The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind. Bhagavad Gita 2:23
I am in no martial arts hall of fame, or currently member of any association. There are so many martial arts organizations these days!
I’ve been a member of a couple. Not too many, since monetary fees are involved, and I can think of other things to do with those monies. But I’m not big on being part of martial arts organizations. They don’t really serve my needs in an extended manner. Often, they really don’t contribute much to your martial arts skills and knowledge.
If you look you’ll see on some martial artists’ bios that they are members of many organizations, and in many halls of fame. They are in photos with many great martial arts celebrities. Those are supposed to validate the martial artist; “He is so great he is in a picture with someone else who is great!” It becomes a kind of competition; “How many awards do you have? How many celebrities are you in a pic with?”
I am suspect of that kind of validation. Actually, I find it superficial. You see, I grew up believing that the greatness created by martial arts training was mostly invisible. It was beyond physical skills, and certainly beyond photo ops, even beyond the validation of a plaque.
I too have some photos with martial artists, some I’ve trained with extensively, and some just a few times. I’ve trained with more people than I have photos with. Why? Because we spent our time training. But, I would invite my friends, teachers, students, and any others, not to use the photos or certificates, or even belts, as an accreditation of my soul or my character. For that you have to experience my presence. Everything else is easily deceiving.
In Zen, the Satori; the transcendent experience of the sublime, in a manner, your mastery, is said to occur as a transmission beyond the scriptures. That means that the experience did not come by passing a standardized test and getting a certificate or diploma, and it is not validated by a declaration, paper, or external symbol. Many masters are mostly unknown and not easily recognizable.
Let’s be honest, you pay your way into most Martial Arts Hall Of Fame things. When you join an organization you get an “In Good Standing” diploma, and I’ve seen where people have paid to attend a seminar, not participated, and went and got a photo with the master.
Wherever I live, I try to establish a relationship, a simple relationship, with a martial arts instructor, club, or school where I can learn, train, or teach. I’ve been fortunate in always finding one.
I have joined organizations, but ones where I could actually benefit because of regular training opportunities. When that has exhausted, I moved on. I have high regard for many of my seniors, the instructors I’ve trained with, but don’t ask me for puppy dog like worship, which I’ve seen become one of the requisites of these organizations. Like President Obama said in a speech today “it’s not gonna happen.”
I’m happy being an active martial artist without personal celebrity, and without the validation of multiple organizations. I don’t even have many facebook connections, and I like that.
I understand the marketing value of the fame, but my martial arts practice is a personal thing, not a corporate one, and, like I express in my addendum to the epigraph, celebrity and external validation do nothing for the soul.
When I train an offense/counter offense skills I am training 2 out of the three, combat and sport. I’ll come back to why not 3 out of three later. I have little doubt that a trained boxer will outperform an untrained street fighter as far boxing in a street fight. He trains a sport but that sport has substantial combat applications. Individuals who take their military combat training seriously (oh yeah, there have been and will be slugs) are not people you want to tangle with in a bar, but may have no real sense of the sport aspect of their training, or the “art” of it all.
When I was in The Marine Corps decades ago, we used to joke about how little “Martial Arts” training we underwent, but that we were still bad asses. Those half dozen or so moves we did train had a lot of body, heart, and soul into them. We trained them for “KILL” mode and that counts for a lot. I saw a supposed martial artist spin crescent kick a brig guard once, a decent kick too, only to get tackled and beat pretty good for that offense by a martially unsophisticated Corporal.
Yes, it’s not the martial art, but the martial artist that accounts for the quality of the art. I’ve heard it, and said it as well. But substitute “mode” here, martial mode not martial art, not yet, and what I’ve got to say may make more sense.
It is not a mere matter of skillfulness. We distinguish different modes and potential expressions of artistry such as visual arts, literary arts, musical arts, and movement arts such as martial arts, dance, or even gymnastics, but not every skillful expression in a particular mode is art.
The Art part, with a capital A, takes place in the invisible realms of life, of living, and of the soul. I have learned visual modes of expressions and martial modes of expressions in the classroom. I have learned the Arts of these in contemplative moments, in moments of personal challenge or crisis, through desire, fear, love, hate, confusion, weariness, and more, then repeat, then it infuses into your mode. That’s when the mode becomes art. The skillfulness may be higher or lower than another’s, but true artistry has no degrees.
It used to be said that kids could not be blackbelts because they lacked wider life experience, and the blackbelt was not just reflective of skill, but of wider ranging maturity. I agree. We can teach martial modes, or expressions such as Karate, Escrima, Kung Fu, but not every student will be a martial artist. Even the skillful student may not be a martial artist, and that part is hard for the observer to determine at a glance. However, it seems we’ve tacitly agreed to acknowledge skillfulness over maturity, and adding youthful athleticism and resilience to the mix how can you not have an eight year old 2nd degree blackbelt? Sarcasm here!
As martial arts instructors I think we train and teach 2 out of the three. We train martial combat skills for fighting and self defense, and martial sport skills for the competitive individuals. But the “Art” is not something we can give, it has to come from the student, and involves more than just skillful maneuvers.
Some of my training group members get together with each other and train on their own during the week.
That represents a sincere interest and dedication, and is also the way you make it your own. That makes what you are training a way of life not just a class you take. I hear from everyone and his brother “You a martial arts instructor? Well, I took taekwondo once” and they are obese, stiff as an oak, and only shuffle along as a walk.
Joe and I were talking today, and mentioning Master (and I don’t use the term loosely) Jhoon Rhee. At some TV gala thing, he took the stage, mentioned that among the benefits of TaeKwonDo training are flexibility, and while in his suit, raised his leg, grabbed it with his hand and held it over his head, after that he mentioned strength and did a bunch of pushups and situps in front of all present.
I don’t remember when it was exactly, but it was a show hosted by Wesley Snipes. However, a few years ago at age 80, at a Washington DC congressional reception, still looking fit, he performs 100 pushups in under a minute, and does a full split. That I have the link for: Master Jhoon Rhee 80th Birthday
His martial arts is a way of life, not just a class he took. Even with periods of non training due to life events or medical issues, you can have martial arts as a positive and beneficial way of life. Make it your own.
Now, on another note: train well and practice safely. We did a lot of lock flows, do them to a point of giving and receiving pressure, but not to do damage to each other, the joints on the human body are its weakest points. Save the snapping and breaking pressure for an assailant. We trained a lot of disarms and tactics. Remember, the best disarm is not to be in the neighborhood, second best is a really hard hit to the head, third is to discover it in process, without tunnel vision looking for it.