Mar, 2011 (2011-03-31 07:27)
Knowing that one lacks and having the courage to change it are entirely separate things. Last week, I mentioned the old proverb:
Even the weakest thread will hold you if you do not try to break free of it.
The weakest thread is often our courage. ‘Better the devil you know’ is a popular idiom often espoused with the tone of proverb. This sort of thinking springs from not being able or willing to look ahead, research, and plan for the future.
Forward thinking is something that martial arts not only teaches, but ingrains into our being with the power and certainty of a tiger’s hunting instinct. Every movement and motion looks ahead to the next, every action anticipates the next response and marches toward the end goal with certainty.
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Mar, 2011 (2011-03-24 07:26)
Today, I’d like to share one of the greatest benefits martial arts have to offer. How to open your eyes!
They aren’t shut? Oh, but they are! Like Neo in The Matrix, it’s not something you can be told. You have to see it for yourself.
Until then just pretend you believe it, so we can discuss the four stages of learning and find out why this post is titled Eyes Wide Open.
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Mar, 2011 (2011-03-21 06:54)
In “modern fighting styles” like mixed martial arts there is a movement away from detail and excellence and a focus on “what works.”
This is a good trend to have from time to time. Martial arts evolve like any other art. There is no perfect style and the system that ceases to evolve immediately becomes a dying art. On the flip side, this movement away from discipline and moral codes, away from excellence, produces a great deal of Ed Grubermans. Opportunistic schools begin to cater to this sort of student and mentor them in little more than booting people to the head.
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Mar, 2011 (2011-03-19 07:31)
Martial arts makes us believe in the impossible. Then it teaches us to do it. This is no figure of speech.
I once attended a class where over thirty students punched with weights, varying from 5 lbs to 30 lbs in one minute intervals for three hours. They took no breaks. NO BREAKS!
If you believe this, go do a quick test. Get a pair of 30 pound weights, hold them at shoulder height, and punch for thirty seconds. Then imagine doing that 360 more times, pausing only to set down the weights and pick up another pair.
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Jul, 2010 (2010-07-05 10:29)
Quite the question, is it not? Not an easy one to approach without squirming in the seat a bit.
These days I feel pulled in so many directions. It’s not that I haven’t always been, it’s that now I have a greater realization of this whirlpool momentum. I have a more intimate understanding of the value of an hour and the worth of a hundred dollars. I see the inexorable way in which these small details add up. I sense how the big catastrophes and successes are nothing more than accumulated decisions and moments. I see how, when viewed in reverse, they form a mammoth shape that becomes its own entity, obscuring the bits and pieces that culminated into the moment of change.
Thinking on this topic leaves me with the inevitable feeling that so much of my time is wasted. This is not because the activities I choose are not worthy of pursuit. This is not because the efforts are vain or misguided. This is because they are diluted; because the difference between a good effort, a great effort, and a masterful effort are subtle details accumulated over time. Focusing them into a single pile, if you’ll entertain the metaphor, produces a single, massive result. Dividing them over many areas gently coats the surface but never amounts to a grand outcome.
My humility would argue that this is also a fine result and that the purpose of my efforts cannot be fully understood while immersed in the moment, with only one piece of the puzzle to examine. At the same time, I understand that visibility is power and power is not merely a force of evil. Power is the authority to invoke change. Change is the opportunity (and burden) to invoke a greater purpose in oneself and those touched by my words. But without creating a theater for my work, I cannot hope to achieve any lasting influence.
Thus, my scattered efforts and interests, my many loyalties, keep me from building the pillar upon which I could stand, visible to my audience, and offer what I have to say. And perhaps this is part of the Greater Plan. Perhaps this is for the Greater Good. For who is to say that anything I would offer would be more beneficial than destructive to those who would listen? Certainly I can’t claim such wisdom, standing here with one piece of an infinite puzzle, speculating on how the picture might turn out, based on which way I turn my pegs and slots.
