The Dojo Kun …

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The dojo kun, the ken-po goku-i and other such written beliefs although beneficial to the study of martial disciplines also play another role in the dojo, a social one. Now, you might say that fostering a social context in the dojo is a good thing and you would be correct yet I must add in that a social context but be morally and socially driven and acceptable, i.e., it must benefit the group and its survival in what I would accept as a morally correct, etc. way. 

It is when that social context is not socially acceptable even in a way that cannot be readily seen or heard and drives us from an unconsciously driven social persuasive influential principled based way. 

As socially driven animals who must congregate into groups for survival even in modern, relatively safe from lions and tigers and bears eating us, times we are still driven by such gene oriented survival instincts. It is those very principled based drives that work for us and also can be worked against us. 

The dojo kun, the goku-i and other such short terse tomes can trigger the tapes, click-n-whirr, that drive belief systems. When a belief system is based on facts both academic in nature but more importantly in a physical way the belief is often beneficial. Yet, when such beliefs are found to be refuted by socially acceptable sources of proof such as documented and accepted facts along with the physical proofs and the group resists them because of beliefs then issues arise. 

The various written and often observable kun’s, goku-i’s and such, especially when misinterpreted, become problematic and trigger procedural tape and encoded routines, click-n-whirr, then something unusual and unbelievable occurs to outsiders of the group. 

I quote, “The principle of social proof: Often, when physical documented proof is presented that would result in scorn and derision and because the publicity and recruitment is the only remaining hope of the group they have to spread the word, so to speak philosophically and physically; the group finds they MUST inform the uninformed by any conceivable means such as word of mouth (the more who profess it as the truth the more it is accepted socially), personal interviews, and even video’s of such personal interviews and discussions. If the group can persuade the skeptics or convert the uninitiated and unknowledgeable, their treasured beliefs would become truer. The greater the number of people who find any idea correct, the more the idea will be correct. Since the physical evidence does not exist or cannot be changed, the social evidence has to be to convince and thereby be convinced. This is even more critical to the believer than to others exposed to the belief who are not yet believers. Winning converts means in addition to the original numbers they can increase the number of people to find the idea, the concepts and the philosophy to be correct, the more that idea, concept and philosophy will be correct - socially.”

When beliefs become so ingrained and important to the survival of the group and the individual often our instincts are triggered by the monkey brain toward a flight-fight response releasing all the adrenal stress-conditioned chemical dumps that reinforce the now found false beliefs that trigger responses such as described above to put back something, often as stated social proof by sheer numbers of believers, etc., that will reestablish in each group members mind a socially proven foundation so they can continue on with that belief. 

I have come to … wait for it … believe … that such groups become more closed toward membership, especially when the enough believers are members, exclusive and harder to penetrate. This is especially true from my perspective simply from my drive to ‘question-everything’ so when recently finding myself questioning many of the beliefs involved in once such group I found myself dismissed, excluded and removed from membership. The personal answer I actually did get when asked was, “You are always arguing with me,” or something similar to that - can’t exactly remember. It was because I made comments and asked questions toward the validity of what was being taught. Something I welcome here at my blogs, comments and discussions to either provide more support for my perspectives or to help me see and change those very same perspectives. 

One luminary of my respect, a historian and practitioner, once stated that he/she was discouraged because another respected teacher refused to beleive and accept documented proof of things currently taught under the heading of that group. In retrospect it explained why the original believer often spoke negatively about people of similar ilk, people who questioned and provided proofs that parts of the belief required changes, etc.

It is also extremely understood now that once a person and group enter that realm there is little to no chance that any member, old and new, who will accept any type of information that would rock the boat of their belief system. 

It has been enlightening to finally understand how some of this stuff works because it appears to be effective in changing humans and changing human self-image. Such understanding may achieve a better self-fense ability by how one influences others to avoid and deescalate, etc. 

This article is titled, “The Dojo Kun …” so lets speak directly to that, when such terse, often unexplained and mysterious because of a lack of understanding, tomes can lead a group toward a more social like belief rather than a concrete supported physical belief. It is like my favorite, the ken-po goku-i, that tends to have as many meanings and interpretations as there are practitioners in the martial disciplines. Literally thousands and thousands of translated interpretations that can be both true and relevant or false and irrelevant. It depends …

If a misinterpretation is given, if the practitioners come to believe it and believe in it and if the group finds it of some benefit that beings them together into a cohesive, strong and connected group that belief will take hold and become irrefutable - pretty much forever, mostly. Take one luminary of the martial community who studied a more mystical mysterious belief of ‘chi or ki’ energy. In one way it exists provided you understand how that can be true and its limitations but if you allow your mind to go beyond the reality of it, the physics in this case as well, then you can find a group driven belief system that says chi/ki can be projected and used to provide self-fense in conflict and violence. This same person who at one time was considered a leader of the martial community even when shown physical proof that it was not what it was believed simply fell into the groove of splain’in-it, the proof that is, away. 

It is easy to take aspects of the martial disciplines, both Okinawan and Japanese, etc., and make them feel, seem and work (under controlled environments and situations of training and practice) so that the more uninitiated will be amazed and come to believe - that is the premise behind many false beliefs over the centuries of human existence, the charlatans who milk us by triggering those psychological influential principles I allude to in this article. 

This is why one of my goals in blogging and teaching is to, at a minimum, instill a questioning aspect of one’s training and practice to make sure they learn all that is known and needed to understand such tomes, terse kun’s and goku’i’s of the martial arts world. If you assume and let yourself be led into agenda driven beliefs, etc., then you are susceptible to being misled as well. The old adage of, “Buyer Beware,” is a good one so “Martial Artists Beware” is something I try to get readers to accept as a part of their studies, practices, trainings and applications. 

Believe in what you believe wholeheartedly but with a bit of caution for all beliefs can be refuted to one degree or another in some time over time. It does not mean you have to rid yourself of your beliefs but possible make small changes in those beliefs all in the name of your beliefs. Beliefs, over the centuries for humans, have always changed and none are set in stone, it is just not how we evolve through the ages. Ok … Don’t believe me … find out for yourselves! I dare you; I double dare you; I triple double dare you!

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“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)