C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  A Freewheeling “Translation” of the Hagakure with Commentary for the Modern Martial Practitioner Book One: An Introduction to the Way of the Warrior      What follows is a somewhat experimental post that I hope to possibly turn into a book at some point down the road.  I thought I would use my blog to post over the coming months what will essentially be the first draft of the manuscript, in between my more regular lifting articles and my somewhat irregular Budo essays.  I want to discuss, primarily, the history, philosophy, and practice of the martial arts as they are practiced in the modern world.  To do this—the subjects will be free-ranging—I am going to use The Hagakure as a springboard.  The Hagakure in English means “In the Shadow of Leaves.”  It's a popular bushido text written by the 18th century samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo to the younger samurai Tashiro Tsuramoto.  It is a great text, and for many modern martial ar...

Budo, the Pursuit of Excellence, and the Goal of Practice      There are many who take up Budo for the wrong reasons.  Often, especially for young men, it has something to do with wanting to be tough or the desire to be the “baddest man” in the neighborhood or something of a similar nature.  Many who do take up the Budo for this reason, however, find that it ends up giving them something much more than they had realized at first.  It not only gives them purpose, but it aids in killing the ego rather than building it up.      In my last “regular job,” after I had retired from working in Engineering and before I took up my love of writing as a full-time profession, I worked at a non-profit with “at-risk” young men, ones who had been in some kind of trouble with the law or who had been incarcerated for one reason or another.  The non-profit I worked for helped them to find jobs in various sectors and then trained them i...

Thoughts on Lifting and Thoughts on Thoughts While Lifting      What do I think about when I think about lifting?  For one, just lifting in general.  I think about programs, workouts, regimens that work for me and work for others I’ve trained.  I think about the ones that didn’t work and why they didn’t work.  I suppose, more than anything else, I think about life.  I think about life when living and when lifting.  They’re inextricably bound for me, life and lifting.  My life, in many ways, is a life of lifting.      I suppose it would be different if I wasn’t a lifter.  There are those who lift.  Then there are those who are lifters.  The former do it for any myriad of reasons.  At least, I guess they do.  I’ve trained a lot of those who fit in that group.  I’ve trained with those that fit in it.  And I’d also surmise that a lot of folks who read my writing fall ...