it, effectively eviscerating him. A real naginata also had a stubby spike at the non-blade end. In another kata we worked on, the spike end was thrust onto the swordsman's hip bone. Tanaka sensei showed us how the naginataka could control the swordsman by pushing his hip to move him. Happily for the "swordsman," the wooden practice weapons had flat ends. It was possible to get bruised during practice, but not badly hurt.

Saturday nights at the sword school demos, Tanaka Sensei several times took part in exhibition Atarashii Naginata matches against a volunteer kendo player. This took some nerve on the kendo player's part, as most of them had never faced a naginata player before. The only concession allowed was that the kendoka was expected to wear shin guards, as the shins were legit targets for the longer weapon. Just as in Tendo ryu, the "swordsman" in these matches always lost.

One time on her way home from Canada, Tanaka Sensei was able to stop over in New York. We quickly arranged space for a practice. This being the U.S., there were a good number of men taking part ("I never taught men until I came to the U.S.," she once told me. "I keep asking myself, 'Where are the women?'"). We were dutifully practicing the naginata side of the kata as she came down the floor, armed with a wooden sword sporting an especially thick, hide tsuba (sword guard), engaging each person in the kata as she went. Suddenly, she screeched at the top of her voice and chased a guy (none of us knew him) down the floor. "You trust me? You think I won't do anything? You won't look at me?" she demanded as she took off after him. we found out later that, in spite of being repeatedly told to maintain metsuke by looking into his opponent's eyes, the guy preferred to look anywhere but directly at her. Finally, she decided to teach him a lesson. I remember that one of my dojo kohai talked about her for a full two weeks after that - he had a complete crush on her for some time.

After ten years of summer fun, the camp dissolved for lack of interest. It seemed, according to the organizer, that people were happier to watch YouTube videos of little-known koryu budo rather than trying it for themselves. Though he still gets good turnouts for his regular seminars featuring guest teachers from Japan and ranking examinations, an attempt at reviving the old sword school faltered a couple of years back. Maybe it's also that no one seems to have much time off anymore. I sure don't, but I wish I still did. In almost 30 years of practice, the sword camp was one of the best experiences I ever had. I tell my students of our adventures sometimes. They think I'm nuts, but they seem to appreciate the stories anyway.

Even though I was unable to practice naginata on any regular basis (a group eventually formed in New York, but my schedule was so tightly packed, I was unable to really come to practice), I always cherished my experience with Tanaka Sensei. I loved her directness, and the way she contradicted all of the preconceived notions of what Japanese women are like (or even what American women are supposed to be like). I appreciated her generosity, introducing her art to us, and expanding our experience of koryu budo. As I have gained experience as a teacher I have tried to incorporate her no-nonsense approach. Even though I had not been in touch with her for some years, I feel incredibly sad. The naginataka who told us about her death said, "We are devastated." Me too.

Reality check

Last night in the Daito class, the teacher took a little time to show his students the reality of some of the techniques they were practicing. The students were practicing waza in which an attacker grabs the defender's arms, the defender does a sort of reverse and grabs the attacker's arms in turn, and then throws the attacker. The "attacker," or training partner in this case, knows, as he is being thrown, to roll out of the throw as he lands on the mat. The teacher pointed out that a non-Daito practitioner (i.e. an actual attacker, for example) will actually fall on his face, not having his arms available to catch himself as he falls, and in all likelihood not knowing how to roll out of a throw. In a second example, using a different technique, the untrained attacker fell to his back, hitting the back of his head. The defender ended up kneeling on the attacker's chest, which in reality would probably crush his ribcage. All this, the teacher pointed out, on a hard floor or concrete sidewalk or asphalt roadway, rather than a mat. "Be careful," he said, "if you ever decide to actually use any of this on someone. Here we train safe. There, the consequences could be deadly for the attacker."

I will leave the legal implications of countering an attack with deadly force to those who know the subject better (and it depends on the jurisdiction where the altercation takes place, as well as the surrounding circumstances). But I really appreciated the Daito teacher's point, because it is often lost on practitioners, especially a class for beginners. Generally speaking, this teacher is fairly light-hearted. As I have written elsewhere in this blog, I often hear laughter from the mat as people drill in the various techniques. But last night he ended the practice on this particularly serious note.

There is a reason why Japanese swordsmanship is surrounded by ritual and extreme politeness and why the techniques are done with extreme slowness. Behind all of the cultural, historical and aesthetic aspects, and the meditative aspects as well, the stark reality of what we are doing is this - we are learning to use a deadly weapon that kills people, and we are learning to do it in the most efficient way possible. Generally speaking, any good style (not the "show styles" of flashy moves that just look cool) does not mess around with maiming an opponent (though that might happen). Iai kata are brief for a reason - after two cuts to an opponent at most (and usually only one), the opponent is finished. Even if wounded, an opponent would likely die from infection or blood loss. A calm, cool environment is the only place where this type of thing can be taught, and simultaneously developing a mindset that emphasizes manners and judgment is the only responsible way to teach it. If a Daito teacher, whose techniques consist of empty-hand, use-the-opponent's-strengths-against-him tactics, warns his students that they may overdo it if a real opportunity ever presents itself (or if the practitioner decides to show off his technique to an untrained friend), how much more for those of us who teach the use of deadly weapons?

Well, you say, we don't carry swords around with us anymore. In most jurisdictions (including mine) just carrying a sword around in such a way that it could be drawn makes the bearer subject to arrest. True. But just like it seems all too often with firearms, accidents can happen. Recklessness or a cavalier attitude can set the stage for bad consequences. Moreover, it's been my experience that casual observers have a profound lack of understanding of the inherent dangers of swords, bows and arrows. When I was young and taking Western fencing, I acceded to a co-worker's request to show him my practice foil. The very first thing he did was point it in someone else's face. A foil tip is about 1/4 inch in diameter, made of dull-colored steel. It is very hard to see, and even harder for someone to judge the distance when pointed directly at him. And this was sporting equipment. I barked a stern warning at the guy and quickly took the foil away from him. Since then, I not only don't show my equipment to people, I don't tell them what it is, even if they are nosy enough to ask. I'd rather be thought rude than have something stupid happen.

When I perform demonstrations, I tend to become almost anatomical in my description of the damage that can be done by a given technique should we not be using wooden swords, or if the "imaginary" opponent in a solo kata happens to be flesh and blood. On more than one occasion, I have seen audience members wince at the idea. That's as it should be. Practice for any number of reasons, but the nature of the practice should always be serious. As my teacher used to say at demos, "What we do is real."

Writing tips, part 3 - the last one, I promise

After the first two entries on this topic, I feel the need to finish the story...

I advanced to college at a time when most teenagers were starting their junior year of high school ("You'll miss your senior prom," my mother said, in a vain effort to get me to think about my decision. "I don't care." I replied. "Get me out of here."). There were a few caveats. One was that, being too young, I had to attend the college where my father taught. I also had to return for my high school graduation ceremony with my class. I considered this a higher price than skipping the prom, actually, but it was still a small price to pay. I was utterly bored, and even my parents could see me chafing at the rules and regs of my high school, where I felt much more like a prisoner than a student.

The third caveat (that was made a good deal of) was taking some form of English comp in my first year. Most freshmen had to either take comp or test out of it, but because English comp was one of the senior high school requirements I had wriggled out of, my undergraduate school made a big point of it (no one seemed very concerned that I skipped physics too). Again, no biggie. I had always liked to write. I was pretty smart, I thought. Sure, bring it on.

I had two choices - take a three-credit, one semester course, or take three, one-credit "English Conference" courses. Being a faculty brat, I knew everyone. I looked over the teaching roster for the semester. I didn't really care for the comp teachers. On the other hand, one of the faculty members available for the conference course was a certain Dr. D. I elected for the three-semester, one-credit version with him.

Here's why I picked Dr. D., and sentenced myself to the first 1-1/2 years of my college life spending 1/2 hour each week with him: he was a published writer. Dr. D. was not one of the blowhards in the English department who talked about other people's books - he had his own (which, as far as I knew, he never talked about). I had heard about him from his arrival at the college, sometime around when I was in middle school. Dr. D. was an Indian immigrant, and had published numerous novels there. From time to time, he still published novels there. The library was one of the cooler new buildings on campus, and Dr. D. had a study carel to himself where he worked for two hours, writing - every day, from 8:00 to 10:00am. If anyone tried to get his attention, and managed to get past the phalanx of librarians who seemed as zealous about his work time as he was, he would politely explain that he could not talk, and to see him in his office. Though the librarians regularly reshelved books left in the carels by students and faculty, the books in Dr. D.'s carel were always left alone, by some sort of magical arrangement. I "chanced" to walk by, and found books on history and politics. Here was a guy who was serious and managed to bend rules (of library carels, anyway). My kind of guy.

I remember handing in my first writing assignment to Dr. D. I actually don't remember what it was about. I remember (in those pre-word-processing days) that my father had helped me type it, because I wanted to make a good impression. I remember *most* clearly the way Dr. D. read through my work aloud, with his melodious accent, then took out a red felt-tip pen, and started in.

I felt like I had never seen so much red ink in my life. I was horrified, aghast. I was an A-student. I would have been in the honor society in my high school except for my bad habit of telling teachers what I actually thought about stuff. And I was failing my first assignment in college! Holy crap.

I wanted to cry. But I didn't. Instead, I tried to listen to Dr. D. explain that while my sentences were nice, my organization absolutely sucked. Here, he said, use this as a topic sentence. Look, he said, this sentence down here should be in this paragraph up here. This sentence should really be two. Or three. Finally, he said: Rewrite this assignment and bring it back to me next week.

I was mortified. My dad asked me how it went. I think I mumbled something. He asked if we should type the next assignment. I said no, it was okay.

I could not look at my marked up paper, with its tide of red, for a couple of days, but I thought about it, and about what Dr. D. said. And then I started to remember the Box. The Box that taught me writing skills, 'way back in elementary school, had told me pretty much what Dr. D. had said, and it all came back to me. I reread my "blood"-soaked essay, and saw what Dr. D. saw.

The following week I brought in my hand-written rewrite. Again, the red pen came out, but there was less of a tide this time. By the third week, there was almost no red. Dr. D. congratulated me on my improvement. I did other assignments, and, since I was allowed to, even brought in some assignments for other classes. Other students I met were struggling with their first term papers, but not me (unless you count battling with my dad's old electric typewriter at 3:00 in the morning). By the end of the third semester, I could not understand why everyone didn't take English Conference! What an awesome idea! My new college friends thought I was nuts to spend three semesters having to actually talk to a professor for 1/2 hour every week. By my fourth semester, I wasn't just writing term papers, but journal entries and poetry too.

Dr. D.'s advice led me through two graduate degrees and still follows me now. I summarized most of his big points in part 1 of this topic. It seems like pretty dry stuff, but after you get the basic ideas, you can riff on them, a point lost on a lot of inexperienced writers. The riffing is important; that's what makes it fun, and what makes the work uniquely yours.

Some years ago, I saw Dr. D. at a college gathering (many years ago, actually. If Dr. D. is still on the planet, he's many-years retired by now). I was either still working on, or had just finished my second graduate degree. He looked the same, but a little stouter, and his dark hair had turned silver, though he still had the same haircut. We chatted about this and that, and, without really thinking about it, I told him that everything I had done as a writer was thanks to him. To my complete surprise, his eyes got misty, and he said, "You know, as a teacher, I always hope I do some good for my students, but I don't often get to hear that I actually did."

In my posts, I frequently mention my first budo teacher, along with other colleagues, friends and teachers. I have learned a lot from all of them. But I would not be writing about any of it without the anonymous creators of the Box, and especially not without Dr. D.

My jodo life

I train in a style of budo where I am a relative beginner - jodo. Jodo began, depending on what you read, as a police art that pits someone employing a short stick against a sword-wielding opponent. Policemen in Japan still train in both modern and old-style jo. As common as it is there, however, it is not very well-known in the U.S.

I actually started jodo practice many years ago. In those days, we would go to the dojo and do whatever the sempai on the floor that night decided to do. Practice could be anything, from solo iai kata, to kumidachi practice, to whatever someone picked up at a random seminar over the previous weekend; whether empty-hand stuff or god knows what. No one complained, because (1) it was all cool, and (2) we knew our dojo at the time was the best (and almost only) place around to get the stuff we were doing. In those days, our only referent, besides Black Belt magazine (where our teacher had been written up a few times) was fight choreography in samurai movies. So we did a little bit of everything from time to time.

One little bit of koryu at the time was jodo. One of the sempai was very interested in practicing what little he had learned from our teacher (who, as it turned out, knew quite a bit), so we hauled all of our equipment to the dojo week after week, just to hit each other with sticks. I have to admit I didn't like it very well. It's surprising how awkward one can feel with a 4-1/2 foot long, 1.25 inch diameter, utterly featureless pole in one's hands. Also, as we stumbled through the first half of the standard set, I just found myself not believing that any of this would work. I mean, the opponent is wielding a 3-foot razor, and the defender has this wooden stick. It seemed crazy. So, when things changed and the enthusiastic sempai moved on, we found we still had plenty to do without jodo. This situation prevailed until about 11-12 years ago, when my teacher invited me to come meet him for lunch. He was in failing health then, and he asked me to come alone.

As usual with sensei, I couldn't rush him into anything. We had lunch. We had tea. We talked about this and that. Finally, he reached for a shopping bag he had brought with him. He pulled out a large, old book written in Japanese. It was Shimizu's big jodo book. He said, "This is for you. It is not for the dojo. It's for you alone. I want you to study jodo. Please find a teacher."

So I did. There was really no one in our area (and it's the NYC area, so that's saying something) who knew jodo at the time. Regular instruction was not a possibility; so I did the next best thing - I tapped a friend who was a sandan in Kendo Federation jodo. He lived almost halfway across the country, but, at the time, we had a little money in the kitty to spend on an air ticket from time to time. Also, since he wasn't a big kahuna, we didn't have to pay him like one - spending money, dinners and some entertainment was enough; and one of the dojo members at the time had a place where he could crash. As a special bonus, every now and then his business would involve a trip to NYC. When this happened, I rented extra time at the studio where we practiced and everyone who was available was able to take advantage of his presence.

Things changed again and I found myself on my own. This was a great disadvantage on many levels, but eventually it presented me with an opportunity. Instead of jodo being some auxiliary practice, I was able to make it into a separate workshop class. We have the resource of my old friend, as well as another, more senior practitioner on the east coast, and a relationship with a dojo in Japan. I still have no ranking in jodo. The class is a workshop where we are all learning kata together. Jodo is not a solo art form, like iai. Even with the visual aids available today, jodo is a partner art form. Not only can you not learn it off the Interwebs, you also cannot learn it by yourself, no matter how much you try. Hence the workshop format, overseen by various senior jodoka.

And I learned a few things; for example, that as well-meaning as my old sempai was, he really didn't understand jodo. I don't consider this his fault; he never practiced it enough to realize how much give-and-take is involved in the kata. This back-and-forth with a partner is how one learns to be an effective jodoka. And this simple, 4-1/2 foot pole is actually very difficult to learn, involving time and space considerations that change with every new partner. Once I realized that, I realized that it wasn't that jodo was ineffective; I was ineffective, because I didn't have enough experience to understand it. Even though I have spent almost 30 years in budo (and a few before that as a western-style fencer), I get to feel the frustration of the beginner, along with the sense of little triumphs when a technique "miraculously" works the way it's supposed to. Some practices are great and some are simply tiring. As the workshop leader, I sometimes get confused about one kata or another, but it's all right because as little as I know, everyone else knows less. Progress this way is slow, but it is steady.

So, my teacher, who changed my life in so many ways all those years ago, continues to change my life now.

What it means to be ronin

So, it is May again, the month in which I celebrate being kicked out of my old group, my old life, my old affiliations. At this point, I can say in all honesty I don't think about what happened all that much. Last year (anni no. 5) I did write about it bec. I felt that 5 was a significant number. But, you know things only have significance if you let them. Anyway, a post on FB about one of my budo friends who is a judoka set me to thinking. He wrote briefly about his great judo practice, wherein he both got "schooled" in some techniques, had an opportunity to work on some aspects of his practice that needed work, and also had an opportunity to help along a newbie. It sounded great.

The opposite of that, I can tell you, is what it means to be ronin. It means not having that cool, exhilarating experience of belonging. It means not clearly remembering how to do something, and having no one looking over your shoulder to either reassure you, or pointing out where you're screwing up. It means not knowing for sure if what you are passing along to your students is the right thing. Instead, you have to rely on memory; on what you think you might have observed at some point in the past six months, or last year, or six years ago.

It's not that I don't have friends or colleagues (scattered around the eastern US as they are) or that I don't have the occasional outstanding practice (I can actually say I had one last night). It's the ordinariness of belonging - that you have a place in the hierarchy, that you know what and where that is, and you enjoy being where you are. A perfectly ordinary experience, week after week, that you don't have.

That is the part I miss. I don't miss the politics, or the business of running a group. I don't miss the annoyances of who owes money, or who feels dissed, or what happened to whats-his-name. I miss being part of the group, the crowd. It's not being part of a hierarchy - after all, in my current place, I am the instructor, the person whereat the buck stops. I have met people who dearly want to be exactly in this position - the be-all and end-all, the person at the top. I guess I am, in my little group, at the top, but to be honest, it's not the most fun place. The fun place is being in the mix, in the middle, in the place where there's give and take. Where you can both teach and learn, week after week.

I know, in some ways, including some really difficult ways, I have earned this place. In six years of reflection, I know this is where I should be probably. But I really miss the feeling of belonging to something bigger than myself. I do have that in the abstract, of course - studying traditional koryu arts means you are just a brick in the wall, a piece on the centuries-old continuum of sincere practice. That's pretty cool, actually. But the missing part for the ronin is that being a part of that continuum is the sum of what you have. One of my teachers, before I ended up on my own, remarked that his teacher kicked his butt, and, in turn, he kicked my butt. That is how it is supposed to work. Well, while I get my butt kicked in the global sense, when I have the opportunity to be around people who know this stuff better than I do from time to time, I don't have that on a regular basis.

I go on, because this is what I do. Sometimes I think it would be easier to take up a more conventional hobby. My old teacher, who died ten years ago, once said I was compelled to practice budo because I did it in some previous life. Sometimes I think that is the only explanation that makes sense. And sometimes, I think it is the only reason I go on.

Writing tips, part 2 - my first writing teacher

I went to a campus elementary school that was linked to a "state teachers college." Even as a kid, I realized what a great deal this was. Our classes were small - I think the largest one was about 20 kids, at one point, though generally, the classes were smaller than that. We had one "real" teacher and two student teachers - that's one hell of a good ratio. Though most of the students were faculty brats like myself, there were local kids too, including some whose families occasionally needed help from others. As I recall, several mothers (including mine) would step up with hand-me-down clothing or transportation for school-related events when necessary.

I remember this time as one of the best in my life. My brain was exploding with ideas, and there were teachers on hand to say, "Go ahead! Do it!" I will forever remember when I first learned to read - when the letters on the page that we had learned to pronounce by rote suddenly combined to make recognizable words. Of course we had rules; but we didn't have grades - we had evaluations instead. Even the classes were flexible and geared to academic ability.

We weren't afraid of tests. We had them all the time. Being somewhat experimental, our school was subject to lots of evaluative tests. The teachers explained that these weren't to evaluate us, they were to evaluate the techniques being employed to teach us. I have no idea how the evaluations played out, since we had almost no anxiety about them. Testing was just part of the routine (I can't imagine something like this being done in a public school now).

Of course, there was a down side. By third grade, we were being subjected to "new math," a mistake in pedagogy that left me math-impaired until 8th grade (when I remembered and started applying the two years of arithmetic I had before I was 8 years old). This was really unfortunate, but there were so many good things that we learned - film animation, history, studying different religions, science field work, geography - I guess I have to forgive the geniuses who screwed up my math ability, at least in the short run.

Our curriculum included boxes of lessons we could work through at our own pace. The teachers' job during these lessons was to act as tutors, and to check our evaluations that we had to fill out at the end of each lesson. Among them (and I remember there were quite a few of them), there was a box called Organizing and Reporting Skills. As awful as the title sounds, this became my favorite Box, because I learned how to write a three-paragraph essay. Among the skills presented were how to write a topic sentence, how to write supporting sentences, and how to coherently organize my little argument in subsequent paragraphs. Additionally (and importantly) the Box gave examples of poorly organized writing and asked me how I would fix it. The Box also gave examples of when a writer's opinion entered into what should have been a dispassionate report. As a grownup writer I can easily make the argument that most "objective" writing actually isn't objective at all, but at the time, seeing where facts were being made to dance a certain way (or were disregarded altogether) became a valuable life skill.

I liked this Box so much that when the end of the semester came at Christmas time, I was afraid I would not be able to get back to the Box after the break, that I would be moved on to something else (that did not happen. And by the way, I was a seriously geeky kid).

I liked school - until I got to 7th grade, and had to transfer to a "regular" school, with lots and lots of rules, where the fundamental point was that we had to be controlled all of the time, or we might do something "bad," but that's another story. The relevant point is that we had English class and learned parts of speech, vocabulary, etc., read some Shakespeare, but we no longer wrote paragraphs - on anything. I am serious. For five years. By the end of that time, I could write boffo sentences, but I had forgotten everything the Box had taught me.

Being a little precocious, I skipped my senior year of high school, and skipped both Physics (which I would have loved, except for the dorky teacher), and English Composition, which, as I recall, was the only required course I would have had to take if I had stayed on, but I didn't. I had aced my SAT's, and I was bored shitless. Time to move on. But the Box wasn't done with me yet...

Writing tips, part 1

So, a friend of mine linked to a blog post on Facebook (written by someone else, whom I have at least met several times). I read the blog post and pointed out that even though I thought the author made some good points, I had to find some of them amid the grammar and syntax errors in his writing. Another commenter said that the post was written for "family and friends" and that, in effect, my plea for at least reading over one's work before publishing it was setting too high a standard. I responded in turn that anything written on the web was being written for public consumption (for example, having someone link to a blog post instantly exposes it to many, perhaps hundreds, of people). Why not apply the same standards as for any other form of public writing?

This prompted the commenter to send me an email, stating he had deleted the comments. What would happen if the blogger had read what I wrote? And if I was so concerned about unedited blogs, I should offer to edit them for free.

Well, guess what: I do edit blog posts for free, when asked. I do it for several reasons. Firstly, because generally, I think the writers have something valid to say, and I don't mind helping make their arguments clearer. Secondly, just call it my public service - making better writing makes a better web. (I don't do much volunteer work. I teach budo, but one of my main reasons is selfish - I need people to practice with, and many points of my own practice become clearer when I have to teach them to someone else. I admit there's some ego satisfaction in it too. But then again, my students are getting the benefit of my experience. So it's a win-win all around.)

I have always voluntarily edited stuff for people when I have been asked - for years. I edited articles back when there were paper journals, I have also made writing suggestions for some authors whose stuff I thought was weak (not surprisingly, not everyone agreed with my assessment, but that was their privilege). Having been through the crucible of academic criticism (and trust me, some people simply enjoy being mean), I am always polite. I am never mean, though I can be plain-spoken, as it were.

Sadly, paper journals are all but gone, and the ones that still exist tend to be written for an exclusive audience. What we do have is tons of blogs on every imaginable topic. And while the volume of writing has increased, the quality has declined, to put it nicely.

Taking up the challenge of my interlocutor from Facebook, however, since I really don't have time to edit the world's blogs (and I am not the type to put out comments like, "I love your stuff, but your writing sucks, let me help you!"), I can put out some tips for bloggers.

1. Since blog posts are generally short, you probably don't need an outline; however, you should carefully consider your topic. The most effective blog posts have very bounded topics. Pick a subject you can write five coherent paragraphs on, and stick to it. Save your other brilliant ideas for another post.

2. Martial your arguments in short sentences. I am the queen of run-ons - endless sentences that jump from one subtopic to the next. Break those suckers into individual paragraphs. It makes your argument clearer and more precise.

3. Do what lots of authors of note suggest - read good writing. In the case of blogging, read good blogs - the NY Times has a slew of them; I particularly like their Disunion series about the American Civil War, in part because there are so many contributors and, correspondingly, different writing styles. But if you think the Times is too liberal, or whatever, read something else, as long as it's good. There are probably well-written blogs on subjects that interest you. Find them, and read them.

4. Run the spell check. Please.

5. Learn the difference between "there", "their" and "they're." And while we're at it, develop the habit of pronoun agreement - "A person" is "he/she" (or "her/him"), NOT "they." (Can you tell this one drives me nuts? Here's an example: "When a person tells me they are a published writer, I have a hard time believing them.") I understand that some people feel it's un-PC to use the universal pronoun "he," so if you don't want to use "/", alternate pronouns. That's what I do. No one has complained yet; at least, not about that.

5. Read over your work. In the old days, people actually used to rewrite letters, even to friends and relatives. In the age of the pencil, people used the eraser. If you don't feel you can competently read your own work, send it to a friend in draft form. You don't have to agree with him/her, but if the friend, who knows you, can't follow your argument, it might be time for a rethink.

6. Don't post and forget it. I often read over my posts days, weeks or months later. If I find so much as a typo, I fix it. I rewrite parts that I suddenly realize are unclear. I am shocked - shocked - sometimes, at my incoherence. So I fix it. Or I delete it.

7. If you borrow anything from another writer or publication, cite it, cite it, CITE IT. I recently read someone's blog post in which he copyrighted his piece, but the post contained photos taken in the 1960's. In Japan. I was fairly certain he was not in Japan in the '60's, and that he had not taken the photos. Moreover, I would have liked to have known who took them. When I remarked to the person who put up the link that I didn't think it was appropriate for the blogger to copyright someone else's photos, the response was that it was probably a "blanket" copyright notice for the blog and the writer did not "mean" to copyright someone else's photos. Nevertheless, I never did find out who took the photos. Please don't do this. I am a fair use advocate, but there's a limit. This does not have to be a big, Chicago Manual-style deal. The NYT Disunion blog lists sources at the ends of the individual posts. It's not just polite, it's useful: if I want to know something further about a blog post, I can look up some of the sources and further pursue the topic.

8. Keep at it. Write about what you love, even if you are not the next Hemingway. Some of my pieces are definitely stronger than others. The only way to write better is to keep writing.

If you follow the above 8 steps, I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will deeply appreciate the way you have said it.