SHIBUMI – Beautiful Imperfection

Trevanian – “Shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances.” In “The Shibumi Strategy”, Matthew May writes   “Shibumi has come to denote those things that exhibit in paradox and all at once the very best of everything and nothing: Elegant simplicity. Effortless effectiveness. Understated excellence. Beautiful imperfection.” Apparently it is even used in Baseball to describe a player who does nothing spectacular but contributes to the team.

I am not one for appropriating ideas and concepts and shoe horning them to fit a different model, but when I came across this I thought it made simple beautiful sense.

The common place appearance of simple movement, refined through practice. The elegant simplicity of, as Thomas Myers says, “adapting to one’s environment with ease and imagination”. The efforless effectiveness of a single technique practiced ten thousand times. The understated excellence of a habit well nurtured. The beautiful imperfection of fearlessly falling and getting up each time. The best of everything and nothing.

When we stop guarding ourselves in the pursuit of perfection we open doors that allow us to be the movement. When last did you approach what you do, how you sit, how you move, with beautiful imperfection?