Tag: martial arts

Why Practice?

Jacob1 Comment

Why practice your form of particular martial arts, meditation, silent retreat or whatever relaxation techniques? We practice to apply the principles we are taught.  While practice does bring benefit in reinforcing our learning, the true benefit lies outside of the practices and in the practical application of what we learn as applied to everyday situations.  Applying the essence of the art forms we learn to our interactions and experience has the capacity to lessen the suffering of both ourselves and others.

We develop situational awareness and understanding of our influence on what’s happening when we take the time to observe ourselves, our behaviors and more importantly the thoughts driving us in any given situation. We develop the capability of observing without judgement and more specifically without fear of loss and how we think others are judging us through the the art forms of martial arts or meditation.  This allows us over time to recognize the transient nature of our thoughts and emotions.  Thoughts come and go.  It’s our focus on the thoughts making them recur over and over until we generate the dis ease that filters into our body, awareness, and attention.  Emotions are the energy we experience in response to the unfolding moment including both external and internal realities.  When we hold onto our emotions and the thoughts they generate, we create the altered reality we generally experience in our daily lives.  This leaves us to ride the waves of our experience or get crushed by the force of them.

Practicing meditative or a martial art chips away at the mental and emotional structures we build up over our lifetimes. Practice begins to lessens the waves or at least the destruction caused by the major waves impacting the shores of our soul.  Reflecting on the essence of our practices allows us to simplify the practice into things we can apply moment-to-moment and not just to the situations of our art forms.  Our interactions slowly change to more manageable situations.  We find the emotional trauma and suffering doesn’t last as long.  Anger, sadness or happiness come and go just as the thoughts we witnessed in our practices.  Herein lies the true benefit of practice.

We bring about more life satisfaction if we can reduce how long we hold on to the anger, sadness or other things that make us suffer.  Reducing the suffering in our lives in turn provides an example for others to follow.  This is the pebble we drop into the stream of life having the potential to lessen the suffering not only of ourselves but those we interact with.  We help others by maintaining our calm and center during the storms we encounter day to day.  Instead of stressing out, we can simply adapt to the ever changing moment benefiting both ourselves and others.

When we apply what we learn in our practices in this manner, we move from practicing when we set time aside to do so towards practicing all of the time we are awake.  This impacts others even when we are not awake and thus we connect with something beyond ourselves when we turn our lives from practice into an art form itself.  May we all enjoy the practice of making our life into an art form.

Learning Internals

Jacob3 Comments

We start from the outside and move within when we begin practicing any of the internal martial arts.  We learn angles, stepping, and weight shifting.  After we have these basics, we learn what tiger’s mouth is in our hand and arm structure as well as the bubbling spring and alignment of our weight.  Over time these things become more natural leaving us to experience what’s happening when we have proper alignment and skeletal structure.  These externals allow us how the movement feels inside.  With guidance the internal feelings are expanded and verified via feedback from the groups we practice with or an instructor.  This tuning into the internals is where the internal martial art begins.

With this said, I must share a cautionary note.  There are many people who have an innate ability to feel things more than others.  Often these are the folks drawn to the internal martial arts in the first place.  Within the beginning class, they share how they can feel the movement inside.  The caution is this, that feeling is ephemeral and changes as the fundamentals of the form have not taken root.  It is extremely important to ground ourselves in the fundamentals of our arts before we start exploring the internal “feels.”

The angles, stepping and weight shifting come first.  The mechanics of the form is critical.  With the foundation in place, we can then place the girders of bubbling springs and tiger’s mouth.  we can then start erecting the walls and ceilings of turning, extension, contraction and lateral movement of the spine after we have the skeletal structure in place on top of our foundation. This external home is where we can then start exploring the internal nature of our forms.  This process can take anywhere between 7 and 20 years depending on the individual and some don’t ever get there.  Being in a class for a couple of months and feeling internals is like walking through a model home.  It’s not until you put forth the resources including time and energy in building the home can one start to live there.

It’s of utmost importance to revisit the foundations If we lessen our practice for whatever reason life brings us.  When new instruction comes our way it is up to us to understand how it fits into our home and if it’s appropriate to integrate where ever we may be in our development.  Hopefully our guidance and new instructions come from individuals who have a deep understanding of our form and its many different applications.

I once had the chance to work with Master Moy and Dr. Elliot Kravitz who watched an individual perform some Dan-yus for roughly ten minutes in front of a group of instructors.  Elliot asked the group what instructions we would give.  There were various answers.  After feedback was collected, Elliot said, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”  He went on to say the person was moving appropriately and not damaging anything.  Sometimes we simply need to practice a while before we move on to other levels in our forms.