Yon Kata: The fish, observation, an aikido for educrats, and the reality of waves.

When folks think of Kenji Tomiki, they probably think of his connections.  His main two connections with the human world were Kano and Youshiba.  A lot of folks see Tomiki Aikido is a mix up of the things he learned via his connections.  This is judo, mixed with aikido, they say.  Its really the principles of kito ryu and the principles of daito ryu applied to that narrow sliver of territory where judo and aikido mechanically meet.

Educators know this as a venn diagram.  A one time interesting way of looking things that has totally been calcified into standard way of thinking by educational corporations and the educrats who serve them.


  That fish shape is where Tomiki aikido exists.  My particular Branch of Aikido tends to bulge a little more towards the Judo Bubble.  Which is frustrating for a Non-Judo player, until you can figure out enough of what is going on in Judo, and the Judo mind set.  A lot of  my criticism of my particular branch stems from my personal lack of understanding of all things Judo, which I think can be remedied for future students if we put koshiki no kata into the Aikido curriculum where it belongs.   

I would take Judo classes, but I spent the last five years practicing certain Tomiki aikido movement patterns.  Ive become more interested in seeing the permutations of these movement patterns instead learning something else new.  I wont pick up a Jo stick for the same reason.   I reserve the right to change my mind at anytime in the future.  My son is getting closer and closer to Judo age, and Pops might have to go with him.  

Folks who can learn several things at once, are pretty good at learning rules, and organizing.  Its the same thing as remembering that silverware belongs in the kitchen and not the sock drawer.  There are folks that will stop me when I start putting socks in a drawer in the kitchen, even though its closer to the place where I actually put on my shoes. 

 I have found that when you allow your self to be an observer, sometimes you gain more than you would by being a participant. You aren't burdened with how to bow, and how to hold a stick, or how to curl your foot to trip somebody.  If you look at what you observe and try to look for the overlaps, the fish shapes. then you will be better off for it.   If you look at it like a beauty contest judge, or practicality then you'll rob yourself of some insight. 

If I was really in control of my learning I could go into Jodo class and say I really dont want to learn anything that doesnt have to do with footwork and pushing with a stick  All I want to see is the footwork and pushing.  Then I could go to a judo class and say I want to see all the ways you guys grab folks, then come grab me an show me what you do when you grab.  The I could go to iaido class and say I dont give a shit about how to fold my dress under my knees,   just show me the cutting angles.  Then I could go to karate class and tell em all im interested in is the stretching and cardio and sparring.

But I'm not rich enough to get away with that kind of thing and surround myself with people who would put up with me.  It should sound familiar to you.  Its pretty much the story of Aikido.







Tomiki was just as influenced by the educratic philosophy of Waseda University as he was Kano and Youshiba.  I read that when he wanted to do aikido he had to make a system that was measurable and objective.  Basically students, and the bureaucrats at Waseda needed a format to see progress, and show progress.  That means competition.

This picture tells a big story.  Its not so much for students, as it is to for a long dead bureaucrat somewhere.  Tomiki dresses the part, he uses big dumb motions, and uses the latest in edunology: a photo with an arrow drawn on it.    Here is what I'm teaching boys.  Trust me.  I aint over here reading the newspaper, and flirting with the Co-eds.

I dont want to mix my business with pleasure here.  But anything you hear about standardized education, high stakes testing, test scores, "failing schools" falling behind other countries that you probably dont give a crap about, then you understand the waseda plan.

It was just a philosophy back then, a guide post of sorts.  Now its become a crippling reality.  We have in effect become post -war Japanese in our educational system.    I dont know who came up with it, Us or Them, or our Lizard Alien Overlord puppet masters.  But its here. 

Imagine a competition only Judo class.  Most folks would quit.  Because they can't demonstrate and actualize the standards.  Here in Texas we are going to see a tsunami of highschool drop outs in the next few years.  And they aren't your standard drop out.  They tried, but in a standardized based society there is no "A" for effort. 



Look at the Kyogi film again. Except look at it as a film to justify yourself to an educrat.    Its basically a list of Tomiki standards.  The measureable and objective building blocks.  Its not for the students so much as a show case for the Educrats. But unlike standards in public school they can actually be fun to do, until they become the only thing you are allowed to do.

I have never been to Japan, and I really dont want to go, but I heard that there are Tomiki University Clubs over there that graduate 3rd and 4th dans who never do Aikido again.  There is probably a guy over there who can blow Morty Youshiba out of the water, sitting in a cube doing TPS reports for the Nintendo corporation.   He probably got tired of being someones actualized standard.  


  But really the real check on the system is the spiritual underpinnings that lay in these two odd ball judo katas.  I came to the not so brilliant conclusion the other night that Judo katas express the Japanese connection to their environment, to their reality more than actual fighting techniques.  There is a lot of  wave actions.  Like ocean waves.

 


1. It is impossible to beat something in its true form.

2.  you can win without resisting.

3.  when two things turning meet, they continue turning and then naturally separate.

4.  A big wave comes in, and when it goes back it washes away and filters everything in its path.

5.  When two big objects collide they destroy each other, but when they never meet they will continue to exist stress free. 

Koshiki kata as far as my non-judo self is concerned holds  these principles in action.  

If you  look real close at the Kyogi video you wont see a whole lot of this going on.  Because the principles in these katas can't be objectified or demonstrated.  They are natural products. You may have to sit in a duck blind and wait for them to creep out of the tree line.  In the Shodokan world there is an attempt to objectify highly subjective things like off balance and Kuzushi.

There are good lessons for doing kata in this way.  Where a guy just puts his arm out.   If slow is the best way to learn, then there is no slower than "hold still".    objects hold still.  Subjects are relative.

The thing is that the Shodokan 17 have to look the same so they can be judged by independent observers.  There has to be good ones out there, so you can pick out the bad ones.   When two guys dance around with a foam tanto the guy who make something "look" like this is going to win.  In terms of movement the kata reflects a human idea imposing its view on the world. How things should be instead of how things really are.  Two folks that agree to what ever standard, agreed upon idea, needs to be actuallized. 

It becomes more natural in its ura waza state, where the wave actually comes in and goes back.   I'm going to have to learn those ura waza.  

Yon Kata has become my favorite koryu kata.  I think this kata is an aikidoized version of those two odd ball judo katas.  I think it reflects reality the more Artificial it becomes. The less it models actual human response in human conflict the better it actually shows how to handle conflict.  You can see the waves, and people need to see the waves.  I dont think that you can learn the deeper nature of martial arts if you get stuck on self defense and competition.  

                                                                  

Waves, Kito, and Rocks.

Miyake Sensei told the wise men of my branch that Tomiki Aikido was part Kito ryu and Daito ryu.  Most folks think that the daito ryu is obviously the joint locks and shit.  But I've been studying up on the Shodokan take on things, and what Tomiki actually did was extract the kenjutsu principles that he was sure lay at the heart of daito ryu and lay them out there.  Because in Shodokan, those guys study a lot of maai and timing, and angles. 

If you do a poor man's research, and you google up some kito ryu.  You'll find that koshiki no kata is what kito ryu is.  So lets take a look at some koshiki:

I was drinking coffee the other morning.  thinking about my releases/ 7 forms of kuzushi and trying to peice it all together.

I got thinking about kito ryu.  how its supposed to translate out to rise and fall.  Here is a clip of the main Japanese Sensei of my Texhomiki line.
Her name is Miyake.  We do this goofy finger flick on hiki taoshi that has to come from her, and I guarantee this is where we get our interpretation from. 

Anyway, I got thinking about how Japan is a sea shore kind of country.  It being an Island, and all. And I got thinking about those waves.

Then I got thinking about that other kata they mention that has a lot of influence on things. that itsutsu no kata.  the one that has two guys pretending like they are birds or something.


then I got thinking about Shinto and Japanese gardens and nature and stuff.  and those waves.  As a guy who aint seen the ocean except maybe four or five times, I imagine they can make an impression on you if you live around them all your life. 


Then I got thinking that koshiki and that bird kata didnt have nothing to do with fighting at all.  That they were just about waves and stuff being tossed around.

Then I started thinking of YON KATA. And how it has a whole different relationship with the waves than koshiki does.  In koshiki you are inside the ocean being tossed about, and in Yon its almost like you are the rocks swirling the ocean around. 

                                                                

Anyway,  I got thinking about the releases, 7 types of kuzushi.   How the waves in Jodan almost go all the way over the rock, and how the chudan goes to the sides, and how the gedan hits the rock and goes all the way up and curls back.

I dont think we are learning how to fight boys and girls.     I think the whole big lesson is about effing waves and shit.  

Square on Aikido versus Tai sabaki Aikido

I think that as far as I'm concerned there is two types of aikido square on aikido and tai sabaki aikido.  square on is related to Judo.  The tai sabaki aikido assumes you are dealling with an attacker who attacks at a certain distance and wishes to remain at that distance.  Anyway, the thing we call the walking kata had its origins with Tai sabaki, with getting out of the way, and generating ideas from how you got out of the way.  But it got changed to the point where its hard to see what it relates to. 

I came to a conclusion a few months back that Judo had a lot of Influence on my particular branch of Tomiki Aikido.  I can look at a lot of standardized Shodokan and compare back to what I've been taught and its getting crystal clear.  Most of my bitching and complaining comes from my technical frustration with trying to figure out the best way for me to do things,  the rationale behind the things that I've been messing with, and practical applications, and what kind of philosophy or mindset lies behind the techniques as they have been passed down the line. 

Every year because of my job, I have to take a 3 month semi-sabbatical, from Aikido so I do more thinking about it than practice.  What I have to do is a lot of  walking kata in the kitchen to get my physical activity in.  So to get anything out of it I have to do it like Tomiki did it, instead of slower more thoughtful approach you get in class.  It was by doing these movements over and over and essentially posed the question to question to my self, " Why am I doing this, what in the hell is this for?" 

The answers were out there and dipshit obvious.  But because I never practiced the movements in the original intent of the movement they still made little sense to me.  I'd say that the shodokan folks that happen on this particular blog might think I'm an ignorant hick for not knowing this, but I think they are subject to a lot of the same tunnel vision, I gotta do this to make my next rank, meta randori thinking that everybody else does.  Everybody is subject to looking at things so hard that they fail to notice that they've stuck their head up their own ass. 

Here is a clip that I have studied a lot.  Its basically a walk through of the whole Tomiki System.  I have heard stories that folks in my branch had studied Tomiki Aikido for maybe 15 years or more before they even laid eyes on this film.  The main question is where in the hell is the Kuzushi?  And that Tomiki is doing it all wrong.  About 97 percent of the folks in my line of Tomiki dont even recognize this clip as a point of discussion or reference.  It is an apple, and we like oranges. 

Another influence on my suspicions and notions is watching  Classical Jodo.  At the same time, I was wondering what in the hell the walking kata was for, I was seeing the same kinds of footwork principles, and evasion principles in the Shodokan line, and in the Unsoku steps, as I was in  Classical Jodo.  I was beginning to wonder why I didnt move like that in Aikido.  Seeing as I spend four months out of the year doing that in the kitchen or in backyard.

Then I started actually studying what I could about the Japanese Shodokan System.  I bought Nariyamas Aikido Randori, and I spent a chunk getting a copy of Aikido: Tradition and the Competitive Edge By Shishida and Nariyama.  I figured that I'd read a lot of hard headed stuff, this based on the fact that nearly every Nariyama Demostration shows him plowing into a very limber and resilient college kid.  But what you get between the Technical details, is a discussion of principle and rationale behind the system. 

Here's my Friend Nick showing the possibilities on Gyaku gamae ate.

Essentially the difference is in the purpose and original intent of the Unsoku.  The Unsoku is hard wired into principles of maai, evasion, and kuzushi, its tai sabaki based.   My line of Tomiki Aikido assumes a square on relationship between Tori and Uke( a judo mentality), the thing that changes this square on relationship is something Ive written about before is the cross arm offbalance. and the Unsoku steps are kinda, sorta irrelevant. 

This is why I say my line is Judo Influenced, because Japanese Shodokan will use a side step to get offline.  They dont look to change the direction of the attack through an offbalance. 

Here's another guy who seems to be on the same Judo based square on mentality wavelength. You can see his balance breaking ideas as well. 

The Japanese versions are  literally Atemi waza that have been made safe as possible for Randori.  The concept is that you hit a guy and he falls in one blow coming from one direction.  Unlike a hard strike in Karate where all your power is expended.  In Aikido you apply soft atemi with your whole body in order to conserve your energy.  You usually hit a guy with the softer parts of your arm/hand and try to fit in as far as possible for safety. Before Tomiki, Shomenate was seen as a technique that you use when confronted with many opponents.  Watch any Gozo Shioda clip and you will see it. 

The Japanese concept of Kuzushi is different on Atemi Waza.   They see balance breaking as an effect of the motion of applying atemi waza.  That certain folks will either back up, or flinch away from(thereby fitting into) the technique.  They are done with the notion that you are trying to hit the guy regardless of whether you broke his balance, but they depend on a spinelock to get the throw. 

 Here is Nariyama showing this kind of Atemi waza.  But there are Japanese teachers who teach the possibilities of slight balance breaks in these Techniques. But the common thread is vacating space and creating a lane for movement to apply the technique.  These are not done with a square on mentality where you have to veer a persons center away from you. 

My point on this is that the unsoku steps are very connected to opening lanes of movement for the techniques. Aigamae Ate depends on an open lane where you have stepping room outside of his feet.  The side steps are initial evasions that assume a certain timing in the technique but they also open up a lane. 

Heres a gal who has a lot of interesting shodokan clips on the web that shows the lane opening ideas.  Also notice the front and back steps.  Those are maai concepts.  Basically stand far enough away to where you are safe but be able to effect things with one step.  The back step gets safety back but allows a step forward.  Tomiki said you need to have a footspan between your front and back foot.  Basically this is the space you put a foot in to exert maai.  

  

The back step offers a certain type of kuzushi which is Jodan Kuzushi (yon kata 1-2).  The side steps offer the lane of movement that is needed for chudan kuzushi 1st/3rd release.  The turning corner steps offer Gedan kuzushi 2nd/4th release.  They also inform what atemi waza are available. The principle being hit with the nearest hand.

Another thing is that there are 19 basic techniques in the Tomiki Curriculum.  5 Atemi, 6 Hiji, and 8 tekubi.  Uki waza are not covered until randori no kata/ junanahon.   Principle wise everything starts with Atemi because Aikido starts from a separated state. The rationale on joint techniques is restraining an attacking arm from attacking again.  So the primary lesson is basically positioning and footwork that gives you the most leverage for restraint.  Kuzushi is always great, but thats not what is covered in the Kihon. 

The 17 kata has been called kihon, but its really made for randori.  The techniques that couldnt be modified for safety were not put into the 17.  And interesting enough 3 uki waza are included.  The Nariyama book claims that these are adapted Judo techniques,  I always wondered about this because I have seen other Aikido schools do mae and sumi otoshi. 

My basic take on these being classified as techniques from Judo is basically that you can't train Judo out of people.  Once you develop a motor pattern that makes sense and works for you its hard not to go back to it.  In fact it becomes impossible.  I figure this is why my Branch of Tomiki never got into the  competititive Randori side of things.  Because a Judo player is basically going to have to restrain himself from doing what comes naturally.  He's going to be in a constant state of crap I cant do this, and pronounce the whole process as being lame.  These techniques were basically there to allow folks who had a Judo sensitivity to play aikido.  Its my theory so I'm probably wrong.   

The main thread in the Uki waza is that they transiton from a square on position into a throw and like i said, judo is pretty much square on.

Mae otoshi is supposed to be related to  a thing called tai otoshi.  What I see is a guy with his arm extended out. Its almost like mae otoshi is taught from the stand point of: think  Tai Otoshi and then switch hands and step to the outside. When he recovers throw his ass with mae otoshi 

I'm not a judo guy so Im probably catastrophically wrong. 

I'm sure some one will mention something about its related to feet or something, but out the standard 17( not the Geis line 17) these techniques seem to originate square on. Shiho nage starts outside in the standard 17 almost with the feeling of cutting across the center instead of starting square on/

How would you throw a judo player a bone with Aikido Randori?   

sumi otoshi is an easy stretch and you can see the relation to Uki otoshi in combination. But really all these techniques are related to te waza in judo. And Te waza is probably to closest intersection between aikido and judo.

Heres a Hakama dude and his sumi otoshi.  It looks better that I could ever do, but hes probably clueless on what to do if it doesnt work. Thank you Tomiki and Kano. 






anyway, the randori kata does deal with square on ideas from judo.  The nature of competitive randori allows it.  Like everything else, I may be talking out of my ass, but I think the rules on tanto stabs are that your hips have to move through space to be legal.  That is why they sit there and dance around square on so much looking like to judo players with a judo phobia. But There are folks out there looking at taking the judo phobia dance out of Toshu Randori by using a 3 second square on rule.


Anyway, there are pretty much two types of aikido the square on aikido versus Tai sabaki aikido.  Square on wants to veer off and deflect the other guys center, while the other lets the guys center go where it wants and creates a lane of movement to the side.  tai sabaki makes the walking kata make sense so I like it better.   

Culture, Historical Environment, and the Martial Arts

I read about this experiment once where they got these young men to pass each other in a hall way that was obstructed by a filing cabinet. If I recall what I read correctly, and odds are I didnt, one dude was in on the experiment and the other wasnt.  The inside guy was supposed to shoulder bump the lab rat dude and say something along the lines of "eff you."  Then they looked at how certain folks responded, I think they had them write down their feelings,  looked at how long they took to calm down if they got pissed off, and I think somewhere down the line they took blood samples or something to see what was going on as far as pissed off hormones getting shot into the blood stream.

Northerners, especially those who came from  tight knit agricultural communities along the lines of something you'd see on Little House on the Prairie were they first to shrug it off, even think it was funny, and forget about it.  The Southerners and Borderlanders( that strip of states that separate the North from the South) epecially those whose background was more of the poorer, subsistence level, agricultural background,  got pissed off and stayed pissed off.  In fact they got more worked up the more they thought about it and talked about it.  

The explanation was that people were a product of not only their present environment, but also their historical environment.  If a group of folks live in a certain area, or under a certain circumstance, for a few hundred years then that environment is going to mold whatever human being is adaptable to whatever environment it is.  A lot of folks want to connect this do darwinism, but its just common sense.  Everybody knows that a kid who grows up in a shitty environment is going to aquire social skills and survival skills to deal with that environment.  This applies for groups overtime.  Its a social, cultural genetic environmental cocktail effect.

Anyway, Its been figured out that pretty much all of the folks that get pissed easy, and stay pissed come from Northern England/Low Land Scotland.  The cultural Label for them is Scotch-Irish.  But what they are in reality is borderlanders/Buffer people.  It used to be policy for countries to move all their lowerclass problem folks out towards the border.   That way they got messed with first when problems cropped up, and by doing so it thinned out their numbers.  For the Upperclass, it was a Win-Win situation.   This Buffering the border with problem folks goes all the way back to when the Roman's built Hadrians Wall. What arose was clan warfare.  Burning and pillaging was a way of life so folks never got a real sense of property based security and comfort.  Basically, whats here today is probably going to be gone tomorrow.  So get used to it. 

The old saying that good fences makes good neighbors applies to this situation.  What happened in this area was it got overpopulated and all the trees got cut down and their wasnt piles of rocks to make fences.  So what happened is your livestock wondered all over the place to either be stolen or to trample over somebodies pathetic attempt at farming.  There was basically no reason for anybody to move from one place to another except to steal something or recover stolen property, or settle a score, so naturally strangers weren't particularly welcome, and so people got comfortable with xenophobia. 

About the only way for you to get along and protect your stuff is through a culture of personal honor and loyalty.  When someone messed with you, your stuff. or your kin, the severity of your response built up your reputation, and in this type of environment your reputation and the reputation of your kin is your " good fence that makes good neighbors." 

This kind of cocktail brewed for about a thousand years or so and then it got exported to Northern Ireland and the American Backcountry.   In the United States it Manifested itself in Genocidal Indian Wars,  Really Pissy Guerrilla Tactics that helped to secure Independence from Britain, the irrational 2nd amendment to the Constitution, the Powder Keg in waiting that was the American Civil War, Old West Lawlessness, the Famous Hatfield and Mccoy feuds(which was really a series of back country disputes where the Xenophobia turned inward.)

Nowadays, these cultural tendencies are just hair triggers to be exploited by slick politicians to scare the "stupid" white  lower class folks into being afraid of minoritiees, or to stir up public sentiment so corporations can use the military to steal somebodies stuff over seas. Its a simple divide an conquer strategy that folks are more than  happy to blindly go along with.  It presses all the right buttons. 

Anyway,  I say all this because Historically I belong to this type of group.  I can remember everybody that has pissed me off since the 2nd grade.  I also happen to have a Native American background, and while I think the Scotch Irish shit overrides anything that my Native American genes may have to offer, I do think I inherited the my shut up and watch tendencies from the Natives.  I have always liked to watch folks, make eye contact to figure folks out, and look out the window all day long. So the Japanese concept of Metsuke makes a lot of sense to me. 

A lot of my skepticism of the Martial Arts comes from my background.  Most folks dont care to admit it, but martial arts comes from the dueling mindset.  Some body stepped over a line, pissed someone off, and two guys have "squared off" to settle things. Maai and Metsuke explain it all.  A lot of folks try to teach martial arts from a self defense perspective but self defense for me equates to 3-5 young guys jumping my ass at a time and place of their choosing.

When you make eye contact you are really seeing what folks associate you with and what opinions they have formed about you.  They either dont notice you because they are wrapped up with something else, ignore you because you make them uncomfortable, if this is the case they usually find ways to point their bodies away from you, or they ignore you aggressively by pretending that you aren't there, Teenagers, especially girls are good at this, and so are wanna be alpha males and alpha males who are slipping. 

I notice a lot of big time Akikai dudes wont look anybody in the eye.  

All that does, is set off the, " you think you're better than me." hair trigger.   Guys who wear dresses need to make a little eye contact or they are going to open a can of something. 

If a boss tells you to come to his office, and does paper work while you fidget, this is what you are getting.    Everybody, Has run into someone at wal-mart who is thrown into social Kuzushi by seeing you.  Its because you remind them of a social environment that makes them uncomfortable.  And they arent living up to that standard at that particular moment because instead of a suit and tie, or a dress, or the crowd the usually surround themselves with,  they are  alone, in sweats, and a t-shirt with a mustard stain on it. 

When you make eye contact in a dueling contest,  a lot can be said about maintaining eye contact.  If a guy keeps eye balling you it means he's either trying to intimidate you into backing out, or he thinks very little of you.  If he doesnt make eye contact its either because he's afraid of you, or either made up his mind he's going to see it through.  If he breaks and returns, he's thinking about his reputation.  A lot can be said about when he breaks eye contact, or when he begins.  But the best way to deescalate a guy is by not eyeballing him back.  Let him win the little staring match if that makes him feel better. 

Nishio said this about Atemi.  I like Nishio because he says some pretty redneck things in a very polite Japanese way.  He said that with Atemi you take their words.  Eye contact can say one thing.  But when you put Atemi on someone, they have to form another opinion about you pretty quick.  If they are already scared, hitting them once can confirm it.  If they think they are better than you,  slamming them first fractures their safe world view.   Basically, everybody has a plan or opinion until they get hit in the mouth.  

Stepping backward or forward is another form of communication.  Sometimes you can intimidate folks by adjusting the distance, other times a foot forward says a lot.  

Anyway, Atemi is a cultural mindset. Its a form of communication.  Attitude adjustment. or the Taking of words.  In a dojo, Atemi cant exist in this way.  Atemi is a mechanical, theoretical thing.  not a form of communication. 

Its hard for me to buy into a lot of martial arts ideas because of the  Scotch-irish cultural ideas of escalation and righteous assault.  A lot of folks tell me that so and so in his prime could of have kicked my ass, especially if I write about them in an unfavorable way.  But in my Universe, in the slow cooked Cultural Borderlander universe,  you can study all the Kodokan Judo, BJJ, Put your Toe through a tire,  break a block of ice with your head shit you want, but you aint got a solution for a baseball bat to the knee cap that you didnt see coming.  It's acceptable if you are the bigger asshole, and you had it coming.  It's solving a problem outside, the duelling framework. 

I can say that the Martial Arts has helped me past identify the cultural/genetic hair triggers I have.  But by recognizing my hair triggers,  I also see that competitive environment is a form of a safety valve. I recognize that what we are studying is in the framework of a two man duel, it isnt self defense. It's about two guys mutually crossing a certain line. Randori allows folks to get past a lot of ignorant ass notions with out bringing about harmful effects to everybody else.  The problem is, and a lot of BJJ guys believe this, that their ideas of gaming and dueling can fit any situation.  From assaults to guns, to zombie apocalypses, to soccer riots. 

I dont see any problem with the "game" of Tomiki Aikido.   And I'm probably going to explore the game more than the martial art side for awhile, because culturally martial thinking sets off too many hair triggers. Martial Arts is about climbing, about getting over ideas and ignorant notions,  and people dont want to take your word for it, they want to climb the same mountain you did, so they can get over it.  And "it", is different for everybody.