Comments | kenshusei: Whaddaya Want?!

kenshusei

Whaddaya Want?!

Jun 29, 2007 14:03

This is shamelessly cross-posted from another blog I maintain.

As you might guess by reading this blog, martial arts have a near and dear place among the chambers of my heart. Were you to look at my schedule, you might not think the same thing. I get to the dojo once a week and spend a little bit of time every day practicing.

I've been thinking a ( Read more... )

psychology, budo, learning

Comments 10

balanceinchaos June 29 2007, 18:31:44 UTC

That, actually, is the fundamental essense of any magical effort. Clear intent, consistency of practice, & repetition, will amplify and increase the tangible results of any magical work. As such, Ueshiba Morihei may very well have been "blessed" and able to do metahuman feats with kami... but it was, as you surmise, more the result of his dedication than divine intervention.

kittengrin June 30 2007, 03:04:04 UTC

"To know, to will, to dare, to be silent"?

balanceinchaos June 30 2007, 03:12:32 UTC

Nice to meet someone else who has studied a bit deeper than llewelyn books. *grin*

Those are the nessecary characteristics of the initiate of mysteries, or any spiritual student.

Magic, however, can be done by anyone ... for in the end a simply prayer, if done properly, is the most basic form of magic.

kittengrin June 30 2007, 04:50:13 UTC

Not like it takes MUCH to study deeper than the Llewelyn books :p

Question, though: how do you define "properly done" prayer? Any random person kneeling in church and asking God for help with the bills, or something more focused and intent? That sort of also gets into views of the divine, whether as entirely man-made or otherwise.

Thread 7

kalilove June 29 2007, 18:54:34 UTC

you forgot

4. to punk down cats and use the force to catch runaway chins

willowfey June 29 2007, 20:13:43 UTC

I don't know about the whole "gifted" thing. I'm working with that subject now and with some of the kids you come across you've just got to to stop and say "holy fuck, that kid is RETARDED smart". I think it's more an issue of what we define as gifted versus talented... Most teachers who have had "gifted" students will tell you that often times the children put in little or no time or effort, the "gifted" can sometimes be the hardest to motivate.

... or maybe I'm just focusing too much on the gifted class I'm taking...

Wow, this ended up rambly and not being nearly as clear as I hoped. drgnsyr July 2 2007, 00:31:48 UTC

But perhaps that is the difference between gifted and genius. I was (am?) gifted. Education came easy to me. If I went to class, I didn't need to study. People were surprised by the "random" information I knew while I was bemused because it was all stuff we went over in class. The difference was that it would be stuff we went over in class three years before that was never on a test. I remembered it anyway, most people didn't. I went to college at 16, I graduated at 19. I had a 3.3 GPA because 3.2 was the minimum to keep my scholarship. I never put in more effort than was absolutely necessary to accomplish the minimum of what I considered successful and most of the time that was little or no effort at all ( ... )