The practice of any traditional art is largely a process of negation. This is the source of the power of these arts. It is why they continue to exist, providing a source of nourishment and fulfillment for generation after generation.  But this fact is sometimes very hard to grasp, because it contradicts our habits of thought.

In modern life, we regard innovation and accumulation as good.  Often they are not. Contemporary art and pop culture, for example, often mock kindness, commend cruelty, and spread misery.  As we accumulate wealth and gain access to sophisticated technology, our lives are dominated by the unintended negative consequences of their use.

For example, millions of people sit in traffic for hours in big, fast cars. Millions are forced to spend billions of dollars on drugs and treatments for sickness caused by overeating, inactivity, drinking and smoking.

In traditional arts, we find an antidote to the mistaken assumptions that we modern people take for granted and hold us back. In traditional practice, instead of setting our hearts on innovation and accumulation, we master a body of knowledge handed down and use it, as a whetstone, to polish our bodies and minds. We wear down the imperfections in our bodies and fix the distortions in our minds. We get rid of the bad habits and junk that stand in the way of our freedom of movement, freedom to think, and freedom to live. This is true in the process of learning any traditional art, whether it be music, painting, martial arts, metal work, carpentry, or scholarship.

In karate, our kata — pre-arranged movement sequences — require us to move in a way that is unfamiliar. Memorizing a sequence of moves is called the “embusen,” and it is the first stage of learning kata.

The next step is called "ren ma" in Japanese. These words translate as “pounding and polishing” – the process used to craft a sword that is strong and resilient. Like pounding and polishing, the high heat and pressure of training, alternating with recovery and rest, repeated continually over the years, make the karate practitioner strong and resilient.

During ren ma practice, over a course of years or decades, we go beyond the limits of our bodies, and beyond those in our character as well. Like the flaws or impurities in the metal of a sword blade, the defects in our habits of movement or in our habits of mind are revealed and removed.

As we continue to polish away resistance and imperfection, the subtle gaps between will, mind, and body that hamper freedom of action disappear.

The result of this intense self-discipline is freedom. This is the direct path. There is no other way to get there.

After decades of dedicated practice, we may leave ren ma behind. This next stage might be called mastery. Although it is rarely achieved, it forms an ideal which we can pursue, attain sporadically at first, and then deepen through our practice, for a lifetime.

In many dojos, the objective of martial arts is not training. It’s entertainment. The students are rewarded with empty ranks and praise, and activity is not focused, but guided moment to moment by impulse, rather than by a vision of what a human being can be.

Kids come for a month or two, play, get ten patches, a tangerine belt, a silk jacket, learn a different animal move every week, and next season it’s on to the next thing. This is not the worst thing in the world. It can be cute. But the children will walk away with nothing of value, and when they come across a genuine opportunity to train in a way that demands something of them, they turn away.

Because of their experience with a phony reward structure, they become cynical about the training process and the motives of the participants. They grow up accustomed only to stimulation and amusement. When I visit friends around the country and I see what goes on in their kids' martial arts places, and they tell me about the hundreds of dollars a month they have to spend on all sorts of extras, they ask me: Is this right? Is this what martial arts is supposed to be about?

In a traditional approach to karate, there is a set curriculum. People are introduced to specific techniques and kata in sequence as they progress. For a while, accumulation of new knowledge is emphasized. However, if their attachment to accumulation is not set aside, practitioners will not get any better. They will be distracted by novelty and will fail to develop, muscle memory, deep focus, and a strong will. They will fail to achieve deep skill: the capacity for spontaneous action and self-command. They will become arrogant, insecure and brittle.

I often practice one kata for an hour or more at a time. I have focused on one kata for a decade. It is not entertaining, but it is not boring, either. That is because my intention is engaged when I practice: I am seeking some results from my practice, and I am pouring my heart into achieving it. If I was distracted by having to come up with new things to work on all the time, or if I was locked into rigid assumptions about my practice and was afraid to discover and learn new things, I would accomplish nothing substantial. It is liberating to be able to just train - freely, without the encumbrance of stray thought or uncertain movement.

In karate, it is this kind of deep, austere training that allows an understanding of the deeper levels of the art: of grappling, point strikes, power transmission, and dynamic body shifting. Insights will continue to come as long as we train, as we dissolve the obstacles to knowledge.