The inspiration for this post was actually a page on my website for my own martial art classes in Midsomer Norton. I have a “Why Karate?” page. Admittedly this page is a bit biased towards Karate, but then it is my school that I’m trying to promote, not anybody else’s. However, much of what I wrote on that page applies to all traditional martial arts, so I thought I’d expand upon it and share my thoughts here with the wider martial arts community!
Apart from the obvious need for self protection throughout history, there are many good reasons why martial arts have been around for thousands of years and are now practised by millions of people all over the world today. They’re a great tool for development of mind, body and spirit! But what does that actually mean. “Mind, body and spirit” is a phrase that we often hear associated with martial arts, but it is not often defined in any depth. It’s often a throw away line on promotional material, then seldom talked about again after somebody actually joins up! Continue reading “Mind, Body & Spirit! What Does That Actually Mean?” »
I was a little intrigued recently when I came across the picture below on Facebook depicting a bare knuckle prize fight that took place in 1877. What intrigued me was that the punch being delivered looks a lot more like a punch that we’d find in Karate/Taekwondo/some styles of Kung Fu, than it does a modern boxing punch! The back is straight, head up, legs are practically identical to our forward stance, hips turned square on and shoulder not turned in as much as a modern boxers. Even the non-punching hand is back on the hip (hikite) like a Karate/TKD punch.
For anybody not familiar with the phrase, a McDojo is a school that teaches a watered-down and impractical form of martial arts in the name of making money. The “Mc” is taken from “McDonald’s”, as in mass produced - low quality! They usually have all the expensive designer gear too, which you have to buy from them of course.
Many real martial artists complain about the rise of the McDojo (myself included). Many martial artists complain that those who train with McDojo’s do so because they want to get easy belts without working hard! I don’t think that’s the case as those people don’t know any better, many of them haven’t seen proper martial arts before so don’t have anything to compare with! In fairness, many of McDojo’s give a good physical workout and are fairly strict on the discipline; it’s just the martial content that is lacking. And I’m not even talking about sport martial art here, as serious sport martial artists can really move with speed, accuracy and good technique.
Many traditional martial arts talk about Mind, Body and Spirit; or that training develops you spiritually. But what does this spirituality actually mean, how do martial arts help develop it and (probably of most interest to many readers) what use is spirituality in a martial context?
First of all, it could take a whole book to cover this big topic, so I’m not going to be able to cover it all in a blog post. All I’m aiming to do here is to give a brief overview of how I see it.
To quote Deepak Chopra, who is widely revered as one of the World’s greatest spiritual leaders, “if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention”.
So is spirituality a higher level of awareness than most people experience?
Yes it is.
Most of us have conditioned responses and reactions to whatever happens in our environment. For example, let’s consider 2 people on a bus going to work in the same office for the same boss. The bus is stuck in a traffic jam and both people will be late for work. Let’s call them Peter and Paul for convenience. Peter gets stressed and upset, worrying about how late he’ll be and what the boss with say, whilst Paul just decides that there’s nothing he can do about it so just looks out the window and enjoys the view, the trees and the birds.
Which of them will get to work first?
They’ll both get there the same time as they’re on the same bus, so Peter’s worrying will make no difference at all.
Both Peter and Paul are subject to the same circumstances, but they have a very different experience of those circumstances!
Assuming that there is no favouritism from the boss, it is fair to say that Peter is acting out of a conditioned response. He probably reacts like that to most adverse situations. Now at this point I could write a lot about neural pathways and peptides, but let’s just call it as a conditioned response for now.
Paul on the other hand was able to rationalise that there was nothing he could do about it, so he was actually able to choose his response. That is a higher level of awareness! He would have been able to experience of the truth of the situation and the beauty of his surroundings as Deepak alludes to above.
Now try and think how many conditioned responses you have which lead you to being upset and unhappy? No sane person would actually choose to be unhappy. Given the choice, we’d all rather by happy and/or in a state of peace. So why do we allow so many things to upset us, which if we are brutally honest with ourselves, we don’t really need to be upset about!
Part of spirituality is about being able to mentally stand back from a situation, weigh it up, make the best impartial decision for the given situation and to be at peace with the circumstance, your decision and the outcome. Now there is an awful lot more to it this; many will talk about being connected to source/higher self, accessing intuition/divine guidance etc; but like I said above, this is a blog post, not a book. So for now, I’d suggest that this clarity of mind is one of the most practical applications of heightened awareness/spirituality!
So how does martial art training help us to achieve this?
It works on a number of levels. In many styles of Karate we have the Heian/Pinan katas which mean “Peaceful Mind”. As we learn to defend ourselves we feel more confident and with this confidence comes peace of mind.
Most martial arts exercises requires us to be very present in the moment such as focusing on getting basic movements rights. Anxiety is caused by focusing on where we want to be which is different to where we are now (living in the future). Regret is caused by focusing on bad things that have happened to us or mistakes that we’ve made (living in the past). Only by having our attention focussed in the present moment can we be in a peaceful state of mind, which is the most effective place to be when dealing with whatever issue faces us in that moment. But that is a subject for a whole book as well!
When practicing kata/patterns/forms we focus not only on the pattern of movements, but our balance, posture, body structures and mechanics, efficient generation of power, breathing and knowing where ever part of our body is at any given time. With practice we develop a great degree of body awareness. As mind and body are linked, body awareness helps to develop mental awareness.
Partner activities also make us stay very focused, even the pre-arranged activities. When we have a well trained martial artist coming in full speed and power, and we have to either block/evade or have our head knocked of our shoulders, we are usually very present in that moment.
This part varies a lot from school to school, but pressure testing our techniques against a non compliant training partner also leads to higher level of self honesty as to what actually works and what doesn’t. Sport martial art can do this too as long as we are honest that it is sport fighting as opposed to real life combat; you still find what does and doesn’t work under pressure. This knowledge gives an extra layer of self awareness.
Many martial arts, particularly Chinese and Japanese, include meditation which is good for silencing the internal voice in our head (which is usually negative), hence help us to stay focused in the present moment.
There are of course other examples of how martial arts teach us to be present, calm our mind and even silence the voice in head, but again, that could take a book to explain thoroughly. Together these aspects develop our self awareness and spirituality.
So is this just a nice side effect of training, or does it actually help us in a practical way with self protection?
This could be a subject of great debate, but I would say a definite yes. Just considering the advantages of having a greater clarity of thought:
• Do you actually need to fight some jerk that is provoking you, or can you stand back and decide that your ego is secure enough that you don’t need to fight him over his insults/provocation. You could even apologise to him if your ego will let you!
• Do you respond to provocation out of a conditioned response (be it fear, anger, whatever); or do you actually consciously choose your response?
• Does your tongue freeze, or do you find the right words to calm the situation and de-escalate it?
• Should things actually get physical, do you panic, does the “red mist” come down and you lose control; or can you keep calm enough to let your training do the work and exploit openings in the attackers guard?
There is a story of a Zen master whose students confronted him one day. They had been talking to the students of another Zen master who apparently could walk on water and they asked their master, what can you do? He replied, “I can eat when I’m hungry and I can sleep when I’m tired”.
Spiritual development is not just about being able to do special things. It has more to do with simply being more aware of your own mind and body and having clarity of thought without the ego adding filters to how you see your world and circumstances.
I am not suggesting for one second that being a spiritual person is enough on its own for you to be able to defend yourself. However, it is an extra level that works with the physical training and psychology of combat to help you survive a confrontation. Unlike reality based martial arts which gets results very quickly, spiritual development will generally take a long time to learn. However, it is important for self protection and it can also help you lead a much more happy, peaceful and productive life. Many people see self development and spirituality as the nice and fluffy side of martial arts; but they do have very practical applications, not only in self defence but in every aspect of your life.
And finally, just for fun, for those old enough to remember it, here are some relevant clips from the old Kung Fu series with David Carradine. Whilst the actual Kung Fu may be lacking (it had only just been introduced to the West back then), it is still to this day probably the best TV show of all time for covering the spiritual aspects of the martial arts.
My on-line friend Colin Wee, 6th Dan TKD, has proposed an Anti-Bullying Blogging Carnival. As I used to be bullied a lot back in far distant school days, I thought this was a good idea, so this is my contribution to the Carnival.
The obvious answer the title question is of course, YES, traditional martial arts can help somebody who is being bullied; but there are some limitations that need to be taken into consideration.
For somebody just starting their training, traditional martial arts can take quite a while to learn up to a proficient standard. Something like Kickboxing is simpler and can be learnt to a proficient level considerably quicker. Confidence is quickly gained when hitting an actual target (like focus mitts or punchbag). Traditional martial arts may have more depth and include a much greater range of techniques and capabilities (grappling, pressure points, grab releases, etc); but the emphasis on perfecting technique makes them more difficult and slower to learn.
For somebody who is being physically bullied NOW, taking up traditional martial arts alone may be a bit slow to produce results.
Another factor which is much more important however is the pre-fight build up and the emotional response to the threat of violence, which is often overlooked in traditional martial arts. A fight can be won or lost before the first punch/kick is even thrown by one person intimidating the other and undermining their confidence. Bullies routinely use this tactic as part of their build up; be it name calling, threatening, minor pushing around; all testing the response and intimidating their victim into a feeling of helplessness and fear. This loss of confidence and fear leads to hesitations and even freezing at a critical moment making it even easier for the bully to dominate in a physical conflict as the victim can become too scared to even fight back.
Simplistically put, the bully psyches them-self up, whilst the victim is psyched down.
Some instructors who have been in a number of altercations in their younger days assume that the pre-fight stage is a matter of common sense once you know how to fight. It may be common sense to somebody who has actually had experience at real fighting. But it is not common sense to somebody who has not been in that position before and hasn’t had that experience. It certainly is not common sense to somebody who has been routinely bullied and has developed an ingrained behaviour pattern of backing down and acting passively when threatened, they just don’t know anything else. When under this type of pressure, blood goes to the limbs (for fight or flight) and away from the brain. Therefore the brain does not think very clearly and relies on instincts and experience. If the last experience when being bullied was to act passively, then the chances are that they will act passively again. Not always, sometimes they snap and go for it, but in most cases they will do more or less the same as before.
Many years ago, whilst rising up through the coloured belts in my Karate, I trained hard, was naturally flexible and had good technique for my grade. However, when sparring or entering in a competition I would often not do very well, even when I was faster, sharper and had better technique than the person that I was facing. I realised later that it was because I was not very aggressive and had a passive nature. Yes, I was bullied a lot at school and no, I didn’t really stick up for myself.
So if I was not doing well in the relative safety of sparring and competition, what would have happened if I’d been involved in a street fight?
Many traditional martial arts give little consideration to the pre-fight stages of the conflict and how to deal with it emotionally or psychologically. Many systems do include pre-arranged sparring routines which can be used to work this area and include emotional intensity/pressure. When you face somebody who is going to come in at you fast and strong and if you don’t block, side step or evade, they’ll take your head off; then you do get used to dealing with the adrenaline and fear but it can take a long time.
Shortly after passing my black belt I was sparring with my Sensei. Whilst he obviously got the better of me, I stood my ground quite well and made it work for it. He said to me afterwards with a little smile, “what happened to that green belt that I used to be able to kick all around the dojo”?
Traditional martial arts training had made a big difference to me mentally and emotionally and by the time I had obtained my black belt I had overcome much of my limitations caused by my passive nature. However, it had taken me nearly 4 years to get there. For somebody who is being bullied NOW, that is a long time.
This is why I am in favour of reality based training which uses scenarios to de-sensitize people to the threats, abuse and taunts, and teaches them to function even under the effects of adrenaline and fear. Humans always learn much more quickly when in an emotional state, which is why reality based training gets very quick results and change that freeze reaction to an active response. As mentioned above, when under pressure the brain losses blood and relies on experience. If you can simulate a realistic experience where the victim takes action (be it assertive verbal behaviour to dissuade an attacker, or actual physical fighting back), then that becomes the default experience the next time that person is in that situation.
One of the first times I did this kind on training there was a young lady who was a reasonably high grade in Taekwondo. When the trainer (as part of the training scenario) venomously called her a “f***ing bitch”, she started to cry. She had obviously been through some abusive experiences in the past, but her traditional martial arts training had not prepared her to emotionally deal with this simple abuse and she went straight into the old ingrained behaviour pattern. However, she continued the exercise and learnt a new response to take away with her, so I applaud her courage for sticking with it. She took a bigger step forward that day than the rest of us.
I would warn however, that although learning under heightened emotional pressure produces quick results, it also hard-wires the response. So if you overcome the “freeze” response but swing wildly, then the wild swinging could become your hard wired (and not very effective) response. This is why I believe that scenario based training (reality based training) is very beneficial, but it should be used sparingly and should NOT become the default training method. Traditional martial arts are the best way to obtain the best long term results, but if you don’t have the time, then you need a little extra.
