This past August, I was fortunate to be able to join with Weins Sensei and others at his dojo in St Catherines, to practice and study with Sozen Larsen Kusano Sensei, of Kakudokan Norway.

Sozen Sensei is a 5th-dan practitioner of Katori Shinto Ryu, under Sugino Sensei. He is a big man, affable and energetic, with a passion for the art that comes across in all his demonstrations and instructions. Spending a couple of days under Sozen Sensei's expert eye is worth years of practicing alone or with one's peers.

Last year Sozen Sensei emphasized the importance of Responding, as opposed to blindly following the dictates of the kata. This year he spoke about how our practice should not be about trying to "reach" our opponent, but rather training ourselves to end up in the right position.

When one performs the kata with a partner, and has to make a cut, there is a very strong temptation to try and actually reach one's opponent's body as they retreat. Indeed at times I know I myself feel like I've failed if I haven't made contact.

Sozen Sensei emphasized that what's much more important than making that contact is to ensure that one comes to rest in the correct position, ready and balanced, available to make whatever move might be appropriate. Actually connecting with the blow is of lesser importance, and certainly one should never REACH out, extend oneself, in the hope of scoring a "touch". The swordfighting game is not about touching, it is about cutting, cutting deeply, cutting one's opponent down in a decisive blow. If the blow does not come naturally, then one should not reach out in the hopes of making it. Instead, finish the cut, maintain awareness, and adapt to the ongoing situation.

Miyamoto Musashi touches on this with his description of the Chinese Monkey's Body -- "the spirit of not reaching out your arms. Get in quickly, without extending your arms, before your opponent strikes." Sozen Sensei demonstrated how, once the urge to extend is eliminated, the swordsman can move in for a cut or keep a respectful distance, by stepping forward or back. The motion of the cut and the attitude of the body and arms are identical whether stepping in or staying back -- it is only through positioning that we choose between contact and distance.

"Chance favours the prepared mind," said Louis Pasteur. One might suggest that in mortal combat, chance likewise favours the prepared body. In our emotional and social interactions, we could say that chance favours the prepared spirit. In all our affairs, there is a correct manner of conduct, one that brings us to a balanced, stable stance, regardless of how we position ourselves. We may step in deeply, or we may stay clear of entanglement, but either way, the correct conduct remains the same. Acting decisively is a matter of conduct; acting effectively is a matter of position.

Photo by Leia Mendes Cook

Labels: Swordfighting

Training with my instructor today he reminded me that "Katori is conversation."

It's a pretty serious sort of conversation, of course, being the sort in which, if you do it for real, somebody ends up dead.

Those stakes make it incumbent upon me as I practice to be constantly aware of what's really at stake here: that this is a conversation of life and death. Only my mindfulness can make it so; that puts the onus on me to ensure I am bringing my full attention and my entire mind to my side of the conversation.

Even in the kata themselves, our posture, our focus, and our swords communicate, one to the other, the life-or-death moment that each strike and each block contain. The topic actually came up today as we practiced a common move in Katori: O-Gasumi.

In this technique, we find ourselves with our opponent's sword laid overtop of our own -- clearly not a position we wish to remain in for long! But the opponent's mechanical advantage precludes simply lifting up. One way to convert this situation to our liking is to turn the sword over so that it is edge-up, and then lift the tip upwards as we step forward. If our opponent does not step back, we may cut his wrists from below, or even slice open his torso with a rising cut.

Performed quickly, it appears decisive and easy. Break it down into its component moves (or more traumatically, attempt it against someone more skilled than yourself) and you will find that your opponent can easily counter-thrust -- IF you fail to maintain contact with your sword against his. That contact is what keeps the "conversation" going. You can FEEL when your opponent attempts a counter-thrust, since their sword is pressed against yours. Likewise, your opponent can feel that no opening is being provided, and has no aggressive options.

Part of practice is learning to hear this conversation between our swords -- so that we are training ourselves to look for the opening when it comes, to recognize the moment so that we can speak our piece when appropriate.

Blindly performing moves, lost in our own worlds, is not the way of Katori. This practice requires open eyes, an open heart and a developed capacity to perceive what is truly being said to us.

Labels: Swordfighting

It's time for the second round of what came to be known as "the convo". The last one led to all sorts of larger conversations and community efforts, but ground needs re-plowing. Seeds need replanting. This time around, I thought we'd target a more narrow topic than last time: What are the characteristics of successful online communities?

Most of us are involved in multiple communities whose primary medium of social exchange is online -- whether that be a Twitter group, a discussion board, email list, or whatever. When positive, these communities can turn into massively productive sources of energy and transformation. Some online communities thrive while others never get off the ground. Some prosper vibrantly for a short time and then wither and die for some reason. More interestingly, some communities (all healthy ones) appear to reach beyond the online sphere and into "real-world" connection and influence.

Are there characteristics shared by successful online communities? What are they? Are any of them necessary qualities? Are any of them sufficient qualities? Can any of them be fostered or nurtured constructively, intentionally? Can they be DESIGNED?

And, perhaps more importantly, what is the purpose or output of these communities? How is economic value generated? In a sense, where does the marketplace begin and end -- to put it bluntly, under what terms can we authentically go after money and seek economic reward in this community without (as RT so delicately put it) being douchebags?

Sign up on the wiki -- we're planning to hold this on the morning of the 23rd, location TBD. Stay tuned and hang out in the comments!

Photo credit: Ivan Avramov.

Labels: Thinking

We are now safely ensconced in our new location at Kokoro Dojo. The very fine folks of Sandokai Aikido and our little group have moved into our beautiful new home near Dupont Station as of June 15th.

Kokoro Dojo has a lovely place set back from Dupont Street amongst trees and old houses. It's very lovely.

Enjoy thesummer and if you have any questions about Toronto Kenjutsu's practice, feel free to drop by!

Flower photo by oui cool2

Labels: Swordfighting

The "barsoomcore" blog is going to scale back, in favour of a bigger, hopefully better, Scratch Factory blog.

The new and improved Scratch Factory blog will feature, most excitingly, new bloggers! A couple of folks who share many of my eccentric enthusiasms will be posting there, and we look forward to providing you with an even wider mix of things piratical, prehistoric and pulptastic.

Anyway, we're sorry to say goodbye to the old reliable barsoomcore address, but the new home is going to be even swankier!

Well, actually, it's going to look exactly the same. But rest assured big things are afoot. HUGE. HUGE-FOOTED THINGS.

Remember, kids: pick up the new RSS feed!

Labels: Unspecified Coolness

One of the things I can remember learning first from Sugino Sensei was how to bow properly at the start of a session of Katori Shinto Ryu practice. It's a very distinctive ritual: from seiza, one bows twice, then claps one's hands twice, then bows once.

I am not the sort of person who asks for explanations, so I never asked why we bow in such a fashion. I have heard that it is a Shinto practice whereby the clapping is symbolic of awakening the god, but I don't know that this is the truth. What I do know is what I have come to experience after years of performing this tiny little act day in and day out: connected.

When people arrive for class, they have not yet shed their individual needs and fears. They bring their anxieties and the business of their lives into the dojo and onto the mat. They are not joined into one group with a shared purpose.

Becoming a community of mutual purpose is what the opening bow is all about. We line up together, and we demonstrate our willingness to humble ourselves. Doing it twice makes sure that it wasn't a mistake. That it wasn't done casually, or without thought for the meaning of the act.

When we clap, we are acting in concert, with immediate feedback as to how united we are. There should be only a single sound each time as every pair of hands comes together simultaneously. At least, when I hear that, I feel a lightness inside myself and I can't help but smile at the feeling of connectedness that fills me at that moment.

It's a lovely reminder of how we should practice Katori throughout the session -- connected to each other, fully engaged and responsive to our partner, our instructors and our fellow students. We need to pay attention to the full reality that emerges before us, and we need to allow our responses to that reality to emerge naturally and completely, without hesitation or preconception.

And each time when we open practice I get another reminder of all that, in one quick sharp sound we all share.

Labels: Swordfighting

I've been rereading an old treasure from our bookshelf: a collection of Byron's letters that S gave me when I went off to Japan. I have been a Byronophile (Byrophiliac?) since my university days, and the older I get and the more about him I understand, the better I like the man.

His letters are some of his best writing. Condensed narratives and scenes from his often hilarious, often tragic life. His heartbreaking letters to his estranged wife contrast sharply with his uproarious tales of life in Venice. It's hard to select passages because as always with Byron, context is so important. He is not a writer of pithy remarks and self-contained couplets but rather a sprawling, ungainly teller of tales who plays on the ongoing context of his works. But reading his letters in a sustained period builds up a very satisfying view of the man. And he never fails to surprise.

This collection is some 800 pages or so, and even at that is but a fraction of Lord Byron's total correspondence. There's an edition of Byron's Letters and Journals that is perhaps more complete: it's published in TWELVE VOLUMES -- and that's only considering his side of the story. Include all the letters others wrote TO him, and there are thousands upon thousands of pages of what is, essentially, data. Data about Lord Byron and those he spoke to, and of.

It's a vast amount of information. Staggering.

And yet there remain so many mysteries about the man. Who he was and what his opinions TRULY were on so many subjects. His writings are filled with contradictions and controversies, with such sly twists of meaning, that people still argue over some of the most basic facts of his life and personality. Was he a sexist monster? A romantic knocked about by the world or a cynical manipulator of public opinion?

All of which puts me in mind of Charles' Stross' astonishing book Accelerando. One of the conceits of this book is the idea that we will, in the not too distant future, find a way of codifying and storing personality. Which is the real key to immortality, of course. Once we know how to record and store a person's character intact (I should think a non-lossy format will be required here), then we can pull them up at any time and they live again. Which I guess means turning off the computer is a form of murder, but fortunately a reversible one. Keep backups.

But is this feasible? Is it reasonable to suggest that there will EVER be enough data to record a person so thoroughly that we recognize a manifestation of them as THEM? Look at the vast amount of data we have on a character like George Gordon, Lord Byron, and consider how feeble our ability to truly understand him is. How much more data will be required to have a definitive recording of a human being's personality?

Perhaps I'm just a Luddite on this issue. But the essential unknowableness is important to me. A friend recently asked for help in dealing with people suffering personality disorders: he found these people so perfectly predictable that it actually became hard to see them as human beings, rather than just objects in the world he could manipulate. We discussed the need in all of us to maintain the awareness that ALL people are capable of surprising us, no matter how many times in the past they may have played right into our expectations.

Heck, DOGS can surprise the most experienced trainers -- how can we imagine that people can be perfectly recorded and duplicated?

As for Lord Byron, people keep trying to reproduce him. I recently read John Crowley's The Evening Land, which purports to be a novel written by Byron. It was a healthy effort, and yet it did not convince in the end. Byron is dead, and he will never be among us again. All we have are the words he left behind, but these must be a pale shadow of the man that was.

But damn, he writes a great letter.

Labels: Unspecified Coolness