Been a long time since I rock and rolled.
"Aspirations must be pure and free of selfishness. Arising from the depths of the soul, aspirations are spiritual demands penetrating all of a human life and making it possible for a person to die for their sake. A person without aspirations is like a ship without a rudder or a horse without a bridle. Aspirations give consistent order to life."
~Mas Oyama~
Mas Oyama was the founder of the hardest hitting, hardest training school of karate. Learning martial arts when he was 9, he continued to train under various masters until he turned 23. Then, inspired by the works of Musashi, he spent two and a half years training alone in the mountains. He trained for 12 hours a day, and shaved off one eyebrow to help resist the temptation to return to society. Mas trained by breaking river stones, and punching a tree for hours at a time. When he finished living like an animal in the mountains, he traveled around japan and the globe, winning competitions and holding demonstrations. In 1952, he travelled the United States for a year, demonstrating his karate live and on national televison. During subsequent years, he took on all challengers, resulting in fights with 270 different people. The vast majority of these were defeated with one punch! A fight never lasted more than three minutes, and most rarely lasted more than a few seconds. His fighting principle was simple - if he got through to you, that was it. If he hit you, you broke. If you blocked a rib punch, your arm was broken or dislocated. If you didn't block, your rib was broken. He became known as the Godhand, a living manifestation of the Japanese warriors' maxim Ichi geki, Hissatsu or "One strike, certain death". To him, this was the true aim of technique in karate. The fancy footwork and intricate techniques were secondary.
There are videos of this guy karate chopping the horns off of charging bulls. He was able to kill a full grown bull instantly with a punch to the head.
Why do I bring this up? Do I have some kind of secret, longstanding anti-bull agenda?
Well, not really. Unless I am in a paddock or locked room with a bull, I have no problem with them. The whole "able to kill a bull" thing was only brought up as an indication of how hard this guy trained, and what he was able to achieve. When I read about people like this, I can't help but be inspired. Doing philosophy, I'm sometimes confronted by the straight up impracticality of it. The use of philosophy can be hard to pin down, if it has a use at all. Looking out my window at the busy world of commerce, folks going about the daily business of living, can make doing a purely academic practice seem distant and removed. There is of course a good reason for the feeling of distance, the fact is that 'regular folks' are largely divorced from the philosophical squabbles in the academic sphere. No one cares if private languages are possible, or how it is that objects can maintain identity despite changing properties. And if they do care, they can't spend the majority of the day thinking about it, because there are things to be done. Contemplation is competing for leisure time, not working time.
So I feel a little out of touch sometimes. I'm dedicating huge portions of my time/life to a pursuit that falls outside of the everyday, and outside of the practical. I think that is why I find so much to look up to in guys like Mas Oyama and Musashi. Karate is not practical in much the same way that philosophy is not practical. The application of each is highly limited. So to have some heroes, a couple folks who spent a lifetime following an aspiration for themselves, is like having people cheering you on from the finish line. If I found the stories of Oyama and Musashi to be depressing, or terrifying, then I would know for sure that I needed to drop the philosophy and get myself a real job.
I had a friend from back in oregon visit for the last five days. It is interesting how your conversations change depending on how long you've known someone for. I was thinking about it, and it isn't just the conversations that change. It is almost as if you personally change who you are depending on who is around, and how long you have known them. Maybe the emphasis is more on when you meet someone. I always imagine my friends as basically the same as how they were when we became friends. So people I met when they were 14, I still picture them as that 14 year old version of themselves, the new wrinkles, haircut, and height and weight changes are purely cosmetic.
~Mas Oyama~
Mas Oyama was the founder of the hardest hitting, hardest training school of karate. Learning martial arts when he was 9, he continued to train under various masters until he turned 23. Then, inspired by the works of Musashi, he spent two and a half years training alone in the mountains. He trained for 12 hours a day, and shaved off one eyebrow to help resist the temptation to return to society. Mas trained by breaking river stones, and punching a tree for hours at a time. When he finished living like an animal in the mountains, he traveled around japan and the globe, winning competitions and holding demonstrations. In 1952, he travelled the United States for a year, demonstrating his karate live and on national televison. During subsequent years, he took on all challengers, resulting in fights with 270 different people. The vast majority of these were defeated with one punch! A fight never lasted more than three minutes, and most rarely lasted more than a few seconds. His fighting principle was simple - if he got through to you, that was it. If he hit you, you broke. If you blocked a rib punch, your arm was broken or dislocated. If you didn't block, your rib was broken. He became known as the Godhand, a living manifestation of the Japanese warriors' maxim Ichi geki, Hissatsu or "One strike, certain death". To him, this was the true aim of technique in karate. The fancy footwork and intricate techniques were secondary.
There are videos of this guy karate chopping the horns off of charging bulls. He was able to kill a full grown bull instantly with a punch to the head.
Why do I bring this up? Do I have some kind of secret, longstanding anti-bull agenda?
Well, not really. Unless I am in a paddock or locked room with a bull, I have no problem with them. The whole "able to kill a bull" thing was only brought up as an indication of how hard this guy trained, and what he was able to achieve. When I read about people like this, I can't help but be inspired. Doing philosophy, I'm sometimes confronted by the straight up impracticality of it. The use of philosophy can be hard to pin down, if it has a use at all. Looking out my window at the busy world of commerce, folks going about the daily business of living, can make doing a purely academic practice seem distant and removed. There is of course a good reason for the feeling of distance, the fact is that 'regular folks' are largely divorced from the philosophical squabbles in the academic sphere. No one cares if private languages are possible, or how it is that objects can maintain identity despite changing properties. And if they do care, they can't spend the majority of the day thinking about it, because there are things to be done. Contemplation is competing for leisure time, not working time.
So I feel a little out of touch sometimes. I'm dedicating huge portions of my time/life to a pursuit that falls outside of the everyday, and outside of the practical. I think that is why I find so much to look up to in guys like Mas Oyama and Musashi. Karate is not practical in much the same way that philosophy is not practical. The application of each is highly limited. So to have some heroes, a couple folks who spent a lifetime following an aspiration for themselves, is like having people cheering you on from the finish line. If I found the stories of Oyama and Musashi to be depressing, or terrifying, then I would know for sure that I needed to drop the philosophy and get myself a real job.
I had a friend from back in oregon visit for the last five days. It is interesting how your conversations change depending on how long you've known someone for. I was thinking about it, and it isn't just the conversations that change. It is almost as if you personally change who you are depending on who is around, and how long you have known them. Maybe the emphasis is more on when you meet someone. I always imagine my friends as basically the same as how they were when we became friends. So people I met when they were 14, I still picture them as that 14 year old version of themselves, the new wrinkles, haircut, and height and weight changes are purely cosmetic.