Can you be a martial arts master without first mastering the art of being a decent human being? Any traditional martial art has a code of ethics for its practitioners to follow. Students and Masters followed a code of conduct usually based on humility, respect for others, compassion and integrity. Shaolin monks saw their Gongfu as a way to acheive enlightenment (wu-chan). A way to enhance their spiritual practice of Chan Buddhism. Most if not all traditional martial arts have their practitioners follow a moral code. Morality and martial arts seemed to be intertwined, by practicing the latter you seemed to gain a better understanding of the former. You could not be a martial arts student without being a decent human being. There was so much emphasis on this that students would first be put through a trial to test their integrity before ever being taught a punch or a kick. Masters would make students do chores for several years before judging them worthy to receive their teachings. Today the only requirement to studying an art is the ability to pay the instructor a membership fee. Students will receive lessons of morality when they receive the oral history of their art and learn the traditions from their instructors, but the emphasis is not as strong.
One of our Senior Master's with whom our school was affiliated with was accused of a heinous crime. He was accused of sexual assault and harrassment. My instructor made a decision and wanted to break free from our school's affiliation and even brought this to the attention of our Grandmaster. The Senior Master in question pled guilty to a lesser charge and lied to our Grandmaster about our instructor as retaliation for trying to break away and now our Grandmaster has severed ties with our school. Any diligent investigation would exonerate my instructor but I think it was more about politics and revenue than it was about doing what was right. Most of the students at my school including myself have vowed to continue training with our current instructor as we cannot honestly be affiliated with a Master who obviously would violate the very principles of Shao-lin Kung-Fu. I have studied at my school for almost 7 years and this whole debacle made me want to quit altogether. Shaolin at its root is based on Chan Buddhism. Buddhism preaches the eight-fold path of right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. This master violated every precept and violated the trust of the students he was supposed to lead as a teacher of the way. Martial training is supposed to bring enlightenment. It is supposed to help us not to combat others, but to uproot that which is not right within ourselves. Any Kung-Fu that is rooted in Shaolin cannot possibly allow its 'Masters', the very people charged with its preservation, to possibly act in a manner that is unbecoming of even the most basic of human decency.
Bottom line, you cannot be a martial arts master without first being a decent human being.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
What does meditation have to do with Kung-Fu?
Whatever branch of traditional martial arts you study, chances are you are going to run into meditation. It is at the core of Kung-Fu. It is its lifeblood. One of the legends of the origins of Shaolin states that Bodhidarma (Tamo) taught the monks meditation exercises like the Yijinjing (muscle/tendon change classic) to build their endurance so that they were not falling asleep during seated meditation. The monks took their new found strength and used it to develop their martial arts. Meditation has made a resurgence as of late, with more and more people taking it up either for spiritual or health reasons.
I have often asked myself questions about meditation. What is meditation's purpose in the martial arts? Is it possible to be a skilled fighter without being able to meditate? What does sitting still have to do with how hard I can hit. Why is such an emphasis placed on it in traditional martial arts? The further I have explored the different avenues of meditation, I have come to appreciate it more than ever. I believe it is critical to development as a martial artist.
1. Meditation allows a practitioner to be fully present. You cannot face an opponent and be able to see his vulnerabilities if you are thinking. Thinking of fear, thinking of what you ate for dinner. Thinking about what techniques you should use. In any given day your mind is processing millions of thoughts. meditation teaches you how to separate you from your thoughts. So that you can be able to completely focus.
2. Meditation also allows you to have better awareness over your own body. How to regulate your breathing and control your heart rate in stressful situations will give you a clear advantage over an opponent who is not trained to do so. Better and deeper breathing lets more oxygen flow to your cells when you need it the most (like when you are defending yourself ).
3. Meditation can also improve your overall technique. Strikes are more efficient when the muscles and joints involved are working complementary to each other. Unnecessary tension before delivering strikes can limit their effectiveness. if you are breathing deeply and relaxing, you will be able to deliver strikes more quickly and powerfully than if you were tense.
2. Meditation also allows you to have better awareness over your own body. How to regulate your breathing and control your heart rate in stressful situations will give you a clear advantage over an opponent who is not trained to do so. Better and deeper breathing lets more oxygen flow to your cells when you need it the most (like when you are defending yourself ).
3. Meditation can also improve your overall technique. Strikes are more efficient when the muscles and joints involved are working complementary to each other. Unnecessary tension before delivering strikes can limit their effectiveness. if you are breathing deeply and relaxing, you will be able to deliver strikes more quickly and powerfully than if you were tense.
Friday, April 17, 2009
The P's of practice
There is a common maxim in the school were I train. A new student usually asks the same question when they first start. It is usually something along the lines of "So what is the secret to getting really good at Kung Fu ?" One of the older student usually replies, "The secret to Kung Fu is ...... practice, practice, practice". We usually say it as a running joke but the truth is that consistent practice is the only way to achieve any mastery in any martial art or any endeavor.
We all cannot be like the Shaolin monks and devote hours upon hours a day to martial training. It is hard to find time to train when you have a fulltime job and a family (or whatever life demands are placed upon you). What we can do is apply intelligence to our practice so we can maximize the time that we do spend.
Persistence - persistence is a key component of practice. You have to set aside time that you can practice regularly in order to get the full benefits. It does not have to be huge chunks of your day, the key is consistency.
Precision - Set a few minutes aside to try and come up with a precise goal for your practice session. it could be something you are trying to improve, like getting better at using a particular technique. Having a precise goal in mind and focusing on achieving that goal during practice are a great way at improving as a martial artist.
We all cannot be like the Shaolin monks and devote hours upon hours a day to martial training. It is hard to find time to train when you have a fulltime job and a family (or whatever life demands are placed upon you). What we can do is apply intelligence to our practice so we can maximize the time that we do spend.
Persistence - persistence is a key component of practice. You have to set aside time that you can practice regularly in order to get the full benefits. It does not have to be huge chunks of your day, the key is consistency.
Precision - Set a few minutes aside to try and come up with a precise goal for your practice session. it could be something you are trying to improve, like getting better at using a particular technique. Having a precise goal in mind and focusing on achieving that goal during practice are a great way at improving as a martial artist.
Progress - You have to continuously seek to modify your practice so that you are progressing. Maximize the intensity of your workouts so that you can gain the most benefit. It is also a good idea to record your workouts so you can note your progress, this will give you a better gauge as to how you are progressing and allow you to tailor your practice if need be.
Patience - realize that true mastery may take years, enjoy the journey and remember that skill takes time to develop. Kung-Fu is mastery through time and effort, you need time to incubate your effort and see it come to fruition.
The secret to Kung-Fu and all other martial arts is there is none. The difference between a great martial artist and the beginner is not "innate natural ability" or being gifted, it is countless hours of practice. I'll end this with another quote from The Art of Peace.
"Progress comes to those who train and train; Reliance on secret techniques will get you nowhere." - Morihei Ueshiba
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Its not how you fall, it is how you get up
I broke my left arm during class three weeks ago. It was a freak accident that occured during glove sparring while sparring with a fellow student. I spent a week off in a mini pity party of sorts but decided that the rest of my body is not broken so I can still work out. I spent a lot of the time spending extra time focusing on meditation and qigong. I was struck by how much I use my left arm during techniques. I went to class the next week and tried sparring with one arm using my right side forward. Normally it would be considered madness to keep sparring with my broken arm but the other students usually are pretty well controlled so I didn't mind trying it out. It was a good excercise in thinking on your feet and modifying your techniques. I learned some interesting things:
1. Blocking with one hand is not a very good option
If you have only one arm that you can use, you can block some strikes but if your opponent locks up your one good hand with theirs, you can easily get hit in the face with their free hand. I learned this lesson pretty early. It is better to use evasion and yielding. I love this quote from Morihei Ueshiba , the founder of Aikido
"Seeing me before him,
The Enemy attacks,
But by that time,
I am already standing,
Safely behind him"
2. Use deception and odd angles of attack to compensate for any weaknesses
I moved around unpredictably and tried using deception with feints and fakes. Fake strikes with your arms and kick or do the reverse and fake a kick and strike with a punch. I would crouch low using monkey stances to give myself a smaller silhoutte. this way I had less openings and I could disguise my length so my sparring partners would try and get in closer and I could use kicks and sweeps when they were in range.
3. Pay attention but don't be too tentative.
It was hard for me to not stop thinking about my injury and trying to keep my hand the furthest distance away from my sparring partners at first. This made me a bit too tentative as I wasn't seizing openings that became available because I was afraid of hurting myself. I had to force myself to overcome this and it was extremely difficult but I got better at it after my arm started feeling better.
4. Analyze everything and spend more time thinking.
This can be done anytime. You don't have to do it when you get injured. Look at other students when they spar, analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Look at techniques that they do well that you could incorporate into your own repertoire. Look at other matches to see what openings are being missed by other students. Mentally rehearse new combinations that you could try or try to figure out techniques that you could adapt to suit your own needs. The mind I think is an often neglected part of martial arts. Studying theory and concepts is just as important as your practice time. It is the reason why athletes spend so much time studying game film.
5. Defense wins championships for pro teams but is a matter of life or death to a martial artist.
Striking in martial arts is given way more focus than blocking or yielding. It is because we remember the hits but don't really appreciate how much skill is required for a great defense. If I had got my arm broken while being attacked in the street, I would be quickly dispatched if I did not try to block or evade after the initial injury. It is also alot harder to defend attacks with only one good arm. I realized that i have to spend alot more time working on defense and I should try to devise some drills to improve.
Although getting injured sucks, on one hand I am grateful because it forces me to look at things differently.
1. Blocking with one hand is not a very good option
If you have only one arm that you can use, you can block some strikes but if your opponent locks up your one good hand with theirs, you can easily get hit in the face with their free hand. I learned this lesson pretty early. It is better to use evasion and yielding. I love this quote from Morihei Ueshiba , the founder of Aikido
"Seeing me before him,
The Enemy attacks,
But by that time,
I am already standing,
Safely behind him"
2. Use deception and odd angles of attack to compensate for any weaknesses
I moved around unpredictably and tried using deception with feints and fakes. Fake strikes with your arms and kick or do the reverse and fake a kick and strike with a punch. I would crouch low using monkey stances to give myself a smaller silhoutte. this way I had less openings and I could disguise my length so my sparring partners would try and get in closer and I could use kicks and sweeps when they were in range.
3. Pay attention but don't be too tentative.
It was hard for me to not stop thinking about my injury and trying to keep my hand the furthest distance away from my sparring partners at first. This made me a bit too tentative as I wasn't seizing openings that became available because I was afraid of hurting myself. I had to force myself to overcome this and it was extremely difficult but I got better at it after my arm started feeling better.
4. Analyze everything and spend more time thinking.
This can be done anytime. You don't have to do it when you get injured. Look at other students when they spar, analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Look at techniques that they do well that you could incorporate into your own repertoire. Look at other matches to see what openings are being missed by other students. Mentally rehearse new combinations that you could try or try to figure out techniques that you could adapt to suit your own needs. The mind I think is an often neglected part of martial arts. Studying theory and concepts is just as important as your practice time. It is the reason why athletes spend so much time studying game film.
5. Defense wins championships for pro teams but is a matter of life or death to a martial artist.
Striking in martial arts is given way more focus than blocking or yielding. It is because we remember the hits but don't really appreciate how much skill is required for a great defense. If I had got my arm broken while being attacked in the street, I would be quickly dispatched if I did not try to block or evade after the initial injury. It is also alot harder to defend attacks with only one good arm. I realized that i have to spend alot more time working on defense and I should try to devise some drills to improve.
Although getting injured sucks, on one hand I am grateful because it forces me to look at things differently.
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