Seishin tanren
Spiritual forging, the higher purpose and end of all physical technique
in budo ("martial way," a term referring to those modern martial arts
distinguished by their goals of spiritual and moral development). The
oftentimes punishing physical ordeal of training is designed not to focus
the attention on the body but to help the trainee learn to transcend bodily
cares and the duality of perception that inhibits performance. For proper
execution of techniques, the student must not concentrate either on physical
mechanics or theory as isolated elements. They must be united, blended
together by the spirit in the heat of training into a living whole. The
hundreds of thousands of repetitions of techniques are used to numb the
mind, and, in a sense, to free it from self-absorption.
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