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March 28, 2008
What is Budo?
For those of us who practice martial arts, practicing good budo can mean many things to each of us and it can also have more meaning than we may presently understand. It's a concept that, like our martial arts techniques, we are constantly working to understand. We must continually remind ourselves to live by the principles of good budo as we train to be better martial artists and more complete individuals.
GOOD ATTITUDE & OPENNESS
As martial artists, we always say one should have good budo or good attitude. But "good attitude" means much more than being pleasant, polite and cheerful. In order to practice good budo, one must have a truly open mind and sometimes be brutally honest with oneself. To do that, one has to be willing to receive constructive criticism, willing to receive instruction from those who are higher rank than you, and willing to receive advice about your faults and weaknesses. This willingness to learn is the best way to improve oneself as a martial artist and as a whole person.
EGO & RESPECT
Taking criticism from others is not to say they think you're a bad person. One mustn't take criticism personally, difficult as that may be to do. One has to receive it with the knowledge the other person is merely trying to help you to be a better martial artist. One has to be willing to listen to--not just hear--what others are saying in order to improve one's technique and oneself. Though we all strive for perfection, we must all recognize that no one is perfect and even if we are better at something than some, we are not better than everyone--there will always be someone better than us.
In the dojo, ego must be put aside. We are there to learn, not to boost our egos by putting others down. Training isn't about going on a power trip. If one is a junior student, it's inappropriate for that student to think he or she should tell a more senior student what to do or to think the senior student is wrong. As a junior student, one has less training, experience and knowledge than a senior student. For the junior student to assume that he or she knows better than a senior student is folly.
Let's say for the sake of argument you're both training in jujutsu. Even if you've trained in karate or some other martial art for years and years, that doesn't mean you know more about jujutsu than someone who's senior to you in jujutsu class. It only means you know more about the other martial art.
Think of it from the other side of the coin: if you're the senior student, you would feel you were being disrespected if you received advice on how to perfect your technique from a junior. It would be as if they were discounting your knowledge and experience which you spent more time and effort to achieve.
In order to be respected, we must be respectful to others. In order to be honorable people, we must honor others.
MUTUAL COOPERATION & SAFETY
If someone is performing a technique on you, it's your job to be a benevolent ukei (the person "receiving" the technique) by allowing them perform it. It's not helpful to either of you to bear down so that you're immovable. In fact, you're doing both your partner and yourself a disservice. If you're the tori (the person performing the technique), how can you learn the proper way to execute something if your partner, your ukei, is working to sabotage you by resisting the technique in every way possible? The answer is you can't.
In other words, both people need to work together as ukei and tori so that you can learn how to do the technique from both sides of the coin.
Another aspect to mutual cooperation is training in a safe manner. Ask yourself this: How can you learn to be a good tori if you injure your partner? It's disruptive to the learning environment because if you injure others so that they can't train at all, you may find yourself being asked to leave. Some dojos may employ full-contact sparring, but sparring can and should be done safely.
SPIRITUAL APPLICATION
It is by putting aside all the negative (bad attitude, closed-mindedness, ego and disrespectfulness, etc.) that one makes room for the knowledge and rewards that comes from practicing martial arts. It is through this kind of focus that we can be productive and invigorated by what we can learn, martially as well as spiritually.
Practicing martial arts with good budo is more than learning to strike, or to block, or to take someone down in a fight. It's even more than learning how to perfect your techniques. It's learning how to better yourself, inside as well as out. It's about becoming a more rounded individual physically as well as mentally.
In the formal definition, Bu means martial; do means way or path. Do comes from the Sanskrit marga which means "path to enlightenment." There is an external aspect (affecting that which is outside yourself) that to practice good budo is to also help others. But the bigger part of It is internal (affecting that which is within yourself) because it is the art of trying to perfect oneself. From its definition, we understand that by budo is the way to achieve proper balance and spiritual enlightenment.
*Note: This definition of Budo is very likely incomplete. This entry defines only as much as I understand about Budo at this particular point in time.
Posted by Amy at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2008
Handsome Nephew
My cousin Eddy sent me this picture of my nephew Ethan. He's 13 months old now and isn't he JUST ADORABLE!! I figured since I was putting up baby pictures, I'd include this one. So sweet...don'tcha just wanna eat 'im??
Posted by Amy at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2008
Erica is Born!
CONGRATULATIONS to the Suino family! Little Erica was born yesterday, March 17 at 10:24am via C-section. She is 19.5 inches and weighs 6 lbs 14 ounces. She's just the sweetest looking thing and has a great pair of lungs. I went to for a short visit to meet her and drop off a gift and as I approached the room, I could hear her hungry cries from all the way down the hall!
I got Mommy a pot of mini daffodils; I got baby a nice squishy stuffed ape (very cute and about as big as she is); and I got a few airplane sized bottles of MacCallan for the happy father.
Pammie's doing very well, though she says she feels "worked over." I'm sure that since it's major surgery (and abdominal surgery is one of the hardest places to recover from surgery--just ask my mom), it's no picnic. But she looks pretty good. She actually got out of the hospital sooner than I thought. She was only in there 2 days--she healed up fast. Guess it helps a lot that Pam's so healthy and such an active person.
For those of you able to stop by, I'm going to leave a "guest book" at JMAC for people to sign and leave their good wishes for the family. (All the cards in the store were too small for a lot of people to sign, so I figured a journal would work better).
Posted by Amy at 11:12 PM | Comments (1)
March 11, 2008
Kitty in a Drawer
I just had to show off this picture. It was too adorable not to. I was changing out of my work clothes the other day and opened my drawer. I walked away for a second and when I came back, this is what I saw. Princess had crawled into my dresser drawer and snuggled in. HOW CUTE IS THAT!!
Posted by Amy at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2008
Annoying English
If there's anything I can't stand, it's when people use the English language so improperly as to be completely wrong in what they're trying to say. Perhaps it's endemic to my being a writer, but here are just a few examples that illustrate my point.
The pronunciation of "nuclear:" Of course, we all know George W. is famous for mispronouncing this word. The correct pronunciation is "noo-kleer," NOT "noo-kyu-lar." Please take a moment to look closely at its spelling. It is not spelled "nucular;" there is no second "u" in the spelling and therefore shouldn't be pronounced that way. I realize the English language has many, many words that aren't pronounced the way they're spelled, but this one is. So George, GET IT RIGHT!
The misuse of popular phrases: Sometimes these are referred to as buzz words. There are a few that really get my goat. The first is when people misuse the term "bandwidth" to refer to the personnel resources of a company and their capabilities. "We don't have enough bandwidth to take on that project." Folks, we are not Cylons or computers and we don't have data flowing through our veins--well, maybe Don does. If you're going to say something like that, it would be better to say, "We don't have enough resources to take on that project." Just because people think a word sounds cool or they think it makes them sound cool, doesn't mean you should use it. I had a boss that was notorious for this.
The term "offline:" That same boss who was notorious for using what he thought were cool buzz words was also guilty of misusing this term and I wanted to strangle him every time he did. He would say, "Let's talk about that offline." Now, obviously, he means to say, "Let's talk about that at another time, not in this meeting." But again, we are NOT computers, we're people. We're in a meeting FACE to FACE; we're not chatting online or even emailing. If you mean to say "let's talk about that later," then SAY, "let's talk about that later."
The term "flesh," as in "flesh out:" I received a meeting request in my email today where the meeting organizer said, "They (the client) would like us to come back with several ideas that can be fleshed out upon review of the ideas." People, flesh is flesh. What you meant to say is the client wants us to "FLUSH" out ideas, as you might metaphorically flush out quail from a bush, the quail being the ideas.
Lastly, the term "irregardless:" Look it up in the dictionary--you won't find it because this is NOT a word. What people sometimes say is, "Irregardless of the facts, blah blah blah." The correct phrase is, "Regardless of the facts, etc.," meaning "in spite of the facts..." The suffix "-less" makes the word "regard" a negative. To add the prefix "ir-" also implies a negative. Therefore, to add both means you have a double negative which is wrong.
I know I'm being anal, but that's just me. Just like your mother always told you not to pick your nose, I'm telling you not to misuse these words in the English language.
Posted by Amy at 09:35 AM | Comments (1)
March 01, 2008
Moments of Personal Glory
As I was trying to think of what to blog about next, it struck me to write about a few shining moments of my life that, although they may seem not that exciting to all of you, were for me, very memorable.
In chronological order, the first happened when I was about in 7th grade. I was on the volleyball team. So one day, we were playing against another school--don't remember who, but I remember they were better than us. They had bumped the ball over to our side and someone bumped it once, it went to another person who bumped it a second time, but it was a wild bump and the ball was headed waaaaayy out and we were about to lose the point and possession. In a snap decision, I ran over to the ball and called loudly, "MINE!!!" By this time, the ball was already out of the court and headed to the floor. I got under it with my back to the net, bumped it backwards over me and just PRAYED that it would go back into the court and over the net. In fact, I actually stood frozen bent over backwards with my arms pointing straight up and my head back staring at the net. It went over and the other team bumped it a couple times, but lost it on the floor and we had won the point. Next thing I knew, I had the ENTIRE team AND my coach all screaming and patting me on the back, congratulating me for such a great save. I think what made this so memorable is that none of us were particularly all that great at the game, even though we always tried our best. So for any of us to make a save like that was kind of a miracle. I just always smile when I remember that. It's probably one of the things that kept me playing even after college.
The second happened when I was in 10th grade. My math skills were always horrible, probably because it intimidated me so much. Now, if you're a regular Priori2ude.net reader, you might recall me talking about my Trigonometry tutor. There were four big tests that year. On the first, I only managed about a 72%. Not horrible, but I wanted to do better. So Mom got me a tutor who showed up every Saturday and worked with me for about an hour and a half. Oddly, I never even realized I was getting better at it, even though my grades seemed to be getting better. It was only when I got my fourth test back and saw the 94% written on the top. My eyes bulged and I thought, "WHAT?? How is THAT possible??" I think I had to look at it several times to make sure it really said 94%.
The third happened when I was in college, sophomore year. A bunch of the girls were going to Dooley's for drinks and karaoke, which they had recently introduced to the bar. Now I love to sing. But that doesn't mean I'm very good at it. I can hold a tune pretty well in tune, but I'm certainly no American Idol. Mostly, I just sing along in my car to my radio/iPod and try to convince myself I'm ok at it. The girls kept trying to convince me to sing with them and at first, I didn't want to. But someone prodded me enough that I agreed, but only if I could practice for an hour to get the lyrics memorized. We got to the bar and I wanted to wait to see how other people did and so I wouldn't be first. About a half-dozen people got up, sung their song and, like most karaoke singers did pretty horribly. A couple might have even gotten one or two audience members to clap sympathetically. Then I got up. The song started, but I remember my mic wasn't turned up and though I was singing the first couple lines of "Words Get in the Way" by Gloria Estefan, I couldn't hear myself. But after the DJ turned it up, I just closed my eyes while I sung so I wouldn't screw up the words. About half-way through the song, I opened my eyes and to my utter surprise, saw a TON of people gathered around the stage and some were even singing along with me! A few even got up on stage and put their arms around me to sing along! I couldn't believe it! I just kept singing and when the song was over, they all cheered and applauded and patted me on the back! I was stunned! When I sat back down with my friends, they told me everyone had their noses buried in their beer glasses until they heard me. And even my friends were like, "Who's THAT singing? She's pretty good!" Now, again, I don't claim to be any great singer at all, but it must have been a great performance having followed some really awful singers. Nonetheless, I still smile when I think of that moment and what a fun time I had. :-)
Posted by Amy at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)