Radical NLP, Mythology, Spirituality, Leadership, and other Change Technologies » Sensei Sastri

#157 The Way of the Warrior, part 7 – Change and Learning

RCG — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:00:17 +0000

We are honored and humbled to continue our conversation on the Way of the Warrior, this time with Vilaire Sensei and Sastri Sensei. Vilaire Sensei, Menkyo Kaiden is the presenter of the system in this generation, and Sastri Sensei, Menkyo Kaiden is the headmaster of the Indian Branch of KAR, and senior advisor to both the Kita Yama and Mountain View Aiki dojo.

Change that happens over years
- If a student does not feel a difference over a few years, then I as a sensei have not done my job
- Spiritual enlightenment depends on the indiviual
- Outsiders notice your growth before you do
- I am not here to be a good person, I am here to be a good teacher, to teach what I know
- People told me not to teach, but I choose to teach
Learning this art leads to
- Total confusion for a few months,
- After 6 months confidence starts to come from within, not from drilling toughness into you
- After about 30 months, training atleast 4 hours a week – you become atleast a little proficient in the art, atleast 20% of the syllabus of the art
- After that it grows from there, but you have to work a lot, atleast 4 hours per week of constant study
- Don’t come to my dojo to make friends and hang out
I am an instructor, not your trainer and there is a huge difference
Before Kaze I was not a humble person, always ready to go for a fight
- The art and Vilaire sensei made me a humble person
- How Sastri Sensei met Vilaire Sensei
  - The head instructor is mopping the floor
  - No order given, and the instructor leads the way on “how to be”
  - Transformation from an animal to learning to be a humble human
- Change comes from how the system teaches the instructors to behave and how to transmit
- The true student wants to learn whats on the other side of the wall, even when my body is not allowing me to go there
- Knowledge is infinite – there is no end, I wont see the end of it even in 10 lifetimes – this makes me humble
- I don’t care about wearing the kaiden/red-white belt – I don’t need it
- One learns one is a nobody
- A true student of the art evolves every single day
- One discovers ones own greatness, ones own basic goodness
Mahipal running into Sastri Sensei
- How Mahipal met Sastri Sensei
- Lessons in humility – sastri sensei takes Mahipal down and the journey begins
- I cannot keep this with me, it has to be given away, and only when I am giving this away is there some kind of peace
Senseis give so much
- Sensei sastri promises 3 years of his life
- Some of you will make it, some of you wont
- The intensity of the tests
  - My time with the students is limited
  - I even taught them menkyo techniques for their black belt tests
  - Did not want to leave my students as half baked martial artists
  - My students pushed me everyday and I would push them – my students made me a better instructor
  - Training on Christmas day, no breaks, keep coming back to learn more
- One you get your oku iri from me – you should be able to hold your own in any school
- The system evolves you
- If I did not fight, I would have a splitting headache – I had to fight, I had to throw that punch
- You need to fight so that you don’t lash out at someone else
- I am not a coward, I just don’t want to fight

#156 The Way of the Warrior, part 6 – Humility and the study of Art

RCG — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:00:56 +0000

The kindness and gentleness of this art
- Sometimes kindness means killing effectively
- As a sensei you are a commanding officer,
- A special bond is sometimes created with “some students”
- I have gained a family by being an instructor of this system
- Not everyone reaches graduate school nor do they need to, people leave school at different parts/levels
Enjoying the art you practice is critical
- Art was not designed to be liked, it was designed to be what it is
- Commercial schools change based on what people like
- We don’t depend on teaching the art to survive, we do other things, and come to the art for other reasons
Difference between warrior schools and other schools
- Warriors don’t worry about life and death, they do what they have to do
- Fighting for a cause, not for profit
- We study it because we see the beauty involved in the knowledge we are learning
- We look at ourselves and discover “my god, I am different now”
- Warrior art, philosophical living
- Learn humility, learn how to be human
- In some parts of the world they will hunt you down if they find out you are a martial artist
- Fighting is for babies, if you think sparring makes you tough you are in for a rude awakening
- Need to learn how to deal with real violence
- Guns don’t kill, you need to be able to pull the trigger – that requires training
- You don’t become a true warrior by being a keyboard martial artist
- Don’t come to learn from us if you just wish to learn how to defend against that onetime you may be mugged
- You cannot bypass violence, it part of human nature
- We deal with true violence to reach our highself

#155 The Way of the Warrior, part 5 – Evolution and Approaches

RCG — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 15:00:28 +0000

Think evolution, we don’t live like the samurai of the 18th century
- Fortunate to have an instructor who was a military man first and a martial artist next
- Like the bootcamp, you are going to hate me
- Not here to make Kaze Arashi Ryu popular, warfare is complicated, it can make you crazy
- Warfare is not based on weight categories and/or sport, being a warrior is about taking on whoever shows up in front of you
- True warrior is all about “surviving when the odds are against you”
- Reality of warfare, most people who practice sword do not even think about decapitation, they hide the real use so much they forget what and why they practice the sword
- I don’t want to own a school or operate anything, I just want to teach
- I wish I did not lose money teaching it, but that’s the way it works
Military is voluntary, and they make many promises
- You show up through the door I will teach you, no promises made
- Any idiot can kill, we teach how not to be killed and learn other things along the way
- Opening up other avenues – your inner selves
Distintions between different school
- Warrior schools, mixed martial arts and mcdonalds studios in malls
- I don’t want to talk about other schools, I will stick to what I do
- You cannot compare classical to jazz to rock and roll, each one has its place
- Different schools/traditions exist because people have different tastes
- Mixed martial arts is like having warfare without having warfare
- Kaze fits best where “real violence exists”
- I don’t take Kaze to avoid a mugging, but there is something greater emerges in the process of learning
- We go as close to true jutsu as possible
Experts are not born by watching, you need to be engaged
- Critics are easy to find, practioneers are hard to find
- When you fight there is no pity
- When you are in war, you cant say I will just shoot this guy in the leg, you are fighting for life
- We teach our students to be kind, compassionate, being true to yourself
- Our students are always looking to help another person, save animals etc
- Live in both worlds – where cruelty and softness exist
- The art made me, the praise should go to the art, when my students praise me I give the credit to the art
- Don’t be someones vomit, you want to learn come and get on the mat
- Its about becoming a balanced human being, and the instructors impart knowledge of martial arts and the philosophy of life

#154 The Way of the Warrior, part 4 – Tradition and Teacher

RCG — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 15:00:17 +0000

What is tradition
- Does not have to be old to be tradition
- Knowledge passed on from one person to another
- Tradition is based on principles not time
- Name does not matter, what you do/execute matters
- Don’t let famous names guide/misguide you
- Art is only as good as its presenter, and for this generation I am the presenter (Vilaire Shihan)
- Whatever I have done I have done from my heart, soul and spirit
- Fame is almost inverse of the art I do
- A small tradition, less than 188 students worldwide, and this is by choosing
- The knowledge we have been passing down is so special, and its not easy to duplicate at all – one can try and are free to do so if people please
- There is nothing to defend the system, it can stand on its own
- Is my samurai greater than your samurai ??
- Whose fame or skill is carrying the system/art
- The question should be “have I started where my teachers have stopped and are my students ready to surpass me”
True teacher
- Must expect your students to be better than you
- This art does require a certain amount intelligence
- I hope and pray my students are better than me
- I am NOT important, the art and expression is the important thing
- Don’t memorize, but analyze the techniques – its not monkey see, monkey do
- Don’t be bogged down by tradition or history – what is important is who are you and what can you do
- Its not how good your teacher is, the question is how good a student are you to learn
- A relationship based on respect is important to really learn
- Pay attention to what your heart tells you abut your teacher, not what the world says he is
- You are free to go and learn anywhere, if you find something better than what I have to offer, you can please leave and leave me alone

The Business of Art and The Art of Business And….

Mahipal Lunia — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:41:05 +0000

Andre: What does it do to us, Wally, living in an environment where something as massive as the seasons or winter or cold, don’t in any way affect us? I mean, were animals after all. I mean… what does that mean? I think that means that instead of living under the sun and the moon and the sky and the stars, we’re living in a fantasy world of our own making.
Wally: Yeah, but I mean, I would never give up my electric blanket, Andre. I mean, because New York is cold in the winter. I mean, our apartment is cold! It’s a difficult environment. I mean, our life is tough enough as it is. I’m not looking for ways to get rid of a few things that provide relief and comfort. I mean, on the contrary, I’m looking for more comfort because the world is very abrasive. I mean, I’m trying to protect myself because, really, there’s these abrasive beatings to be avoided everywhere you look!
Andre: But, Wally, don’t you see that comfort can be dangerous? I mean, you like to be comfortable and I like to be comfortable too, but comfort can lull you into a dangerous tranquility.

Excerpt from “My Dinner With Andre” (1981)

Its 5 PM we start our quest this evening, the long drive from South Bay to Berkley, for a dinner with Antero Alli to discuss a movie project and pick his brain on what has worked for him in his projects. We have worked with Antero on 2 Paratheatre labs, participated in his AngelTech course, recorded a series of talks/podcasts with him. As always Sergey and I are discussing various things and laughing. Our latest fascination is a book called The Moon Of Hao Binh by William Pensinger. When I tell him “dude, I need a dictionary to read his book. And I need dictionaries in English, Japanese and German.” Sergey asks me why three languages, to which I say “he has written the book using these three languages, with doses of Vietnamese.” Sergey laughs and mockingly says “Who the hell writes one book using three different languages?” I respond “Pensinger does, he is apparently doing his thing his way. I don’t think he care whether the world reads his work or not”

We arrive at Himalaya, a Nepalese restaurant in Berkley at about 7 PM and are seated by the hostess after a warm Namaste. The menu is rich, and we order chicken tikka, ghosh haiyali (lamb), bhindi tarkari (okra) and of course Naan with Mango chutney on the side. Antero is seated in front of me and Sergey to my right. As we settle into our seats and the conversation is to begin I think to myself “This will surely be an interesting evening, and discussion will range from Paratheatre, to movies, to the business of movie making and who knows what else.”

I cant help but think to myself that this scene, this location and perhaps even the range of topics seems eerily similar to the movie “My Dinner With Andre (1980).” For those of you who have not seen the movie, we highly recommend this movie of two friends talking over dinner in a New York restaurant. The movie for those who have not seen it revolves around two key themes from the path breaking work of Jerzy Grotowski . The two themes are

1. Living spontaneously by following one’s impulses and

2. What is the purpose and nature of theater

The restaurant is half packed with guests all around, and quickly our focus begins to crystallize around our table and discussion to unfold. Two Paratheatre labs (watch for 3 podcasts on this topic coming soon, titled “Beware Archetypes Crossing”) each lasting between 8 – 10 weeks, meeting twice a week for 3 hours, it’s time to get some feedback and pointers to further development in this medium as we prepare for our third lab with him. Antero tells me to give myself more time in no-form. My mind quickly races and remembers trying to articulate what No Form is to a friend, before guiding him to Antero’s own description on his website. In Antero’s own words “The purpose of no-form is two-fold: 1) to deepen receptivity to energy sources innate to the physical and energetic bodies towards their engagement and expression and 2) to discharge and disperse identification with these forces after each engagement. Like an empty container, no-form allows us to become full with the energies engaged and then to empty, again. No-form is not something that can be taught but only developed and deepened; we either already have some existing relationship or intimacy with Void or, we do not. The experience is essentially personal to each individual but also, impersonal. Astrophysics suggests there is no such thing as ‘empty space’ anywhere in nature, that space is not empty but teeming with dynamic potential energy. They could have been describing no-form.

We moved on to discuss how Sergey works with his voice. Sergey has been working on unfolding his voice and discovering what else he can do. The discussion moved to how the quality of the voice changes based on which cavity we explore voice from. The quality of the voice changes so much based on wheatear it comes from the nose, the throat, the chest or the diaphragm. Antero concluded this part saying “explore your voice coming and going deep into different cavities and see what emerges” and the ever esoteric and yet so much in the body “move the voice through the body, through the muscles. Voice is energy, its vibration, it has an effect. Explore it.” There is the same theme again “dont go meta, go meso. Truth is here in the body, in the world, not out there outside the body, world”

The food arrived, the aroma of the food filled the room and we started to dig into the delicacies that lay before us. The paintings of various gods, the large wall painted with Mt. Meru and the sweet smells of various spices was a feast for our consciousness. The imagery of Mt. Meru bought the conversation now to the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky and his movie “The Holy Mountain.” The conversation was now quickly moving towards our work – the work of creating a movie/documentary with Bucky’s principles. Bucky or Buckminister Fuller’s ideas and generalized principles have had a huge impact on us, and we are looking at ways of exploring them in a new format.

Our discussion went all over with Antero sharing his directorial experiences and how to make movies. The themes revolved around picking the main theme, scouting the locations, nesting stories v/s one story etc. This has given us a lot of food for thought. As the main course comes to an end, and many of the tables that were once filled are now emptying and our ideas/thoughts racing at 100 miles an hour I ask “how do we draw a balance between what we want to say and what the audience will understand? Do we make the movie such that the largest possible audience gets the ideas, such that these seeds are planted into their consciousness?”

The hostess now approaches us, and brings us the check. I looked at her, and thinking to myself “we are not done,” and could we please get some chai for all of us. A good Indian subcontinent meal is never complete without chai. Indian chai when made right has just this right blend of sweetness and spiciness, coming from a mixture of cardamom, ginger, cinnamon among other spices. The whole approach of the hostess again brought to mind “My dinner with Andre” and the occasional intrusion of the waiter during the dinner, and more importantly a rich conversation. The chai arrived, and the aroma filled my consciousness while the warmth of the chai soothed the throat.

“ There are some that consider the audience and tailor the movie towards them” continued Antero as we sipped our delicious chai “but if that formula works, then there would be so many more hits and blockbusters.” We just rolled in laughter at the obviousness and irony of the statement. He summed his take on this with “stay true to your vision, plan hard on what you want to do, and be prepared for improvisations to happen, to emerge.” Our discussion went on for a while longer on various topic of making movies, and staying true to one’s vision and letting improvisations emerge. The hostess arrived once again with the check, and after paying for it, we started our walk back towards Antero’s home. Its about 10 PM now I think, most business around Shattuck Avenue have shut down for the night.

Its past 10 15 pm or so, and it will be atleast an hour’s drive home, we say our good bye’s for now “see you at the lab in March.” We get into Sergey’s car, our very faithful companion on many a trips of exploration, and start our drive back to the south bay. The hour is filled with lively discussion of things we learned, and the path that lay before us. Sergey stated “you know the thing that stood out for me is we need to focus on the imperfections of the characters, these screw ups in their lives will actually add to the richness of the story. If you notice the development and growth of RCG, we have been opening up to our faults more and more, being more vulnerable to who we are, and how we may be screwed up.” I nodded and said “yes, I agree, our path from our faults and short comings towards some sense of normalcy and contribution is the true hero’s journey. As Antero had said earlier “don’t build super heroes”– look in the ordinary and find the extraordinary.

A little past 11 when I got home and the same thought keeps running through me “stay true to your art, your vision.” It’s a cold night, I pull my comforter on me and think of yes its important to stay true to our art, our vision. Afterall that’s what we are doing with RCG, we have not advertised, we have not commercialized, we have done it as an expression, as an offering, it was for the sake of following our vision, our art, not for commercial value. And yet it seems to have touched listeners around the planet, and yet it has bought many wonderful people into our lives. Yes staying true to one’s vision, one’s art, one’s impulses even if you are on the Fringe, even if it makes you a deviant is critical. The question here truly is make sure you are a positive deviant.

All ideas’ follow the same path, they start with the artist/idealist on the fringe, then move into the cutting edge when a few others have seen and communicate the same vision. From here if it catches the eye of the hipsters it enters the realm of the cool in the hip circles until a “tipping point” arrives, taking towards the next big thing and it ends up becoming a social convention. The art and artist stays pure to his vision, and is found in the fringe and cutting edge, as more enter it the devox “voice of the deviant” starts to be lost, the business of art starts to fade, and the art of business kicks in.

The Art of Business is taking the ideas from the cutting edge and realm of the cool, and moving it into “the next big thing” and hope that this expression becomes a social convention. In making it a social convention huge fortunes are made usually for the venture capitalist and acute entrepreneur, they have usually moved away if not far away from the devox – the true voice of the original deviant, who perhaps sits and see’s his art is now perhaps a shadow of the original. It hits me as I roll in bed that perhaps this is what James Joyce was alluding to in his “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” where he speaks of the function of art. Joyce states that “true art is beautiful and/or sublime. It stops you dead in your tracks, leaves you speechless.” He further states what art is not “Improper art moves you to do something. It either aims to teach or move you to do something that you would not normally do.” It hits me that is the aim of advertising, the critical tool to move an idea/vision from the cutting edge to the next big thing. It aims at making you do something you would not normally do or want.

The Business of Art is following one’s impulses to find beauty and the sublime in it, and to be arrested in its awe. The Art of Business is “moving others to do something they may not normally do.” There has to be a third way… there must be a third way but for now I need to sleep, have a long day ahead and to be at work at 6 am and for now I tell myself “stay true to your art, your vision” and cuddle into the warmth of my comforter.

The next day, after a long day at work, between partnership meetings and meetings, I return home. My mind is still reeling from the conversations the night before and the business of art. Bucky and the movie to get the ideas out have somehow taken the back seat. I continue reading the Moon of Hao Bihn until its time to head to the dojo. The evening is cold, and it sure gets dark early in winters. The dojo, or where the way is practiced is a corner in the park. The class is small, 4 regular students and me, and this evening there are only two shows, and it hits me that even though there are just two students and me, we are here when its wet and cold, practicing our art – following our impulses to learn the martial art, that has been passed down generation to generation for perhaps hundreds of years, and in the process discover ourselves.

This evening in the dojo with two students reminds me of my days with my sensei, and the small one room dojo. Sensei had converted the small living room into our dojo, the room measured approximately 15 feet wide and about 25 feet in length, and was matted. Sensei had given up a lot, including promotions on his job and perhaps a lot more in order to be true to his art, to his form of expression of his spirit. Like clockwork he would be there every evening teaching the next generation of practioneers the art, the spirit and the way of the warrior. Sastri sensei left his family behind, left his country, his home, in order to follow his impulse, to introduce the art which he had dedicated many many years to another generation, in another part of the world. A group of us, would practice with him every opportunity we got for hours to an end. I remember clearly him one night telling us “you are young, and you can be a 100 other places on this Friday night, and yet here you giving and receiving pain. This will be rewarded, in ways you cannot conceive yet. You know you are like the young piano player, who is practicing and practicing while his friends play, a day will soon come, when the young maestro will play, and his friends will pay to watch. Stick with it, stick with the practice and dedication to the art, it will reward you in ways you don’t know yet.”

So here I am, sitting and that feeling of calm comes back, and I know that for me its “continue to being true to the art and expression” of my spirit, of my own way. The movie, the podcasts, the dojo all serve the same need, they are devices for reaching into the further reaches of my own inner space. Time to head to bed, this time more relaxed and telling myself the third way is “Art is the way” its not about the business of art or art of business, but Art is the way. And the way of art is “following those impulses from deep within” and then continuing to work on the art while others play, and when it is your turn to play they will pay to be there. Time to sleep, and tomorrow it will be time again to work on the art, while others perhaps are playing.

Technorati Tags: antero alli, dinner with andre, holy mountain, sensei sastri, james joyce, radical change group, art,

Arrested by Beauty, Bailed Out of Time

Mahipal Lunia — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:11:08 +0000

The intellectual is always showing off, the lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away.afraid of drowning;

the whole business of love is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose; lovers are ashamed to rest.

The lover is always alone. even surrounded by people;

like water and oil, he remains apart.

The man who goes to the trouble of giving advice to a lover

get nothing. He’s mocked by passion.

Love is like musk. It attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

- Rumi

I sat down at The Palace of Fine Arts, wondering what the evening would be like. And appears this demure and understated man, in a pair of jeans and an old white shirt. Shy, somewhat clumsy when you first see him, and he bows to the crowd three times and sits down on his piano. And out of nowhere this once seemingly shy man is transformed, into sheer poetry. The music flows, and enthralls one and all. His piece ends and there is silence, before the crowd erupts in a crescendo of applause.

I sat there, mesmerized and lost in his music, lost in the sound and melody, especially of his classical pieces. His presence, and more importantly his passion with his piano had transported me from the chains of time, into the boundlessness of that space which is free of time. The music served as a gateway into the timeless. Two hours at the Palace of Fine Arts passed as though in a jiffy.

As I was driving back home, my mind kept going back into that feeling of timelessness, the passion George Winston shared through his piano at the Palace of Fine Arts, the music and how it evoked the feeling of total merger with it. And it dawned on me that this is pure being, pure presence, pure ….. and this is not the only time I have experienced it.

I remembered watching my sensei (who you can listen to on the way of the warrior podcasts) perform cross blocks followed by kokyu nage (a way of deflecting an oncoming attack followed up by a throw by disbalancing the opponent). It was sheer poetry in motion, all of us were in awe, and entrained into seeing beauty unfold right before our eyes.

The other incident which came to mind is watching Kathy Altman dance with us for three days, from 11 AM through 6 PM. Watching her merge and move with the music and the 5 rhythms progressed. Flowing smoothly, to expressing her will in staccato, to the rumble of chaos, into the smooth merger with the lyrical and arriving at peace into stillness. As she moved in her own way, there was that sense of beauty and sense of pure being flowing through, that captivated all of us who watched.

I have always been fascinated by watching mastery in any form, and always wanted to learn how people do things they do with exquisite finesse (this is the heart of modeling IMO). Upon approaching both my Sensei and Kathy (many years apart) they had interestingly told me the excat same thing when I told them ‘wow I want to move like that” – they said NO!! “you want to move how you move.” My sensei was a little more colorful when he said “don’t be my vomit” meaning don’t do things or say things exactly as he does, I needed to find my own way, my own art of expressing myself and my body in this world.

No matter what discipline one chooses to practice, with enough dedication (usually about 10 years of constant practice) you start to bring out that expression which is truly you, this is beyond all rationality, rationalization, all intellectuality and goes deep into the realm of CREATIVITY. Somehow from here, from this place YOU HAPPEN NATURALLY and FULLY.

The person you are, no matter how perhaps clumsy in the ordinary walk of life, are transformed into the an object of sheer beauty. Not only do you arrive into the timeless realm of pure being, but in the process of you arriving there, you take those who are with you or watching you along for the ride as well. This is the highest purpose of any art, any discipline IMO, one of transcending time and definitions into the realm of timelessness and awe. This is where Aesthetic Arrest happens naturally not only to you but also through you.

The trick is finding those devices and activities that take you more and more into the realm of your own being. It may be dancing, it may be martial arts, it may be sewing. Hell it may even be in the service of something or someone other than you. Reminds me of this story about Ramana Maharishi, who was a very revered sage in India.

One day a woman, who did not believe in god came to him. Upon further discussion on god and nature of love, maharishi asked her “is there someone or something you love more than anything else?” to which she replied “yes of course, my nephew. “ Maharishi then tells her “ well then go and attend to him, serve him, love him – and there is god.”

This process of finding something to serve and dedicate oneself to also brings out the very best in us. It also IMO brings us close to our element, closest to that which we are. And staying with this element, and true to it transforms the wobbly creature into a majestic swan

This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks
and to die, and to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to everyday
is like the swan when he nervously lets himself
down into the water which receives him gaily
and which flows under and after him wave after wave
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each moment,
more fully grown, more like a king, farther and farther on..

- Rainer Maria Rilke “The Swan”

Irony of ironies, you find yourself only when you are willing to lose yourself to something/someone greater than yourself. In serving this expression you come more and more into yourself, and in the process of this “alchemy,” this transformation, you entrain those around you as well to be “captured and transformed by beauty” be it the piano, the samurai sword, the sway of a dancer or the play of a child.

The trick in this, is to “model yourself at your very best, when you are serving something other than you.” Get the syntax, magnify it.

May you lose yourself fully into something you truly love and in the process find yourself and entrain the world.

Aikijujutsu, 5rhythms, sensei sastri, kathy altman, Rumi, rilke, the swan, george winston, ramana maharishi, aesthetic arrest,