New article at www.leewedlake.com

I have posted the January article for subscribers at my site. The title is Time with Miyamoto, a little about his Book of Five Rings. Here's an excerpt. (This book cover is from a historical-based fiction work about his that is pretty good. Thanks to Tim McKenzie in NH for the steer.)

One statement he makes in the Book of Earth about what we today call cross-training is that you should be doing it. His reason is that you need to become familiar with what other systems do in the event you have to defend against it. I remember Mr. Parker telling me just that when I talked with him about how he selected the demos at his Internationals tournament. I saw some unusual stuff there and he said he wanted us to have an idea what they do in case we ever came up against it. We would not be surprised and therefore better able to handle it. That’s a page right out the Musashi’s book.  Some systems require their students to go get a black belt in another system in order to advance to the next degree in their system. Can’t say I like that idea. Today it’s the rage to do Mixed Martial Arts, which is another take on grabbing something from this and something from that and integrating it into what you do. Today’s MMA concept is not new, it’s just popular. Musashi says it “makes sense to study other arts”. He continues to say that we learn about ourselves by watching others. I take this to mean you either cross-train or at least carefully observe other systems. You’ll need a fertile, prepared mind for this. But taking a few years to get a black belt in something else is not what I hear him saying. He actually writes that a “kempoist should understand jiu-jitsu”.

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