Meditations on God

A Tradition Without Life is a Desiccated Flower
The argument that something is valuable simply because it is ‘traditional’ falls flat when we fail to understand the context within which that tradition started. Even with the best intentions, without understanding this context, the best we can do is recreate the outward form of that which we believe our predecessors, ancestors, or fore-bearers were doing, but it is difficult to revive the essence or spirit that the form was meant to contain and transmit. Tradition-for-tradition’s sake is an empty vessel, like a vase with no flowers or a chalice with no wine.

Consider the so-called traditional or classical martial arts for example. There is a tendency in modern times to claim that the form of the tradition one follows is ‘as the founder did it’ and this is meant to shut down any criticisms of that tradition’s efficacy. Knowing the form that the founder or his successors taught does not necessarily mean that one is training or executing that form with the spirit with which the founder developed or even practiced the form. To embody the spirit of the founder in one’s practice, assuming that this is desirable, requires us to imagine why they were who they were and why they taught what they taught, not simply to accept the teaching as an end in itself.

I have seen videos of classical Japanese martial arts where the modern exponents are doing the exact same form as the older generation, but with none of the spirit of aliveness and intensity that the older generation had. Conversely, I have seen videos of classical Japanese martial arts where the more modern generation had more spirit, more intensity, and more aliveness than the folks in older video footage did, even though the latter were chronologically closer to the founder’s influence than the former. The form is important. It is part of what defines an art. Like music, the restrictions of the art, the things it intentionally includes or leaves out, define its character and make it what it is. The form, without life, is the equivalent of playing scales and calling it a song.

It is easy to rest on the laurels of history, to assume that what we are doing has value or superiority because of the claims or the reputations of our teachers, the founder, or the tradition itself. It is up to us, the practitioners of the present, however, to bring passion, sincerity, integrity, and life to the tradition we are a part of. It is up to us to ask questions, to research, to practice, and to try our best to manifest the spirit of the founder and his or her intentions within whatever discipline we have chosen to study or dedicate ourselves to. If the tradition we are a part of has become desiccated to the point where we are unable, regardless of how hard we try, to revive its spirit, we are left with no option but to move on lest we lose ours as well.

– Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

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January 7, 2019
An Alternative to Mainstream MMA Culture
With the popularity of MMA (mixed martial arts) and with the internet as a magnifying glass, it has become ever more difficult for so-called ‘traditional martial arts’ to hide behind tradition-for-tradition’s sake without being able to back up that tradition with martial effectiveness. All martial arts these days, it seems, are judged on the basis of whether or not they, or their techniques, would work in MMA. Even Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), the martial art that, through the Gracie family and the original Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), made MMA famous, is sometimes criticized as no longer being effective within the context of MMA. I have seen boxers, sport grapplers, judo players, not to mention aikido practitioners all criticized, usually by people who do not themselves do MMA, as not having skills that would translate to MMA.

A friend and training brother said something to me recently about this seemingly omnipresent impact that MMA has had on martial art culture in America. A Marine combat veteran who got into martial arts some years ago, this friend’s concern was that MMA has shifted the marital art culture so that martial arts are now marketed to exactly the types of people that many folks join martial arts to learn to deal with or get away from. In his experience, and mine as well, one of the main reasons that many people seek out martial arts is to get away from the jocks and bullies they encountered in school and to learn how to fight back against them in the process. With the popularity of MMA, however, there are a lot more jocks and bullies finding their way into martial art schools, thus giving those who need it most no where to go to.

Beyond this, there is also a relatively new phenomenon of what I will call ‘budo shaming.’ That is the criticizing, mocking, and shaming of people who choose to train martial arts that are not considered effective in MMA. This ‘budo shaming’ is often masked as benevolent manipulation, a means by which to encourage people to train in ‘MMA friendly’ martial arts such as BJJ, Muay Thai, boxing, or judo, but it is more a choice based on peer pressure, as opposed to one’s own free will, because the alternative is ridicule and exclusion. If a person is looking for a way to overcome bullying in his or her personal life and then faces this type of ‘budo shaming’ when looking for a martial art, he or she is likely to either not pursue martial arts at all or to take the ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ path of lesser resistance, simply to avoid the risk of conflict.

My martial art journey began in traditional martial arts before the internet became ubiquitous and before I had ever heard of MMA. If things were then the way they are now, I would have probably just opted for a different path. I was not, and am still not, interested in associating with the types of people who picked on, shamed, and bullied my friends and me when I was a kid. I found a lot of value and some true friends in traditional martial arts. I then sought out BJJ, again not really having any clue about MMA, as a fun way to test and refine my skills and found many more friends, valuable skills, and lessons. My goal, however, was not to run away from my traditional martial art roots and to abandon that which had given me so much. My goal was to bring that knowledge and those skills back to the nerds, the geeks, and the goonies like me so that we could be stronger versions of ourselves, not so we can be like the ‘cool kids.’ Like Steve Albini said, the purpose of alternative culture is not to mimic the mainstream, but to make it irrelevant.

– Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
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January 5, 2019
Hooked by a Samurai Tale
What got me into martial arts was a friend, but what got me passionate about martial arts was a story. When I first started doing traditional Korean hapkido, it was difficult, I was uncoordinated, and I was inconsistent. It was an extracurricular activity for me, not much different than going to the movies or reading a book.

When leaving class one day, I saw a pamphlet that my teacher had by the door with the class schedule on it. I picked it up and took it home. When I got home, I opened it up and began reading. It was about the history of traditional hapkido, specifically the history of a man named Choi Yong-sul.

Choi, the pamphlet said, founded hapkido in Korea based on the teachings of the Japanese martial art Daito-ryu aikijujutsu, which he studied under a man named Takeda Sokaku. The pamphlet explained how Daito-ryu aikijujutsu was a samurai martial art developed for use in the palace, as a means of protecting the emporer of Japan.

I now know that there is a lot of controversy surrounding this story,* but my teacher, Joe Sheya, having met and trained with Choi himself, believed it and I believed my teacher. He had his flaws, but he was a stand-up guy through and through. As I wrote in Truth & Gospel, there are a lot of truths, but to me, at this time, this story was gospel.

I was absolutely enthralled by the idea that what I was being taught was an ancient samurai martial art, that what I was doing had a deep, rich, and even mysterious history. I was hooked. I still am, but, after my teacher’s passing my focus shifted to Taikyoku Budo. A few paragraphs on a pamphlet was enough to change my life. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I began writing.

– Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

*For the best information on Takeda Sokaku, I recomend these sources
- Ellis Amdur’s book Hidden in Plain Sight: Esoteric Power Training Within Japanese Martial Traditions
- Sangenkai blog
- Aikido Journal
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January 3, 2019
Taste The Soup (Before You Change It)
My wife and my first date was at a Vietnamese restaurant. We were going to go eat Thai food, but she wanted to stay closer to home because she was nervous about going out on a date with someone she only knew from the coffee shop in a country she had only lived in for a few years. Being that the only Vietnamese food I was familiar with at the time was phó, that is what I ordered. She ordered the same, but without any ‘green’ in it, meaning no cilantro or scallions. When our soups arrived, I added lime, basil, bean sprouts, and then I dumped in sriracha hot sauce for some heat and hoisin sauce for some sweetness. She tasted her soup and then asked for a small bowl, into which she put a little bit of sriracha and hoisin, but she added nothing to her soup except some basil and bean sprouts. She ate the soup as it was and dipped the sliced meat into the sriracha and hoisin with her chopsticks. We had a nice date and the rest is history, sort of.

During the time we dated, I spent a lot of time at my wife’s cousin’s home where she lived. We ate a lot of Cambodian food, but also a variety of different Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai dishes, including a multitude of different soups and stews. One day, her aunt made a giant pot of clear, rich bone-broth. I was served a big bowl of soup with rice noodles and slices of meat. I immediately reached for the sriracha to pour it in the soup. My wife (then girlfriend) grabbed my hand to stop me. She said quietly, but sternly, “Taste the soup first.” I looked at her with confusion and attempted to continue with the sriracha when she repeated herself, “Before you add anything, taste the soup first.” I acquiesced and tasted the soup broth, plain, as it was served. It was rich, salty, unctuous, and absolutely delicious!

“All this time,” my she said, “You have been eating soup, but you have never tasted the soup. How do you know if it needs something added to it if you did not even taste it first?” I conceded that she was right. Her aunt had spent all day simmering, straining, and seasoning the bone broth until it was perfectly clear and impossibly delicious. It took eight hours for her aunt to make the broth, but it took a lifetime of experience to get it as perfect as it was and I was going to ruin it within thirty seconds of receiving it before even trying it. After tasting it, if I wanted it to be spicier, saltier, or if I wanted to squeeze in some lime-juice for acidity, no one would have thought twice because her family all adjusted the soup to their tastes as well. However, this person had dedicated her life to getting this broth to my bowl exactly as it was. The least I could do in return was to try it as she intended before determining I had anything of value of my own to add.

– Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
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January 3, 2019
Sachko Prahok Chaw (An Acquired Taste)
Many foods that are considered ‘delicacies’ in their place of origin are ‘an acquired taste,’ as the saying goes, elsewhere. In the cuisine of Southeast Asia, there are many such foods, but in Cambodian food, the star is prahok. Prahok is paste made from crushing, salting, and fermenting certain types of fatty river fish that are native to the area. As with most fermented foods, prahok most likely originated as a means of preservation, but has long been a central component in Cambodian cooking. Many people are familiar with the fish sauce that is used in the Vietnamese or Thai cooking. Prahok is the fermented fish itself from which the fish sauce is made.

Sachko prahok chaw (grilled beef with fermented fish paste) is a dish somewhat unique to the Siem Reap province of Cambodia, my wife’s hometown. The way that my wife and her family prepare this dish is to grill a lean cut of beef and slice it thinly. The beef is served with various raw vegetables and herbs. The beef, vegetables, and herbs are then dipped into the prahok and eaten. In this preparation, the prahok itself is served raw (it is also used as a flavoring agent in hot dishes) and is prepared to the diner’s taste with chopped up garlic, shallots, chili, herbs, and lime juice all incorporated into the paste. This allows the diner to taste as much or as little of the actual prahok as he or she prefers because it is a strong, funky flavor.

I wrote about my first exposure to sachko prahok chaw in the post Tiger Stripes and Ant Eggs. The first time I had it, I had only just begun eating Cambodian food. I had tried and liked many Thai, Vietnamese, and Laos dishes (some I did not care for, even if simply because of some of the textures), but this was the deep end of Cambodian cuisine and I was not ready for it. Since then, I have grown to enjoy prahok as a flavor in Cambodian cooking and I even enjoy sachko prahok chaw, but one of the main reasons this is the case is because I have people preparing it for me who know and respect my palate. For example, in sachko prahok chaw, I like a lot of garlic, shallots, chili, and lime.

– Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
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January 2, 2019