Sunday, November 16, 2008
Lighting things on fire, changing the world
Two things:
First, I want to mention how much I am enjoying one of my senior students' integration of our To-Shin Do path into his job as a professional computer programmer. We frequently discuss the Kihon-Shoden-Chuden-Okuden educational model of classical Japanese martial arts, and he has realized some great things about himself and his evolving path in code. How much more Matrix-like can you get than a kick-butt ninja who is also a computer code master? We need to get him a black trenchcoat for his birthday next year.
More even than the substantial cool factor, his story is an illustration of how studying To-Shin Do transforms our relationships in all aspects of life. He really is on the tatsujin "master of all aspects" path. After four years and a black belt, Thomas has a sense of a vast realm of possibilities just dawning. That's often said but seldom found in martial arts, but To-Shin Do does that for people. I'm proud to be his teacher, and to represent, illustrate, and demonstrate this path for him and others.
If you're a coder yourself, check out Thomas' blog post on our other project (Propits). You can see the blog at propits.blogspot.com.
The second thing I want to mention is how much I like enjoyed lighting things on fire at my friend's 30th birthday bowling party. I don't think anyone else enjoyed it - I think they found it alarming. So, I have to be more careful and be less alarming. I do feel bad about alarming others. But from a pure aesthetics perspective, I find watching fire delicious. It's even more delicious when it's incongruent - for example, this fire was burning on top of ice, in a styrofoam cup. I get some deep sensory pleasure out of observing those kinds of contrasts. It's unfortunate that the styrofoam turned out to be highly flammable too. I think it would have been okay, because I think that counter was some kind of indestructible product pretending to be wood, but I can see how it alarmed people. I'm glad that the drink that someone poured on it wasn't high enough in alcohol content to burst into flame itself, because then we would have had kind of a napalm situation.
Lighting things on fire, changing the world
Two things:
First, I want to mention how much I am enjoying one of my senior students' integration of our To-Shin Do path into his job as a professional computer programmer. We frequently discuss the Kihon-Shoden-Chuden-Okuden educational model of classical Japanese martial arts, and he has realized some great things about himself and his evolving path in code. How much more Matrix-like can you get than a kick-butt ninja who is also a computer code master? We need to get him a black trenchcoat for his birthday next year.
More even than the substantial cool factor, his story is an illustration of how studying To-Shin Do transforms our relationships in all aspects of life. He really is on the tatsujin "master of all aspects" path. After four years and a black belt, Thomas has a sense of a vast realm of possibilities just dawning. That's often said but seldom found in martial arts, but To-Shin Do does that for people. I'm proud to be his teacher, and to represent, illustrate, and demonstrate this path for him and others.
If you're a coder yourself, check out Thomas' blog post on our other project (Propits). You can see the blog at propits.blogspot.com.
The second thing I want to mention is how much I like enjoyed lighting things on fire at my friend's 30th birthday bowling party. I don't think anyone else enjoyed it - I think they found it alarming. So, I have to be more careful and be less alarming. I do feel bad about alarming others. But from a pure aesthetics perspective, I find watching fire delicious. It's even more delicious when it's incongruent - for example, this fire was burning on top of ice, in a styrofoam cup. I get some deep sensory pleasure out of observing those kinds of contrasts. It's unfortunate that the styrofoam turned out to be highly flammable too. I think it would have been okay, because I think that counter was some kind of indestructible product pretending to be wood, but I can see how it alarmed people. I'm glad that the drink that someone poured on it wasn't high enough in alcohol content to burst into flame itself, because then we would have had kind of a napalm situation.
Labels: chuden, classical taijutsu, fire, ninja, okuden, Propits, shoden, To-Shin Do
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