You cannot properly be immersed in your environment if you do not have the right tools to expose yourself to your target language. Besides the lack of motivation to study, the biggest roadblock to immersion is NOT bringing the appropriate tools to the task.
Now, if you have the following tools...you can be fluent in any language. Let these tools be your "teacher":
Music player (MP3, iPhone, iPod, etc.); electric dictionary; computer; books that you actually have an interest in; comics; posters in your target language; newspapers.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
Deliberation of Knowledge and Transmission Thereof:
"The world is my oyster and library, you cannot hide pearls and knowledge from me."
I basically came to Japan wanting to learn Bujutsu of the Aunkai method. I thought that I would live near Tokyo, go to class every weekend, and soak up all the teachings of Akuzawa-sensei. Instead, I was sent by the JET Programme to the Kansai area and so I wouldn't have regular access to Bujutsu training.
In Japan, there is a teaching model called Shu-Ha-Ri, and it is a tried and true model in producing excellence in the students. The process involves close intimacy with the teacher, where you are required to not question the teacher's demands from you (not just demands in martial arts, think about "Karate Kid" and how Mr. Miyagi made Daniel clean his place and how he told Daniel not to question him) and essentially copy the teacher's lifestyle. You do all this for martial skill. Deviation (Ha) and ultimately innovation (Ri) from and away the teacher's mindset comes after you have been initiated and have spent considerable time absorbing all the teaching during the Shu phase.
Akuzawa-Sensei does not use the Shu-Ha-Ri model to produce martial excellence in his students. First, he has no uchi-deshi (live in student) program where we are given the opportunity to learn martial arts on a hourly and daily basis. Second, the Aunkai is not a koryu (古流）in the sense that the members have a priority to 'preserve' its traditions and its forms--Aunkai was just formed 7 years ago, and there are no forms, only a collection of exercises derived from different martial disciplines (Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu, Yagyu-Shingan Jujutsu, Hsing-I, Sumo, etc.) that allow us to explore pure movement.
From a standpoint where we believe Shu-Ha-Ri is the only model for producing excellence, we in the Aunkai are outta luck. There are more than 10 members in the Aunkai, and Akuzawa can't attend to all members, correcting every little mistake--with the Shu-Ha-Ri model, we are able to do that. More so in my case, I am outta luck. I only go there once a month to practise. Situations even this year have been more and more difficult and I haven't been able to go to Tokyo at all.
In this period, however, I was taught a lesson. I was taught that many people, because the instance was unfavorable, give up on knowledge. Of course, it is the teacher's responsibility to transmit knowledge, and we often criticize models like the Shu-Ha-Ri where the teacher can discriminate against a knowledge-seeker and do not initiate them in the process. However, we never look at it from the phenomenology of a student, where knowledge is the responsibility of the student. The instance itself is not the only place pregnant with knowledge--there many other places that produce knowledge. Having done Aunkai now for almost 3 years and being taught the 'the world as a laboratory' aspect of the method, and also being forced to be form communities where I can discuss bodyskill, movement, aiki, internal strength, etc. and also to also explore different arts revolve around the base and core of Bujutsu (from Systema to Daito Ryu Roppokai to BJJ), I have learned to be experimental and resourceful (qualities which are useful for fighting, btw) on how to exploit teachings and how to pass the fluff of forms and go straight to the core of an art's essence. It is very freeing, that I can go to Ark, and then go to back to Toronto to visit Vlad, and then go to Boston to see Dan Harden, or to go to the Bay area and work out with Tim's xingyi peeps and his Eskrima brothers, or to continue working with Okamoto's peeps in Osaka and test out my skills with BJJ peeps, see all the similar principles at work within all these systems, and to have my interpretations reinforced or corrected by going back to Akuzawa sensei himself or to my community of bodyskill aficonados. In this case, the transmission of knowledge does not occur from teacher to student, but from many teachers and from the community of like-minded learners. Phenomenologically, the difference lies in the student exploiting his environment to learn, which differs from just passively (in the conceptual sense) receiving from a knowledgeable teacher.
This is not to criticize any models of transmission, but just to show what the options are for a student desirous of knowledge. Many of us will not have the privilege, nor the time, to be initiated into a Koryu, where we will absorb secrets through constant and intimate contact with a martial arts master. Do we give up on knowledge from there? We work with what we are given at the time--resourcefulness is an important trait in Bujutsu after all. For some of us, even though we are in our 'hearts' students already, the teacher may not appear, as the saying goes. But in the mean time, our passion for knowledge will not discourage us, even if knowledge is deliberately hidden from us and if we are denied access to the esoteric knowledge of martial arts; we squeeze everything out of our environment to get a clue and a peek into the knowledge that we are after.
I don't know of any martial artist (or musician or painter or writer--this just doesn't apply to martial arts) that reached admirable levels of mastery without close connection to an attentive teacher, but hopefully our passion for knowledge will help create a new breed of learners.
I basically came to Japan wanting to learn Bujutsu of the Aunkai method. I thought that I would live near Tokyo, go to class every weekend, and soak up all the teachings of Akuzawa-sensei. Instead, I was sent by the JET Programme to the Kansai area and so I wouldn't have regular access to Bujutsu training.
In Japan, there is a teaching model called Shu-Ha-Ri, and it is a tried and true model in producing excellence in the students. The process involves close intimacy with the teacher, where you are required to not question the teacher's demands from you (not just demands in martial arts, think about "Karate Kid" and how Mr. Miyagi made Daniel clean his place and how he told Daniel not to question him) and essentially copy the teacher's lifestyle. You do all this for martial skill. Deviation (Ha) and ultimately innovation (Ri) from and away the teacher's mindset comes after you have been initiated and have spent considerable time absorbing all the teaching during the Shu phase.
Akuzawa-Sensei does not use the Shu-Ha-Ri model to produce martial excellence in his students. First, he has no uchi-deshi (live in student) program where we are given the opportunity to learn martial arts on a hourly and daily basis. Second, the Aunkai is not a koryu (古流）in the sense that the members have a priority to 'preserve' its traditions and its forms--Aunkai was just formed 7 years ago, and there are no forms, only a collection of exercises derived from different martial disciplines (Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu, Yagyu-Shingan Jujutsu, Hsing-I, Sumo, etc.) that allow us to explore pure movement.
From a standpoint where we believe Shu-Ha-Ri is the only model for producing excellence, we in the Aunkai are outta luck. There are more than 10 members in the Aunkai, and Akuzawa can't attend to all members, correcting every little mistake--with the Shu-Ha-Ri model, we are able to do that. More so in my case, I am outta luck. I only go there once a month to practise. Situations even this year have been more and more difficult and I haven't been able to go to Tokyo at all.
In this period, however, I was taught a lesson. I was taught that many people, because the instance was unfavorable, give up on knowledge. Of course, it is the teacher's responsibility to transmit knowledge, and we often criticize models like the Shu-Ha-Ri where the teacher can discriminate against a knowledge-seeker and do not initiate them in the process. However, we never look at it from the phenomenology of a student, where knowledge is the responsibility of the student. The instance itself is not the only place pregnant with knowledge--there many other places that produce knowledge. Having done Aunkai now for almost 3 years and being taught the 'the world as a laboratory' aspect of the method, and also being forced to be form communities where I can discuss bodyskill, movement, aiki, internal strength, etc. and also to also explore different arts revolve around the base and core of Bujutsu (from Systema to Daito Ryu Roppokai to BJJ), I have learned to be experimental and resourceful (qualities which are useful for fighting, btw) on how to exploit teachings and how to pass the fluff of forms and go straight to the core of an art's essence. It is very freeing, that I can go to Ark, and then go to back to Toronto to visit Vlad, and then go to Boston to see Dan Harden, or to go to the Bay area and work out with Tim's xingyi peeps and his Eskrima brothers, or to continue working with Okamoto's peeps in Osaka and test out my skills with BJJ peeps, see all the similar principles at work within all these systems, and to have my interpretations reinforced or corrected by going back to Akuzawa sensei himself or to my community of bodyskill aficonados. In this case, the transmission of knowledge does not occur from teacher to student, but from many teachers and from the community of like-minded learners. Phenomenologically, the difference lies in the student exploiting his environment to learn, which differs from just passively (in the conceptual sense) receiving from a knowledgeable teacher.
This is not to criticize any models of transmission, but just to show what the options are for a student desirous of knowledge. Many of us will not have the privilege, nor the time, to be initiated into a Koryu, where we will absorb secrets through constant and intimate contact with a martial arts master. Do we give up on knowledge from there? We work with what we are given at the time--resourcefulness is an important trait in Bujutsu after all. For some of us, even though we are in our 'hearts' students already, the teacher may not appear, as the saying goes. But in the mean time, our passion for knowledge will not discourage us, even if knowledge is deliberately hidden from us and if we are denied access to the esoteric knowledge of martial arts; we squeeze everything out of our environment to get a clue and a peek into the knowledge that we are after.
I don't know of any martial artist (or musician or painter or writer--this just doesn't apply to martial arts) that reached admirable levels of mastery without close connection to an attentive teacher, but hopefully our passion for knowledge will help create a new breed of learners.
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