The Point of It All

I've been struggling for a long time with this particular post. I know what I want to say but I've never been quite sure how to say it. As many of you know, I recently started a martial arts class. I call it the Mission District Kung Fu Brothers. It's not open to the public and if by "brothers" you assume that it's only men, then you would be right. We're mostly middle-aged guys in our 30's. We have once kid in his 20's but that's it. This is not the most athletic or powerful group I've ever trained by any stretch of the means but it's starting to become my favorite. Why? Because folks are there for the right reasons and I can already see the results in their lives.

I've been a fighter all my life- ever since I was a little kid. I got involved in judo and kendo formally when I was 6 and by 7 I was competing. As I got older, I realized the limitatios of the ring or the mat and I sought to test my skills in the real world. This led to many fights, serious injuries and not just a little bad karma. Looking back, I see that it wasn't the fighting that was so interesting for me. I was looking for truth and combat was my medium. As I got older, I pushed the envelope farther and farther until I came to the place where I was a professional fighter and a professional man-at-arms, for lack of a better term. I basically took it as far as it could go-- fighting against professionals as well as fighting for my life and the lives of others.

I'm reminded of a story. The Zen Master walked over to a gathering of his students and calmly announced, "Suzuki has reached the state of enlightenment" and walked away. His students buzzed around for a while clearly excited that one of their own had reached that exalted state. A few minutes went by and finally Suzuki walked out of a neighboring building towards his freinds. They all rushed around him, congratulating him until finally one of the students asked breathlessly, "How do you feel?" Suzuki answered, "As shitty as ever."

So did I. "This couldn't be the end result of all my years of training and sacrifice." I thought to myself. One of my instructors (I'm not sure if he was trying to console or chastise me) said, "It doesn't matter how good you get. Your Father is still not going to love you." Sad but true. So I struggled with it for years and here's my answer.

The Martial Arts are about training your instincts plain and simple. They provide a methodology for viewing how real change might happen. For example, let's say you have a particular emotional trigger. I could be anything but when somebody pushes that button, you go ballistic. You can't seem to do anything about it. After, you know your behavior was wrong. You even know the right thing to do but you can't seem to do it when that button is pushed because something just takes over you. You go to that place because somewhere in your head, going there makes you feel safe at that moment and nothing else is more important. We all have these triggers and we want to fix them but we don't know how so we compensate by simply avoiding the situation. That's nice and all, if it's something that can be avoided but if it can't, then you are just creating further problems for yourself.

Now look at a simple straight punch to the face. If I throw one at you, chances are you will react in some way. If you are untrained, you will react badly, flailing perhaps and possible stopping or deflecting my strike. The interesting thing is that your body reads conflict, be it physical or verbal, exactly the same way. That being the case, a verbal attack that pushes your buttons accesses the same insecure part of you that a punch to the face does. And both untrained reactions, ineffective as they might be, are designed to make you feel safe. The methodology of the Martial Arts, if you have a good teacher, changes this ineffectual instinct into something usable. Get good enough at it and eventually, the punch doesn't trigger anything more than a predetermined and effective response. The same can be done with emotional issues once you internalize the process. I'll say more on that in a second.

The other interesting thing about this process is the progession of learning. My problem with Western style learning is that in it's rush to be good (how long does it take to get my black belt?) it shies away from progression and progression is the only way that you can ever achieve any proficiency in things that require your body. One of my instructors explained it like this. A defensive response goes through 4 stages: Go - Ju - Ryu - Ki. Using the body as a metaphor, you can say: bone - muscle - blood - breath. So let's take a straight right punch as an attack. The Go (or bone) response would be simply to throw a hard block-- stopping the opponents attacks with the strength of your skeletal system. This is simple and effective but if the opponent is too powerful, your bones will ultimately get crushed. The next response might be to take the blow slightly, but through technique and body mechanics, use the power of the strike to throw your opponent. This will cause you less damage than the bone response but is exponentially more difficult and is not without damage to the user. The next response would be a parry-- a simple redirecting of the strike with little force of your own. This is liguid. The last would be a slip. You are simply not there and no matter how hard the strike it, it's inrelevant because there's nothing to hit. That's breath.

It is my hypothesis that this same progression can be applied to emotional responses. I haven't quite worked them out yet but I'm working on it. I do believe unequivocably that the emotional process internally is the same and that by studying the Martial Arts, you get a glimpse into the inner workings of your emotions. It's one of those things that the human mind will ever be able to access tangentially.

Now it's certainly true that not all martial arts teachers have this approach but that doesn't matter. All that matters is that you train your particular art honestly-- that you search for the truth in your art whatever it may be. Remember, it's about training instinct and you have to make things big before you can make them small. I like to tell my students that if you can't control your left hand or your right foot, how do you expect to control your emotions which are infinitely more subtle?