the primary function of language is to sing god’s praises

The teacher gives just enough to stimulate, inspire, encourage practise. Any more and the student will think (they've already done the work).

The living plasm vibrates unspeakably, it inhales the future, it exhales the past, it is the quick of both, and yet it is neither.

a quivering momentaneity

words unspoken

I can't really teach you anything. All I can do is point out what you already know.

The good teacher gives you not information or knowledge, not even wisdom, but things to practise. What I call points of practice.

I fall, more and more,
Into my own silences.
In the cold air,
The spirit
Hardens.

a mind & body

tempered & honed

by unremitting

discipline

embodied & embedded

discipline without force
now there's a tall order

All the oriental martial arts are founded on Riding Horse, something my teacher assured me I would have to seriously practise at some point otherwise there would always be a hole in my foundation, limiting progress. I realise now that the real value of Riding Horse is not so much the strength it builds in the legs but the way it slowly strips the mind of self-pity. Without the grim discipline of Riding Horse, the mind will never naturally sink & settle in the dantien. Riding Horse is the spiritual heart of our art.

for in the tension of opposites all things have their being

from cowardice to courage
from distraction to concentration

to find the true home you must first leave your false home: tribe  family  self

there may be no unteachable children but there are plenty of unteachable adults