Recently, Erich Smith (Chapel Hill Quest) and I were having an exchange on Facebook. I thought his realizations and connections were so cool that they needed to be shared with more people. Erich gave me permission to repost his ideas here. Thanks Erich!

I was inspired today by your fantastic new window posters! I was thinking also about the recent post about the dojo phrases we internalize.

We've accreted several phrases at the CHQC over the years, but the core have always been:

Keep your...
knees bent,
back straight,
eyes open and on the bad guy,
and...
move your feet!

[We repeat these] over and over and over again. Today, I tried to listen to them with fresh ears, and heard something completely new (to me):

knees bent - CHI
back straight (movement with head over hips over feet) - SUI
eyes open and on the bad guy - KA
move your feet - FU

From a certain point of view, each of the elements could be viewed as isolated (for learning's sake) explorations of the dynamics presented in the cardinal rules.

If I had to pick a dojo phrase for void/KU, I'd go with "It's always my turn!"

Labels: Back Straight, Cardinal rules, It's Always My Turn, Knees Bent, ninja, ninjutsu, To-Shin Do