On Old Sensei
Older warriors have to fight differently from younger ones.
Dear Friends,
When I studied kendo, my sensei was a retired doctor from Baltimore. He had done judo when younger, but shoulder arthritis and age cut his judo career short.
He was probably in his late 60s when I started, I was in my early 20s.
Every few months, instead of telling us what to do, he would put his armor on and stand in the middle of the dojo and we would line up to spar with him.
Every one of us was young and fast. He was old and slow and had a very limited range of shoulder motion.
We would come in fast, with powerful swings at this small, old man in armor, holding his bamboo shinai at the ready, unmoving.
And right before we would get the perfect strike on his helmet, he would shuffle a few inches to one side and the tip would land cleanly on an upraised gauntlet and we would hit nothing.
“Next!”
Age takes away the vigor and energy of youth, but an old sensei has seen every move thousands of times and taken hundreds of hits and knows how to place themselves in just the right spot to not need to spend energy to win.
What happened on CNN a couple of weeks ago was that an old sensei got baited into getting into a contest of bluster against the biggest blusterer of the age, and the media went along with the framing of the contest being about energy instead of being about the results of that energy.
Like kendo, serving in public office can be done by the young and the old alike1, but it must be done differently at different ages to do it well.
Biden doesn't have to do all the work Trump did, because he hires competent and effective people. In that regard, he’s very similar to Reagan, who didn't keep a very full schedule, but could give a great speech and inspire greatness in others.
An old warrior can win with their wisdom and experience against unfocused energy and bluster. But they have to fight the right way.
Yours truly,
Nick
P.S. Should we have higher standards to open a cannabis store than we do to be the President?
What do you think?
Kendo has a very low injury rate compared to other martial arts. See, Dvorine, W. (1979). Kendo: A Safer Martial Art. The Physician and Sportsmedicine, 7(12), 87–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913847.1979.11710900
Very nicely done. I'm a (retired) 3rd Dan in Shotokan Karate. I remember as a (probably) green belt sparring with a seasoned black belt who'd say 'you're gonna kick with your left leg' while the thought hadn't really formed in my head. Age and experience beats youth and speed every time. But I'm no longer sure about whether there's an upper limit.