Walking With The Tengu

By MatthewSociety & Culture

Walking With The Tengu episodes

July 15, 2020 Budoushoshinshu: Sincerity, Situational Awareness, and the Warrior Mindset
In this episode we start into an exploration of the Budoushoshinshu, written in the early Tokugawa era as a manual to young samurai as the warrior class was grappling with what it meant to be warriors in a time and place without war. We look at a little of the history and the background of the work. Contrast the Confucian nature of this work with the Zen Buddhist outlook of the Hagakure and then delve into one of the early lessons.
To sign up for new episode notifications and to receive the "Very Brief Introduction to Philosophy for Martial Artists" PDF go to: walkingtengu.wix.com/tengu and scroll to the bottom to enter your email.
19 min
May 25, 2020 The Cicada And His Shell
Today I am going to give you my retelling of a very short story from Issai Chozanshi’s Inaka Soshi. These are parable-like stories not unlike Aesop’s Fables but much more subtle.
I’ve taken a little creative license in these retellings, so be aware that they’re not direct translations but hopefully I can retain their intrinsic lessons while also making them fun to listen to.
Cicada track from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tanna_japonensis_v01.ogg
7 min
May 13, 2020 Awakening The Shihan
Today we take a look at the difference between titles and honorifics in the Japanese language and how they are used in the Japanese martial arts. Some of these terms include, sensei, senpai, soke, shihan, kyoshi, and hanshi.
Special thanks to Grigoris Miliaresis for making sure I had not forgotten how to use the Japanese language. Grigoris is a writer for the Japanese martial arts magazine Gekkan Hiden (budojapan.com) and a practitioner of two classical Japanese martial arts with additional experience and background in modern budo like judo and kendo.

Check out Grigoris' Gekkan Hiden (月刊秘伝) articles here: https://bit.ly/2yojR7h
32 min
May 07, 2020 Classic Themes in Modern Myth: Star Wars - Prequels
Closing out this exploration of martial themes in the Star Wars films, Jaredd Wilson of the Martial Thoughts Podcast and I talk about the prequels.
One of the things that seems obvious in retrospect, but I had never noticed before was how closely the story of the Jedi in the prequels parallels the myths of the Shaolin temple.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little foray into martial themes found in the modern myths of the Star Wars stories. Let me know what you thought and if you noticed anything we missed.
1 hr 17 min
May 04, 2020 Classic Themes in Modern Myth: Star Wars - Return of the Jedi
Jaredd Wilson of the Martial Thoughts Podcast and I continue our discussion of the martial themes in the Star Wars films with Return of the Jedi. At least for me the Heihou Kadenshou came up repeatedly as I rewatched the film so, if you haven't already, it might help to go back and listen to Episode 35: Through Dragonfly Eyes after this one.
1 hr 23 min
May 02, 2020 Classic Themes in Modern Myth: Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back
Continuing our conversation on martial themes in the Star Wars films. Jaredd Wilson of the Martial Thoughts Podcast and I tackle Empire Strikes Back. For better or worse this film has influenced and is built off many of the assumptions, preconceived notions, misunderstandings and also truths of the martial arts and their masters. Embodied both in other martial arts films and in our own real life martial arts training.
1 hr 2 min
April 26, 2020 Classic Themes in Modern Myth: Star Wars - A New Hope
Recently, I got to join Jaredd Wilson of the Martial Thoughts Podcast in a discussion about martial arts themes in film. Today, we look at Star Wars: A New Hope wherein we discuss a variety of themes ranging from verbal deescalation to the hero's journey as a symbolic theme across many stories and how the Star Wars films were in many ways inspired by the samurai films of the 1950s.
1 hr 1 min
April 10, 2020 Through Dragonfly Eyes
In this episode we take a look at a new translation of the Heiho Kadensho, translated and annotated by Jack Hathway. In it we draw a few lessons about the why, what and how of our training through the eyes of a Yagyu Shinkage-ryu practitioner. Written in the early 17th century for the shogun of Japan. This work is a unique treatise on strategy and philosophy that can be applied on both a personal level as a martial artists on in a much more public way in our daily lives.
You can find the book here.
Mr. Hathway's school can be found here: https://kobudo-renbukan.wixsite.com/arakido
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WI.Yagyu
To sign up for new episode notifications and to receive the "Very Brief Introduction to Philosophy for Martial Artists" PDF go to: walkingtengu.wix.com/tengu and scroll to the bottom to enter your email.
32 min
February 16, 2020 Philosophy 101: Ethics
In this episode we look at what ethics is and how it relates to self-defense. We also spend some time talking about how to articulate force, how to define a threat, how to understand scaling force and the intersection of all this with our personal ethic of violence.
To sign up for new episode notifications and to receive the "Very Brief Introduction to Philosophy for Martial Artists" PDF go to: walkingtengu.wix.com/tengu and scroll to the bottom to enter your email.
49 min
January 06, 2020 Philosophy 101: Metaphysics
In this episode we rush through an overview of the traditional philosophical division known as metaphysics wherein we attempt to answer the question: What is real? We then think about some basic questions on how to apply this field to our martial arts.
To sign up for new episode notifications and to receive the "Very Brief Introduction to Philosophy for Martial Artists" PDF go to: walkingtengu.wix.com/tengu and scroll to the bottom to enter your email.
16 min