Chris,
I have a smattering of shotokan, shorinryu, taekwondo and aikido but due to some issues in my life, including the inherent itinerant nature of my work, I didn't get past green belt in any of them (beginning Heian Yodan), and by the time I got around to aikido late in life (retirement) an old work injury flared up in the dojo and squelched that, it still bedevils me. In fact, in general I often feel like how an old arthritic dog looks.
But, I did hang back and often didn't test when the instructors wanted me to because I personally didn't feel like I was ready, so I may have had practice time beyond rank.
But shotokan was the first, longest and had great effect in my life in part by what it inspired me to seek.
When unforseen hazard of any kind has suddenly sprung on me like a trap, there is calm, from sudden traffic situations, to potentially lethal ocurrances at work (my occupation was a hazardous one) and other things, I navigate it and have peace afterward while others who may be around me are panicked.
Decades later I still have quick reactions which I can't do if I think of doing them. Sports while in high school has contributed to that.
I watch professional dancers in videos and sometimes see movements similar to those one might see in oriental martial arts, such as resembling crescent kicks or, in the case of Paula Abdul's “straight up” video, a spinning kick done with light flexibility, grace and ease.
After aikido ended for me, there was an extremely rare for my area zen instruction which met up on Sundays at the aikido dojo, but I no more than started when covid killed that too.
I have occasionally visited a vietnamese buddhist temple within traveling distance during their ceremonies and eat with them afterwards. I bring a decent size bag of rice and respectfully give it to the nun at the door after I have kicked off my shoes.
When I enter the ceremony room (I don't know the proper name) I treat it as though moving on and off the mat and also express respect to what is equivelant to the Shomen.
I don't know if that might be ridiculous outside of a japanese influenced environment, as I never saw any vietnamese do so, but I felt obligated.
Their rythmic, chant like singing during the service has a feel to it which was like the feel I got watching a video of tibetan monks chanting while seated, something which feels amenable to no mind.
(Like with the koreans and japanese, vietnamese and japanese weren't exactly fond of one another. Even with a common cultural umbrella, the cultures and peoples are not the same like westerners tend to assume, and there is ugly history between them.)
Those people have a warm, giving feel to them. Invariably one or more will ask me if I was in vietnam during the war whenever I visit.
When they have work projects around the temple, it's more like a relaxed social event rather than a “let's get it done,” which would itch at me because work has (almost) always been more of get it done now then screw off.
At the beginning of aikido class we would kneel in front of the Shomen, clap twice, deep bow, and clap twice again.
Subsequently I saw film of an elderly japanese WWII veteran do the same while standing toward a monument dedicated to deceased japanese veterans of that war.
Outside of being part of an expression of deep respect I haven't a clue what the clapping is about, it wasn't explained.
Cultural attunement… During the mid 70's I knew a woman from hawaii with near japanese ancestry who was also old enough to possibly experience the internment camp during WWII as a child.
She told me this about the (more culturally) japanese of her youth, that it was unnerving to be around people who you never knew what they were thinking. I have a theory as to why that might be, and there is much more about the temple, but I've rambled on enough for the time being.
Addendum: Funakoshi led a long, active and productive life.
