The following material comes from a variety of sources such as books, audio tapes, magazines, and Maestro Duran's own observations. If you have any questions for the Maestro, please send e-mail to:RaggedyAnn@compuserve.com
Security and certainty is a rigid attachment to the known. However, the known is nothing other than the shackles of past conditioning. Anticipation of an event is a manifestation of a desire for security and certainty which is an illusion that keeps you within your comfort zone.
Fencing is a natural process within the convention of the tournament rules. The fencer is aware of the rules and is part of the convention of the games. The fencer knows the principles that govern the game and is aware that rulings by officials are within the realm of the unknown. The only certainty for the fencer is the uncertainty of the outcome. Detachment from the outcome and volunteering one's fencing to the assault is the only game to play.
The competitive fencer uses self consciousness in the planning of tactics and strategies for the tournament. Self consciousness is manifested through the facts and events of the tournament, some of which are out of the competitors control. At the moment of the assaults, the fencer transcends fencing techniques and strategies so that the fencing grows out of the unconscious: the "inner conscious." In such cases, you cease to be your own conscious master but become an instrument in the hands of the unknown. The unknown has no ego-consciousness and consequently no attachment to the known.
Relinquish your attachment to the known. Step into the unknown and you will step into the field of all possibilities.
The fencer's ideas, no matter how worthy and desirable in themselves, can become a disease when the mind is obsessed with them. To do the fencing, the ego-centered obsessions that the fencer must get rid of are:
1. The desire for victory
2.
The desire to resort to technical cunning
3.
The desire to display all that he or she has learned
4. The desire to intimidate the opponent
5. The desire to play a passive role
6. The obsession to get rid of whatever obsessions with which he
or she is likely to be infected
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