A Healthy Paranoia

so i guess this place in cyberspace has become somewhat derelict; it never was that busy to begin with. but here i've decided to carve out some words that encapsulate what dreams may come in my mundane mind.

i've been looking into graduate school as something a few years down the road, but almost definite. there are a few programs that i'm interested in, with faculty whose work i have tremendous respect for. but something is telling me to take a year or two off, because i need to develop myself and grow in the right directions. but first, current interests:

traditions of the body and their effects on the mind
the traditions of the body exist across space and time, with a historical development that parallel the cultural contexts these traditions were created for. there is nothing new under the sun; such traditions have always been created, maintained and lost through history. but modernity bears a pronounced ignorance of these traditions en masse. are these traditions now irrelevant? or do they hold the precious insights that allow us to make sense of contradictions that threaten to overwhelm us?

concepts of natural
1. food and nutrition: the natural lexicon of organic, free-range, wild, and clean etc.
2. natural imagination: the original affluent society, pastoral romanticism, the noble savage
3. borderlands: where nature and man meet; conservation contrary to the 'native', deforestation, fishing

our ideas of what natural behaviour, natural diet and health constitute are sometimes misleading. the desires that form our consumer choices, from whence did they come? is there a conflation of healthy with organic, or organic with clean? where do those marginalised borderland people go when there is no more borderland? has the green revolution been overthrown by corporate sponsorship?

afterthought

When I was 23 there was this small, small guy, a koryu guy, about 160 cm. He was about 50 years old. I was sparring one day with my buddies at the Neijia Institute and I saw this small old guy just standing there. I asked a couple of questions about him, but all anyone would tell me was that he was some Koryu guy and that he was “dangerous” and that I shouldn’t talk to him.

I was sparring, when the old man walked up to me. The old man then told me quietly “You have good potential, but your posture is horrible. You should stand up straighter.”

So I thought to myself, “Who is this old fart?!”

I asked him, “Then, respectfully sir, do you mind if I hit you so I can see what you mean?”

I had the full intention of knocking him out.

All he said was “Dozo” (As you wish)

I took a semi crouched stance and faked left and went in full bore with a right hook.

All of a sudden I was looking up at his face.

I had no idea what had happened.

Later I learned he simply stepped in grabbed my head and put me down. All very naturally.

Quietly he said “I told you, your posture is horrible.”

Anyways, he’s the guy who gave me me all the hints that gave me the body that I have now, the body I’m attempting to create. A dragon body. I didn’t understand what the guy did to me…. I felt no pain yet the guy was effective. It was the most amazing thing. You know, you see “shotokan does this” or “xingyi does that.” But that guy, he doesn’t train anymore at all, but I still can’t touch him. It’s like a yakuza tattoo because it’s so hammered into his body.

That guy learned from a guy right after the war. He was like a demon. He had no interest in teaching. I only learned from him for two years. Once a month. Shintaijiku. The guy would check me. That was it. No applications. I would go home, and sometimes practice for five hours. I’d review everything he taught me and then suddenly it would be morning.

-akuzawa minoru, source:rsf

is it mad to say that i believe these people to exist? is it the frog beyond the well that says i have seen with my eyes people with a dragon's body?