When the Blade Faces Inward

This week we continued to work on executing martial movements with the proper energy. We learned that movements change as awareness is shifted and that no one mode of awareness is completely superior to another. The key to choosing mode of awareness is based on the circumstance in which it is applied. "To everything there is a season," so says the bible. To practice a living art you must continue to learn about yourself and yourself in relationship to others.

The modes we worked were as follows:

  1. Self assuredness (sell it to me).

  2. Self criticism (How can I learn from doubting myself and challenging myself to improve?).

  3. Speed (which fosters freedom from over-thinking a thing)

  4. Line and form (promotion of consistency and reflexive replication).

  5. Group awareness, (sensitivity to the movement of others and giving up oneself to harmonize with the energy of the group).

  6. Combative elements (Can you save your live with it, choosing use of emotional content or detachment?),

  7. And the most important element …making the movements your own (the Tao of you).

Sword people, I am including a separate page this week containing information about sword myth.

Some of us explored the self-defense aspects of the art and found the demons within more threatening to self-existence than any knife-wielding mugger. So once again the art used for self-knowledge, expression, and preservation is ultimately the purpose of study. Know yourself, know when an idea is emanating from yourself and when it is originating from another source. Fight without fighting if you can, know what your way is and get it, doing the least amount of damage, but do not offer yourself up for sacrifice.

 

Show yourself and be free,
Simu Patti Everett

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