Holiday Announcement

As the holiday season approaches here in the United States – as well as in many other parts of the World – we are pausing our regular stream of podcasts for 3 weeks till January 9, 2011.

Happy holidays, and see you next year!

#157 The Way of the Warrior, part 7 - Change and Learning

We are honored and humbled to continue our conversation on the Way of the Warrior, this time with Vilaire Sensei and Sastri Sensei. Vilaire Sensei, Menkyo Kaiden is the presenter of the system in this generation, and Sastri Sensei, Menkyo Kaiden is the headmaster of the Indian Branch of KAR, and senior advisor to both the Kita Yama and Mountain View Aiki dojo.

• Change that happens over years
  • If a student does not feel a difference over a few years, then I as a sensei have not done my job
  • Spiritual enlightenment depends on the indiviual
  • Outsiders notice your growth before you do
  • I am not here to be a good person, I am here to be a good teacher, to teach what I know
  • People told me not to teach, but I choose to teach
• Learning this art leads to
  • Total confusion for a few months,
  • After 6 months confidence starts to come from within, not from drilling toughness into you
  • After about 30 months, training atleast 4 hours a week – you become atleast a little proficient in the art, atleast 20% of the syllabus of the art
  • After that it grows from there, but you have to work a lot, atleast 4 hours per week of constant study
  • Don’t come to my dojo to make friends and hang out
• I am an instructor, not your trainer and there is a huge difference
• Before Kaze I was not a humble person, always ready to go for a fight
  • The art and Vilaire sensei made me a humble person
  • How Sastri Sensei met Vilaire Sensei
    • The head instructor is mopping the floor
    • No order given, and the instructor leads the way on “how to be”
    • Transformation from an animal to learning to be a humble human
  • Change comes from how the system teaches the instructors to behave and how to transmit
  • The true student wants to learn whats on the other side of the wall, even when my body is not allowing me to go there
  • Knowledge is infinite – there is no end, I wont see the end of it even in 10 lifetimes – this makes me humble
  • I don’t care about wearing the kaiden/red-white belt – I don’t need it
  • One learns one is a nobody
  • A true student of the art evolves every single day
  • One discovers ones own greatness, ones own basic goodness
• Mahipal running into Sastri Sensei
  • How Mahipal met Sastri Sensei
  • Lessons in humility – sastri sensei takes Mahipal down and the journey begins
  • I cannot keep this with me, it has to be given away, and only when I am giving this away is there some kind of peace
• Senseis give so much
  • Sensei sastri promises 3 years of his life
  • Some of you will make it, some of you wont
  • The intensity of the tests
    • My time with the students is limited
    • I even taught them menkyo techniques for their black belt tests
    • Did not want to leave my students as half baked martial artists
    • My students pushed me everyday and I would push them – my students made me a better instructor
    • Training on Christmas day, no breaks, keep coming back to learn more
  • One you get your oku iri from me – you should be able to hold your own in any school
  • The system evolves you
  • If I did not fight, I would have a splitting headache – I had to fight, I had to throw that punch
  • You need to fight so that you don’t lash out at someone else
  • I am not a coward, I just don’t want to fight

#156 The Way of the Warrior, part 6 - Humility and the study of Art

We are honored and humbled to continue our conversation on the Way of the Warrior, this time with Vilaire Sensei and Sastri Sensei. Vilaire Sensei, Menkyo Kaiden is the presenter of the system in this generation, and Sastri Sensei, Menkyo Kaiden is the headmaster of the Indian Branch of KAR, and senior advisor to both the Kita Yama and Mountain View Aiki dojo.

• The kindness and gentleness of this art
  • Sometimes kindness means killing effectively
  • As a sensei you are a commanding officer,
  • A special bond is sometimes created with “some students”
  • I have gained a family by being an instructor of this system
  • Not everyone reaches graduate school nor do they need to, people leave school at different parts/levels
• Enjoying the art you practice is critical
  • Art was not designed to be liked, it was designed to be what it is
  • Commercial schools change based on what people like
  • We don’t depend on teaching the art to survive, we do other things, and come to the art for other reasons
• Difference between warrior schools and other schools
  • Warriors don’t worry about life and death, they do what they have to do
  • Fighting for a cause, not for profit
  • We study it because we see the beauty involved in the knowledge we are learning
  • We look at ourselves and discover “my god, I am different now”
  • Warrior art, philosophical living
  • Learn humility, learn how to be human
  • In some parts of the world they will hunt you down if they find out you are a martial artist
  • Fighting is for babies, if you think sparring makes you tough you are in for a rude awakening
  • Need to learn how to deal with real violence
  • Guns don’t kill, you need to be able to pull the trigger – that requires training
  • You don’t become a true warrior by being a keyboard martial artist
  • Don’t come to learn from us if you just wish to learn how to defend against that onetime you may be mugged
  • You cannot bypass violence, it part of human nature
  • We deal with true violence to reach our highself