Deshi Quotes

“You can often tell what style someone practices merely by looking at the type of knot someone has in the front of a hakama. Some iaido schools have elaborate systems for tying their hakama. My sensei uses a simple square knot: he’s mostly concerned that the knot is properly placed and doesn’t come undone. It’s hard to be deadly while your pants are falling down.”
― John Donohue, Deshi

“The truly wise know that what we really need are those things that permit our true natures to emerge.”
― John Donohue, Deshi

“gustatory avidity.”
― John Donohue, Deshi

“The realization of what was happening meant that I had to shift mental gears. There is, after all, fighting. And then there is fighting. It’s a point I continually try to bring home to people in Yamashita’s dojo. They don’t really get it—it’s something you have to experience for yourself. But it’s not something I wish on anyone.”
― John Donohue, Deshi

“We began to circle each other, looking for a tsuki, a gap in concentration, that would permit an attack.”
― John Donohue, Deshi

“I felt a tightness on the skin. A visceral type of cognition that I had experienced before. But this was stronger, more immediate: the certainty of something out there, just beyond the threshold of consciousness. It was the experience of haragei.”
― John Donohue, Deshi

“He looked off into the distance with narrowed eyes. Man of action, seeing things no one else does. “Let’s just say we had indications…” and he let it dangle in the air, as if mystery were the ultimate justification.”
― John Donohue, Deshi

“When I started my studies years ago, I thought of myself as an academic with an interest in the martial arts. Then I met Yamashita. Now I’ve come to the awareness that I’m a martial artist with some advanced academic credentials. “We know there are people more qualified, Burke,”
― John Donohue, Deshi