 Are Westerners missing the point with the martial arts, and are we giving it the respect it deserves? In order to become great, you must first become one with your style, as Phillip Starr discovers. The Western approach to the study of martial arts tends to be…well, a bit shallow. In many cases, it's viewed as a pastime, a hobby to which we give only a small part of our attention on one or two nights a week. In this regard it's not much different than bowling, quilting, or any one of a million other hobbies that people "do"…and when they've "done" it for the evening that's the end of it until next week.
Even in the Orient, this kind of superficial approach is becoming more and more prevalent. People attend a martial arts class at certain times and on certain days but other than that, they don't give training much of a second thought.
I suppose much of this kind of attitude comes from their expectations. That is, people practice martial arts for different reasons such as self-defense, fitness, or whatever. If what they want out of it is superficial, that's how they'll approach it. Kind of like an aerobics class.
Those who want more out of it, who want to really delve deeply into the subject, must immerse themselves in it. Completely. For these people, training and study never ends. It's a perpetual thing. This is what martial arts were designed for...immersion.
It doesn't necessarily require that you save up your rocks and pennies and hop the next flight to China, Japan, or Okinawa - although that actually would help - but it does mean that you need to acquire a real grasp not only of the techniques of the art but the culture from whence it came; its history, its underlying philosophy, the principles upon which it is based, and much, much more.
A martial art is not only so many techniques and forms and putting on a baggy uniform twice a week. It's a way of thinking. It's a way of living, a lifestyle. It affects everything that you do. It affects how you think, how you feel, what you are.
Not too many years after the martial arts stepped onto Occidental shores we began to see Westerners trying to develop their own forms of karate, jujutsu, and other martial arts. While Westerners often have a lot of good ideas to offer the traditional martial arts they also sometimes miss the point. I recently saw an ad for a karate school which advertised not only martial arts training for the whole family, but a wine and cheese bar, too. Peachy.
If that's their approach to teaching, it's almost certainly their approach to training and a serious student would want nothing to do with such a school.
Immersion has little to do with buying fancy uniforms, weapons, expensive kicking bags, and such. Our martial arts forefather had few, if any, of these kinds of things. They made do with what they had. Although they almost certainly would have taken advantage of today's martial arts S.P.L. companies, owning all kinds of nice "martial arts things" isn't what made them what they were.
It was the way they lived their respective arts, day in and day out. They didn't "do" their karate, taekwondo, or jujutsu just on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They lived them. Constantly. Every day.
Over the years that I've taught I've had several pupils tell me that they really wanted to master a particular weapon - sword, staff, or whatever. And I've always told them that if they really, truly wanted to master a weapon they must not only strive to master its techniques and form(s), they must practice the great secret of weapons training. Here it is:
For at least two hours every day at home, carry that weapon with you at all times.
Yep, that's it. If you want to carry it around for more than two hours a day, that's fine but two hours is a minimum. And probably several hours a day on your days off. You don't have to constantly practice the strikes and cuts. Just tote it with you and never put it down during that time period. Ever. For any reason.
After a few weeks, the weapon begins to become an actual part of you. You're used to having it with you. It doesn't feel foreign to you. It doesn't feel like a weapon, per se. It becomes as natural as your hand. You see, that "feel of a foreign object" is what prevents most people from ever mastering a weapon. They only hold it in their hands for a very short time each week. They never really get used to it. It'll always be foreign to them, no matter how hard they practice during training time.
But if you just go about your daily life at home and carry it with you constantly, you get used to it and it literally becomes an extension of you. You'll find yourself "playing" with it, turning it and doing all kinds of different things with it to amuse yourself. And that's the secret although your spouse may think you've finally gone over the edge.
This same secret applies to the empty-handed aspect of martial arts. Don't just “do” them on training nights. If you do that they’ll always feel "foreign" to you. You have to carry your art with you all the time and immerse yourself. You have to go beyond physical technique. The physical technique is just the outer shell of the true art. You have to look inside. Training involves more than just physical practice; it involves study of every aspect of the art and then learning how to apply what you learn to your life.
Like my teacher once said, "Kung-fu is more than just punching and kicking. Anybody can do that."
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