SteveBruce wrote:

However, should you expect to get some sort of spiritual learning from training in martial arts any more than playing five-a-side or going to the gym?


Absolutely.
In general, by playing football or going to the gym, you are not doing something that is designed to harm/maim/kill. A martial art should (in my humble opinion) contain some form of spiritual (or at least moral) training, teaching students to respect the skills they are learning.


The problem is this is the 21st century and the world we live in, whether we like it or not, is a capitalist society

So?
Even in the capitalistic 21st century, I know of people absolutely dedicated to the spiritual side of martial arts. The issue is that the MMA (mass-martial-arts) market is business oriented, and less interested with spiritual development. This is part of the reason why I now take a much harsher view of more modern arts and/or competition focused arts, such as TKD, Muay Thai, modern forms of Karate, and many of the modern kungfu styles, especially those taught in the west.

I think though, that this is going more off topic...

Off topic (sorry) : Thing is those combat arts are usually straight up,not so much nonsense type things. Isn't it dangerous to study the spiritual side and to be taken in by something that claims to be a martial art, appears to be "spiritual" ,takes the students money but offers little more than pseudo spiritual nonsense?

It's generally bad to be taken in by any kind of con.

But I'm refering to genuine transmissions.
Just because a martial art may be spiritual, it doesn't make it any less martial. Taken some of the genuine masters who live in the area surrounding Wudang (the mountain itself is mainly home to wushu demonstrators, although there are still some talented individuals there). My teacher met a master there who emphasised Wudang Kungfu (bagua, taiji & hsing i) as spiritual exercises, then proceeded to throw my teacher around for the next few weeks.

It is the western "spiritual" hippies who have damaged the image of genuine spiritual martial practices.
As with my comments before about arts like Taekwondo, modern karate etc, I think the main problem comes down to incomplete transmissions from the teachers who first brought the asian arts out of asia.

I agree with that,bloody hippies! That sounds pretty cool though.

I'd have to agree that unfortunately we live in a materialistic society and this affects our thinking. I often ponder about disappearing somewhere and living on a 'desert island' where it's just myself with my skills and my basic needs.

It always seems like it would be great as i've always tended towards my own company (Even though i have a good group of friends) and always feel empathy with the loners or wanderers in books i read.

Sure i often think about big houses and an Aston Martin DBS but equally i think if the world went to sh*t and we were brought down to basics, hunter gatherer survivor, i could be very happy.

I'm just too much of a coward to do that when there's a choice

Also all of my skills are Tech based.

PeteMills wrote:
However, should you expect to get some sort of spiritual learning from training in martial arts any more than playing five-a-side or going to the gym?

Controversial Steve! In one swift sentence have you not just dismissed 2000 years of martial culture?

What only 2000 years?! Okay, I didn't think it was a controversial question.

Where I was coming from was that Pete seemed to think that by doing a martial art he should have lost any materialistic tendencies. My question was why/how should training in a martial arts do this as opposed to another physical activity?

I don't think I have got anything spiritual from the martial arts that I wouldn't have got from another form of exercise. Sure I've learned how far I can push my body, but I can get that also by going for a long run or by pushing myself in the gym.

As for moral learning, I took up martial arts when I was a child, but I already knew the difference between right and wrong.

Perhaps I just don't understand what the spiritual side of the martial arts is, so I'd welcome some enlightenment on this.

I wonder if people mistake "spirituality" in martial arts for something else? Maybe in the old days it was different as I said before because warriors went out potentially to die, whereas we never deal with this studying martial arts so they were confronted with their own mortality on a daily basis. Maybe it empties the mind, but again that isn't really anything to do with the spiritual.

Su Lin wrote:
I wonder if people mistake "spirituality" in martial arts for something else? Maybe in the old days it was different as I said before because warriors went out potentially to die, whereas we never deal with this studying martial arts so they were confronted with their own mortality on a daily basis. Maybe it empties the mind, but again that isn't really anything to do with the spiritual.

Could be. I wonder if troops in Afghanistan are given spiritual training to prepare them to fight?

Believe me when I played football my head was quite empty of all thought!

Well Steve to give you an example..

Until I trained with Mr Smith I never really thought about the patterns I trained in. Every day I would go through Dan Gun etc just going through the motions (sure I was putting in effort and working the body) but It wasnt until I met Mr Smith where I started to think about the movements and what effect they would have on an opponent.

In the same breath I cant help but wonder if we have lost the spiritual side in modern MA training.

PeteMills wrote:
Well Steve to give you an example..

Until I trained with Mr Smith I never really thought about the patterns I trained in. Every day I would go through Dan Gun etc just going through the motions (sure I was putting in effort and working the body) but It wasnt until I met Mr Smith where I started to think about the movements and what effect they would have on an opponent.

In the same breath I cant help but wonder if we have lost the spiritual side in modern MA training.

Pete, I'm not sure I would term thinking about the possible applications for patterns as spiritual, but more analysis of what you were doing.

Perhaps what some people call spirituality, I would term as something else, but still experience it anyway?

SteveBruce wrote:

Perhaps what some people call spirituality, I would term as something else, but still experience it anyway?

I think spirituality and bunkai/application are not connected, however both are largely missing from the mass-martial-arts scene in the west.
Again, I think this comes from lack of understanding/training on the part of students who originally brought asian martial arts out of asia.

Good martial arts training will naturally set you on a path. You have to decide what you are prepared to do to another human being as you are learning techniques that can maim and kill. The philosophy of most traditional MA's is that of peacemaker, to uphold and maintain a state of peace. To enable this you have to learn to be a peaceful person - even in the midst of violence, this makes you a separate and strong willed individual seeking truth in all situations. The martial arts are riddled with scaremongers telling us that it's 'war out there' and that we have to be as frightened and violent as those that would attack us, it takes a wise person not to follow the crowd and to seek out the truth in search of skill and wisdom.

This search will inevitably filter into the rest of your life as you realise that you don't need to 'follow the crowd' and be frightened because you don't have the lifestyle the media and business guru's would wish you to have that makes them rich. You will find the way that gives you a lifestyle that suits you as a person and gives you that essential 'peace' that you're looking for.