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balancing a door on the tip of his nose

2024年12月25日 | 英単語

Alexander Bennett氏翻訳の五輪書 "The Book of Five Rings and Other Works" を読んでいます。The Wind Scroll(風の巻)から引用します。

Setting your gaze on specific points will cause uncertainty and will adversely affect your strategy. To give another example, players of kemari do not focus intently on the ball as they kick it. They can still deflect the ball off their temple and kick it using the bansuri technique or keep it afloat with an oimari kick, or even a spin kick. As the player becomes more accomplished, he can kick the ball without needing to look at it. The same can be said of acrobats. Someone accustomed to this art can juggle several swords while simultaneously balancing a door on the tip of his nose. He has no need to fix his gaze as he can see what he is doing intuitively through lots of training.

"balancing a door on the tip of his nose" の箇所ですが、曲芸を例えているようですが、鼻先に "door" を載せてバランスを取る様子は想像力に欠ける私にはどうしても想像が付きません。
仕方なく、ChatGPT に訊いてみました。

ChatGPT: In the context of The Book of Five Rings, the phrase "balancing a door on the tip of his nose" is used metaphorically to emphasize a principle of skill and mastery. Musashi is illustrating the idea that with extensive practice and experience, an accomplished person no longer needs to rely on deliberate, focused attention to perform complex tasks. Instead, their actions become intuitive and natural, allowing them to handle multiple challenging tasks simultaneously.
Balancing a door on the tip of the nose symbolizes an extraordinary feat requiring exceptional balance, coordination, and focus. The imagery conveys that such a level of skill is achievable not through conscious effort on every detail but through the internalization of techniques, enabling one to perform seamlessly and with ease.
The broader message in the passage is that in martial arts, as in life, over-focusing on specific details or points can lead to rigidity and a loss of strategic perspective. Instead, one should aim to cultivate a state of fluid awareness and intuitive understanding, honed through rigorous training and experience.

例えだと言うのは分かっていますが、それでも鼻先に "door" は解せません。しつこく、質問しました。

I understand that the sentence has a figurative meaning, but I cannot imagine a door on the tip of one's nose. What kind of door can you imagine?
ChatGPT: The image of balancing a door on the tip of one’s nose is indeed exaggerated and fantastical, intended more to astonish the imagination than to be taken literally. However, if we try to visualize it practically, it could refer to a lightweight, narrow door—perhaps something like:
A Small Wooden Panel or Shoji Screen: In traditional Japanese settings, sliding doors or partitions (like shoji) made of lightweight wood and paper could fit the description. Such a door might be physically plausible to balance for a trained performer.
A Miniature Door or Model Door: The "door" could be imagined as a scaled-down version of an actual door—small and light enough to balance on a nose as part of a circus or acrobatic act.
A Large Decorative Object with Door-Like Qualities: It might not be a literal door at all but a metaphor for a door-shaped object, such as a flat, rectangular prop designed to look like a door but optimized for balancing.
This hyperbolic example highlights the extraordinary skill of an acrobat rather than suggesting a specific, practical door type. It's meant to evoke awe and underline the idea of mastery and intuitive expertise.

なるほど、やはり私の想像力が足りなかったのですね。それにしてもこの様な質問にほんの数秒で答えるChatGPTは凄い。

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