1. Forging the Soul
"Iron is full of impurities that weaken it, through forging it becomes steel and is
transformed into a razor-sharp sword. Human beings develop in the same fashion.”
-Ueshiba Morihei, founder of Aikido
The Japanese use the word "tanren" to describe both the forging process ofa
sword as well as the lifelong, disciplined practice of the martial arts adept. This
forging process gives rise to a self-guided spirit of inquiry, both of the art studied
and into one's overall aptitude as human being in greater society. After some thirty
years as a student of Aikido, Zen, and Japanese swordsmanship, I'd like to offer
some reflections on how this forging has impacted my life.
Like many young men, I was drawn to martial arts becauseI wanted to be able to
kick ass. I might have denied it at the time, but an honest reflection reveals this as
true. Being a somewhat high-minded fellow, I imagined that I would, of course,
only use my combative skills when the ethical light was green, saving the innocent
and heroically riding my white horse off into the sunset. Attendant to this fantasy
was the belief that I would, at some recognizable moment, "arrive" at this level of
skill, mostlikely upon achieving my black belt. Thankfully, it didn't turn out that
way.
My first Aikido teacher failed to recognize my innate brilliance as a student.
There were no positive reinforcements, only sharply worded corrections and
massively uncomfortable throws and locks, which seemed to only worsen the
longer I trained. I came face to face with my attachment to praise as well as what I
would now call a "salvation mentality", that is, the belief that one's hard work is
eventually done and that all that is really left to do is enjoy your skill and the
inevitable admiration of others. Truth be told, back then, I found much of my
practice to be a miserable, ego-destroying process. Still do. Yet, I persisted. For
while the training was unpleasant, not training became even more so. I began to
notice that my practice had given me new tools to survey my environment: a
developing sense of spacial awareness, and a certain painfully delicious awareness
of bodythat was fed by constant minor injury. Also, I found that Aikido's highly
formalized system of etiquette at first to be just a cooladornment to the art, began,
further on, to feed a genuine sense of gratitude and respect towards my fellow man.
" The purposeof training is to tighten up the slack, toughen the body, and polish
the spirit". -Ueshiba Morihei

2. Six years into my Aikido practice I met ProfessorT.K. Chiba, a student of
Aikido's founder and the man who was to becomemy master. Chiba Sensei had
begun what was known as the kenshusei program, a rigorous curriculum of Aikido,
Iaido, and Zazen, training a minimum of fifteen hours per week at his schoolin
San Diego. I spent five years at this. The program was designed, in part, to
replicate the quality of training that allowed O-Sensei's original disciples to reach
their level of budo. It was a teacher training program as well as what seemed a
never-ending bootcamp. We lived with him, ate with him, drank with him, and
trained with him. Eventually, it became a seamless continuum. Chiba Sensei, while
infamously short-tempered, gave us an example of what complete commitment to
one's students looked like. He was relentless in his training and he demanded the
same from his disciples.
New to me in this curriculum was the zazen, the primordial practice of sitting,
still. Now, I had read more than my fair share of Zen literature, yet these texts
somehow neglected to mention that the practice itself was outrageously painful and
required extraordinary effort to stay present in bodyand breath. What showed up
in my system, some years into zazen practice, was, firstly, a physical settling
down, a dropping of habitual tensions, especially in my upper body. This had a
profound and noticeable impact, especially on my sword practice. Secondly,
regular meditation practice developed what I'd call an endurance of attention, the
capacity to sustain concentration for more than a few minutes at a time. While
these insights were welcome on the mats, it is in my vocational life that I most
appreciated them. Working as a carpenter at the time, I found that I had an
increasing capacity to concentrate on my work, to be aware of the needs of the job
and that of my co-workers. I became a much more productive and efficient
tradesman.
Having learned to drop excess tension from my chest and shoulders certainly
helped my Aikido, but it was in my interpersonal communications that I most felt
the benefit of this lesson. Mammals, as a rule, try and make themselves look bigger
in anticipation of conflict. Humans are mammals. We elevate and tighten our
shoulders when we feel threatened, and, as a result, usually are tragically unaware
of how our habitual tensions act as an impediment to genuine communication. I am
now vividly aware of those moments when I feel that "fight or flight" sensation
arising in my system and can, mostly, speak genuinely amidst these inevitable
emotional storms. A very handy skill for a married man.
"I would say that the practice of combatis a kind of ascetic practice for finding out
who I am". - Kenji Tokitsu

3. In Roman times, certain commodity traders would cheat their customers by
hollowing out the bottom of the standard lead weights, filling the cavity with wax,
and then re-sealing the weight with molten lead. So common a practice did this
become that the few honest traders were known as the "sin cere", literally, "without
wax". I bring up the derivation of the word "sincere" because in training, I believe
that to give an honest measure of oneself is of paramount importance for those who
follow the martial way. An example of this sincerity arose in my Iaido training.
Iaido is a solo art form, a series of kata performed with a katana, replicating certain
encounters that sword masters from ancient times thought important enough to
polish and transmit. The choreography is relatively simple, taking but a few dozen
hours to memorize; the balance of your lifetime's training, then, is given to
accuracy and simplicity of form. Easier said than done.
Chiba Sensei was another one of my teachers who failed to acknowledge my
innate brilliance. A memorable moment from Iaido class occurred one evening
when he sauntered up to me while I was performing what I thought to be very
spiffy Iaido indeed. "Do not tell anyone that I am your teacher!", he bellowed,
"You are so mechanical, like a toy soldier." And off he huffed, sucking spittle
through his teeth, as he was wont to do when his students were of obviously tragic
disappointment to him. Good drama? Certainly. But the public dressing-down
served to bring me to the realization that I was training with my sword solely to
impress my teacher, and he smelt it on me like bad cologne. I had to find another
gear. I had to learn to train for training's sake.
"True ki is developed by cultivating virtue without hope of recognition". -T.K.
Chiba
This understanding of the necessity of self-propelled training has turned out to be
one of the most important insights of my life. It is natural for the child and the
adolescent to strive for their elder's approval, but if he never drops this as his prime
motivation, he will never truly mature. By sincerely coming to terms with my
desire to impress, I've learned, for the most part, to function genuinely in spite of
this most compelling of distractions.
I happen to make about half of my living as a professional public speaker. I've
received a great deal of feedback from my audience members over the years about
how comfortable and seemingly fearless I am on stage. Truth be told, I'm
constantly aware of my desire to impress and my fear of rejection, but by letting
this be, it has let me be. I view hard-core physical training in the same way: I am
always fearful of injury and failure, but I strive never to resist those fears. In this
way I have found a certain liberation.

4. "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak
of non-violence to cover impotence." -Gandhi
Aikido translates as 'the way of harmony with the divine'. Pretty high-minded
stuff. I have trained with and taught thousands of people over the years, and can
safely say that Aikido attracts more folks for aesthetic reasons than it does for
measurable combative skills. As an examining instructor I am responsible for a
certain measure of quality control in my generation, and must sometimes decide
against a student's promotion because they fail to face head-on that they are
involved in training for combat. I recognize that good-hearted people want nothing
to do with maiming and killing. However, taking a philosophical stance that says
that you'll show your potential opponentmercy when you have never developed
the skills to take him out in the first place is to me risible.
It took me almost ten years to digest the fact that I was training to kill. This was
not a sudden revelation, nor was it pleasant. Yet something in my martial art
practice shifted and matured, became more logical. By coming face to face with
the lethal nature of my chosenart I found a deeper reverence for life, and my moral
stance to avoid violence gained weight in my soul because of the clarity I'd gained
regarding what I must do to another man who has crossed that sacred line.
"The question that the man of conscience asks is not 'How can I extricate myself
from this situation heroically?', but rather, 'How is the coming generation going to
live?'" - Reinhold Niebuhr
The physical aspectof training, though often arduous and frustrating, becomes a
natural part of a wholesome, disciplined life. The questions that I ask of myself at
this stage of my training now more often relate to issues of fatherhood and
citizenship: has my forging process succeeded in giving me the tools to overcome
my laziness and cowardice, am I aware enough of my surroundings to respond to
my environment in a way that is compassionate, skillful, and creative?
And did I ever learn to kick ass? Perhaps we'll meet on the mats someday, and
you can judge for yourself.