The Deeper One Goes.

I have taken up the study of Okinawan Ti for a few months now, a bit of a rocky start, and, as expected for a Beginner, I have barely even scratched the surface.
My understanding cannot even be called ‘understanding’ and I would be a fool to think that I can even speak on any aspect of it with any modicum of confidence.

From a Karate perspective it has completely changed me, I can no longer view things the same way, but I know I will get to a point where things start to come to light as I have been down this road before with some great Teachers who literally happened across my path.
This is the way of life, we never know everything and there are layers upon layers which challenge any notion of what we thought we knew, and these challenges are necessary in order to force us to get beyond ourselves lest we become stuck on ourselves... To shake up the ego a bit.

It is like the difference between regular penmanship and cursive. Without going into much detail beyond that, the first steps alone have produced numerous ‘head explosions’ on my part yielding those notorious aha moments, after which the very core of one’s being is never the same.

The main point is Shoshin, the Beginner’s Mind, that a belt is always white no matter how black it becomes and there are more possibilities in the mind of a Beginner than there are within the minds of those who think themselves to be experts.
There is always something to learn, always a deeper experience, and those deeper experiences always influence and change anything that has come before.
To remain attached to those things is rigid and unnatural as life itself is all about change and growth eventually culminating in the inevitable reality of death... The ultimate form of change, at least for this plain of existence.

I will not go beyond this point with any details of Ti itself as that is not my place, but the lessons learned in such a short amount of time have been anything but trivial... I would urge anyone reading this to seek those deeper experiences and really dive deep into them when they present themselves.