Mike,
Earth and water are obvious in your experiment, but what of wind/air and fire? My brother breifly mentioned "radiating" out from center when he was in for the holidays, but it was hard to follow up due to the crowd of family & friends in my house (hahaha!). So, how do you visualize and physically participate with fire or with air?
Marc,
I was reading Joseph Campbell's "Masks of God: Primitive Mythology" and on page 40 he quotes Konrad Lorenz (regarding the human capacity for Play):
“Every study undertaken by Man was the genuine outcome of curiosity, a kind of game. All the data of natural science, which are responsible for Man’s domination of the world, originated in activities that were indulged in exclusively for the sake of amusement. When Benjamin Franklin drew sparks from the tail of his kite he was thinking as little of the lightning conductor as Hertz, when he investigated electrical waves, was thinking of radio transmission. Anyone who has experienced in his own person how easily the inquisitiveness of a child at play can grow into the life work of a naturalist will never doubt the fundamental similarity of games and study. The inquisitive child disappears entirely from the wholly animal nature of the mature chimpanzee. But the child is far from being buried in the man, as Nietzsche thinks. On the contrary, it rules him absolutely.” (Konrad Lorenz)
Campbell follows with "Animals are without speech - and one reason, surely, is heir inability to play with sounds. They are without art - and the reason, again, is their inability to play with forms..." and goes on to express ideas about self-creating sign stimuli - something you are no doubt familiar with in inducing the adrenal state within the context of fight/play. I thought it exceptionally interesting that Campbell immediately quotes poet A.E. Housman, who says, "Poetry seems to me more physical than intellectual.". 'Nuff said on that for now.
But Crafty the ninja? Somehow I thought Hayes had fallen out of favor LONG ago with most people. (Just razzin' you, man.)
Tony,
Thanx for the Aristotle reference. He actually had quite a bit to say on the matter, as did most cultures as they segued from magical to critical thinking modes. I didn't mention them because Crafty's mention was pertaining to martial arts, but I think it's good that you placed the discussion in a wider context.
I actually wrote an essay about the Hayes model in response to, well, the backlash against him as his popularity wained. While Hayes certainly has habits and mannerisms that make him an easy target, I find his model superior to the way ninpo/ninjutsu has been taught since everyone started trekking to Japan (say, 1990 until present). Understanding the possibility that some may find this annoying or even angering, I must say I prefer Hayes' model to the traditional (or, some would say, Hatsumi model) because to my mind, it is the difference between teaching "moving history" (& the importation of culture) as opposed to providing a pragmatic model for conflict resolution that can be used regardless of a practitioners MA style (and, for that matter, whether one trains in combative arts or not). All that is in the essay, which I should probably revise and post on my site.
My thanx to everyone who threw in their ideas. I should also probably apologize on the off-chance that anyone here actually studies ninjutsu (anytime I've mentioned this stuff in nin-centric circles, someone gets pissed off), except that I don't see any reason why someone should be angered by such a view. Perhaps if someone is, they can calmly and articulately express where I've gone astray?
