Budo: An Okie's translation

Aikido works best once you've taken the trash out.  The old timers call it an empty mind. Competition, trying to win seems to gather the trash.  Same thing with trying not to lose.   People like to compete because it gives them a measuring stick of how good they are. Its a room full of fake boobs.  There is a difference between how good you are in relation to some phony  measuring sticks and standards and how good you are in relation to the deep shit life drops on you.

Competition has the notion of  external enemies.  Survival has the notion of  weathering bad situations independent of people.       

I've been trying to take the trash out here lately.  Trying to put my self in that state of mind where I have no external enemies, no assholes to deal with. The biggest asshole is me, or more specifically all the ignorant ass notions I have in my mind.   You don't have to be a Morty Youshiba to understand this shit.  Ever had so much on your mind that you ran a red light? Maybe because you were dealing with the inner asshole.  

I don't know what budo is.  It's a old timey Japanese concept.  You had to be old timey and Japanese to fully understand it.  The way Indians used to have 50 different ways to say brown, or the Eskimos 50 different ways to say snow, or the pacific islanders had 50 different ways to describe the ocean waves.    

An empty mind isnt the same as not giving a shit.  I havent been so scared that Ive taken a dump in my pants, but that's the common knowledge about fear in relation to shit.  I suppose that the term "not giving a shit" means "holding your shit together."   That when faced with a  dangerous situation not shitting your pants seems to be the standard measure of preliminary success. 

One old timer said don't blink.  Another old timer said go ahead and blink, its natural.  Not blinking means suppression of natural actions.  I don't think that an empty mind has anything about suppressing emotions.  Emotional responses are like blinking.  I don't think that martial arts training keeps you from being scared shitless.   It just allows you to treat being scared shitless like blinking.  Same thing with getting pissed off.

  Looking to box things up into explainable actions: the walking, the releases, the 17, the big 10 makes for a good story. A cause and effect.  But it eventually becomes  potential  trash that needs to be taken out.  Failure in randori amounts to holding on to the wrong response, holding on to the trash.  That's dealing with the internal asshole, the guy standing in front of you has nothing to do with it.    
Kata is a box.  A box fills up.  You keep it or you throw it out, in relation to the deep shit life throws at you. 

I think Iaido is the purest martial art there is.  It's all kata.  If you were ever in deep shit and happened to have a sword in your hand, I think you'd know what to throw out and what to keep.  Most of Iaido is dealing with the inner asshole, the guy who just has to have his way.  It take's this dude a minute and a half to draw his sword.  All the proper sitting, and skirt tucking, is squaring away the inner asshole.  There is more non sword shit, than sword shit.  I think that's budo.   Bujutsu, or being an effective asshole, tends to have more sword shit.  Its more about the winning.