Recognizing the Cultural Differences that Hinder Cross Cultural Communication

Heading into the final Months of preparation for your trip to Japan, what should you be doing? Of course, you are focusing on stepping up your training. But, have you been able to step up your linguistic and cultural learning?


I have recommended before in multiple posts that learning important cultural aspects of Asian beliefs and specifically Japanese social structure can make all the difference in your depth of linguistic understanding. To be honest, getting around in Japan with any amount of fluency demands of us more than just knowing where the toilet is. This statement reminds me of something my Sensei, Micheal Delaney once said to us shortly after we were promoted in rank. He said, that "when you attain your shodan level you are told where the metaphorical toilet is. But, when you attain nidan you are given the key to the toilet." After living in Japan for almost half of my life, I think that I can now add to his statement in the following way. The more time you spend in the martial arts the deeper your understanding of how and when to use the keys your are given develops. In this post I would like to help you with your final Months of Linguistic and especially cultural development leading up to your August travels to Japan.


Possibly one of the most important things to understand for this endeavour is the difference between "high context culture" and "low context culture"(popularised by Edward Hall) because this will totally change the way you use the language and improve your communicative competence!


High context refers to societies or groups where people have close connections over a long period of time. Many aspects of cultural behaviour are not made explicit because most members know what to do and what to think from years of interaction with each other. Your family is probably an example of a high context environment.
Low context refers to societies where people tend to have many connections but of shorter duration or for some specific reason. In these societies, cultural behaviour and beliefs may need to be spelled out explicitly so that those coming into the cultural environment know how to behave.
(1997-2003 Jennifer E. Beer )

(Katie Stouffs Grimes on January 26, 2015)

Here are some interesting links to websites focusing on this subject. The first link is especially interesting because it offers a lot of information specifically about Japanese and North American social patterns in the context of high and low context culture commonalities. Follow the links at the bottom of the page by clicking on Japan for more information.
http://www.culture-at-work.com/highlow.html


Another interesting website that presents this concept in an easy to understand way, however with a more general application of high and low context culture is:
http://www2.pacific.edu/sis/culture/pub/Context_Cultures_High_and_Lo.htm


The interesting thing about this page is that it offers us the opportunity to take a quick questionnaire to assess our level of cultural context. I took it and scored 4 points higher leaning toward high context.

(Retreived from, http://my.ilstu.edu/~jrbaldw/372/Values.htm, 2017, 05, 12)

I have not travelled to North America for a number of years so I have not been in a Low Context Cultural environment for a long time. However, I will be going to New York tomorrow and while I am there I will be paying careful attention to this. I intend to write another post after I get back which goes into more specific detail regarding these differences. Please familiarise yourself with this concept and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Essential Kanji for Getting Around in Japan

I apologise for taking so long between posts. I know some of you have been anxiously awaiting for the next instalment of this Japanese language learning series.


April is a very busy Month in Japan because it is the beginning of the new academic year. I have been especially busy as this year I will begin my PhD. studies at Kumamoto University. (Below is a photo of the acceptance for enrolment into the Kumamoto University Doctoral Program) It is a three year course and my research study will be in teacher development. I am excited about this challenge and the opportunity to become more through this process. I will include you on my journey as we grow together over the next three years.



Now let's get into the blog. In this post I will introduce essential Kanji that you will encounter on your travels. This post will focus on the kanji you need to know when you are connecting to flights in the airport of travelling by train or subway. You will see these kanji everywhere and once you can recognise what they mean you will never get totally lost again!


I also recommend that you look at convenient apps that can help you along the way. One of the English/Japanese dictionary apps that I use and highly recommend is, JED Check out the link for download options: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.umibouzu.jed&hl=ja
Furthermore, the kanji that I will be introducing can be found on-line or in textbooks like the Japanese for Busy People series that I introduced in my previous post. I also recommend 250 Essential Kanji for Everyday Use (Picture of the cover below) as a very good reference for kanji that you will encounter on your trip to Japan. I should point out that this text deals extensively with very relevant topics such as Trains, Stations, Banks, the Post Office, Shopping, and Real Estate.

For those of you travelling to 熊本県 Kumamoto Ken; Kumamoto Prefecture, for the the first time it may be useful to be able to recognise the kanji for Kumamoto (above) and 九州 Kyushu, where Kumamoto is located in the South of 西日本 Nishi Nihon; Western Japan (the kanji for South and West are written below). Japan is divided into East and West. Tokyo and Chiba are located in Eastern Japan, Osaka and Kyoto are located in the West. Kumamoto is considered to be part of Western Japan
When travelling it is always good to start with direction. In this case North, South, East, and West are of importance to us as well as Entrance and Exit as we will be looking for the entrances and exits in stations and they are all divided into North, South, East, and West.


You will see these Kanji in the 駅 Eki; Station(s) and in the 空港 Kuukou; Airport(s) all across Japan:
北 Kita; North
南 Minami; South
東 Higashi; East
西 Nishi; West


入口 Iriguchi; Entrance
出口 Deguchi; Exit


Now with the few kanji we have looked at how much of the following photo can you understand? It is a photo of the floor plan of Kumamoto Station. Can you see 熊本駅 Kumamoto Eki written in the top left hand corner? How about 口 Kuchi? There are 西口 Nishiguchi and 東口 Higashiguchi visible as well. If you ask for directions and were told to go to the East Exit, where do you think you should go?

These days most stations and airports have English signs. However, the further you travel outside of large city centres the fewer English signs there are. It is still a good idea to familiarise yourself with these kanji. Numbers not are usually written in kanji so you don't need to spend too much tim on them, but Year, Months, and days of the week and are still written in kanji on some tickets so it may be a good idea to be able to recognise them as well.


While in the station or airports you may need to go to the お手洗い O Tearai; toilet, literally translated as (the place) to wash one's hands, sometimes referred to as the "wash closet" (WC) so you may also see signs with the WC written on them. Most stations and airports have the generic Male and Female signs as seen below, but it may be a good idea to know the kanji for man and woman if you don't already know them.

男 Otoko; Man and 女 Onna; Woman are the kanji used to identify changing rooms and lavatories, but they may be written in combination with other kanji as follows: 男性(用) Dansei(yo) or 女性(用) Jyosei(yo) which translates to (for the use of) Men or Women; Male or Female (use).


Now that we can get around and do our business we can venture further. You may have received your tickets from the travel agent, but you may want to purchase tickets while you are here and go for an adventure on the train or shinkansen. In this case you may have to fill out some forms if you are thinking about getting a rail pass, but if you are only buying single tickets you probably won't have to fill out any forms. However, it is a good idea to know dates to make scheduling go more smoothly. Dates are written in the opposite order from North America. And Japan uses its own calender which runs for the length of time of the reign of the emperor to identify the Year. For example, It is now the 29th Year of Heisei, the Month of April and let's say that it is a Monday. The date would look like this: 平成 29年4月10日(月). Monday may be written as 月曜日Getsuyoubi, or abbreviated as (月). This holds true for every day of the week:
月曜日 Getsuyoubi; Monday
火曜日 Kayoubi; Tuesday
水曜日 Suiyoubi; Wednesday
木曜日 Mokuyoubi; Thursday
金曜日 Kinyoubi; Friday
土曜日 Doyoubi; Saturday
日曜日 Nichiyoubi; Sunday


Here is an, easy to understand, explanation of what is actually written on the reserved tickets for the 新幹線 Shinkansen; bullet train.

In order to reserve a rail pass you may have to fill out a form like the one below:



(Commuter's pass application form, 250 Essential Kanji, 1994)



There are some kanji on this form that are very useful to know as they are commonly found on most 申込書 Moushikomi sho; Official Forms and in Japan there seems to be a paper form for EVERYTHING! So let's take a look at the important kanji on the example above.

If you are studying Japanese already you have probably learned 名前 Namae; Name and, more than likely know the sentence 私の名前は＿＿＿. But on the form above you will notice that it is written a slightly differently. 名 Na is there, but it comes after another kanji as opposed to coming before 前 Mae; Before. This time it is read 氏名 Shimei; Full Name or Identity. You have to write your Last name (Family name) first, followed by your first name (Shita no namae). In my case, I would write Waterfield Marc, as you see on the photo of the acceptance for enrolment into the Kumamoto University Doctoral Program at the top of this page. The kanji for 男女 Dan Jyo; male or female are written next to the name to be circled. Under that is a space to fill in your age __才, I would write ３９才 and cross out 様 Sama to the left of 才, by making two horizontal lines through the kanji. This was not done in the example, but after living here for any length of time you would know that it is a common gesture of politeness to do such a thing. I don't want to get into the 'why' this is done in this post. At this point, all you need to know is that this simple act, of crossing out the 様 after your own name on forms like this (especially forms that you need to send by mail) or writing it after someone else's name who you are mailing something to, will send the message to anyone who involved that you understand Japanese 礼儀作法 Reigi Sahou; often translated as etiquette or manners. I would go as far as to say that Reigisahou is the 'backbone' of Japanese social structure.

Moving on, can you recognise any of the kanji in the section to the right of the name and age? You will notice that 平成 Heisei is written along with 年, 月, and 日 followed by some kana and numbers. What do you suppose this signifies?

Below the these two sections is the section to write your 住所 Jyusho; address and 電話番号 Denwa Bangou; Telephone Number. In the section below that you must give the address of either your 通勤先 Tsuukin saki; Place of Work or the 通学先 Tsuugaku saki; address of the school you are attending if you are a student.

The two example forms are slightly different from one another and these forms may be a little bit out of date as the book I am using to reference these examples was printed in 1994, but they still offer us an easy to understand example of the information commonly found on such forms.

I hope this series of posts is helpful to you as you continue your Japanese language studies and as you prepare for your visit to Japan. I know that your time spent in Japan will be an experience of a lifetime. This series is not designed to teach you everything there is to know about Japan and the Japanese language, rather it is my aim to help facilitate smoother travels and help you to develop your own tools of conversation in order to facilitate deeper levels of communication between you and the Japanese Karate-do community and Japanese Nationals in general.

If there is anything specific that you would like me to focus on, please comment on this blog or send me a private message. The Chito-Ryu World Championships "Soke Cup" is 4 Months away, 準備万端、頑張りましょう！

Building the Sentence Structure

Recap of Previous Post
In the last post we looked at some tips to get us started with our language learning project. I hope you found them helpful and at that you are now well on your way to broadening your understanding of Japanese vocabulary. I recommended that you focus on increasing your vocabulary by focusing on verbs (動詞, Doushi). I recommended this because we are focusing on increasing our communicative abilities and with a wide range of verbs at our command, we can describe the other words, such as nouns (名詞, Meishi) that we don't yet know or have forgotten in the heat of the moment, but are necessary to express that which we want to say. This communicative technique, which I often use, also helps to build our vocabulary base in a natural and communicative way.

Learning Approach
There are many ways to learn, but I agree with the philosophy that "learning is social" (Vygotsky, 1962). I learn best in the "zone of proximal development," (illustrated in the photo below) just outside my "comfort zone" and I seem to retain the information better in a "mentor/apprentice" dynamic.

(Photo retrieved at: http://markdmason.wordpress.com/)

There is no question that it will take a lot of effort on your part to remember vocabulary and it may be very difficult to find a conversation partner, as mentioned in the previous post, but engaging with someone else in the target language will have a profound effect on your retention and fluency.

Useful Materials and Texts

In order to converse with any amount of fluency we must understand how the sentence structure works. When I was studying Japanese language and culture at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, the text that we used was the Japanese for Busy People series (Cover pictured below).

(Imagies retreived at: http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Japanese-Busy-People/Association-Japanese-Language-Teaching/9781568363844?ad=PFBING)

This was my first formal introduction to Japanese language learning and the materials were very well organised and easy to follow with a nice progression from romaji in the first text to kana in the second. There is also a third text which is a workbook. If you are hard core and price is not an issue you can purchase copies for about $30.00 each or you may be able to find pdf. copies on-line.


I cannot even begin to cover the material found in these texts in this blog and strongly recommend that you augment your language learning with as many materials as you can. The most important thing in choosing a study guide or textbook for such a purpose is that it has to agree with you. That is to say, you should feel good when you are looking at it; it should be visually pleasing to you and easy to follow and progress with. The materials covered in language texts and work books are usually the same or very similar. Therefore, I recommend taking the time and looking at many before choosing the one that speaks to you. Remember you will use it to speak for yourself!

And now for the Lesson...
Today we will look at something that I found on-line in a recent search, "The Surprisingly Simple Logic Behind Japanese Sentence Structure" (Raw Lisard, 2016)
https://8020japanese.com/japanese-sentence-structure/
The paper covers the "Basic desu 「です」 sentences, how particles work, defining different roles, and expanding individual elements."
Today we will look at the "Basic desu 「です」 sentences."
Desu pronounced "dess" is presented as the "equivalent to the English verb "be" (am, are, is)." This usually comes at the end of the sentence. Simple sentences that use desu usually follow the same basic structure:
"[topic] wa は ... (something that describes the toic)... desu です。"
Raw Lisard gives some common examples.
I recommend trying to personalise this material by making and practising your own example sentences.


Raw Lisard gives the example (This and following examples will be written in English, then in romaji, followed by kana, and finally kana including kanji):
Example 1) "I am a person. Watashi wa hito desu.
わたし　は　ひと　です。　私　は　人　です。"
This could easily be altered to, I am Marc. Watashi wa Ma-ku desu.
わたし　は　まーく　です。　私　は　マーク　です。


By altering the subject of the example sentence, by entering your own name, you not only personalise it, you also make it more functional. In this case, you can use it in your self introduction.
Let's look at some more examples and consider how they can be personalised or altered to express something that you want to say using the same sentence structure.


Example 2) "This is a car. Kore wa kuruma desu.
これ　は　くるま　です。　これ　は　車　です。"


Notice the difference of the [topic], it changed from watashi to kore. Use kore for non living things; objects that are close to you in distance. The above sentence gives the impression that the person speaking is standing next to a car, telling something what it is. While it serves the purpose, it is not very practical. Perhaps it would be better to change the subject of the sentence; the car, to something else. A taxi stand, or a bus stop/station. Instead of saying ,"This is a taxi," it would be more beneficial to learn and practise this is the taxi stand kore wa takushi noriba desu. (noriba is pronounced "No li ba")


Example 3) "The Car is red. Kuruma wa akai desu.
くるま　は　あかい　です。　車　は　赤い　です。"
Again, here I feel that with slight alteration to the subject we can increase the functionality of the example. The following example comes to mind, but please consider your own:
 The (traffic) light is red. Shingou wa aka desu.
しんごう　は　あか　です。　信吾　は　赤　です。
The point that Raw Lisard is trying to make in these examples is in the structure of the sentence itself. Within the examples are "three very important rules."They are:
1. The particle wa 「は」 identifies the topic of the sentence
2. The verb comes at the end of the sentence
3. The articles "a", "an",  and "the" do not exist in Japanese.


Raw Lisard states that, "these rules apply to everything, so using the first two in particular, we can adapt our sentence structure... [to]:
[topic] wa は ... (other information) ... [verb]. This is a very easy to understand format that is highly adaptable to use in "real life" situations. He closes the section with the following:
When the verb is desu 「です」, the 'other information' can just be a noun (kore wa kuruma desu これは　車　です) or adjective (kuruma wa akai desu 車　は　赤い　です). In fact, the last thing immediately before desu 「です」 should be either a noun or an adjective.


If you can remember and aply this simple rule when developing your sentences you will be well on your way to communicating in the target language. The next step is to understand what you are doing more deeply so that you can develop more elaborate sentences by using "particles" correctly. But, speaking from personal experience, leaving particles out completely will not hinder the communicative power of your sentence in the beginning. The rule presented in this article is a very good one to start with!


I will finish off this post with a quick grammar point related to the above examples and ground this learning approach in the literature, but if you are not interested in that stuff, you can stop reading now and get to work with your conversation partner. Stay tuned for the next post where we will look at some essential Kanji to help you get around when you are travelling.

Framing a Japanese Language Learning Project

As many of you reading this blog know, the International Chito-Ryu Karate-do Federation (ICKF) will hold its Tri-annual World Championships "Soke Cup" this year in Kumamoto, Japan. The championships will take place on August 12th and 13th at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium (Pictured below).

(2010 Chito-Ryu Karate-do Soke Cup, Kumamoto, Japan)

I have been very fortunate to have competed in this tournament representing both Canada and Japan and it has been an honour to compete alongside of my good friends and fellow karate-ka each and every time. This event was originally scheduled to take place in Kumamoto last summer. However, it had to be postponed due to the devastating earthquake that hit Kumamoto hard in the Spring of that year (see "Reflection on My Changing Perspective" for more information on the earthquake, there are also Internet sites provided on the page which offer detailed information).

Although I qualified for the Japanese National Team by winning the Grand-championship award at the ICKF All Japan National Championships (see "Focusing on the Goals not the Results Changes Everything!") and was looking forward to competing one last time for Japan last year, I have since decided to retire from competition. I will focus my time and energy to helping strengthen the relationships of the international membership.

I have been appointed to the position of Chief Liaison of the Public Relations Division of the All Japan Chito-Kai and as such am a member of the organising committee for this year's Soke Cup. I have been charged with the responsibility to coordinate a staff of translators for the event and am excited about the opportunity to help members of the Chito-Ryu community communicate more effectively with each other to develop and strengthen friendships with one another. This responsibility has caused me to consider ways to facilitate better communication and in this respect I would like to use this blog to help people who may be thinking about preparing for their trip to Kumamoto by learning some Japanese.

Over the next few posts I will provide you with some helpful Japanese language learning materials. In each post I will share with you something beneficial that I have found useful in my own language studies, but I  recommend that you perform your own online searches as well. From personal experience I suggest focusing on learning applicable phases and practising the correct pronunciation of the phrases you are learning. With regards to vocabulary building I recommend focusing on verbs.

When learning any language there are some simple steps that one can take to increase success and sustain motivation. There is an abundance of information online that can help you frame your learning approach, but the bottom line is that as a language learner you must do the work. Therefore, motivation plays an essential role in the success of your studies. I believe that we can maintain our levels of motivation by knowing the purpose of the endeavour. Understanding the purpose also helps us form more effective goals.

(Japan image from mrwallpaper.com)

In this post I will introduce you to the following information on how to learn a language in 7 days written by Ed M. Wood and presented by multilingual twins,  Matthew and Michael Youlden. Unfortunately the support site, Babbel does not offer study guides for Japanese so I will try to relate the tricks to our goal of using them to learn Japanese as the study tips may help to frame your study approach. Visit the site in the link below to view the video or read the 7 tricks in more detail:

https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/learn-any-language-in-your-hometown

7 Tricks To Learn Any Language In 7 Days (From The Superpolyglot Twins Who Did It)

Trick 1 - Get to know why - The tip here is to clearly define your goal(s) at the very beginning and then plot a route towards the achievement of your goal(s). In this case, your time line would start today and lead to your trip in August. As you continue your studies and practise of the language you should develop proficiency and confidence which will peak during your time in Japan, very similar to your physical and mental preparation for the competition.

Trick 2 - Get Sticky - They recommend mapping and labelling your immediate environment in the new language as the very first physical step to learning. This builds and reinforces passive associations without drastically altering your daily routines. The visual stimulus will help you familiarise yourself with the vocabulary however, since Japanese is a 漢字 kanji (character) based language there is a debate regarding whether it is better to label in romanji (alphabet) or kanji. Either way I recommend that if your goal is to develop communicative competence you should worry less about spelling and more about phonetic pronunciation even when labelling.

Trick 3 - Get a Partner - "There are few better motivations than a peer with the same goal." I totally agree with this statement. Whether you are training for competition, studying for a test, or learning a language, the importance of a training partner is massive! With a partner it doesn't matter what your motivational trigger is, i.e., competition or a sense of responsibility, the mere presence of a training partner will add the type and amount of intrinsic pressure needed to 'force' yourself to do the work even on those days when you are tired or don't really feel like it (sound familiar? I'm sure you have experienced those days when you didn't really feel like going into the Dojo to train, but you got that phone call from your training partner who persuaded you to go and that night becomes the best training session of the week. Thank you Fabian Massol for those times you called me!).

Trick 4 - Prepare Mini Motivations - It is now March, 5 Months out, you need to create "landmarks" on your route towards your over all goal. The article suggests that these "landmarks can consist of small challenges" such as real like interactions in the target language which force you to prepare areas of vocabulary to overcome them. They state that "gratification will come with the completion [and] will serve to spur you onto even greater heights."

Trick 5 - Eat the Language - They suggest finding ways to tie everything you are learning together. You could surround yourself with the food, music, movies, etc. "so that even in your down time you can prime your mind towards the language and... trigger further areas of interest and motivation." In hind sight, this is exactly what I did when I was a high school student. My room was filled with anything and everything Japanese. Looking back, my interest in Japan at that time was obviously an obsession, but I do think it all contributed to my Japanese communicative competence. (A more detailed example of how to use this trick is provided below)

Trick 6 - Use What You Already Know - Don't wait for perfect mastery and try not to think of the subject matter; Japanese Language and Culture as something totally foreign. "Find pleasure in drawing parallels and making comparisons between the language(s) you already know and your new language." This would be easier for someone who is already bilingual or multi-lingual, but Japanese is still tricky because of all of the perceived cultural differences. Try not to focus on the differences, rather look a little harder for the similarities. Being Karate-ka there is already a lot that you know about Japan. Focus on building upon this base and deepening your understanding of the Karate-do related concepts.

Trick 7 - Variation is the Spice of Life - These tips can help you to frame your study plan, but remember to try new things as well. Your new language could open doors to finding out new things about yourself. A new language, a new culture can be an opportunity to develop a new you.

I have spent almost half of my life in Japan and I know that my experiences here have and continue to affect me deeply. There are somethings that I can only use Japanese to express my true intent. These experiences have made me think that if this is the case than communicating true intent is more important than the language we are bound to.

We need to free ourselves from the bounds of language and develop our communicative skills so that language becomes what it truly is; a tool that we use to express our intentions to others in an attempt to create a condition of shared understanding. So, use what you have learned together with your training partner(s) and beyond. Example of Trick 5: 

Go to the Asian market on Saturday morning and use the Japanese phrases you've learned to buy some produce to make a Japanese dish that you will prepare, maybe okonomiyaki or sushi, or something not as common that you have recently come across in your studies, with friends or other memebers from your dojo, who you will invite over to watch a Japanese movie and drink Japanese Beer or Sake or some kind of Japanese juice or tea if you are under age or don't drink alcohol. The movie can be old or new, I recommend all "Kurasawa films" and the original "Ring,” but I am sure that you could find more modern productions online, in the genera of your personal interest. In this case, karate related videos may be preferred. The point is use what you've learned in an everyday context to submerse yourself in the language and the culture and celebrate what you have learned by using it to do these things as naturally as you can. The people around you will recognise your enthusiasm and react positively to your passionate approach to learning the language!

Access is becoming less and less of a problem, but you still need to do the work. 頑張りましょう！

(Fuji San and Sakura image from 999photos.com)

In the next post I will introduce some tips on how to approach the dreaded and confusing Japanese sentence structure. until then try applying the tricks mentioned in this post and build up your vocabulary and motivation to take the next step and bring your language learning to the next level!

初心 Sho Shin; Having a Learner's Mind Means Having an Open Mind

In the last post ("A Change in Perspective Can Reveal to Us Our True Teachers") I talked about how changing our perspective can have a positive impact on our training and our lives and how this change in perspective can help us see the lessons all around us. In this post I would like to share with you a quote by the late Dr. Wayne Dyer. A quote that has helped me to change my perspective and thus has already positively impacted my life this year. As the title of this post suggests this quote has to to with having an "open mind" I am relating this to the "beginner's mind" and how being in such a state can have positive impacts on how we approach such things as goal setting and the pursuit of set goals. The quote is as follows:

Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing.

Like many things that Dyer wrote in his many books and said during his many public speaking appearances, many of which you can view on youtube.com, this quote is simple, easy to remember, but very profound and applicable in a wide range of areas with regards to training and in life.

In this post I would like to share with you my interpretation as I deconstruct this quote and give you some examples of how applying this quote in my life has enriched my experiences this year. Applying this quote has also allowed me to let go of things that, in the past would have caused me a great deal of stress. One may even say that this quote is somewhat serendipitous in nature. Let me explain why.

We are all familiar with the concept of having an "open mind." But, open to everything? Being open to Everything seems like a pretty difficult state to be in all of the time. I consider this quote to be reflecting the Asian philosophies, and concepts of the importance of having 初心 Sho shin, a 'beginner's mind' which is rooted in Zen Buddhism. I have discussed such concepts in previous posts (See "Emptying your Cup and Filling it with Greatness" and "The Trinity of Proficiency in Karate Do: Technical, Cultural and Linguistic Ability").

(初心 Sho Shin Calligraphy by Author, 2017)

This idea of having an open mind is often likened to being modest and humble, while 'soaking in information' in a learning setting. I do believe that there is a humility needed in order to maintain an open mind in the sense that we must be aware that we do not know everything on any given subject and closing oneself to hearing other points of view is limiting. But, this humility in no way makes me feel subservient to any one who I am engaging with. I believe that every experience, every conversation, and especially every opportunity to reflect is an opportunity for growth. In our Karate-do training we often become very focused on the goals we set. In our focused state we often become very invested in our approach to achieving the goal. Sometimes we may even feel a sense of desperation in our pursuit of that goal, especially when we think that we are close to achieving it. This, that is to say that we want to reach the goal as fast as possible. I have come to realise that this desperation may actually be deterring us from achieving our goals.  In my personal experience as a school teacher, karate-do instructor, and a father of two this phenomena of becoming invested in the approach; the things we do to achieve the outcome, doesn't seem to occur in small children. They seem happy just experiencing the journey and are sometimes even upset by coming to the end of it. In this case, I am using the example of a small child to represent the pure sense of an 'open mind'.


I am not saying that we should not be invested in the pursuit of our personal goals, but I do wish to strongly suggest that the try to enjoy the process a little more and not try to rush it. The process of self-review and self-assessment are very important in this pursuit. We have to be constantly assessing and re-assessing what we are doing to make sure that we are moving in the right direction, doing the appropriate things that will continue to lead to successful outcomes and always remain open to trying new things; different approaches along the way. Children exemplify this mental flexibility in play. (Golstein, 2012) discusses this in Play in Children's Development, Health and Well-Being where he states, "... play during early childhood is necessary if humans are to reach their full potential" (p.3).

This brings us to the second part of the Dyer quote; developing mental flexibility to be able to detach from our preconceived outcomes. Just as improved physical flexibility allows joints to move more freely and with increased range of motion. Moreover, it has been proven that improved physical flexibility prevents injury to muscles and joints. Similarly, mental flexibility increases our potential for growth by moving more smoothly through our experiences and may even prevent injury. Let us consider in what areas improved mental flexibility will impact our lives?

One way, that I have found, to increase my mental flexibility has been to simply let go of what I expect to happen and live in the moment of the experience. Whether I am practising in the Dojo lifting weights in the gym, or cross training, I am always in the moment, but I also make it a point to reflect after every session and look for ways to improve. In this respect, I am not attached to any one exercise or approach to training more than any other. As a student I try to remain open to whatever is being taught and try not to form my personal opinion on the subject prematurely. But, the area in my life where I have really felt a positive impact after applying the principal of this quote has been in my relationships. I have found that I am the most stressed when I am trying to control the situation to the point of forcing it. In situations like this I can now feel myself becoming rigid, in my body and in my thinking. Have you ever felt this way? I am not suggesting that we totally give up taking control of all situations especially not when the flow of leadership comes to us naturally or when we are protecting the lives of others, but in these cases such control never seems forced, quite the opposite, it seems to flow even more smoothly. I am talking about having the capacity to assess when it is time to let go. When we develop this level of inner reflection and self-control, in my experience, the successes are still achieved, but with much less stress. It is in this way that someone with this capacity just seems to be in the 'Right Place' at the 'Right Time'; serendipity.


It is a difficult concept to grasp; achievement through letting go. In his best-selling book Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote about the pursuit of happiness and success, he very eloquently wrote:
Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run - in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.


I will leave you with this. I really feel that I have a lot to think about and my changing perspective regarding my current life goals has brought with it many questions to consider. All I can do is search within and around me for answers and, as Frankl suggests, "listen to my conscience" and carry on.