I am working with long-time friend Leo Dokutoshi Pimentel to re-establish a dojo in NYC.

Interested in helping start a place for To-Shin Do in Manhattan?

Kick-off was a workshop 2-4 pm Sunday Aug 8 at a friend’s aikido dojo in Chelsea, covering secrets for ninja “unperceived action” in unarmed defense, and a mind & spirit focus “meditation on the move” exercise.

My whole family was there for the workshop – Reina & Matt, Marissa, An-shu Rumiko, and me. We look forward to being available to students more often as this new dojo grows and expands.

Write to info@nyc-quest.com or check the NYC-Quest web site for training information and directions.

I opened my seminar in Tournai, Belgium, this morning with the observation that there are 3 key aspects present when any lesson, class, or seminar is truly to be of value to the learners. There needs to be:

• Caring teacher who loves seeing learners advance, knowledgeable and tuned in to the importance of providing a good example and presenting a meaningful lesson
• Significant material content to the lesson – things and skills to be learned that really matter and really work in the world
• Enthusiastic student who is open, disciplined, and ready to learn and advance

That third aspect might actually be the most important element for determining the value of any lesson. When a student is loaded with questions and hungry for knowledge leading to skill and wisdom, even a poor teacher and a mediocre lesson cannot hold such a learner back.

Maybe this was how it was for me back in the 1960s in my first formal martial arts training sessions. Truth told, my initial martial art’s technology was pretty primitive and did not really relate well to the way real fights, muggings, kidnaps, rapes, and hostage-takings took place, and my teachers were of the old school of militaristic hazing as instructional method and appeared to be quite aloof when it came to inspiring student advancement. But I was determined to get the most I could from those lessons, and I believe that my determination was the most important key to my becoming the martial artist I am today 40-plus years later.

Such determination to learn is one of the 37 Parts of the Path of Awakening – the San-ju-shichi Do-Bon – that is in the foundational teachings of the spiritual system I explored with Japanese and Tibetan teachers. Within the 37 Parts of the Path is a section called the Shi Nyo-I Soku – the “Four Miraculous Legs” – four ways of pursuing personal advancement so radical as to be beyond rational comprehension or logical description. Miracles happen. In one of these four astonishing possibilities, we can study so hard that literally miraculous learning occurs. Beyond rational explanation, we are so determined that we end up learning far more than what the lesson itself ostensibly offers or the teacher is capable of delivering.

How about you? Can you identify at all with the possibility of miraculous learning? Have you ever had an experience where strong and insistent wanting to know something led you beyond what would have been reasonable learning under the circumstances? Write your experience on here below as a comment, or even better, add your story to the discussion on the SKHQuest.com On-Line Community Forum where you can read even more details from me on this Shi Nyo-I Soku miracle super learning.

I am in Las Vegas today speaking to the Martial Arts Industry Association (MAIA), 1,500 professional martial arts school owners and instructors.

My topic is “Taking Care of the Master”, and I am offering four suggestions for overcoming professional burnout.

So often, a professional martial arts teacher spends so much time and energy encouraging his or her students, that personal advancement and personal passion take a seat way in the back behind all the focus on others. Can you identify with that reality statement at all? If so, what can you do to regain your original passion? What important encouragement can you tap into from “the master within?”

After my presentation, I will come back and post here 4 suggestions based on my study of the Japanese and Tibetan mystical warrior inner development traditions. I promise it will be worth reading, so be sure to bookmark this site for quick and reliable return.

I was asked by a friend, “You said most of the top seniors you used to train with in your teacher’s dojo in Japan in the 1970s are no longer training in that teacher’s dojo. Why do so many top skilled students in the martial arts training hall so often leave the dojo once the dojo grows in student numbers?”

In any dojo you have:

• “A students” – the most capable and motivated members (20% of student base?)
• “B students” – the worthy and admirable, dedicated to learning (65% of the dojo?)
• “C students” – the “skill and motivation challenged” who train despite lack of perceived improvement (15%?)
• Some dojos even have “D students” – dark-hearted ones who perversely delight in staying around just to cause difficulties. This is a form of mental illness based on resentment of those who work harder and contribute more. Seems weird but is surprisingly pervasive.

When the teacher treats B students like A students, it makes B students think they are A students. B students then quickly grow an entitlement mentality. They forget they are indeed Bs and not As. They start to make opinion statements they have no right to make. They judge others they have no right to judge. As a result, A students then rightly feel disgusted and either 1. lose their motivation to strive for higher mastery, or 2. leave the dojo.

When the teacher treats C students like Bs by giving Cs all the same belts as A and B students – despite their lack of advancement in skill and leadership – A and B students will be demoralized.

When the teacher tolerates D students, As and Bs perceive the teacher as weak or foolish, and Cs are often seduced by Ds into degenerated D-supporting behavior.

When I was a young teacher, I was guilty of not understanding the truth of A, B, C, and D perceptions and preferences. I optimistically maintained a “Golden Rule” approach where I treated all students as I wanted to be treated myself – as determined to strive to become the top A student.

My own teacher teased me as being majimesugiru – “too sincere” or too serious. He felt the way to build a big dojo was to reward each student with exactly what he or she wanted. Some wanted knowledge. Some wanted skill. Some wanted belt rank. Some wanted an identity. Some wanted a father figure. Some wanted to feel more important than those better than them. Some wanted techniques for navigating daily reality, and some wanted escape from reality. Like the magical little man behind the curtain in the Great Oz throne room, my teacher happily gave out whatever his student came to him to find. It was just that easy for him.

I suppose I differ from my teacher on that point, even as I acknowledge his warning of my being too serious about maintaining quality in the belt ranks. I do agree with him though on finding the familiar Golden Rule as usually inappropriate for the dojo. You cannot ascribe to all students an assumed similarity of motivations and willingness to commit. Not everybody truly aims at full martial mastery.

Therefore, as a best practice, a teacher needs to maintain a genuinely fair and transparent program for training advancement, and reliably reward and recognize people legitimately based on their performance in:

• Skill – “How good are you, compared with all others?”
• Advancement – “How much have you grown beyond where you started?”
• “Nobility” – “How much benefit have you brought to others above you and below you?”

(Watch for a future blog wherein I pose an opposite argument. There is of course no contradiction, just a bigger view of the fullness of reality.)

“Shi-kin Hara-mitsu Dai-ko-myo” is our training hall motto. Inherited from my martial arts teacher in Japan and his teacher before him, it is an inspirational phrase we shout in front of the kamiza to start and close SKH Quest To-Shin Do Level 3 and Level 4 classes.

I have translated the phrase as, “Everything I encounter could serve as the perfection of wisdom that leads to enlightenment,” or, “Every experience contains the potential for taking me to the awakening I seek.”

The SHI of the phrase translates literally as “word(s)”.

The KIN translates as “sound(s)”.

Together, the two kanji for Shi-kin mean literally “The sounds of words,” or “Sounds and words”. The combination means “an encounter” or “something that occurs to me”.

HA-RA-MITSU is the Japanese pronunciation of paramita, a Sanskrit term that translates as “perfection of wisdom,” or “having gone over the river to the far shore”, a Buddhist metaphor for going beyond normal limits of thought and perception to reach highest or broadest understanding. I know the 3 kanji characters loosely translate as ” secrets of going over the waves” – a well done translating coincidence – but the word really is an attempt to use Chinese letters and Japanese pronunciation to get the Sanskrit “paramita”.

DAI KO MYO means “great bright light” – illumination “dawns on us.”

My wife An-shu Rumiko offers another interesting interpretation. We can see SHIKIN at one end and DAIKOMYO at the other, both leading inwards to the center of HARAMITSU. “All that we hear and all that we see can lead to the perfection of wisdom.” Multidirectional reading is possible in Chinese and Japanese, though difficult to imagine in Western languages.

My good friend Chris Penn of Boston Martial Arts has suggested that a contemporary parallel might be an expression like, “This could be it!” as you dig for treasure, or study something important, or interview for a dream job. You might recite over and over, “This could be it!” as a way of staying on your toes to make sure you get the most you can out of the opportunity.

I failed my second belt test in the martial arts.

That was back in the mid-1960s. I was a teenager. I trained harder and more diligently than most every other member of the class. I was good, maybe very good.

To qualify for my second belt (what would be Yellow & Black Belt in what I teach now), I had learned a set of 3 sequences of power punching and kicking techniques. I had drilled those sets over and over. I knew 1-2-3 so well I did not even have to think about them.

I stepped in front of the belt testing board of judges. They called out, “Set One” in an Asian language. I performed what had to be a perfect Yellow & Black Belt Set One. The audience exploded in applause and cheers.

I repositioned in front of the belt testing board of judges. They called out, “Set Three” in an Asian language. I performed what had to be a perfect Yellow & Black Belt Set Two. The audience froze in pained silence.
“Sit down,” said the judges. “Try again at the next testing.”

Huh? I was good, maybe very good. What had happened?

“You did Set Two. They asked for Set Three,” said a friend sympathetically.

That’s how I failed my second belt test. I was not paying attention. I went from habit. 1-2-3. As skilled as any of my techniques may have been, it did not matter because I had failed to be in touch with the situation and what was called for.

I did not like failing a belt test when I was a teenager. I was embarrassed, a little angry, and maybe I felt a little cheated. But I had nonetheless failed because I was not – it turns out – good enough. My habitual mind and perhaps ego defeated me. I did it myself.

What an important lesson to learn. Good thing my teachers cared for me enough to be blunt and uncompromising. My becoming stronger was more important to them than my feeling happy at that moment.

Forty-five years later, I am pledged to helping others learn. My latest lesson offering deals directly with that tendency for the mind to be in the wrong place at a crucial time. I call it the “Here and Now Focus Meditation”. Try it out at http://www.skhquest.com/meditation/ where it says, “Here. Now” .

I want to see you pass all your belt tests right on time. Don’t do it the way I did.

Here’s a brief follow-up to my admonition to remember to include greenery on your martial arts dojo kamidana spirit shelf.

A few friends wrote and chided me for not personally teaching them what they needed on that shelf. “How are we supposed to know? We didn’t live all those years in Japan like you did,” seemed to be a reasonable indignant response.

(Awkward pause for effect)  Uh… Well, try looking around.

You’ve been to my dojo.

You have seen photos of my school on the internet.

You have read the books that describe how to set up your dojo (page 10 of Ninjutsu; The Art of the Invisible Warrior).

See it. Do it.

I am never not teaching.

Never.

Daughter Reina is the safest happy girl in Atlantic City between friends Chuck Zito (see him on “Entourage” with Dennis Hopper?) and Dan Severn (see him win the UFC TV cagefight championship?), our neighbors on the Action Martial Arts Hall of Fame celebrity table aisle

A business friend recently asked how my family was doing, and I told him we had a reunion with both our east coast daughters at the Action Martial Arts convention in Atlantic City.

He was surprised. “Martial arts convention?! Over 1,000 cage fighters, fung-fu wizards, kendo swordsmen, MMA pounders, jujutsu wrestlers, karate champs, movie star action heroes, and well, yes, some ninja too, all in one spot? I can imagine all those tough guys with huge champion egos must have made for the most dangerous place to be on the east coast that weekend.”

Interesting how many of my non-martial friends have this belief about the connection between toughness and fighting prowess and ego.

From my perspective, I find just the opposite to be true. Get a bunch of hardcore total commitment to excellence fighting champions together and you’ve got one of the best parties imaginable. That’s been my experience.

If you know you are a winner because you have proven yourself for years, being tough in everyone’s eyes is no longer the point of life. You are looking for friends and allies with whom to celebrate further advancement and success.

On the other hand, if you seriously doubt your ability to command the space when a possible threat confronts you, you will constantly be posing as an angry tough guy in hopes of bluffing others into balking at a face-off. I’ve known some sad characters like that.

Daughter Marissa with our friend Michael Jai White (see him in “Batman; the Dark Knight”?) our other neighbor on the Action Martial Arts Hall of Fame celebrity table aisle

Event sponsor Alan Goldberg, himself a Wing Chun Kung-fu master teacher, told me this event and banquet brought in record-breaking numbers of martial artists, even in the midsts of the economic hardships so many face in America today. Positive martial artists want to spend time around others who inspire them and make them proud of their commitment to the warrior arts.

Strong aspirations seeking out strong inspirations. How noble is that spirit!

Here’s a trivial note for friends with martial arts schools that feature a Japanese-style kamiza “spirit focal point” shelf on the main wall of their training space.

As described in the book Enlightened Self Protection, a kamiza can be compared to the family mantelpiece tradition familiar to American and European homes. As the mantel holds special pictures, artifacts, and memories of our family history, the kamiza serves as a reminder of the historic al and cultural legacy that stretches out behind the teachings embodied in our martial art today.

The items on the kamidana “spirit shelf” are Japanese in origin, but they are equally relevant to us in the West as reminders of our connection to the forces of nature, our gratitude to our teachers – even those teachers we have never met – for handing the knowledge down to us, and our personal responsibility for discovering the keys to actualizing our potential in ways that will carry our legacy on to new generations.

• Tomyo candles symbolize the light we carry in our hearts
• The kagami mirror symbolizes a stainless heart, pure in its reflection of “what is”
• A dish of salt symbolizes willingness to sacrifice and gift others in order to grow
• The shinden wooden house-like structure contains a small ofuda plank talisman as symbol of the ancient spirit that guides our training (concealed behind the doors behind the mirror, so not visible in photo below)
• Sakaki greenery reminds us of our place in the richness of nature

(For a sense of size perspective, check the photo in my birthday party post)

When I was living in Japan in the 1970s to train at the house dojo of my ninja teacher, my job during each weekly dojo clean-up was to replace the water in the sakaki vases. I was “the tall guy’ in those days, and my reach allowed me to get to those vases of greens without having to drag out a step ladder.

Today, most of us in the West use artificial greens since fresh branches from sakaki plants are very hard to come by or grow in most of the USA and Europe. Sakaki (cleyera japonica) is a low-spreading, medium-sized evergreen tree of the plant family which also includes tea and camellia.

Even if you cannot get sakaki, you can get bountiful boughs of greenery for your kamiza – holly or any other waxy green leafed shrubs – or at least tasteful artificial ones.

And here’s the point: be sure your kamiza has those boughs. I have seen a lot of photos of various dojo kamiza on internet sites of martial arts schools in America and Europe, and more often than not, there for all to see are a lot of pitiful naked kamiza shelves. Avoid that. Celebrate your tradition with lots of rich green.

Avoid scraggly wisps reminiscent of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Avoid little potted plants with roots. Avoid avoiding greenery altogether.

If you are going for a traditional look in your dojo, be sure that you fully understand the tradition. And avoid ignorant “tradition for tradition’s sake”, just as you would avoid pointlessly odd technique in your curriculum if you are teaching useful methods as opposed to mere museum-like cultural imitation.

I had a conversation with a person who commented that our taijutsu looked “too slow” to him. He felt that for a real fight, we should be practicing with what he called “realistic speed”.

I understand how he could feel that way. Once upon a time a long time ago, I too studied a less mature form of martial art, a less sophisticated form of martial art, in which beating people to the punch or throw was the only way to win.

I did not say it that way to him, though, because it would only have resulted in an argument based on emotional hopes and beliefs. Instead, I invited him to look at a video clip of our art in action.

He wasn’t impressed. “See? There you go. You guys are moving slowly. Your art works as long as you guys agree to move slow.”

I knew he would say that. I was ready for his misperception. “OK. Now watch the clip again and this time, only watch the attackers. Check out how quickly and explosively they move.”

He watched and this time he remained silent. I could tell he was confused and did not know what to think.

I helped him out. “There is absolute speed. And there is relative speed. In the same way, there is power and there is relative power. If your timing is right, you can fit into furious action with minimal motion. Of course, if you are not aware of timing, or you are not experienced enough to use timing to your advantage, you will not be able to pull it off.”

It is all about mastery. The master painter may indeed need less paint and fewer strokes to tell more of a story. The master mechanic uses only minimal elbow grease action to get the most from tuning up a racing engine. Little children use high volume to express the importance they feel their words carry, while a master story teller may instead use a hushed voice to really capture an audience.

Of course, you have to be ready to hear such logic. If you are still a splash and slap painter, a bang-around mechanic, or an exuberant little kid, none of this makes sense.

Check out the video clip of spontaneous totally unrehearsed sword clashes and only watch the attackers’ speed and explosiveness. Do not even consider my speed. Then reflect on the results of each clash.

Can you see it? Can you get it? Are you ready to get it?