It’s often said that the most important thing in self defence is the mind. Mokuso (meditation) is often skirted over in martial arts training, seen as just something to clear the mind before training and calm you down again after training.
But meditation is a method of developing the mind which has martial applications as well as being for self development and health. It allows better connection between the conscious and sub conscious minds, enabling better instincts and intuition to develop. This can carry into all areas of you life, but having a improved intuition has obvious applications for self defence.
Unfortunately it’s usually only done for a few minutes at the beginning and end of the class. It teaches us to quieten the conscious mind and, more importantly, to observe the conscious mind. If we can then introduce this practice of observing our conscious mind into our daily life, we become a lot more aware of all our negative thoughts and how we react to things on autopilot without actually thinking about it. This observation and awareness can over time weaken these automatic responses, allowing us to make better decisions and overcome knee-jerk automatic responses, which might not actually be in our best interests. This can apply in any area of our life, not just self defence!
Whilst many of are stuck at home in self isolation, this is a great time to practice meditations a bit more deeply.
Tag: mokuso
Mokuso: Does It Actually Have A Martial Application?
For those not familiar with the term, Mokuso it is Japanese for the kneeling meditation at the beginning and end of a martial arts class. It is often seen as just clearing the mind from the day’s ups and downs to prepare you for training. It does of course do that, but it can actually represent a lot more in the long term. Apart from just clearing the mind, when practiced regularly it can over time help to completely silence the mind. Continue reading “Mokuso: Does It Actually Have A Martial Application?” »