Category: Philosophy

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Be indifferent to where you live

I am rediscovering Miyamoto Musash’s writings for myself. “Go Rin No Sho” (“The Book of Five Rings”) and “Dokkodo” (“The Way of Walking Alone”) are some incredible texts. It is amazing how universally applicable the specific teachings are, way beyond kendo. Actually, when I first came across these books many years ago, I did not even practice kendo, and it was the universal nature of Musashi’s advice that caught my attention. Now, coming back to these books (though “Dokkodo” is probably too short of text to be called a book) from a different point in life, I find them even more impressive.

But the Path that Musashi pained so clearly is tough to follow. Any one of the 21 precepts of “Dokkodo” is deceptively simple in its description, but challenging if you look at it closely. Take “Be indifferent to where you live,” for example. I kind of like Victoria. Just yesterday, on our daily commutes around town we saw eight deer. Not in a group, but eight separate deer sightings! Actually, deer are viewed a bit like pests here, but if I think about it, it’s a pity to take this proximity to wildlife for granted. Also, the fact that I can simply put on my running shoes during a lunch break and in a few minutes be in a forest (well, it’s a park actually) so old and dark that it’s cold even in the middle of a sunny day is fantastic. I really missed my usual running path when I was in Milan last year.

My kendo sensei says that there is a good argument in support of the hypothesis that Musashi is a synthetic or perhaps even a completely fictional character. I hope this is not the case. Regardless, the teachings that are attributed to Musashi are remarkably cool in their directness and generality, so he is an inspiration, whether he physically existed or not.

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Favourite things to do

My daughter asked what was my favorite thing to do when I was a child (she said that she knew that now my favorite thing to do was hugging her and kissing my wife). I thought that it was an excellent question, because, according to many experts, what people want to become at the age of nine or so is a good predictor of their natural tendency, curiosity and, therefore, a reasonable direction for developing a career or at least taking up as serious hobby.

My favourite pastimes when I was nine were drawing/painting and reading books. I suppose it is not surprising that both of them are still high on my list. Reading widely is also kind of a requirement in my job as a professor. I am glad that I do not depend on art to make a living, though. This is not (only) because I doubt my ability to do so effectively, but because I suspect that it is difficult for creative curiosity to survive under the pressures of doing art as the main job.

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Crossing cultures

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
— Yoda, from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Yesterday, I noticed I’ve had this quote by Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, hanging in an open Safari tab on my phone for the past year or so:

Face your fear, empty yourself, trust your own voice, let go of control, have faith in outcomes, connect with a larger purpose, derive meaning from the struggle.

I like it probably because it is so ambiguous that it seems all-encompassing and applicable to every aspect of life. As with many Japanese quotes, particularly in English translation, who knows what each part of Kano sensei’s writing really means?

It is curious how closely it resembles some of the western philosophy. The first part, about facing fears, for example, is similar to the stoic ideas of fear setting that Seneca wrote about:

Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?”

Seneca was a contemporary of Jesus, but his work was largely unaffected by Christianity. Kano’s martial arts teachings are, essentially, modern, and they are also outside of Christian influence for obvious reasons. So absence of Christian influence is one commonality, but otherwise, the historical and cultural settings where these ideas came from could not be more different. Extrapolating my own experience as a foreigner practicing a Japanese martial art, Japanese culture and its Buddhism-based philosophy is initially attractive to westerners precisely because it is foreign and novel. But as one looks deeper, the same cultural gap makes it unapproachable at a more advanced level. So every now and then stumbling upon western counterparts to the foundational ideas of the East is useful and somehow comforting.

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Developing new skills

At the last tournament, I repeatedly tried to hit the opponent’s kote (lower arm just above the wrist), but judges gave me no ippons for any of the hits. I think this is because my strikes were not sharp enough. There is a particular quality of hits that’s needed to score points in kendo. It is not the force that counts, or even not the speed per se, although speed is important. It is precisely sharpness, snappiness of the hit. And I cannot do it at my current level. At least not consistently.

This presents a conundrum that applies beyond kendo to learning any new skill: how do you practice something that you cannot (correctly) do yet? If you practice using your current, incorrect, form, you risk reinforcing bad habits.

One option is to break down the skill into its constituent parts and work on them one-by-one before trying to connect them. This is how I work on the basics of violin-playing: First, work on the rhythm of a new song using a single open string. Second, get the left hand into position for playing correct notes without paying attention to rhythm or quality of sound. Third, focus on the sound quality (bow movement). Fourth, try to connect everything together and circle back to the rhythm.

In the case of a kote strike, however, the overall motion is already so short and simple that it doesn’t make sense to break it down further. But the overall quality of my kote hit is lacking, so something needs to be done. According to my sensei, the answer is to practice a different, but related, motion, which will eventually support and enable whatever you are trying to perform. In the case of the kote strike, the supporting exercise is matavari suburi – large-amplitude, straight swing of the shinai with maximum speed and an abrupt stop at the end of the swing. I’ve began doing it as my morning warm-up, but haven’t done enough yet to see any qualitative difference in my kote strikes. If anything, it will teach me not to over-extend my elbows at the end of a strike – something that’s annoyingly painful and potentially dangerous.

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The best part of tournaments

In the past, when we went to kendo tournaments, driving at 5:30 am through the dark town on the way to catch the first ferry to Vancouver, we used to joke that it takes some kind of especially weird people to willingly get up that early and go somewhere to get hit by bamboo sticks, while having others scrutinize every inch of our movements. I think somewhere along the way I myself bought into this story and lost track of why we actually like doing this. I stopped noticing the best part of tournaments that makes all these things worth it.

It took me physically going to a tournament yesterday (lack of enthusiasm being no match to the force of habit) to recall what the best part of the competition was. For me personally, it is not winning matches (I wish it was one of the reasons, but unfortunately I mostly lose my matches), but the experience as a whole. I realized that I like meeting up early to carpool to the ferry, talking about kendo over ferry food, noticing the sunrise over the islands through the window and running to the upper deck with the camera to take some shots of it. And then, at the tournament, searching for my name in the lineup (it is fun to realize that I recognize many names after the years), feeling how adrenaline pushes away sleepiness right before my match, taking photos, watching matches, trying to see if I follow, and agree with, the shinpan’s decisions. On the way back, more kendo talk – what went wrong (inevitably), how things are not like they used to be, what we need to work on.

Overall, I am glad that we can to it every now and then. The actual best part? It’s hard to put a finger on. If pressed, I would have to say, it’s hanging out with others, who, for some weird reason, also find value in being hit with bamboo sticks.

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Contrast

In the spirit of paying attention to beautiful little things throughout the day, I snapped a picture of snowdrop flowers by the sidewalk. Somehow, they looked incredibly white and fresh, but not neat and pretty. The last few days/weeks were rainy, and the flowers were splattered with mud. I found another bunch of snowdrops nearby that were a bit cleaner, but for some reason, when I took a photo, it didn’t have the same sense of freshness.

I think it’s the actual mud that made the snowdrops look prettier by contrast – another reminder that context makes all the difference.

This reminded me of the essay called “In Praise of Shadows” by Junichiro Tanizaki. He talks there about the importance of shadows in accentuating bright elements of design in Japanese architecture, among other things. Looking a bit closer, he uses a juxtaposition of western and eastern cultures to showcase the latter – kind of a meta-contrast. It is fascinating and continuously surprising, a bit like the Japanese culture itself.

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Missing shots

Today, I once again confirmed for myself that being a shinpan (referee) at a kendo tournament is more exhausting than actually participating in a match. When you fight, you control your own actions, so you can anticipate at least 50% of what’s going on (the opponent controls another 50%). But when you referee, both competitors can strike at any time, so you cannot relax even for a second – or you will miss a shot. It is kind of similar to photographing kendo. Only the responsibility of missing a shot (or ippon) is higher when you are a shinpan.

I was both refereeing and taking photos at the Intercollegiate Taikai today – not literally at the same time, of course, but enough mixing of the two activities that I was often thinking about judging while shooting and about shooting while judging, missing shots in both cases as a result. It was still a great practice, both in terms of kendo and photography, not to mention a great time with friends.

Oh, and as a bonus – our club had two teams in the tournament, and they both met in the final! (No, we were not judging our own dojo’s teams, in case you were wondering…)

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Making something that lasts

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Back in high school, when I started going to the gym to lift weights regularly, a read a cautionary bit of advise in a magazine: motivation [for training] is easy to get, but difficult to maintain. This is true for practically everything, not just sports. But simply knowing this helps to prepare and compensate for flagging motivation.

One motivation-inducing concept that resonates for me personally is working on something that I think would last a long time. Actually, most things I do fall into this category: doing research and writing papers about it, teaching, drawing, photography. Playing with my daughter is there too.

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Tim Urban nicely described the concept of transcending time by raising children in his blog post about Elon Musk. Elon reportedly views people as computers, hardware being the physical body and brain and software being the things people learn throughout their lives. In this framework, our children are one-half of ourselves in terms of their hardware, and we have a unique opportunity to contribute to development of their software by spending time with them.

Interestingly, this mind trick of convincing myself that I am working on something potentially long-lasting doesn’t work for personal development things, sports included. Old Japanese kendo sensei like asking novices, especially foreigners, “Why did you begin practicing kendo?” I think a more difficult question would be: “Why do you continuing practicing?” For me, habits really help here. Often, I go to practice simply because I’ve been doing for a long time. And then, another truism kicks in: motivation follows action.

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Habits are also dangerous, of course. if you do something mindlessly long enough, you lose the sight of what made you start in the first place. With lifting weights, I had exactly that experience a few years ago. What helped me shake this off was the fact that I injured my back and could not do my regular exercises. At that time, we were on vacation in Venice Beach, staying at an Airbnb for the first time. The place was owned by a young lady, who had lots of books on healthy lifestyle, fitness, etc. I must be in California after all, I thought. Also, the nearby Muscle Beach was bit of a holy land for me, because of it’s association with Arnold Schwarzenegger, my childhood hero. So I saw all the people, from muscleheads hanging out in the gym to wannabe Hollywood starlets shopping for healthy foods at the local supermarket, who were so different, but for whom dedication to physical training was obviously a core trait. I didn’t find any role models there per se, but I my motivation to thoughtfully train and a sense of fun of daily exercise was definitely renewed.

Perhaps, I need watch more kendo videos on YouTube or go through my favourite samurai movies?

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Habits are synthetic

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I have started reading “Better Than Before” by Gretchen Rubin, and in the introduction, she writes that habits are powerful because they eliminate the necessity of decision-making, which, she also argues, is a finite resource. Basically, you make decision once and then follow a habitual sequence of steps to the desired result without thinking about the individual steps.

This reminded me of the “Creation and Destruction” essay by John Boyd, which I came across a month ago. Boyd was a military strategist and an instructor of fighter pilots. His theory of making creative decisions is based on a continuous loop of analysis (destruction) of the current reality (and one’s mental model of it) and synthesis (creation) of a new and improved mental model. In this context, a habit, as Rubin describes it, is a synthetic process – you don’t analyze the components of a habit, but instead string them together into one complex action.

Acting without thinking, but in a way appropriate to the situation is, of course, a central concept in martial arts. In kendo, it is called mushin. And just as an everyday habit, the instinctive reaction in a fight is developed through repeated practice.

Being a fairly universal principle, habit-forming can be applied practically to everything. For example, in photography, say, I decide that I want to freeze action of dancers during a performance. I select a ‘fast’ lens, open the aperture wide, set the shutter speed high, autofocus – to continuous tracking mode, framing rate – to ‘high’ and from that point on worry only about composition and catching the dynamic moments. Actually, even this preliminary setup becomes habitual with practice. I only need to think ‘freeze action’, and the rest happens more or less on autopilot.

Of course, as Gretchen Rubin also mentions, habits are great servants, but terrible masters. They makes us more efficient, but in doing so rob us of the actual experience of the action. When you hit a pause on Boyds Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) loop and delegate part of the sequence to a habit, you sacrifice present-moment awareness. Autopilots, after all, are not famous for their creativity.

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Music and air combat

Air show. Milan. Italy.
Air show. Milan. Italy.

My violin-playing assignment for the Christmas break is practicing the D major and the A major scales. Finally. When I started the lessons with my daughter four months ago, I expected that I would be doing only “scales and arpeggios” , like Berlioz from “The Aristocats” – the movie that at the time shaped my view of music education.

I can see that breaking up the established muscle memory and coordination between my right and left hands is not going to be easy. That is why kids have an advantage in learning music – they don’t have years of muscle memory to unlearn.

For myself, as a late-starter in music, I see it as a good opportunity to practice John Boyd’s “Destruction and Creation” principle. I recently came across his essay of the same title, and it is a fascinating read. Boyd himself was an amazing character. He developed a highly-influential Energy-Maneuverabilty theory of air-to-air combat. His writing is to-the-point practical and concise but also surprisingly deep in the underlying philosophy.

One of the main ideas is that creative process (he used the process of decision-making as an example) is really a combination of analysis (“destruction”) of the existing mental models in view of the current observations of reality, followed by synthesis (“creation”) of new and improved models from the individual components (concepts, ideas, etc.) that are the result of breaking apart the old models. In other words, breaking-down and building-up go hand-in-hand in a continuously repeating loop. In fact, one of the best-known results of Boyd’s work is the Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) loop, which has been the foundation for training of fighter pilots and design of fighter aircraft. There, “Orientation” is the part that contains the analysis and the synthesis of the observed data to form a current mental perspective.

With music, five-year-olds have an advantage over adults in that they have less breaking-down (of existing habits) to do before they can get to the creative part. On the other hand, I’d like to believe that as an adult, if I do the analysis part of my existing habits well, I would have more material to play with when I am eventually in a position to do some synthesis.

Orchestra pit at Teatro alla Scala. Milan. Italy.
Orchestra pit at Teatro alla Scala. Milan. Italy.
Air show. Milan. Italy.
Air show. Milan. Italy.