Master Croley with Marcus just before doing an interview for his project.
Recently I was privileged to have the opportunity to help out Marcus Hirshbine with his Senior Project at Enka High. It’s always fun to help out the kids in our community in any way that I can. I asked him if he would share something for our blog and here is what he had to say.
I got involved with the classes that Master Derek Croley taught when I was introduced to my Senior project. My topic focused on the Samurai and using elements in understanding the Samurai, to help me better argue, that with this comprehension of such a key figure in not just Japanese history, but Asain history as well, to find a means of connecting this, divided mentality between most western people when it comes to interacting and understanding the Asian culture.
I was hoping to justify the necessity of this information in a business related stand point, or even political, if you were to do business, or make trips to an Asian country today, that knowing the samurai and the MANY influences it had, as well as analyzing and synthesizing the samurai itself to find a reflection of Asia’s own culture and to help better prepare yourself when meeting with social situations. The classes Master Derek Croley taught really taught me a lot about the samurai generally and gave many different aspects to approach the samurai and many more inclusive details with social interactions between the samurai and people of the time. Also by learning various arts that the samurai had used in combat gave me almost a first hand experience and a grasp to an extent, of what the samurai, when doing these maneuvers, might have actually done and why, which is vital in getting the overall idea of what they might do, or respond to situations and maybe connecting their methods, to today’s japan and maybe bridging that social/cultural gap between our societies.
