It took me multiple attempts to get this essay to this point. I’d start with an idea and then lose it. My thoughts would wither away and dry up. I’d put it off, which just got me more stuck.
The big ideas I wanted to connect to what I’ve learned from my teachers are interrelated to everything I’ve learned during my time on this planet — the mind, the body, the soul, elements and building blocks from the natural world, cycles and rhythms of life. Every time I started, I ended up at a dead end. There was so much I wanted to say that I couldn’t say anything. I kept getting lost in my own thoughts because of the web of interconnectedness of everything in space and time.
Then I was traveling somewhere and my mind wandered, as it does when it goes on autopilot. Something connected and I remembered one of the first things I was told when I was having trouble solving a problem in the dojo: “feel gravity, find kamae.” This is how I came to answer the question of what To-Shin Do means to me.
Lessons In Common Sense
To-Shin Do reinforces something I keep seeing in life related to mastery. True masters are not masters because they can do fancy or complex things. They can do fancy and complex things because they have a deep understanding of the basics. More than merely understanding — a master can create and combine novel applications using only the basics. As I’ve progressed and the teachers in the NPMAC dojo have taught me the fundamentals for katas, skills, and To-Shin Do in general, I’ve come to appreciate the basics for what they are: a foundation for self-guided learning.
Once you have a solid grasp of the basics, there are infinite details to fix, improve, and refine as you investigate their application. Then, with the experience of focusing on those details and being corrected and advised by my teachers, the practical applications just make sense. When I think about what we’re doing, it seems like common sense — like everyone should know it.
In Real Life
What does this mean for me outside the dojo? This is hard to answer because I tend to unconsciously carry a lot of my past with me — knowledge that only crops up in unexpected ways as I try to make sense of new things. I grew up in a small town in Ohio with old-growth forests to play in, studied biology and ecosystems, and spent years riding things — snowboarding and skateboarding first, then mountain bikes and horses. Somehow I’ve managed to apply what I picked up in these areas to just about anything new I encounter.
That breadth is what was so paralyzing when I first started writing this. Then one night, when we were playing with cover and focus in the ninja secrets class, I made a connection: I was so concerned with everything that I was missing out on anything. I was lacking focus. All I needed to do was choose three things about To-Shin Do in real life that mean something to me. Any three would do.
Gravity and balance is the first and easiest to connect. I started snowboarding when I was fourteen or fifteen and got to the point where I was comfortable riding medium jumps, then bigger ones at the resort parks, and eventually ventured into the backcountry for fresh lines and untracked powder. You can’t do any of that without feeling gravity and having balance. Much of how we move in To-Shin Do — applying skills, working through kata, practicing randori — is rooted in controlling our body’s response to gravity and finding balance (kamae) along the way. I draw heavily on my experience finding lines down a mountain when I try to find lines and feel my way through a problem in the dojo.
Work and people. The elements — earth, water, fire, wind, and the voids between them — describe more than the phases of the SKH curriculum. They describe me and my moods. They describe the people around me. They give me clues for how to use the qualities of each as tools for dealing with people. Not all people problems are negative — humans are lovable but messy and disorganized, or organized but distant and distracted. The elemental qualities opened my eyes as more than tools for training in the dojo.
Just keep walking. I think about the first time I put skins on a splitboard and started skinning up a mountain to summit and ride an untracked line through fresh powder. That journey started long before I parked my car and began climbing. It was a series of steps, each one taking me closer to the goal of coming home safely after experiencing a mountain summit on a clear, crisp day with an untouched field of snow in front of me. Earning my black belt is like that. It started with a nebulous idea long before I made the call to the Newbury Park Martial Arts Center and put on a white belt. It was a series of steps, one at a time, that slowly brought me closer to having skills that help me deal with problems in the world — and most importantly to me, skills that will help my daughter deal with problems when she’s confronted with them.
Punctuated Equilibrium
This isn’t so much an answer to a question as the connection of patterns and cycles across different domains. Punctuated equilibrium describes biological evolutionary development marked by isolated episodes of rapid change between long periods of little or no change. Learning and mastering human skills has a lot in common with this.
I’ve seen it in my training. The curriculum in the dojo is set up for regular cycles and it establishes a foundation for consistent routine. When I look back, I see my skill progression as a series of long plateaus with a few key insights and breakthroughs — facilitated by teachers who helped me evolve into the next level.
On a long enough timeline, earning a black belt is just that: cycles of training and stagnation with periods of rapid, significant breakthroughs. These cycles repeat with variations in what is learned and how the learner chooses to be educated. The difference between natural evolution and a conscious decision to evolve is that in nature everything is left to random chance and it takes a really, really long time. But as a human I have conscious decision-making abilities — fostered by the cycle of the dojo — that I can use to seek out and integrate feedback. To a certain extent, I can increase the speed of those cycles.
Reaching black belt is just the end of one of the larger cycles within the meta-cycle called progression. The end of a cycle is a chance to reflect and seek out feedback as I prepare for the next one, whatever it may hold. It is a chance to begin again. We always begin again.
For me that means continuing to train as a black belt — beginner’s mind, empty mind (yes, that’s from the book). Another chance for refinement of the basics and more attention to the details. More long plateaus of plodding along, one step at a time, looking for the insight and guidance that will unlock the next level of understanding. And knowing that when I get there, the cycle will continue and repeat with variations. This is natural. This is a path to mastering the basics.
To me, To-Shin Do is a journey to mastery. It is a mountain that you cannot summit but is worth attempting to climb in every season and in any weather — with a plan that brings you safely home, summit or not. It is committing to walking forward, one step at a time, with as many partners as you can find.
