Lineage

Sensei Michael Clarke, Shinseidokan Dojo Blog, states, “a grasp of your martial genealogy is helpful when forming an overall understanding of what and why (but not how) you are doing the things you do.”

It seems to me to be like, “if you fail to learn from your history you are destained to repeat history - over, over and over again.” Mr. Clarke makes a good point when he states that your involvement means something as to whether you should learn about keizu of your system or not. If you are a trophy hound, a rank hound or a person who likes to fight in competitions then who, what, when, where, how and why of your system means little to nothing. 

In my view to gain a full and complete understanding of the “who, what, when, where, how and why” of things provide you with insight that promotes a mind-state that discovers not only old things but the creation of new things, insights and knowledge because to feed the mind as much data as possible about these things provides the mind a pool of data that they can extract from to not only provide answers but create answers. 

Inspirations come from the exposure of the mind to many things both within your immediate influences but also from influences normally outside your normalcy. It is that “out of the box” type knowledge, experience and understanding that provides the mind so it may create the state of mind with the necessary knowledge that allows us to act accordingly. The next step is to speed up that process by training, training, and more training along with practice, practice and more practice so the lizard can go directly and act quicker than the thinking mind. 

Again, as Mr. Clarke eludes too, this also teaches the martial artists that to adhere strictly to what your Sensei teaches can become limiting, stifling, and cause stagnation. It all is about stretching, reaching and achieving individualized understanding and application of any system regardless. It is about making the system your own so that your mind and mind-state can achieve what is relevant and pertinent to you and your life. This is especially important when confronted in conflict and all conflict exposes a person to physically, mentally and morally. 

In my system Tatsuo-san, the creator and master of the Isshinryu system of Okinawa, often expressed the importance of the Westerner to learn about the culture, beliefs and history of Okinawan. I believe he asked this of his American students because in assumed that we would want to achieve a full and complete wholehearted understanding and practice of his practice of Isshinryu. 

Mr. Clarke uses the word, “Blasphemy,” in his posting and I believe that it is apropos because it is blasphemy  when one uses lineage or keizu as a means of generating money while leaving the essence of lineage knowledge out as if a unnecessary byproduct. It seems blasphemous to use such important aspects of martial arts simply as a self promotion means of achieving egoistic pride driven gains.