" A big step back"....

As you most likely know by now, I like to read. It is one of my passions where mind and heart are in concert.  In the book by Dave Lowry, Moving Toward Stillness there's this story of a Judo Sensei talking to students just at the end of their black belt promotion test. All the judges had spoken to the students and it was the turn of the last judge to speak:

" The last judge to speak was Nishimoto-sensei. Nishimoto was an osho, a Buddhist priest who oversaw the religious needs of parishioners, nearly all of the first and second-generation Japanese American scattered all over Colorado and western Oklahoma. He was also a fifth-dan in judo, having trained at the Kodokan, the dojo in Tokyo that is headquarters for judo in Japan and all over the world. He worked as a judge at all our dojo tournaments, and he also played a role of keeping us younger judoka in line and out of trouble. He had a way of imparting some rather pithy wisdom with a bare minimum of words, and he was not all averse to using the back of his hand on our heads when a more immediate and forceful lesson was in order. When it was his turn to speak to the new black belts, Nishimoto stood,  folded his arms  accross his chest, and addressed the five in front of him.

" You have taken a big step forward," he said, then he paused. "Now I hope you will take a big step back."  Then he sat down."

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