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Gentili Amici,

mi fa piacere condividere con Voi questo straordinario articolo di NEV SAGIBA riguardante la presenza mentale e le pratiche per dissipare gli offuscamenti da cui siamo abitualmente ottenebrati.

La percezione non richiede né tempo né riflessione: è un fatto immediato, ma la nostra mente offuscata non percepisce di aver già  notato l’oggetto: per questo tanti cercano un mezzo di purificazione psico-fisica, che si può identificare anche con la ricerca dell’illuminazione


“Mitori Geiko and Speed,” by Nev Sagiba

17 dicembre 2010

By Aikido JournalContributed

Noticing requires no time and no thought. It is immediate.

The problem is that the clouded mind fails to notice that it has noticed and this is why so many warriors seek ways to the purification of the body-mind instrument, often referred to as enlightenment.

I’m giving away a secret here but most will miss the value of it anyhow, so I’m not giving away anything. Those who get it already know it. Watching Budo DVDs in fast forward reveals the secrets. Slow motion is of minimal value. Thinking too much only adds to entanglement. Doing is the secret behind all the secrets. And also to simply notice what is staring us in the face.

Purifying the noticing faculties requires body-mind united discipline, despite external obstacles. Training anyway. And noticing what is happening in each instant, each real time frame. Noticing your own doing. Consciously noticing that you are noticing without falling asleep into an imagined idea about “meditation.”

It is said that our memory is already perfect but we need to train the recollection of it. Kinetic memory never forgets efficiency of movement. Or anything for that matter.

It is the same with noticing. If we do not notice that we have noticed, we miss the value. Hence the adage, “Having eyes ye see not.”

Training is not a pseudo-intellectual process, but a living, kinesthetic and complete process. This can be uncomfortable for beginners or the complacent. To progress, this pain has to be met. Frontally and full on.

Beginners should train slowly until they learn to notice consciously. Advanced practitioners can notice volumes in a fraction of a blink of an eyelid. Such fragments can only be translated and “stolen” by the ACTIVE practitioners. Individuals who talk too much and describe a lot usually fail to exemplify the theory.

They say that O’Sensei did not teach. That is erroneous. Because he did not gibber about action took nothing away from what he was revealing in the action. The onus to learn is on the learner. Budo is taught by example. We all like to gibber somewhat. He chose to gibber about Kami instead. His prerogative. But his action was the communication about the action itself. It required no gilding. You cannot add words to perfection in the moment.

Until action can be articulated in context by active example, any description of it is likely to be either flawed or entirely bogus and up the garden path.

The greatest secret is action. The next is noticing action. And whilst watching someone else work can be fascinating, the only way to walk in the shoes of the worker and attain the skill, is to do so. Do the work. Not once or twice but thousands upon thousands of time until the errors cannot be perceived by others but you know that there is still work to be done.

Instant gratification is a toxic and false belief. There are no short-cuts. Mystical mumbo-jumbo is fun in the movies for kids, but in the real universe everything has a price.

Mastery of true skill requires work. Lots of it and there is no way around this. Nothing changes without attrition. Evolution fine tunes through reduction by paring away the superfluous excrescences which have no value.

In other words to notice truly, you first have to approximate what you are noticing, become it through fire in the belly, intense desire backed up by real effort until every effort becomes ordinary and even effortless, because you are no longer wasting an atom of energy fighting yourself. Such would constitute the physical, mental and psychological purification: Misogi, required to directly apprehend the moment at each instant, with all its potentials, variables, nuances and possibilities, which then change in the next instant, without the mind dragging. Tegoi.

When the mind gets entangled in concepts, memories and opinions it drags behind the reality of now and loses touch with the present context, as it is. It processes instead of noticing, as is, now. Processing takes time. Noticing is immediate. During combat you do not have the luxury of wasting time to process. Time and timing are of the essence. The immediate action is the only process. Seeing and doing are one.

Some of the older training methods may appear cruel but they serve to bring you into the present moment. And on some of today’s individuals they would be counterproductive because we have become weak. The purpose of the object lesson conducted in context, is not, and should not be, mere punishment. Rather, it should evoke observation through lesser pain making us aware of the potential of greater danger. The true Budoka, as any athlete, learns to discern between good and bad pain and fine-tune learning thereby. Personal discipline or Shugyo revolves around so understanding energy.

Victory and defeat is primarily dictated by Kime, capturing a single moment, in the truest sense of Ki no Nagare.

Watch the Sumotori train. They practice kakarigeiko until they drop and are aroused by the beatings of a shinai, then continue like this for five or six hours. They are not permitted to stop until they are permitted to stop.

Are you prepared to train like this?

If not you will never amount to much of value because the only other alternative is meeting death in the lotteries of the battlefields, the value only extracted if you survive and retain sanity. We all know most “budoka” of today are paper tigers and show ponies who will not even think about considering risking their life in military service.

And for the smart-alecs who bag out the Sumotori, as “only Sumo” my suggestion is this. Pay them a visit. The real ones not some fat street boy wearing a mawashi, but the real deal.
Then invite one single slap.

Talking is fine. Writing a lot. Chatting. All good.

And then, if you cannot put you money where your mouth is, it was just hot air and you are adding to global warming.

MITORI GEIKO – Definitions
* Mitori-geiko, a noun, translates as: Learning and progressing by watching the keiko of others, and evaluating the strong and weak points of their example. Receiving with the eyes the style and technique of an advanced practitioner usually Budo but applies to everything that can ascend skill levels.

Whatever the Budo or skill, it is wise to sit quietly on the side just watching the training.

Basically there are three parts to practice or geiko.

1/ Mitori geiko – receiving with the eyes the style and technique of an advanced practitioner.
2/ Kufu geiko – learning and keeping in mind the details of the technique through contemplation and mental visualization.
And;
3/ Kazu geiko – repetition through which the technique as personified in one’s own art.

All three are essential to all training. Scientific research confirms that watching an activity in which you are trained, activates the neuro-muscular pathways involved and reinforces functional skill.

Also; watching strengthens the visual and sensing portions of the brain and nervous system related to the practice. Nuanced techniques can be seen and understood by taking time to watch and to observe whilst watching. There is nothing passive about Mitori-Geiko. Yes, an aspect of it is “in” and receptive but it is also “yo,” dynamic.

Visualizing or mind training magnifies the active practice exponentially and the remarkable augmentations are entirely measurable.

And of course, regular repetition of the action, spaced, in manageable, installments over time, combined with the above, is proven to multiply ability, this being the Do, Way or Path.

Learn to notice whilst you are moving and to notice not only what you are noticing, but the fact that you are conscious of the fact that you are noticing. Both internally and externally.

Then, noticing what others do, can become an open book easily read.

In a class I expect you to steal my technique because you will improve it and find counters. (If you are worth your salt). I will steal these improvements from you before you walk out.

It is much like open source programmes, a contributory exchange of information unseen by those who’ve not put in the work and the pain to go through barriers of understanding.

The faculty of Mitori Geiko makes it possible to win a fight or dominate a situation before it begins and even without fighting, because having noticed clearly and early, and having the backup, you know how to make fine adjustments to little things that control the whole circumstance in advance and steer the potentials in other directions.

If the attack still happens, it will be predictable because you have stolen the intention of the opponent in advance and defeated him long before he could attack.

You don’t need to see another fighting to steal their art. People tell you who they are in ways they cannot hide because they are not fully conscious of their actions and footsteps. Simply the way someone walks, talks, drives, treats others, argues, copies phrases, tries to blend or shield themselves, or simply sweeps a floor, how and if and so on.

You won’t attain this faculty artificially without paying a terrible price. (I hear mushrooms do it but the cost is not worth the very temporary taste of it.) Naturally attained, it becomes more reliable and sustained.

There is only one way to awaken the faculty of Mitori Geiko and there is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It is entirely natural. Train, do real work and live consciously. And pay attention! As the body-mind purifies, it will arise naturally.

Every opportunity you get: Train. Until every second of the 24 hours of the day, you are training and know that you are still practicing to refine.

The big cats, feline ones, practice incessantly by sneaking up behind each other and playfully pouncing. Good Ushiro Waza training. They refine awareness and evasion to milliseconds. They have to or they would become extinct.

They learn by watching.

The best teaching methodology is not gibbering monotonous descriptions, but rather by exemplifying and correcting error within oneself. In old-speak, show and tell and valid scolding. Something the soft, pampered egotists of today merely resist or misuse.

These arts have been largely lost because of lack of respect and laziness. Gratuitous scolding without meaning or purpose and no benevolence is mere bastardization and teaches nothing but the toxicity of bearing grudges.

Children still naturally copy examples, but the human adults of today are mostly so dysfunctional, that their examples can at best lead astray. And then they punish the little copiers. Everyone loses.

Our ancient ancestors did not talk much. They did not have to. It is a natural function to watch and mimic the useful.

If we as a species are losing it, it can only be a reflection of our values or the loss of them.

The whole universe is a book. Nature is a book. The actions of all things and living creatures are also there, open and visible to those who care to observe whilst looking. These books can be read.

To read these you first need to shift the mind away from the insanity of false values.

Then Mitori Geiko happens instantly all by itself as time, space and separateness cease to exist. It all becomes noticeable as it always was, one.

If you still don’t get it, just keep training and train more, until you do. And occasionally pay a visit to a forest or the ocean. Stay there until the fear and discomfort dissipates.

Mitori Geiko is better discovered than described.

Training daily is the Way.

And noticing.

Noticing is right now and beyond time, space or speed.

Noticing will enable you to capture the moment.

Nev Sagiba
aikiblue.com

 

 

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