Lineage, what does it really mean?

History has always been important for life. We learn from the past, hopefully. We look to our past for it history and the culture and our beliefs. It is our history that develops the group, tribe and society into its current manifestation. It is what accumulates like experience making and molding the individual, the family and the tribe into a cohesive self-protecting entity that is "us."

It is the ongoing evolution of humans that progress due to the actions or inaction's of their predecessors. Our ancestry is what provides earned and learned properties that are shared with others in our bloodline so ancestry or lineage in karate is the inherited system knowledge that is shared with others in our dojo line, lineage.

In our personal growth our history, our lineage, our ancestors are relationships between one another that share a genealogical origin. That origin as to survival per nature's requirements means and meant life of death - the continuation of the family line. Isn't this the impetus that drives us to know and understand our karate lineage.

We then share a type of genealogical origin with the master through technical, cultural and historical descent. Isn't knowing and understanding lineage a form of a line of descent where each new practitioner becomes proficient from the result of a direct speciation from that immediate ancestral teacher, Sensei? As each iteration of a lineage appears it is also a new and distinct form that results from the natural evolution of each person ergo why it is so important to resist dogmatic adherence to the exactness once a level of proficiency and knowledge are attained.

Dogmatic adherence, it does stunt the growth potential of the system thus stopping its evolution basically "killing it" where its survival is jeopardized.

In closing it may seem ridiculous to exert so much mental energy claiming a specific lineage but it just may be a natural way like sleeping, dreaming and living life. There is, of course, a limit to how much is focused on lineage to the point of the ridiculous. When a group is so closed because of lineage then they also fall into a stunted and detrimental stage where extinction is ofter the result. If the world said it would not venture outside of the family lineage would the world today be as diverse and exciting as it is today? We might still be living in caves if not for a willingness to merge strong lineages forming a newer lineage or ancestry.

So, if your lineage is important to you, your dojo  and your fellow karate-ka then why do we, generally, ignore an important aspect of our lineage, culture and beliefs of those who came before? Are we so caught up in titles, belts, trophies and accolades with self back slapping etc that we don't give cultures and beliefs their due?

This is worth considering.