(A Perspective)
A martial art concept? Yes and no because like many proverbial martial arts terms, concepts, the dojo merely, in Japan, adopted cultural terms and concepts when entering the Japanese dojo.
We Americans assumed they were particular to karate dojo. Shuhari is a word, concept, applied to all Japanese arts, disciplines and practices, like noh theater and tea ceremonies, etc.
Shuhari is an entire philosophy expressed into three characters. It is a concept that guides one through three distinct yet overlapping processes to take one from introduction to learning to understanding and finally to mastery.
To help explain the concept the author used the circle ⭕️ which is reminiscent of the, “Enso.” It is tantamount to three enso in progressively larger circles.
- The smallest inner circle is “shu.”
- The next larger middle circle is “ha.”
- The largest outer circle is “ri.”
[守破離] Shuhari, (three stages of mastery: the fundamentals, breaking with tradition, creating one's own methodologies [techniques]).
- In karate shu is about fundamentals. (Elementary Level)
- In karate ha is about exploring, playing and understanding. (Intermediate Level)
- In karate ri is about discovery, discovering one’s way. (Advanced Level)
In short, each stage depends on the other to cross over from one to the next, morphing and melding each much like the layers of metal that are forged into a katana, Japanese samurai sword. Taking short cuts or to allow missing parts simply weakens the blade.
Bibliography
Lieberman, Albert. “Ganbatte!” Tuttle Publishing 2022
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