To swim, we must take a leap. Remove your feet from the ground.
Takeaways and thoughts from the Shinbukan Seminar. To understand something you must understand where it came from and how it came to be.
We cannot change things we want to learn into our understanding or a familiar world. We as people must change until we understand the new world or thing. Two things in life that fit this way are swimming and kenjutsu.
When people like James Williams sensei and Kuroda sensei do unbelievable things that we want to learn we must let go of how we understand the world in order to learn these things. Much like swimming, kenjutsu and jujutsu require us to have faith and belief in a different way and a new relationship with movement. Swimming is simple enough on an intellectual level. Kick your legs, move your arms like so, and voilà you are swimming. For the body however, this is not the case. For the body, water is dangerous and unfamiliar. To learn to swim we walk out into the water and practice in the shallows. Because our feet can touch in the shallow water, we don't need to fully let go of walking and the safety of land. We pretend to swim as we come to understand this new world. With enough coaxing we kick off from the bottom and begin to swim. We do this over and over for a short periods while we learn about water and convince our bodies they can be safe away from land. Eventually some people will build the skill and understanding to swim far into the ocean.
Things like BJJ, MMA, wrestling, and boxing, among other things, all are familiar to the world of force (muscle power) and game play. From that standpoint they are like walking on land.
Kenjutsu and jujutsu, with the Japanese sword, on the other hand are like swimming. Force and muscle power are impossible to use against a 30 inch razor sharp sword. The sword will cut through the world's strongest people using only movement and no force. With this movement we can break opponents bodies or cut them while simultaneously avoiding the misfortune ourselves.
At first these movements are unbelievable, like swimming. More so even. But as we let go of the world of force we can learn to wield the sword. Slowly we will change how we interact with the world, and bit by bit we make the unbelievable world a reality. We too can gain the skills that Williams Sensei and Kuroda Sensei possess and use effortlessly.
Check out the link for more;
Marine Corps vs MMA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyllQuQuHZE
Yugen
https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/yugen-%E5%B9%BD%E7%8E%84-deep-awareness-of-the-universe/