Respect, Honor and Morality

The great three in martial arts. The great three in life. This is all to often second fiddle to today's drive toward egoistic pride and power driven life practices. We tend toward our personalities and often leave true character, character built on respect, honor and morals, in the closet collecting dust and turing into a dried out and rotted thing.

Recently I was exposed to how some high ranked karate-ka act. This action is the exact opposite of what they tend to preach. I remind myself that sound bites are a good teaching tool as long as they are backed up by action and deed. If you preach one thing then do another your a hippocrite. If you have beliefs you must live those beliefs or they are not beliefs. If you want the qualities that embrace respect, honor and morality then you have to act with respect, honor and morality. 

If you merely pretend to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards then do not live them and display them in all you say, do and write then you are a hippocrite. Your professing a belief system but you actually do not hold true to or possess those beliefs. Your falsely claiming a belief system with its positive characteristics but actually putting forth a false false of hippocratic beliefs, false beliefs. 

Today I lost respect completely for a person I once held in high esteem. I came into facts that say this person and many of his disciples are hippocrites. They have a belief system that is honorable and morally right on its surface but they do not act accordingly in what they say, do and write about this belief. The belief retains its honorable essence but the followers have fallen into a hippocratic, disrespectful, dishonorable and morally corrupt state. 

I actually wished that I had taken the opportunity to train with and under this person but instead realized that I am now actually glad I never did for a person who fails to retain their belief system within themselves is not a person who I would respect, honor and believe in. This person and their following, most, have failed to live up to the ideals, culture and belief system that drove the creation of the system/style - its Isshinryu founder and creator Shimabuku Tatsuo Sensei. 

I am not disheartened in Isshinryu, merely disappointed. I try to live and breathe a philosophy and belief that encompasses the practice of Isshinryu. When I fail to live up to that level I don't ignore it but embrace the mistake and make every effort to correct it and live up to my belief system. I act accordingly, I perform deeds accordingly and my moral compass follows the path of that belief system. That system was influenced greatly by my Sensei, my life and the practice of martial arts. 

This is why the more esoteric aspects of training and practice of any discipline should be tempered with a belief and philosophy that tempers and forges a respectful, honorable and morally right belief. Giving it lip service is like doing kata without intent, its just a dance and not a very good dance either.