or "The importance of being there".
In the car on the way back from sensei bakkies seminar last saturday evening sensei chris made it known that he wanted articles for the club website and maybe even a blog entry covering saturdays seminar. I must admit I was a bit stumped for what to write at first. My initial gut reaction is, cool, I managed to learn and some continuous bunkai that I had always thought very cool, but that betrays the depth of the experience. In order of declining time, I've practised hapkido, taekwondo, gojuryu, aikido, aiado, taijutsu and a smattering of other arts and in that time I've been very lucky to meet some exceptional teachers. That said... I've seldom seen anything in a seminar that I've not seen at some point written down in a book somewhere, on a dvd or video, on the internet or via some other medium.
What does that mean? I have a friend who works in e-learning who recently blogged (sadly now missing) about the "Importance of being there". Her other half is a lecturer in philosophy, and the general thrust of the argument was "So what if people record the lectures and give it to people who weren't there", they are giving up something by not being present, the detailed content is not always the most important thing.
Sensei bakkies said, and I quote (but without the accent or rugby world cup jokes), "I'm a very lazy person, if there were any short cuts in karate, I would have taken them by now". I wonder if these two messages don't point to the same fundamental idea: you aren't going to be told any mystical truths by turning up to meet someone claiming more experience than you, *But* what you are going to be, if you're really lucky, is inspired to keep looking for your own answers, to keep sweating (There was a lot of that) and keep trying with real heart, not just go through the motions, because at the end of the day, you have seen that there is some pay-off for all the hard work, that although there are no short cuts, over time the process does effect a change, and that although it's difficult to see the inch-pebbles in day to day life, they do add up to milestones eventually
I thoroughly enjoyed my exhausting day in london with sensei bakkies, and afterwards I enjoyed the two bottles of beer and pizza all the more for knowing how hard the day was. Yeap, I learned some technical details I wasn't very good at or diddn't know before, but above all else I was inspired to try harder every time. All told, what would I have done with my saturday otherwise? No comparison!
Incidentally, I'm inspired every time I go training, but thats another story </grovel> ;)
