painting a dragons eyes

I have practiced three martial arts.  Karate in my teens, Aikido in my late thirties and early forties, and writing.  They say the pen is mightier than the sword, so that means writing is a martial art.  If you are familiar with that dead lady Ayn Rand, a novelist, you may have an understanding of how her dipshit ideas are influencing american politics.  I'm not  trying to  go into politics here.  The bail out of rich companies who deserved to fall on thier ass and disappear, while allowing an American City like Detroit to go down the tubes is all Ayn Rand.  The power of words from a really shitty novelist.  If the people of Detroit had the choice between getting punched in the face and living in a bankrupt city,  They'd probably take a punch in the face.  No telling how many folks suffer because of other peoples dumb ideas.  striking arts are much more gentle than writing arts.    

Enough of that horseshit.  

Anyway,  There are two books that influence my Aikido thinking.  One is called Zen Mind, Beginners mind, and the other is an interpretation of the same book applied to writing called Writing Down the Bones.  I got an Audio version of the zen book and listened to it on cassette tape till it wore out. I absorbed it.  I took the writing book and did what it told me to do.  I bought a fast fountain pen and wrote and wrote, I think I filled up two coffee cans full of ink cartridges.  I still have a milk crate of old writings in a closet somewhere making a perfect place for a rats nest.  my old ideas aren't going to hurt anyone. They are kind to the rats.  

The principles of Aikido and writing are the same. The martial arts carry a saying, I think it comes from Musashi : fast is slow and slow is fast.  A good speedy pen is like slow randori practice.  It allows you to get your ideas out on the page quicker.  Fast, English Style Randori,  is like writing with a dull golf pencil.  It will strengthen your hand and build endurance, but you will lose ideas, and therefore express fewer ideas.  Both are good for something.

We learn the rules of writing in school.  Capitalize this. Put a a period here, commas and shit.  We learn to keep in the margins.  We learn how to spell.  We learn to not write bad words or we go to the principles office.   We learn how to write, but we also learn limitation.   Tegatana no kata, 8 releases, 17 kata.  Of the three, Tegatana is the most expansive, but you have to learn to write outside of the margins and read between the lines of your own writing/kata practice.  Use the basics, but don't be limited.  

Tomiki has a quote,  something about how his way of aikido was adding eyes to a painted dragon.  Other styles just teach you how to write. periods, margins, don't write bad words.  good legibility.  that sorta shit.  Tomiki taught folks how to read. A guy can look at any other aiki art and tell whats going on.  And with the idea of koryu kata he gave us literature.

In writing all you need is a writing tool and something to write on, and a good place to write.   In aikido you need Two guys on the same level, and place for two guys to stand.   You can write on a pile of sticky notes with small compressed, yet powerful ideas.  That's daito ryu suwari waza.  or you could do Koryu dai go kata on the whole damned mat.  You can write your own shit in randori.

Garage aikido will be a different aikido than a Big Mat aikido.  Don't be limited by your space.  Let the space do what it wants.  You may be defined more by your practice space and mat, than your techniques.   We discount enviroment.   You are your space and your first 10 good training partners.  I have a space and I have had maybe 2 or 3 good training partners.  So I aint quite fully formed yet. I'm a rough draft.  hopefully, I aint a rough draft of a phone book.  Maybe I'll be Green Eggs and Ham. Maybe I'll be a good rats nest in a milk crate.  

This week I got to do Koryu dai go, most of it.   When you do a kata, write down a few impressions.  Bubble map what you can remember.  Then try what you recall.  That's your kata.  Don't criticize or edit.  Do it for a few weeks.  Then go back and review.  Then bubble map it, and make another personal kata.  Then go back and review.  Eff order, eff left hand right hand. Do this for as long as feel like it.  Don't try to memorize Moby Dick.  Read it and talk about it to someone who likes Moby Dick.  They'll bring up parts that you missed.   A blind dude learns how to see.  A dragon gets its eyes painted.