Mushin

My Japanese sensei in judo first introduced me to the concept of mushin when I was about fourteen. Mushin is a state sometimes described as having no mind. In mushin, you seemingly have no conscious thoughts; your actions flow smoothly without thinking about the next move. You are uninfluenced by tension, anxiety, or concerns about outside events.

Beginning at fourteen, I didn’t get it. And I don’t think sensei thought I should at that point. In fact, I believe that I may have thought it was some sort of fictional mystic thing that sensei was joking about. Although Sensei was a Japanese all-star Judo Champion, he was only twenty himself and not beyond fabricating elaborate jokes to play upon his young American students. After all, he and his fellow sensei were our sole source of information on martial arts and Japanese culture.

It wasn’t until I started carving almost ten years later that I first experienced it. I would become aware of my surroundings as my girlfriend repeatedly called me. I had been carving with intent for a solid hour without interruption. She was not pleased, but I was thrilled. I finally understood mushin.

Many years later, at age fifty, I returned to work in martial arts ( Japanese Swordsmanship – Iaido). At about the Shodan level (first-degree black belt), I found that I could also slip into mushin while doing repetitive forms (kata).

Mushin is not a daily feature of my life, but it is something that I look forward to while doing something like carving the sails on a ship portrait or hollowing the wings on an eagle carving.

Daily writing prompt

What activities do you lose yourself in?

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