Rhythm Permeates

All life lives on a rhythm of sorts. There is actually a web of body rhythms that tie humans together. When two people in close proximity are communicating, the two central nervous systems drive each other or they influence each other depending on the strength of one or the other energies related to body rhythms. Energy is also a part of some rhythm. Humans, persons, are also dominated by group rhythms which create and govern behavior - think survival instincts. Time is rhythm for it is built on intervals of exactness - think also repetitive. Human proximity - think aura - involves energy and rhythms that are driven sometimes by emotional rhythms. If a person enters our "space/aura" depending on factors cause a ripple in our energy creating a response. We respond in a variety of ways depending on a variety of contextual stimuli as human proximity closes.

Persons considered of higher authority such as Sensei by their status along with strong human aura's both real and perceived will govern the rhythm of the entire dojo. True and an aspect of teaching a Sensei must be aware of and govern morally for the betterment of the dojo - sound familiar?

Our rhythms and our action/reaction involving proximity, etc. come from our perceptions and knowledge and experiences as to our training as children and others that enter, get close proximity to our world of reality, our lives as we grow. Their rhythms influence our rhythms both positively and negatively.

In the American culture, generally speaking, along with our time system are conditioned - with rare exceptions - to view only singular performances. Repetition is something foreign to us where we cannot appreciate the value of repetitive practice. Rhythms are created by the repetitive aspects of life much like the movement of time is a set interval of time repeated infinitely. It becomes the lesson often overlooked in our culture as the means to achieve a rhythm that fosters the dojo and group to achieve proficiency in all we do to include life itself.

The essence of rhythm is that the intervals are repeated. Rhythm is what permeates all of life, nature and the Universe itself often proven in scientific research. Synchrony of this sort can make a difference in life or death situations or in whether or not people get hurt on the job.

In Japan, the group is more important that the individual. Japanese who are conversing will frequently monitor their own breathing in order to stay in sync with their interlocutor.

This indicates that one aspect of controlling an aggressor may be in either getting in synch with their body rhythms or being able to disrupt them to your advantage. This may be the impetus that drives the ability of masters to cause a disruption to another persons rhythms, energies or stability mentally and physically - dissonance resulting in breaking rhythms.

Now, I would like to "extend" this post topic in a manner I have not done to date for a reason I lacked the knowledge. The knowledge is a bit less than I would like but here goes anyway.

All of us persons, humans, people are sensitive to changes in our body language so that when we encounter others both tend to sense those changes according to the encounter. We respond to what is said or done. Our individual perceptual world if not bridged can and do contribute to aggression or survival instincts. Building the bridge is necessary to achieve common understanding but this becomes more difficult as more and more differing cultures and thereby different individual perceptual world get closer and closer - proximity.

I quote, "Indeed, it is now believed by ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz that aggression is a necessary ingredient of life; without it, life as we know it would probably not be possible." You may then ask, "why?" Then again you may be reading this and say, "What the .....!"

It has come to my understanding that aggression leads to spacing or we become so numerous, so crowded, so proximate rhythm interruptus that we destroy our environments and thus ourselves. The greater our numbers, the more we venture outside our cultures, the more we encounter other cultures without the knowledge and understanding of each we encounter greater stress. Interactions, dysfunctional interactions, increase so stress increases and the adrenaline driven fear/anger/frustration emotions send our monkey brains into hotter tempers that cause changes in our bodies resulting is a natural drop in births and increases in death. This seems to be the part of the survival instincts we have literally passed up in our technological endeavors - we have surpassed our humanity with technology and the results are we have not genetically, nature, evolved. It could be the world, our planet Earth or tribal instincts are not meant to be this big.

Our food supply would have naturally kept the world population at the proper level if not for our ability to add "extensions" which of course added to our ability to produce beyond nature's intent and thus create this particular situation - the planet was not meant for this and now it is time to pay the piper.

Aggression is a part of our survival instincts and with a holistic view means we are suffering the results of our own doings so that nature can restore balance. Our proximities, our perceptual worlds, our cultures clash creating aggressions so we may bring the population back to balance but the kicker here is it may not be enough and extinction may result.

Now, isn't that a wonderful thought to consider when trying to understand why we have not been able to surpass our innate aggressive tendencies? We need space, we need our clans or tribes and we need our cultures and we need to keep and remain separate.

Boy, what kind of crazy thread will this one cause?