An article about the TLUS POMW 1 course. Part TSM POMW A Shindenkan by Jens Hanshi-dai
For the first time in Shindenkans history, the incredibly controversial POMW TLUS was held by Kimu Sensei. A Theme Based Leader Development Seminar that deals with the history and development of firearms and with a direct connection to martial arts training and the realism of the society in today’s Denmark.
In this article I will outline the reasons, which in my eyes, is the most innovative leader education in Shindenkan to date.
Why? – Well, first and foremost because it asked questions like: “Are firearms a part of our reality?” “Are firearms something we have to deal with?” “Are guns going to get a part of our children’s future?” “How should we deal with it?”
Yes, how should we actually deal with it? We may, as Minouchi Sensei says, choose 3 different ways!
We can, as the one extreme, talk non-committal about it, we can go to war because it is our job, as the other extreme … Or we can study it – seeking to understand both the technical and the human perspective and ask questions about ourselves and our perception – learning from others’ experiences and understanding – with the East-oriented and traditional approach.
In Shindenkan we constantly want to improve our level of competence and we ARE a multi-track martial arts system and we therefore need to know what we are talking about.
Therefore Kimu Sensei has as the fundamental part of POMW, gone through the whole development of weapons over time and especially what has guided weapons development – this was served on a silver platter for all the participants.
The important thing in this situation is not so much the history and development but the link directly to us and our clarification level!
The clarification process!
Are you clarified with life and death? Are you clarified about the difference, there is to be far from or close to, an opponent. Are you clarified about that it is never the gun that kills, but the person behind the gun, who takes an active choice and press the trigger?
As participants, we were confronted with the following dilemma: “If you have to defend yourself against someone who holds a gun and your opponent drops his gun on the ground, would you pick it up and use it to save yourself?”
30% of the participants responded that they would! But it also means that 70% of the participants chose to die!
“If you must defend yourself and your family from someone who holds a gun and your opponent loses his gun, would you pick it up and use it to save your family?”
“Do you feel confronted?” The question came from Kimu Sensei and my fellow POMW participants reactions were very different, there was someone who was very emotionally affected and there were others who were indifferent. But there were two main statements that talks about honesty, and contradicts indifference.
1.”I’m not necessarily clarified – if I really want to be clarified …”
2.”You first know what is needed – when you’re in it and then it might be too late.”
BUT – You have to pick up the gun to have a choice – you cannot stand back passively or paralyzed.
Kimu Senseis message was: The human development is the only constant – this is Do Michi – The Way, and it’s just human who have the willingness to take the choices of – pull the trigger or not to pull the trigger!
Kimu Sensei also said that, as he so often said to me: “It is better to be clarified before you face the situation.”
Kimu Sensei was challenged on his own shooting and why his shooting in such a short time had been so good and it was also an emphasis on Minouchi Senseis theory.
And the answer to this came shortly from Kimu Sensei: “I have no ego.”
The Multi-track martial sports
What do us, in a multi-track martial sports system learn, that strives towards martial arts. We learn that we need to develop both our professional and human skills – why?
Well, in our competencies – that is, in our training of the technical skills we have learned that martial sports comprehension can be divided into unarmed and armed combat, and again in the short or long distance.
But how about the learning of the human or the learning of life? In Shindenkan we learn to take responsibility for ourselves and then be head of ourselves to eventually become leader of others with clear values.
What is the essence then?
Are firearms a part of our reality – the answer is yes? Does a multi-track martial sports system have to deal with this schism – the answer is yes.
We need to develop both our professional and human skills, because that is the part of our development and enable us to make confident choices.
• A martial arts master is 100% clarified that he is killed every time he trains.
• A martial arts master is 100% clarified that he kills every time he trains.
• This means that there are ultimate consequences – death! Or the ultimate charity – life.
POMW is a tool that helps us to understand what 100% clarification is – based on reality!
This is what I believe!
In my mind the POMW project definitely has its merits because POMW confronts our perceptions of ourselves as martial sports artists – and as human beings, with all the contradictions we contain.
“I am a pacifist and train martial arts to be a better person and I need distance” or “I have a job where I work alone at night, so I need to defend myself and need some realism.”
And regardless if you sympathize with one or the other statement, it is vital that we constantly seek to evolve – through our training, through study and understand of history and human development and through understanding of the present and the technologies.
We come from the outside and moves to the inside – we are confronted with the distance, we are faced with realism and in the end we stand on the bridge, which is the entrance into ourselves.
Is this a part of my reality – I have answered yes to this, but is this a part of your reality?
What is your answer?