Revisiting Shoshin, a Beginner’s Mind
A perusal through a technical manual, one similar to Gichin Funakoshi’s Karate do Kyohan or Nyumon, will yield a written understanding of the techniques pertaining to kata or technique. After a few years of training, one may find themselves marvelling at how they’ve retained such extensive information. Written down on paper, there are hundreds of individual, minute steps to dozens of kata a student will learn, and they’re each installed in our memory banks, performed with intensity and grace. The answer, of course, is repetition, and especially breathing through such repetitions, to foster a muscle memory of the movements. Given such lengthy practice, a student may pride themselves in moving past a certain level of training, in the belief that a particular block, strike, or patterned movement is too elementary for their current level.
A student studying breathing exercises or shikentaza (simply sitting down) refines those most basic, simple tasks. They are things we have been doing our entire lives, sitting and breathing; but have they been revisited? If they haven’t been, it is likely we have forgotten how to be properly mindful of them…so to be able to take a step forward, we must be prepared to take a step back. Karate practice is not a linear progression, but a cyclical one, and is as Funakoshi noted in his precepts (nijukun), like boiling water that must be constantly heated, lest it return to a tepid state. That is why a master is where they are; constant, ceaseless, daily practice in their way and art. There is no diploma, degree, title, or certification that can legitimately excuse continued repetition of the very basics of whatever they pursue, as a leaf cannot grow without a branch, and a branch without a trunk, a trunk without a root, and a root without proper soil.
Unfortunately, in North America notably, many who have subscribed to pursuits in the martial arts do so with an “ultimate goal” in mind for themselves, or their children. Can you guess what it is? Most of the time, it is the black belt; a measurable, quantifiable achievement that will signify a level of competence in an art. To equate the earning of a black belt with mastery of a style or method is the same as telling a 22-year old art school graduate that they’ve accomplished all that they need in the realm of their art, and that no further discovery is required…that a black piece of cloth around their waist represents the end of their required learning process. Can a limit be placed on art? It’s organic, and grows with the practitioner. Therefore, it’s limitless!
It comes down to nothing less than a commitment to revisiting and repeating different approaches to that which you already know, and keeping an open mind and learning from that which you don’t; inside and outside of the dōjō.