Just finished the Bujinkan Camp.

Good times, good people.  Largely due to Jack Hoban.  Some of you have heard about my first exposure to the Takumatsuden arts...

"My black belt," he actually hitched his thumb in it and sneered, "Is in Ninpo.  What you civilians call ninjitsu."  Followed by an epic rolling session where the 'unbeatable ninja master' submitted at least forty-five times in less than thirty minutes.  Epic is the wrong word.  "Pathetic" would be giving this young shidoshi-ho more credit than he deserved...

Anyway, suffice it to say my initial exposures to modern ninjitsu were not positive.  But I have since met some good people- Mariusz and Earl and several of Dale's students in SF are damn good people.  I like Don (although some day we are going to have a serious talk about the view from the outside).

But Jack Hoban is something special.  Former Marine.  Disciple of Robert Humphey, who may have cracked the code on natural ethics.  Good (maybe great) man and a good (maybe great) martial artist.  I like the way Jack plays and I love the way he thinks.

Today I heard his theory on PTSD and PTSD treatment.  It works for me, but in the conversation leading up to it there was a gem of a question.  Not about PTSD but about people who are robust against extreme stress in general.  The answer, almost universally, is love.

You can become addicted to the danger.  Addicted to the feeling of reality and importance when you do big, dangerous and impossible things.  But that is only unbalancing if that is all you do.  As long as you come back to the world and put equal weight into loving something or someone who is good, you'll be okay.

So here's the big question:

Of those of you who have spent four hours or more this week training to hurt someone who is bad... did spend at least four hours being nice to the people you love?

Think about it.