Many of us realize that as you learn more you feel that you are just scratching the surface and that we really don't know much at all. Who really is a "Master"?" There are many university and college "professors" out there that are terrible in the classroom. That is not the focus of their training in the first place -- that would be research. They do not get promoted or hired or fired on the basis of teaching either, in my experience. So, it turns into a chore, not a profession. Graduate students teaching classes at UCSC also fell into that category.
I fortunately slipped into some exceptional instructors, both in languages and in Religious Studies. Mind you, I had entered college on a Teachers scholarship, thanks to the wonderful teachers in San Lorenzo, CA. One year later, I returned it … having become fully immersed, literally in Psychology.
Curiously, some of my Religious Studies instructors became involved in my work at Agnews State Hospital and in the community. I owe much to UCSC so my own MASTERS in LIFE must include Dr. Lewis Keizer of UCSC. Not only was he a teacher of Religious Studies he also and was also a great musician. and a personal mentor. He became a major life advisor and encouraged to try Aikido. Later these two men and Paul Lee, granted me an Independent Psychology Religious Study. It evolved into my working in Mental Hospitals in Boston; including Mass. General. Robert Frager was a UCSC professor of psychology and religious studies. He was also one of the first sensei to teach Aikido. I must confess that I did much better in his 1970 classes, than I ever did on the mats. To this day, I remember his test of this testosterone-laden bloke. He invited anyone to do attempt a block tackle on him. He would not defend himself!
Having done well in Judo for years and seeing a man not heavier than myself, I took it upon myself to knock him flat. I ran at him at full bore, and BANG I hit an unmovable brick wall KI!
I succeeded in rebounding and knocking myself flat.
Carol, my girl friend at that time took to it like a duck to water. She was an incredible dancer (majoring in modern Dance); she was also fully double jointed. I use that as my excuse. She and Linda Holiday (read link above) understood the concept of ki. and the connection between mind and body. I was more interested in connection of body to body. Needless to say, I got wacked. Today I remain ki- challenged and Linda became a 6th dan sensei. and is the main instructor at UCSC.
Decades later the same fate would occur when I slipped into Tai Chi. (Taiji chaun) Always good exercise and supposedly it keeps the mind clear, for the most part. Nancy I lived in a grid free log cabin and our neighbors Steve and Lorelei taught Tai Chi. I was okay on the physical side, but could never get into the dance of the forms. My partner excelled! Sigh, three shots at the martial arts, and I was a failure in two and master of none.
All of this surfaced after a fellow enthusiast encouraged me to investigate Tai Chi. I doubt it was deliberate cruelty on his part, but he added the following note about “Masters.”
"I learn something new from each instructor and interaction with other serious students. Americans know little about the concept of "Master" and what this means. This include trades, martial arts, academics, you name it." He then recommended that I read a book Outliers: The Story of Success. ... Malcolm Gladwell says success depends not only on brains and drive, but also on where we come from — and what we do about it. I checked it out and found the author comments that mastering anything in life takes about 10,000 hours of work. I tend to agree with this. But, at the same time this work must be directed and often tested against agreed upon standards of excellence. Not many Americans are willing to do this. No patience, no sense of excellence when they live in a society where all the children are above average -- as Garrison Keeler would say.”No soapbox here, but it leads me to a man who was the above the 10,000 hr. "Master" challenge and more!
In 1969 I met Alan Chadwick and added serious dirt to my fingernails. Alan was the creator of the organic Garden at UCSC. I was a rock wall apprentice who learned much about the hard work that gardening is. For those who were touched by his genius, Alan Chadwick was larger than life. He taught and inspired more by his manner and his behavior than by his words alone. He takes his place among all of those we wish to honor in the ecology Hall of Fame, the favored ones, the transmitters of life.” He was also exceptionally stubborn and I was not entirely organically flavored at that time of my life. I moved on, learning what I could …but I will always flavor the instruction's he had begun and the tea break rewards he served.
You see I had grown plants for profit since I was twelve, but I never thought it as a vocation. I was groomed to be a History teacher; to work in psychology, do special teaching etc., but horticulture was never in the plan. Guess what happened?
Psychology had a few more tricks to play on me. After working at Agnews, I helped start a halfway house in Santa Cruz and went on to make a Community Resource Guide for mental help resources at that time. One such visit was to a clinic in Ben Lomand or Boulder Creek. A psychologist who also used Yoga to treat autistic children headed it, and. I was privileged to observe his work that day.
Ananda Sangha of the Redwoods of Boulder Creek Is perhaps a successor to his work and sadly I cannot remember his name. Whoever he was, he was a MASTER. A friend accompanied me, and the moment we entered his door, we were like flies caught in warm liquid honey. We could barely move until he came forward to release us. One meets such people only rarely.
My last such person was a nun in Boston. She too worked the psych wards of Mass General. A nun whose quieting soul made this “Flew over the Cuckoo Nest” nightmare endurable. Her simple presence would quiet even the most unendurable bedlam. She may not have been a Buddhist but she exemplified the following words.
“Your religion is not the garb you wear outwardly, but the garment of light you weave around your heart. If you succeed in finding happiness in your soul, you will always carry with you a priceless treasure."
Paramhansa Yogananda. Good Words -- I had forgotten.
I did return to UCSC, wrote the paper. Quit college and burned everything. That is so Sagittarian.
Today, I wish I had some of those notes and observances. The Boston adventure was a great one. I would return to Boston twenty years later, and that too was an adventure. This time I kept my notes. Some day when I am gray and old, I will take them out, watch them thaw, be warmed all over, and remember.
Like the locust, it seems I spurt in twenty-year cycles, and so like the grub I am, I eagerly await 2012!
And to answer the question, the gal above was neither my girlfriend, nor Linda. This was a picture of my Moldavian grandmother and her husband was equally as frightening. He was a stuntman.. My father was a Greco-Roman wrestler.
© 2009 Herb Senft
Dedicated to Sid Wishnoff, my History Teacher at San Lorenzo High and despite my accolades to all those "MASTERS" above, he was the most important sensei of them all. This is for all those teachers whose students never got back to tell them THANKS!
A footnote on Sid Wishnoff.
ReplyDeleteI am and have always been consumed by politics. In my final year, I decided to write on the differences between the two parties. Letters were sent off to Senators, Congressmen, and Governors. Most replied. I ended up writing a book by hand. Sid Wishnoff (bless him) gave me an A+, with a note that it was the best work he had ever seen, then added a note.
"A bit of Kaopectate might have been in order." At seventeen this note blurred out all the rest. I took it, as meaning I had submitted the equivalent of explosive diarrhea.