 In a recent episode, Karate States of Mind, we briefly touched on the idea of the four Zen states of mind, Shoshin, Mushin, Zanshin, and Fudoshin. Now the truth is, each one of these deserves a more detailed look and how they can apply to not only your training, but everyday life as well. So today we're going to look at Shoshin, the beginner's mind. And in all honesty, it doesn't matter if you're a traditional martial artist or only interested in MMA and cage fighting or if you've been training for six years or quite frankly, if you haven't even started training yet. By understanding Shoshin and embracing the beginner's mind, you will elevate your training to the next level. Okay, so that last comment about elevating your training to the next level, in this context, it's actually a really big part of the problem. But it is still true. You will improve as a martial artist, but perhaps not in the way you'd expect. But we're going to come back to that in a few minutes. First, let's answer the question of what Shoshin actually is. Shoshin is one of four Zen states of mind, and they are listed as Shoshin, the beginner's mind, Mushin, no mind, Zanshin, remaining mind, and Fudoshin, immovable mind. Today we're going to exclusively look at Shoshin and we're going to cover the other three in future videos. Now, if you're simply looking for the definition of Shoshin, a quick pop on the Wikipedia will give you that. Since you're here, I'll do it for you. Shoshin is a word from Zen Buddhism meaning beginner's mind. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying the subject. Everyone's studying at an advanced level just as a beginner would. The term is especially used in the study of Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts. So there you go. It's a pretty simple definition. But now let's dig into this and understand how it can apply to our martial arts training and how to eliminate the pitfalls and obstacles that often prevent us from embracing it. If you were just starting as a beginner in the martial arts, or if you haven't started yet but you're considering it, adopting this mindset early puts you on the right track. Particularly the part about openness and dropping any preconceptions that you might have. It's very easy to have an idea of something before you try it. But many times it's a very different experience when you actually do it. I believe that this is one big reason why so many people quit the martial arts at White Belt. They had some notion in their mind of what training was going to be like. Maybe they expected to be breaking boards right away, or maybe they thought that they'd be fighters after a couple of classes. In any case, it's very easy to become disillusioned with something if you went into it with certain expectations. Go to class with an open mind. Be willing to listen to what is presented, expect to possibly step outside your comfort zone and forget any notion of what you thought training was going to be based on any movies or TV shows that you have watched. Not many schools are going to have you waxing cars or painting fences and award you a black belt in two months. And if they do, then we have a McDojo video for you to watch. As a beginner, it's much easier to have a beginner's mind because at this stage everything is new. You are starting from scratch and you'll often have that sense of wonder as you learn because it's an exciting experience to start developing new skills you didn't have before. As long as you keep your mind open and embrace what's being taught, you will find yourself advancing and improving. Now, if you are an advanced student or you've been training for several years, it's very easy to lose a state of mind. As we get better and advance in rank, we begin to develop confidence and a deeper understanding of the material and we become more skilled and improve martial artists, which is fantastic. Now, some of you might be asking, well, what's wrong with this? Nothing's wrong with advancing rank or becoming an expert in a subject. However, there is a psychological side effect humans have when they learn. The more expertise that they accumulate on a subject, the more close minded we often become, the higher we advance. The more we learn and understand, the more we tend to block out any contradictory information or sometimes we develop a habit of not wanting to listen to anything someone else has to say if they've got less experience. Also, sometimes we tend to seek out information that confirms or justifies their beliefs and behaviors instead of questioning them. So in a way, embracing Shoshin as an advanced martial artist is even more important at this level than when we were beginners, partly because we have to remind ourselves to do it. It's so easy to get lost in your own knowledge. There's a very famous quote by author and teacher Shunru Suzuki from his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. In that, he says, if your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind, there are few. I think that this is something we can all digest and relate to in some aspect. I will admit, I've been hit by this reality many times, even in the course of producing this channel and in my own training. I've been studying Kemple for 27 years at this point. The more I learn, the more I love it. Now, many of you have been with us on this channel for a while and know that my past consists of many school closings and moving and having to constantly shift from one version of Kemple to another. So I was always learning and relearning and always maintained that beginner's mind until I realized I didn't. When it came time that I was bitten by the bug to step outside my Kemple box and explore other arts, I figured, well, this is going to be much easier because I know this stuff. From a construction point of view, I felt like I had a great solid foundation and I could continue to build a skyscraper of my training. I watched YouTube videos to see what other arts were doing and I got excited and I joined a jujitsu slash judo school. You know, I knew how to strike and we did some MMA and BJJ in our old school, so I figured, you know, this would help me and add a few more floors to my skyscraper. Until I took my first class. It was so different than Kemple and what I was used to, that I experienced a little bit of culture shock. I thought we were just going to add some different stances and throws, but instead I was showing a completely different way to train, a different mentality, a different method of moving and different concepts and principles. I made the mistake of going in with preconceived expectations and that class was so damn uncomfortable and humbling that I went home that night and had to truly evaluate how to proceed forward. Now after the shock wore off, I realized I liked it because I didn't know what I was doing and it was a harsh reminder to me that there's always room to grow. So going back to my comment at the beginning about elevating your training. I think the issue with that is most of us tend to picture a training as that skyscraper, build higher levels and ranks and keep elevating, but the higher you go in one discipline and mindset, the easier it is to forget what the ground levels were like. Sometimes I think it's beneficial to build out laterally and expand your foundation, such as learning other arts and hearing others' experiences, experimenting with new ideas and then build upon that. So okay, with all that being said, how can we actually implement the idea of Shoshin into our lives and training to become better martial artists? There are several small changes and habits you can develop that make drastic differences. So first and again, when trying something new, take on the mindset that you know nothing about it and try to let go of any preconceived assumptions. Pretend like you're a child, experience something for the first time and pretend to capture that sense of wonder you had back then. Question yourself often. Now I don't mean self-doubt everything that you know, but sometimes it's good to take an idea and analyze it. Test it. Pretend to look at it from an opposing viewpoint. Try to visualize how others might perceive it. In the context of the martial arts, perhaps sometimes looking at techniques from a different perspective can open another door of understanding and then you begin to digest the material at a deeper level. And sometimes this can lead to one of those aha moments and then teaching becomes much more clearer. Related to that, realize that you don't have to win every argument. In the martial arts, everyone has the answer or the best way to do a technique or the real way it was supposed to be taught. Your experience is your own and you know what you know. That does not mean you have to try to dispel what someone else knows. In fact, sometimes it's worth listening to their opinion or insight, even if you disagree with it. Instead of telling them that they were wrong, ask them to explain their reasons. Maybe you'll still know better than they do, but sometimes maybe they'll introduce something you hadn't considered or trigger a thought process that leads to more discovery. You never know what experience or insight someone has. Even if you're a superior black belt and they're just a white belt, doesn't mean you can't learn from them. Even if you walk away from the conversation and complete disagreement, you still know what you know, but it might be interesting just to understand someone else's point of view and something and realize, wow, they see something in a completely different way. You don't have to win an argument to prove anything. Embrace failure. Failing at something is sometimes the best way to learn how to improve. When you're learning something new, a new technique, for example, and you can't seem to pull it off, you don't put such a heavy emphasis on failing, but instead look at it as, well, you just didn't quite get it right yet. It's an exploration. You didn't break that board on your test. Well, okay, instead of getting upset and storming off saying it's a stupid drill anyway, take the opportunity to learn from it. Why didn't you break it? Did you not hit it hard enough? Are you striking against the grain? Are you not following through? Are you holding back? And I think this point is actually something that MMA does very well. Going to an MMA school, in my opinion, is a great way to learn fighting skills quickly. Mainly because of the heavy focus on sparring and contact drills. You are constantly testing yourself and you're gonna have a lot of failures. Did you not land that punch combination that you tried? Are you getting taken through the ground every time you advance? Does that psychic always find a way to get past your defenses and always land? Well, then embrace that beginner's mind and reset. Failing in the classroom is okay. In fact, this is where you want it to happen, where you can make the changes in adjustments. If you are an advanced student or high ranking in your art, sometimes there is a tendency or even a feeling of obligation to interject your expertise into class or onto others. Now, this is similar to the idea of not trying to win the argument, but here I'm talking about the pressure of having to live up to a rank or expectations. If you are putting effort into expectation rather than exploration, then you might be doing yourself a great disservice. Drop the weight or the guilt or obligation that you have to always try to live up to something. We talked about this in our episode on the Kemplecrest and the symbolism of the tiger and the dragon. The tiger is the warrior and the physical strength of the art and the dragon is the scholar and wisdom. In many depictions of these two, the coloring can be very significant. As beginners, we are the tigers because we want that raw power. The tiger is yellow, which is often the beginning of belt rank color, but there are hints of black in the stripes and brown in the eyes as the beginner urns and looks forward to advancement in the art. The dragon is depicted as red because it is the master of the art that yields wisdom, but if you look closely, there are still trace elements of white, yellow, green, blue, and many belt colors present. This is to remind us that even though we've reached a level of master, we must always remember our past and keep that beginner's mind. It's okay to go back to the beginning and start again. And sometimes it's even okay to say, I don't know. You know, that just provides you the opportunity to learn something new. There's actually an exercise that I find interesting and it's kind of along the lines of the beginner's mind and kind of going back and resetting. It's a drill, not even really a drill, but something you can do on your own is when you're eating a meal, the next meal that you eat. Instead of just cooking it up, mixing it up, putting it in your fork, just chowing down, take a very, very slow bite. First of all, whatever it is, put a little bit of food on your, if it's like a strawberry, take the strawberry. Instead of just putting it in your mouth, bring it up slowly, smell it, take in the scent, put the texture on your lips, bite it slowly. Basically, drag out the experience of eating that strawberry over the course of a minute or a couple of minutes. Just go slow and actually observe and pay attention to every flavor, every drop of juice, everything. And it's one of those things when when you do it, you tend to appreciate it a lot more because you're resetting, you're going back to beginning and kind of trying to experience it maybe for the first time. The training can be a lot like that. If you're doing a technique or you're doing a kata, maybe sometimes instead of just performing it, slow it down, observe every step, every movement, every little detail, maybe it'll give you new experience to it and new perspective, something else you can learn from that. If you even want another challenge, do a blindfolded or close your eyes or go to another environment. Sometimes it's easy to get in the pattern of a kata when you're always in the same room facing the same wall. In our experience, especially with kids, when you turn them around the face the other way, sometimes they lose their orientation. So always challenge yourself, always try to find a new way to do something because you never know what you're going to learn from that. I don't care what art you train in or how many cage matches you've won or how many trophies you've collected from a tournament or how big of a roster your school has. A true master of the arts embraces Shoshin and understands that they are always still a student. So I wanna hear your stories of when you started your training or you're about to start your training or if you've had any eye-opening experiences, it all makes us who we are, so I would love to hear what you have to share. And as always, please like and subscribe, join us on Patreon and keep on working to become a better you.