How Zanshin Tech works

Zanshin Tech is organized in one and half hour lessons, at least once a week. Practitioners are grouped together in classes of up to 15 people and courses are generally divided for adults and minors.

Zanshin Tech practitioners are called "Digital Warriors" and their rank is identified by a colored bracelet:

The ranks are the following:

The colors follow the wire sequence in the Ethernet cable (according to EIA/TIA-568B standard) simply adding white as the entry level and black as the last one.

Zanshin Tech bracelets

The lesson

As in many martial arts, every lesson starts and ends with the Rei, the respectful bow: it represents the spirit of traditional principles. Then the practitioners prepare their stations, which occasionally require them to assemble a computer.

Finally the dojo Masters make the disciples repeat the Five Dojo rules:

  1. Do not attack
  2. Respect
  3. What we say in the dojo stays in the dojo
  4. At least 2 masters and 3 disciples
  5. Leave the dojo the way you found it

These rules are very important and constitute the core of the code of honor you need to respect in order to receive teachings that could be used to harm someone.

The lesson begins: the Masters give the disciples their exercises and follow them one by one in their personal growth.

Senior students cooperate with Masters in following younger ones, however seniority is given by rank and not by age: there was once a 25-year-old white bracelet who was followed by a 12-year-old white-orange bracelet; it's called peer-education, a relatively new term to describe something that has been in martial arts for centuries.

Exercises can be both technical (e-mail tracing, uncovering fake profiles, finding out who's hiding behind a phone number, etc) and martial (dealing with an attack and applying the right psychological counter-techniques to discourage further attacks).

Sometimes practitioners study real cases of digital aggressions: the Masters tell the story leaving the disciples to analyze it; they split the story into single events, identifying attack techniques and which counter-techniques correspond to them.

Disciples must also train themselves to notice warning signs in others: each Digital Warrior also have an obligation to help friends and schoolmates who may not be trained in Zanshin Tech.

When dealing with delicate topics a part of the lesson is dedicated to a gradual decompression in order to let each practitioner regain the Zanshin.

Before leaving, all practitioners cooperate in putting the dojo back the way they found it (or better): they gather the devices used for the lesson, they collect cables and any other objects and they clean the tables and put the chairs back where they belong. Finally they gather in circle and they bow again to thank each other.

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