HI,
I was just having an offline discussion with a dear friend of mine about Suzuki Sensei's kata comments.
There is a lot there in what he wrote and some of those sayings are extremely sophisticated and go into internal powerland.
I realize that the folks out there who really understand this stuff are reluctant to talk about it for various reasons.
One being that they feel most people are not ready to hear this stuff. They are not developed enough to integrate this into their practice and any premature attempt to play with this stuff will only hinder your training especially if you don't have a teacher who can guide you.
But having said all of this I think it might be fun to take a crack at a few and totally deconstruct it and lay it out on the operating table.
I want to start with Balance. Funny how he writes 'balance' for the Japanese bit as if we don't have a word in Japanese for that concept.
I sit here now and am trying to think of a Japanese word....and the funny thing is that I can't. I can't think of a word that equates to the Western word 'balance'.
In Japanese we can come up with phrases to express the concept of balance but one word that equates to balance? Can't think of it.
Not sure if that has any cultural implications or not but nevertheless.
So this thing called balance. Why the heck is it important. It doesn't make any sense. If you are balanced then you can't move! The last thing you want is to be in a state of balance. If you are balanced you will get killed. Just tattoo 'itsuki' on your forehead...
What good is balance? It stops you from doing a face plant. It gets you good scores in dumb kata competition. But it has no martial value.
(I say all of this with tongue in cheek...for you non native speakers I am just playing...)
What is balance? Being equally weighted on both sides of a fulcrum?
You can't move unless you first unbalance yourself. In order to move from point a to point b you have to first unbalance to move...then you go to a state of balance. So it is a constant motion of going from balance to imbalance back to balance. That is basic movement. So saying that you have to have balance in kata does not make any sense.....or does it?
Folks...the answer lies outside the box....get your mind off balance.
P.S. In terms of internal power, this concept of BALANCE is extremely profound. It is fundamental to any work done in that realm.
But I am talking about BALANCE, not balance. :)
I also wanted to add. There is not one correct answer. There are a multitude of things behind the concept of BALANCE that somehow all come together to create a martial body.
Back to work.