“Jiki Shin Kore Dojo” by Dane S. Harden

Jiki shin kore dojo: “If the mind is right, everywhere is a dojo.” In preparation for my upcoming advancement exam with Kevin Blok Kyoshi, Yoshinkan Aikido, I was asked to think about this concept and to consider how some of my own life experiences validated this theory for me individually. The idea that what you are taught in a dojo has overflow into every aspect of a student’s life is certainly not new to me. My parents pointed to my beginning my initial martial arts training at age nine as the point of demarcation marking a turn-around in my life. The discipline and sense of self-confidence I learned in a dojo helped me to mature and have focus. Staying with the martial arts for all these years has served me well in virtually every other aspect of my life. The military and medical career paths I have chosen to follow were always influenced by my martial concepts of persistence and dedication. It is difficult to be a soldier and not be disciplined. It is even made more so when your job in the military involves exposure to many of the real horrors of warfare. As a flight surgeon some of the areas I have been operational at include Estonia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Hurricane Katrina. While there were many times under trying circumstances where I realized that the lessons of the dojo were readily in my mind providing me with back-up and fortitude, I didn’t realize what this idea of having a “right mind” really meant until I thought about my time spent in the mountains.

One of my real passions involves a discipline of the healing arts known as wilderness medicine. A spin-off of my involvement in this particular area of medicine has been the experiences I’ve gained in mountaineering, certainly one of the most demanding environments where the practices of wilderness medicine has its most direct applications. In climbing you have to first establish a respect for what you are doing. It has to be real to you and you have to understand the danger, the science, and the lore of mountaineering to truly experience it. My first alpine experience was during a rest and recreation period while on leave during the Bosnian War. My wife, Dr. Sherry Harden, had flown over to Munich and we spent several wonderful weeks touring Germany, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland, some of the most truly impressive Alpine climbing areas of the world. One of the activities I had signed up for involved climbing the highest peak in Germany, the daunting Zugspitze.

To say it was a challenge for two very novice climbers is an understatement, but we decided to approach this alpine climb like so many of the other challenges we’ve faced in life by just completing the trek one step at a time. Sherry and I worked together with our guide to summit that big mountain. It really wasn’t so very different than having a patient and experienced Sensei teaching a couple of determined students. We were determined to get to the top of that peak with our own fortitude and our guide’s good help. We found that the more we relaxed and just enjoyed the experience the less daunting it became. The cobalt blue sky over southern Germany was a wondrous site. Thanks to the skill and the relaxed manner of our guide we had one of the most exhilarating experiences of our lives, and we now include taking on challenging mountain climbs on nearly every vacation we take. Our guide—our “Mountain Sensei”—influenced us in a very positive way. His mind was right and he taught us to climb carefully and enjoy the journey along the way. He loved and respected the mountains and knew what they could offer to those willing to accept their many challenges.

That single introduction to alpine climbing has taken us on many challenging climbs. Interestingly, I have found that the idea of having a “right mind” in climbing is the same as in martial arts. In the end, I’ve found that climbing has led me back to a re-awakened enthusiasm for the martial arts which had been secluded away and kept to myself for more then a decade. I never stopped training but I never really gave any deeper thought as to why I trained or for that matter, why I climbed, why I served, or why I do any of the things I do? Then it dawned on me: it was for the experience and the challenge. I did not do martial arts anymore for self-defense or fitness. I did it for self-actualization and discovery. I may have been training my body for years, but I finally realized that my mind was not awake–it just wasn’t right—and the mountain was able to spark my awareness and rekindle a new kind of passion.

My journey back to the martial arts and Aikido started in Slovenia in 2001, not too long after that first climbing trip. I recall looking up at the southern end of the Austrian and Italian Alps wishing I could climb them, wishing I could feel that sense of self discovery, challenge and joy one more time. I was doing a taekwondo work out and I remembered feeling “at peace” with myself for the first time in a long time. I was in the right place to resume my training in the way of peace and harmony, and that’s when I began training in Aikido again. There was a Slovenian interpreter who was an avid beginner aikidoka and his passion for the art was contagious.

Previously I would have thought my taekwondo was strong enough. I believed that I had all the necessary skills I needed to adequately defend myself. But the mountains had awakened a spirit that I think had been asleep since my father died. My father was my inspiration and my mentor. He was always there to support me at every step of my training in taekwondo—my beloved “Parent Sensei”—a kind and gentle teacher who helped me, I realize now, to navigate the mountain of life. When he passed, I placed my first Black Belt in his resting hands because I knew how much it had meant to him and to me. I didn’t realize it then, but placing that training worn belt in his coffin with him symbolized a dying of the light within me—a fading of the guide lights that had marked the trail of the path I was on, my path up the mountain. My passion to train and teach simply stopped. I needed something to rekindle that spirit and desire and I think the mountains became that initial challenge to help make “my mind was right after spending time with the spirit of the mountains.” So much symbolism. I realized how much I did not know about the martial arts and about life.

As a climber, experiencing the sense of isolation, danger, and extreme mental and physical demand can become an awakening. I recall climbing in the Cascades and thinking this is really just like the martial arts. It is about stance, balance, posture, relaxation, and breathing; it’s about focus, determination and knowing the basics and doing them over and over again and again. Getting it right—achieving mushin, the essence of “no thought” when the body follows perfectly what the mind directs it to do. The persistence needed to climb Mt. Shasta or Mt. Rainer is the same persistence I need for martial arts, for aikido, and for life. Taking it one step at a time, leaning forward, and never quitting are life lessons that don’t just apply to the martial arts, alpine climbing, even medical school or the ultimate challenging environment of the battlefield. They are mastering the basics of form and technique, and just as in martial art’s training the basics are the keys to success.

When you compete at tournament play you are focused on winning. You focus on applying the difficult skills that are physically challenging to do but are the key to being successful. But it really is the basic skills that you must stand upon because if your focus is too much on doing the flying kick and not enough on the basic stance or its execution then your mind is not right and it follows that your technique will not be right. The purpose for doing the technique will have been lost on you. But if the mind is right everywhere is the dojo, whether it’s the tournament floor or the side of a mountain at 14,000 feet.

I’ve come to understand that it’s not about the summit, it’s not about the color of the belt, and it’s not even about the pure execution of the skills you learn. It is the experience you share with yourself and other martial artists. The personal growth and development, the challenge and ultimately the idea that you are a martial artist and everything you have done in this lifetime has been influenced by the values you’ve been taught. Herein is the awakening. I teach and my students teach me. What I am doing is of value far beyond what I can realize. I don’t think Master Rhee really thought what he taught would influence a student the way it has influenced me. But it has. Now that I am the Teacher, I want to use that to understand that what I do or say can have effects I will never know about. Having a “right mind” and realizing what an important example we set is an awakening for me. Jiki Shin Kore Dojo, indeed.

There is a story in the annals of Zen Philosophy that finally comes to mind. Three practitioners of Zazen decide to climb a great mountain and they engage an experienced guide to help them conquer the summit. When they are within easy site of its peak, in fair and agreeable weather to achieve their lofty goal, they suddenly stop and turn around. The guide is incredulous; after all the ardor of the ascent, he cannot understand why they wouldn’t want to finish the climb and summit the peak. He asks the climbers, “Why? Why would you care to turn around now when you are so close to the end?” Only one of the climbers turned to respond as they continued to descend and he said, “Well, the mountain is far greater than us. We could never really best the mountain, so it’s best just to show it the respect it’s due. Besides, it’s not about the finishing the journey and conquering the destination. It’s always only about what we learn on the path along the way.”

Western Masters Martial Arts
Yoshinkan Aikido
(www.wmma.cmasdirect.com)

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