This is a piece which was written in another forum b a very good friend of mine so I pinched it without his permision, well so far, Ill get it eventually,

Hiya,

Feeling very philosophical today so will write some nonsence for you.

Life, judo............Lets look at the concept in terms of a mountain. We start life at the bottom and work our way up. When we start the process is slow, We have to learn to crawl then stand, walk and talk etc In making these steps we are progresing up the mountain. As we grow we have stages where we run then sprint. After some years we can start to look back and see where we are, how far up the mountain we have climbed. Judo progress, life, is the same.

I guess in terms of judo I am somewhere on that mountain looking up and down. When I look down I can see where I have been and see my pupils following in the same manner encountering the same pleasures and challenges. I look up but when I look up though I know there is a top I cannot see it and do not know what is in front of me. How could I?

So often here I see the experienced judoka trying so hard to explain to another poster something that cannot be explained. Ki is a classic example. I 'think' I know what ki is, I have felt something I think is ki. Can I articulate that feeling? No. Can it be explained? Can the taste of an orange be explained? Can that look in your new born babies eyes when she smiles back at you be explained? I think not.

I know I am on that mountain and in very good company with my peers here. Are any of you also finding it more and more difficult to explain to posters why we begin with ukemi and not randori or why we teach tachi waza prior to sutemi? Why is ogoshi the first koshi waza taught and not harai maki komi.

Let me say we are all on that mountain and no one has THE answers we will continue to walk and thus grow in knowledge. What I know today, in time, will change. Today I disagree with the use of crash mats, coloured gi, koka and yuko etc. Is this because I am just a tad further up the mountain and can, with learned experience, look back at where so many of my younger peers are? I look at Daigo sensei, who is one of my most respected seniors, and I ponder what this great sensei must have in his mind. I ponder just what he has been though on his passage up the mountain and I am, of course, no wiser as we cannot teach some things they just have to be experienced and felt and only in looking back can we see if we where correct or wrong.

I am now asking myself if what I write here will make any sence?

I have been posting here some time now and have over that time built a decent reputation, I think? My judo is not taken from a book or course of 10 easy lessons. Over the past month though I am looking back at my posts and dislike what I see. Do you know what has happend? I have started to walk back down that mountain. I am starting to be rude and brusk and not willing to suffer-endure others point of view even knowing they are trolls. I am not pleased I am doing this. I need to look up again and start to make change. I wonder if the forum is good for my growth? I love my judo. I love to teach and learn, what a buzz man its just great. I guess I am writing that I am unsure if the senior ranks here can ever truly teach in a forum. Perhaps I should speak for myself.

Read this, over and over, and remember Kanos secret to judo,

Never Miss a Lesson,

read that line and then read into it