Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)
In a recent article by Michael Clarke Sensei of the Shinseidokan Dojo about, “Affiliations,” it came to me that these things work for a variety of reasons even when the reality of some organizations/associations ends up being an effort to mover your hard earned cash into their coffers.
In a nutshell affiliations such as associations, etc., trigger an instinct buried deep in our DNA and it regards to natures zombie subroutines encoded in our amygdala toward, “Survival.”
Although our modern society is allowing for more independence and safety with security there are still those survival needs nature provided that we have not evolved beyond - yet. Our very nature and lives revolve around that very instinct of survival. We may call it something else but in essence survival is the one driving instinct that effects every facet of modern life.
Humans in those early days as hunters and gatherers due to our physical and psychological limitations need, are driven, to group together for strength in order to survive. It starts with the family unit but that is often after the tribe or group has offspring and those offspring tend to gravitate toward others within their tribe with occasions when two tribes that unite for a social entity making a greater survival option.
Affiliations are about bringing groups as well as individuals together under a need or discipline that is like-minded and appealing to all those who may, might and do gather. In karate and martial arts it tends to bring together and bind practitioners into a dojo or, “Tribe/Clan.” Tribe or Clan or Dojo affiliations may be about the practice, training and application of karate and martial arts for sport or, “The Way,” or “Fighting,” or “Self-Defense,” but in essence that need to find others and come together for reasons that are, “Like-Minded,” as to goals, disciplines and means of strength in numbers that in and of itself comes from those survival instincts makes the feeling, idea and associations of dojo’s, clan’s and associations extremely attractive and addictive.
As a clan, group, dojo, tribe or social entity we also come together into said groupings for survival and in order for that to work it means we have to create within each group a means to designate roles for each member that is driven into a hierarchal model. Everyone cannot be a leader, everyone cannot be a hunter, everyone cannot be a gatherer and so on. It means the hierarchal model must have levels of expertise and levels of proficiency. It also must have a level of status so that those who follow and others who may lead above a certain status must exist so that the entity can be controlled, remain cohesive and become one strong social disciplined and powerful so that their chances to survive remains viable even in our modern and somewhat safer social environment.
Add in not just our ancient survival instincts but the means to which survival is made possible in a world of humans with a natural pension toward conflict and violence as a means to survive and maintain a tribal status that speaks to other tribes they encounter of their capability, etc. That means is more about the use of conflict resolution strategies while actual tactics would include the use of violence as a communications tool to achieve the goal of survival without actually, unless it is absolutely necessary, causing grave bodily harm or death.
So, in a nutshell, sports are a means to feed that need and help humans control our natural inclination toward conflict and violence from a level that is subtle to a more physically damaging means of violence to keep the status quo within the clan and without when encountering others. If you understand our need to gravitate toward a some what aggressive and violent sport then you understand that our survival instincts feed that need. We all are attracted to a variety of sports and the male bonding process, also a trait of the survival instincts, is seen, felt and understood when groups gather to watch, cheer on, participate in and experience sports like football, basketball and a fairly new American version of a somewhat violent sport of, “Rugby.”
Dojo are hierarchal in nature; dojo are oriented toward status as symbolized by the dan-i belt systems; dojo are tribal in nature with practitioners holding various levels of expertise, knowledge and understanding; dojo are about associative bonding processes to make for cohesive strong connections; dojo are about relational training, teaching and practicing models toward mutual benefits that strengthen the individual and group as a whole, holistic and wholehearted single entity of many and so on - all traits and goals of the clan, tribe and dojo survival instincts of nature and the Universe.
Bibliography (Click the link)
p.s. how I use the sub-principle of theory to gain understanding through questioning knowledge both old and new.
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