I brought up the individual in question because his approach is the opposite of the people I *AM* dissatisfied with/irritated at.
So you are dissatisfied with people who don't leave Japan frustrated by a supposedly overpowering senior?
I still don't get it, Nim....
The way it was written, your post actually sounds like a criticism of Hatsumi-sensei. After all, he's the supposedly overbearing personality that is driving this loving martial artist from Japan.... Even though it is Hatsumi-sensei's art that this guy loves, trains and teaches. :shake head:
As someone who has been there and done that, I have doubts whether anyone in Japan now has a relationship with Soke that causes that much stress. All contact is essentially in the dojo setting. No foreigner is regularly the uke, and no one is getting reprimanded and belittled in front of others. And so on....
The idea that there is someone subjected to "constant physical and mental domination" by Hatsumi-sensei seems a bit fantastical to me (and others with whom I've spoken about this post). I certainly never saw any such thing during all my years of training with Soke. There is certainly a chance that the environment has changed since I left (in 2000), but I doubt it given my conversations with those still in Japan.
I *DO* think your post raises a couple of interesting points though.
First, should people do what Soke tells them they should do, or should people do what they themselves think is best despite what Soke says?
Some would argue the former is better during your time in Japan, because that is the only time that you have to try to figure out what the heck Soke is doing. Picking up the essence of what Soke is teaching takes years of making mistakes and being corrected, each week.
You will always have time (after returning home) to do thousands of mindless drills getting things perfectly, and you honestly do not need someone to correct that stuff as much as the "Soke stuff." The "Soke stuff" is much harder, imo, so to not pursue it during your time in Japan would be waste of good teachings....
Second is the issue of whether one allows Japan to stamp out one's "internal fire" as I call it. You simply cannot "win" against an entire culture that demands certain behaviors and attitudes.
That is one of the reasons why I myself left Japan; I didn't want to lose *ALL* of my spirit to the overwhelming pressure of the "Japanese way." This is not a "Bujinkan specific" issue, but a broader "Japan" issue.
The Japanese have a phrase, "shiyo ga nai" (sometimes heard as "shoganai"), which means "nothing can be done" (about something).
From one perspective, it is a very defeatist statement; it takes away one's ability to actually *CHANGE* things. From another perspective, it reflects the fact that it is wiser most of the time not to waste one's energy on petty (or deeply institutionalized and therefore impossible to change) things.
*YOU* as a foreigner are not going to change Japan because you will it to do so.
Still, most foreigners have difficulty becoming "defeatist" and purely accepting the "shiyo ga nai" perspective. Perhaps it is our "go gettum attitude" or instead it may be simply our hard-headedness.
But in the end, one has to give into this perspective in order to live amicably in Japan long term. I get the feeling that this individual has finally reached the boiling point on this issue, and has decided that it is time to move on.
And I don't see that "moving on" as a bad thing, either. Anyone who has been in Japan since the early 1990s has *PLENTY* of material to keep him busy for the rest of his life. Being in Japan provides few opportunities to really digest what it is that Soke is teaching.
It personally took me about four years of being away from Japan to come to terms with what Soke had been teaching. Decompression is a good thing, and in the end, the individual may gain new insights into what he already knows by being away from Japan for some time.
One must make time to digest after a good meal, you know....
-ben
