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I wanted to grow up to be a knight.
I swear I will stop using this as an opening line. Someday. But that one simple sentence and desire has shaped so much of me and my life that it may as well be the first thing I say to everyone I ever meet.
"Hi, I'm Atma, I'm a knight." Or swordsman. Or samurai. Or warrior. Any of it would be equally true, it'd just evoke a slightly different mental image. Any way you slice it, you'd think of me as someone in armor with a weapon. Or at worst, you'd visualize a Monty Python joke. I can live with that. Though sadly, that's not what most people envision when I mention my interest in any of these, so really, I best keep my trap shut.
Why? They see someone long since out of touch with reality and the modern world.
I can't tell you when or why I started liking swords. As early as I can remember, I carried a toy one with me everywhere I went or was allowed to. I was slaying dragons and rescuing princesses in my backyard before I was aware why I preferred princesses to princes. I identified with warrior culture and knew what it meant before I even attended my first day of public schooling. It is, alongside being a creator, one of the things I identify with most above all other aspects of me is being the fighter. I am the stalwart protector and may your gods help you if you cross me with your evil deeds.
This would be fantastic if I was born in 1086. I could run off and disguise my gender and die by age 20 in a war for my king as would be realistically expected. I'd be good at it, too! Glorious. However, I was born in 1986. Oops. I mean, yeah, I get indoor plumbing now and I'd live past drinking age thanks to modern medicine and such, but swords are no longer the go-to weapon in a time of crisis for most countries. So my being attracted to them and having such a strong affinity for them is pretty bizarre, in a practical sense.
I mean, guns exist now. So do missiles and tanks and warplanes and bombs and all sorts of amazing, wonderful, dreadful things. We have more choices than ever to pick from when it comes to defending and killing each other. Life would be boring without such variety. I don't expect a sword to protect or save me from jack shit, save maybe a burglar, and even then I'd opt for a club and let the fucker rot in jail.
However, this does not diminish what a sword means to me. As a kid, it is the first thing I saw that I really thought "I can protect people with this." In it I found myself and some of my most core of virtues. Without it enkindling my desire to be strong and brave to protect those that cannot, I'd just be another chump buying shitty, cheap cyber-katanas off of Bud-K and calling myself NinjaWarrior86 or some other asinine bullshit. And the last thing this world needs is Bud-K making any more money than they already have.
I've been doing iaido for about a year now. I am trained in a historically practical style of Japanese swordsmanship used up from the 1500s through World War 2. This means I use the most loathed sword possible to many, thanks to the cyber-ninjas online ruining everything with their Hanzo Steel. I use a katana. The difference between me and them is I understand how they work, how to use one, what they can and cannot do, and their actual history. Sadly, these nerds have by large ruined that and anyone with a sword, especially a Japanese one, is now seen by most as a gigantic loser. Or possibly a psycho on verge of murdering everyone they know. I've had both stereotypes thrown at me constantly.
That's what prompted all of this. I got asked yet again why the fuck should I bother with something in "the modern day." I got asked why any sword school would bother teaching swordsmanship beyond a sporting or meditative purpose. Why should I care about "murdering" people? I've had this argument thrown at me countless times, and I would have shrugged it off except for their choice of words.
Learning practical weapons handling makes me a murderer. Yet they'd still prefer I used my All-American right to bear arms and fire a gun at everyone instead. So using a sword makes me a psycho but a gun is just being smart. Gotcha, dude. Guns are expensive, so is ammo, and while I'd like to know how to handle them just in case, they also do not provide the same kind of workout or give me a level of self-fulfillment that using a sword does. I hope to fuck I don't ever have to kill anyone, even if I'd only do it in self defense, so no, I'm not sitting here salivating thinking of the day I snap and end us all just to paint my blade red. That's not what we're taught to do and I'd shun anyone who'd try to teach me that. I don't learn it and expect to have use of it every day of my life. I'm becoming a fucking samurai regardless of time era or gender and it's helping beat out my depression and inner demons.
I am becoming what young Atma always dreamed of.
Hell, this is what future Atma could do too. I could very well become an official instructor and forever part of our style's respected lineage. As a woman, this means I could very well be a role model to other girls and I could help some kids or troubled teens or even some curious adults find something they're good at and give them a chance. It'd not be a primary career, but by the time I am middle aged, it could very well be a viable side job for me. Besides, how cool would that be? Sure beats a cubicle for the rest of my life until I get Carpal Tunnel and die in my chair watching my stories and yelling at kids to get off my lawn.
In swordsmanship I have found discipline, focus, better mental health, a sturdier and more dextrous body, a refined spirit, better work habits in everything else I do. I have found purpose. I have found myself. It could very well carry me to my death, proud to go on in a world where I felt happy and passed something I felt was worthy on to our next generation. So of course it still has a purpose in the modern day and our history.
Just as anything else does.
Whatever makes you happy, fulfilled, no matter how new or old or odd or accepted, do it. Have no regrets. I was extremely lucky to have found this class, and not only the class in and of itself, but the history and philosophy with it. The fact I got a damn good teacher who cares and makes us care. Perhaps it was fate. Perhaps I was destined to be that knight or samurai or whatever from the get go and it's only now that I can realize it. I don't know where I'd be or what I'd be doing now if not for it.
I could become a mastered instructor of the sword and if that isn't fucking cool and worth it then I don't want to know what is. It still amazes me and excites me that this is my life now. I made it after all, now all that's left is to continue doing.
Have at thee, knave, who would do those I protect dishonor by slurring the name of what protects them. Your words cut them more than I can cut you.
I am no murderer. I am merely a swordsman.
I swear I will stop using this as an opening line. Someday. But that one simple sentence and desire has shaped so much of me and my life that it may as well be the first thing I say to everyone I ever meet.
"Hi, I'm Atma, I'm a knight." Or swordsman. Or samurai. Or warrior. Any of it would be equally true, it'd just evoke a slightly different mental image. Any way you slice it, you'd think of me as someone in armor with a weapon. Or at worst, you'd visualize a Monty Python joke. I can live with that. Though sadly, that's not what most people envision when I mention my interest in any of these, so really, I best keep my trap shut.
Why? They see someone long since out of touch with reality and the modern world.
I can't tell you when or why I started liking swords. As early as I can remember, I carried a toy one with me everywhere I went or was allowed to. I was slaying dragons and rescuing princesses in my backyard before I was aware why I preferred princesses to princes. I identified with warrior culture and knew what it meant before I even attended my first day of public schooling. It is, alongside being a creator, one of the things I identify with most above all other aspects of me is being the fighter. I am the stalwart protector and may your gods help you if you cross me with your evil deeds.
This would be fantastic if I was born in 1086. I could run off and disguise my gender and die by age 20 in a war for my king as would be realistically expected. I'd be good at it, too! Glorious. However, I was born in 1986. Oops. I mean, yeah, I get indoor plumbing now and I'd live past drinking age thanks to modern medicine and such, but swords are no longer the go-to weapon in a time of crisis for most countries. So my being attracted to them and having such a strong affinity for them is pretty bizarre, in a practical sense.
I mean, guns exist now. So do missiles and tanks and warplanes and bombs and all sorts of amazing, wonderful, dreadful things. We have more choices than ever to pick from when it comes to defending and killing each other. Life would be boring without such variety. I don't expect a sword to protect or save me from jack shit, save maybe a burglar, and even then I'd opt for a club and let the fucker rot in jail.
However, this does not diminish what a sword means to me. As a kid, it is the first thing I saw that I really thought "I can protect people with this." In it I found myself and some of my most core of virtues. Without it enkindling my desire to be strong and brave to protect those that cannot, I'd just be another chump buying shitty, cheap cyber-katanas off of Bud-K and calling myself NinjaWarrior86 or some other asinine bullshit. And the last thing this world needs is Bud-K making any more money than they already have.
I've been doing iaido for about a year now. I am trained in a historically practical style of Japanese swordsmanship used up from the 1500s through World War 2. This means I use the most loathed sword possible to many, thanks to the cyber-ninjas online ruining everything with their Hanzo Steel. I use a katana. The difference between me and them is I understand how they work, how to use one, what they can and cannot do, and their actual history. Sadly, these nerds have by large ruined that and anyone with a sword, especially a Japanese one, is now seen by most as a gigantic loser. Or possibly a psycho on verge of murdering everyone they know. I've had both stereotypes thrown at me constantly.
That's what prompted all of this. I got asked yet again why the fuck should I bother with something in "the modern day." I got asked why any sword school would bother teaching swordsmanship beyond a sporting or meditative purpose. Why should I care about "murdering" people? I've had this argument thrown at me countless times, and I would have shrugged it off except for their choice of words.
Learning practical weapons handling makes me a murderer. Yet they'd still prefer I used my All-American right to bear arms and fire a gun at everyone instead. So using a sword makes me a psycho but a gun is just being smart. Gotcha, dude. Guns are expensive, so is ammo, and while I'd like to know how to handle them just in case, they also do not provide the same kind of workout or give me a level of self-fulfillment that using a sword does. I hope to fuck I don't ever have to kill anyone, even if I'd only do it in self defense, so no, I'm not sitting here salivating thinking of the day I snap and end us all just to paint my blade red. That's not what we're taught to do and I'd shun anyone who'd try to teach me that. I don't learn it and expect to have use of it every day of my life. I'm becoming a fucking samurai regardless of time era or gender and it's helping beat out my depression and inner demons.
I am becoming what young Atma always dreamed of.
Hell, this is what future Atma could do too. I could very well become an official instructor and forever part of our style's respected lineage. As a woman, this means I could very well be a role model to other girls and I could help some kids or troubled teens or even some curious adults find something they're good at and give them a chance. It'd not be a primary career, but by the time I am middle aged, it could very well be a viable side job for me. Besides, how cool would that be? Sure beats a cubicle for the rest of my life until I get Carpal Tunnel and die in my chair watching my stories and yelling at kids to get off my lawn.
In swordsmanship I have found discipline, focus, better mental health, a sturdier and more dextrous body, a refined spirit, better work habits in everything else I do. I have found purpose. I have found myself. It could very well carry me to my death, proud to go on in a world where I felt happy and passed something I felt was worthy on to our next generation. So of course it still has a purpose in the modern day and our history.
Just as anything else does.
Whatever makes you happy, fulfilled, no matter how new or old or odd or accepted, do it. Have no regrets. I was extremely lucky to have found this class, and not only the class in and of itself, but the history and philosophy with it. The fact I got a damn good teacher who cares and makes us care. Perhaps it was fate. Perhaps I was destined to be that knight or samurai or whatever from the get go and it's only now that I can realize it. I don't know where I'd be or what I'd be doing now if not for it.
I could become a mastered instructor of the sword and if that isn't fucking cool and worth it then I don't want to know what is. It still amazes me and excites me that this is my life now. I made it after all, now all that's left is to continue doing.
Have at thee, knave, who would do those I protect dishonor by slurring the name of what protects them. Your words cut them more than I can cut you.
I am no murderer. I am merely a swordsman.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 11:08 am (UTC)From:Yes, I just compared you to Faramir, one of the noblest characters in LOTR. AND IT FITS.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-28 01:52 pm (UTC)From:Thank you ever so kindly. It really is for all of you why I do this, as cheesy as it sounds.