Quote Originally Posted by AlexJK View Post
With my specific craft I am dealing with it quite well. I found an incredible Sensei who is patient and understanding, who knows when to push and when to hold back. For now, I'm a child on a kiddie leash trying to run off but being, rightfully so, held back. All the while little bits of wisdom being passed my way. There is certainly a light at the end of the tunnel, yet it's ripe with danger, overgrown with weeds, and the light is a mere dot in the distance. Step by step, neh?

To be honest, not all of Japan's arts are doomed to be stuck in "shu". Nowhere near it. It's just that the abundance of and rate at which these arts and crafts are sinking into the realm of strict, overly codified, interpretive dances is palpable. Tea ceremony, even in some places in Kyoto, has become so contrived and serious that being a guest feels like being at someone's wake. Where a single mistake by a guest invites wicked glances and condescending remarks. Instead of a humbling appreciation of the simplicities and wonder of the natural, you instead are subjected to a live performance of an instruction manual. With flower arranging these days you get many ostentatious abhorrations that reflect nothing of trying to represent true nature but instead have become the same gimmicky cosmetic as hanging hello kitty or doraemon from a cell phone. Calligraphy, architecture, wood turning, martial arts. Many of these arts and crafts are being carried on by true masters proficient in the subtleties of their art. However, there are many more who, with such a shallow understanding, appreciation, and even a true interest in their art, perpetuate instead the strict outer forms as the most sacred; Locking these strict forms inside a box for museum patrons to see. Like trying to throw a pot around water. Many of these patrons, thinking they have seen the "true way", leave and further perpetuate this misconception to the point at which, seeing the natural methods of someone truly proficient, scoff at that which isn't rigid and set thinking that they have seen the perfunctory approach of a novice. Many of these arts are still alive, vibrant, and magnificent to behold. Yet many treat them as if they were dead relics in which, lest they be ravaged by time, need to be stored and locked up exactly as is so as not to degrade. How can students have a ghost of a chance at progressing naturally when they are only exposed to one dimension of their art? Where it is passed on as an artifact to be cherished and stored, versus a multi-dimensional living entity that should be practiced, loved, and shared.

--Alex

PS Russ, it's an odachi.....I swear
You've put my mind at ease, but it surely seems like everything in Japan is going the seitei route. It could be said that there is a "seitei-ism" of almost everything traditional- kind of like going to Las Vegas. Sure a hotel looks like such-and-such a place....but in reality, it's just a theme and nothing is real. The meaning is lost.

What's worst is seitei-ism loses most of it's meaning, but it becoming the standard. Where seitei was an introduction to something greater, it's being used as a end instead as a means to an end. The meaning of an art is carved out, then lost, then someone comes along and installs a new one in it's place, which removes the art being given the seitei enema further from the original. The tea ceremony is an excellent example. Flavorless, inhospitable and concerned less with the meaning and more with the ritual, which has in fact almost lost all true meaning due to the lack of sincerity. The tea then just tastes bitter and makes the seiza all the more uncomfortable and the whole experience something more for a tourist and nothing for the home.

What really gets me is the obsession with silly, feckless rules. The term "muda" (waste) comes to mind when I think of situations like this. When an art, especially a martial art, is fitted in such a way it's almost as though the practitioner is more concerned with the manicure and neatness on a severed hand rather than the fact the hand was severed in the first place. Simply not knowing what is chafe and what is wheat tends to stupefy folks, who then fall into a practice of weeding through meaningless details.

Do you find this true or is it just me being cynical?

PS put your Odachi away....it's all fun and games until some loses an eye...or is cleft in tway...or beheaded