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“Memory, as I have written about before, is not like a photocopy machine. When we retrieve memory, what we are recalling may not be accurate. Retrieval activates a neural net profile similar to, but not identical with, the one created at the time of encoding. Memories can indeed be distorted. We can have an accurate recollection of the gist but the details may not be correct. The reality is that memory is suggestible and many-layered.”
What are the variables that would effect our memories, I have a feeling that the one dominant variable to effect memory is, “Emotions.” Anger, fright, and others do trigger certain effects of our brains, our minds or what I call the mind-matrix. Our emotions actually turn on and off parts of our brains such as, anger tends to lock out the logical part while allowing the illogical monkey brain free rein.
One of the training requirements you find in karate and martial arts deals with the concept of, “Kimi” or “Focus.” In this instance one must recognize and develop a focused attentive perception of our outer worlds and the inner world of our minds to properly integrate the two into the most appropriate memories so that it can be encoded into procedural zombie sub-routines with appropriate calls to the functions necessary to handle any given issue in any given situation in any given moment. Gives the standard meaning of kimi an whole new twist to work for karate and martial arts self-defense training and practice.
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Kimi [気味]
In most martial systems kimi means "focus." What becomes an issue of concern is when westerners start to define this martial term using their personal western English word to define it as a visual thing when it is a bit more. One might think it is that focus given in a strike, for instance, where one focuses attention and power to a specific spot on the opponent, i.e. such as the solar plexus.
Kimi or "focus" can be many more things. Focus on the mental training in conjunction with the physical. Focus on breathing through the hara. Focus on the fundamental principles of martial systems in application to the physical through the mental. Focus on your environment and those who are present and in close enough proximity to become a possible threat. The word "kimi or focus" can be much more ....
The two characters/ideograms mean, "sensation; feeling; tendency; propensity," and the first character means, "spirit; mind; air; atmosphere; mood," and the second character means, "flavor; taste." The following comes a bit closer to the basic understanding of the kimi in karate.
全力を注ぐ(ぜんりょくをそそぐ) / focus one's efforts, concentrate one's energies
It can apply to most of what I elude to in meaning because to focus one's efforts or to concentrate one's energies in those area's is a fundamental meaning of using focus in your training and practice.
When further research is done it may be the type of ideogram and word that is unique when used for martial systems since most of the definitions I find for the Japanese word "kimi" mean, "sensation; feeling; you; buddy; pal; egg yolk; millet; proso millet, yolk of an egg; yellow of an egg."
Kimi is an integral part of the art of budo in karate goshin-do. In this form kimi is the ability achieved to maximize effectiveness of the physical aspects of karate goshin-do. The is expressed by the term "kimi."
Kimi in this instance is the ultimate decisiveness. Kimi has a yin-yang dualistic monism aspect of the perfection of the original form as the system dictates by tradition and the application of the proper level of force that reaches the absolute limits of the technique applied.
Physical performance key elements for budo void, pause or interval's that become manifest within single harmonious movement. This pause is the demonstration of apparent relationship of a symbiotic nature of the person and with the technique created - a unification of mind and body, mind-body
Force, the second element of the yin-yang concept, is unique to budo. It plays the important role of making the individual technique in its technical movement effective when applied in combat. It is the maximal point or culmination of the body, physical form, executed with appropriate maximum force that reaches limits beyond the norm.
It is this dualistic monism of yin-yang or kimi expressed in karate goshin-do that brings the level of performance and application that is master or proficiency beyond the limits of the age of the mind-body.
It takes us beyond our natural threshold to seemingly mystic levels but is actually the expressions of kimi in budo or karate goshin-do.
Kenji Tokitsu Sensei states in his book, "Kime entails having our strength heightened to its maximum level, to be realized by going beyond this threshold at certain selected moments during the execution of a technique."
This is the path, the gate, that when opened with maai-hyoshi and yomi brings about the essence of budo that would make karate - karate goshin-do a budo.
In closing another quote from Kenji Tokitsu Sensei, "Personal evolution in relation to the formal techniques cannot be envisaged until after the practitioner has reached the point of being able to apply force in kimi by means of a technique that has acquired its correct form." The highest level of kimi: form and force!
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