A Thousand Roads

brokenboxer:

one of the first things that are forgotten in the present martial arts world is the thought process behind the fighting. and its also an incredibly enlightening subject to cover (i don’t really understand why it is the way it is, but it is).

bushido is the way of the warrior, and is from japan….

I promised myself that I would try not to reblog anyone else’s written content, that it would be original stuff, aside from the couple of pics I posted. But this was too good to pass up. It represents a lot of the ideals I try to stick to and that I feel all other martial artists should adhere to as well. But I do understand that we all follow different paths and some might not view this as an ideal, but I suggest everyone review it with a careful eye, even if just for the sake of understanding.

The idea of being praised for ones successes and accomplishments is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. And I think it’s interesting that my idea of how a person should approach acknowledgement has changed a lot in the last five years. Before I summed it up as something that should be appreciated but not sought. I thought a person should not desire acknowledgement at all. But recently it has come to my attention that lack of acknowledgement might lead to lack of enthusiasm. I used to think that all the enthusiasm a person needs is within themselves. But when someone is attempting to attain a certain proficiency in a field it’s hard for them to see their advancement on their own. It is easy, then, to assume that someone might not even be able to perceive their own advancement without an outside opinion. More particularly when an outside opinion is never given even upon display of said proficiency would it be farfetched for a person to assume that they aren’t moving forward, whether that’s a conscious assumption or otherwise? It’s kind of similar to someone pursuing a weight loss goal. If they lose that weight, but it’s never commented on, it’d be easy to understand why they might think their hard work barely matters, right? Sure hard work can be done simply for the satisfaction or the betterment, but after a certain point everyone is going to want a little praise or recognition for their effort even if it’s the smallest thing. Acknowledging your own hard work and success does not matter nearly as much as someone else noticing your work. It means that all of your effort isn’t merely within your own head, but that your work is having a real world effect that is visible by others. The problem with self acknowledgement is that no matter how confident and fulfilled a person might be, if they are trying to better themselves they’ll never really be satisfied with their accomplishments. They’ll always see what’s lacking, and not necessarily what’s improving. As such they’ll feel that they aren’t moving. Until of course someone tells them that they are. Of course, I’m not saying that everyone attempts to accomplish a goal to impress others or to garner some kind of attention or that anyone should. And I still feel that there shouldn’t be any sort of pursuit for acknowledgement, and if there is, it should be acknowledgement from oneself. I don’t really have a point or final message, I really just wanted to put my thoughts down. Does anyone out there have any thoughts? We all follow different roads, and those paths have lead us to think differently, but only through discussion and sharing can we truly move forward.

So I was looking through my email today when I came upon a message from the tumblr bot telling me that one of my posts was reblogged. I got excited really quickly, then remembered that it was probably just somebody reposting that Bruce Lee pic I commented on a while back. So I checked it anyway, because either way it meant somebody was looking at my page (hopefully). Turns out someone reblogged my “Gung-Fu” post. I was actually in shock at first, but slowly became overcome with a feeling of pride and honor. It really does feel like a pay off. It let’s me know that my ideas are getting somewhere and to someone, even if they aren’t always very well put together or even fully thought out. So I decided to blog my happiness and excitement while it’s still with me and give a big thanks to my first reblogger (and hopefully not the last). Thanks a lot, digitalmartyrs (digitalmartyrs.com), it may seem like something small, but I really appreciate it. And I hope our roads continue to run alongside each other.

So after another very long break, I’m back to my tumblr. I want to write more and more, but I think the reason I find it hard to come back after writing is because I do write so much. Oh well, that’s not gonna change anytime soon so I might as well get used to it.

So I’ve been wanting to write about this for a long time, and I know I said I would get to the physical stuff, but that can wait for a little while longer. After all isn’t it more exciting to discuss ideas that may vary between person to person? That’s what martial arts is isn’t it? The difference is style isn’t merely how they kick or punch (there are only so many ways to do that anyway, but more on that later), but also their difference in intent. Sure, most martial arts end up at the same point of “Peaceful coexistence with one’s fellow man, understanding and displaying wisdoms and virtue through discipline”. The difference is how they express this point through their bodies. Some martial arts use circles, some depend on straightforward directness and others depend on creating a rhythm. And those points are reached after thorough understanding and discussion of ideas and how each developer of a martial art has come to understand that “end goal” and the path toward it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that understanding martial arts philosophy is a very big part of understanding the physical side of martial arts as well. I’m also having more fun thinking about the philosophy of it because I spent many years contemplating movements and strikes and the like, and I, honestly find it somewhat boring to simply think about now (though actually performing it is a whole different story!). Well, that was probably much more drawn out than it needed to be, so moving on…

Anyway I’d seen the movie remake Karate Kid starring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. I’m not going to get into the misnomer, but there was one line in that movie that stuck to me as something true. I think it was during a scene where Chan had Smith performing some menial task that couldn’t easily be associated with martial arts. Smith questioned why he was told to repeat the task. After a small back and forth, Chan stated simply: “Everything is gung fu”. To me that’s a very profound statement, particularly once you understand the literal meaning of gung fu; something along the lines of ‘bitter work’ or something to that effect. In itself the phrase is not exclusive to martial arts at all, though it’s become synonymous with it. Which is why that phrase stood out to me, suddenly everything was gung fu and gung fu was everything. Gung fu can be washing dishes, it can be sweeping a floor, it can be painting a fence. But it’s up to you to make it into more than just a chore and place on a pedestal that can stand next to any other art. I’ve already went spoken on my idea that everything can be an art given the appropriate attention and desire for betterment, so I won’t get into that. I’ll get back to the context in which Chan’s character was speaking. He meant it in the sense that there is something to be learned from seemingly mundane and everyday actions. Chan’s character was in the process of teaching Smith’s character to use the motion of putting on a jacket as a defensive maneuver. I feel that this is a lesson that every aspiring martial artist can learn from. To look for lessons to better yourself in everyday interaction. For example, washing dishes can teach you the benefits of circular motion and movements as opposed to up and down or left to right (or vice versa depending on what you’re washing, just as no two opponents will be alike). Something I genuinely practice for accuracy and speed is jabbing elevator buttons with my finger, it can be much harder than you think. So just as there are thousands of roads, there are thousands of ways to get down them and even the smallest bushes can teach lessons!

I really really like this not only because it’s an image of great the Bruce Lee, but I also appreciate it as an artist. My only criticism is that the alternating red and off white inspire thoughts of Japan while Bruce was American born and of Chinese descent. Still really good anyway, and it’s fucking Bruce Lee. It doesn’t get much better than that.

(Source: geishadiana)

It’s commonly understood that martial arts is a physical, mental, philosophical, and even spiritual journey, even to people who only watch the occasional kung-fu flick. So why is it that so many people have a natural distaste for it? I was always disappointed when I found myself asking people to have a simple match with me (knowing full well that they might have little to no experience, but hoping on the off chance that maybe they’ll try and take something away from the experience), just to be blown off by the most common excuse of “I don’t want to get hurt”. I don’t understand how so many can understand the profundity of martial arts and when asked to participate they forgo the philosophical meaning and the mental refinement that comes with the art simply because they are afraid of being hurt. Why is it that so many people, without even knowing it, view martial arts as just violence? It is simply because they don’t understand. It took me a long time to understand martial arts from both sides of the glass, so I can sympathize to a degree. Even knowing that there is a deeper underlying meaning, most people see the exchange between martial artists as simply a flurry of kicks and punches. A good comparison would be art. While a lot of people be able to see Turner’s “The Slave Ship” and say that it’s a good piece, only an artist would truly be able to appreciate the effort put into the piece technically and emotionally, to the layman it’s a nice picture, perhaps a bit scary, but to the artist it is an inspiring and hypnotizing exercise of generating raw, overpowering catharsis through technique and form. That is how many people view martial arts: punches, kicks, jumps and flips. They don’t notice the subtle nuances such as stance, form, body language, energy and willpower. A really good martial artist can understand another practitioner’s philosophy and their way simply by watching their movements, other people don’t see that. I don’t mean to insult people who do look at martial arts just for the pretty things, I only want to create a measure of understanding. I was in a similar area for about 2 years, before I truly understood martial arts. I refused to call myself a martial artist and I didn’t believe that what I did was martial arts, I simply saw it as fighting. I questioned my learning and what I could do with it, I felt I was only learning to harm people. While I had no intention to stop practicing, I couldn’t view my art as anything more than punches and kicks. I thought I had understood the nobility of it, but I did not. I barely had a grasp of the artful side of martial arts. So 2 years later, after (at the risk of sounding melodramatic) trying to find the art in martial arts and experiencing a very meaningful internal journey, I was fed up that I’d found no answers. The day I came to the realization I was stoping about my room throwing punches at nothing and cutting the air with kicks. I could recognize other people as martial artists and I could see the art that they produced, but I still could not recognize my own art as such. I thought that perhaps it was because I wasn’t doing anything noble or anything of note. I thought that the degree of artfulness was relative to what you were doing with it, all I was doing was practicing and thinking. I started to think about what made visual art what it is and what constitutes art, I don’t think I’d made such a direct connection between martial arts and visual arts prior (which is a shame seeing that I am an art student). Suddenly though, it all came together. Literally in what felt like a flash, little more than half a second of enlightenment, I understood. Martial arts isn’t about what you do with it, or what you practice and it’s not even about fighting, it’s literally about understanding. Understanding yourself, understanding other and understanding nature, and through that understanding and using yourself as the medium, you create art with your own body. At it’s most basic martial arts is indeed about fighting, and defeating the opponent, but it becomes a martial art when you add yourself as the ingredient. Part of all forms of art visual, culinary, anything, is technique. Anyone can but some slop together and call it dinner, but it isn’t until you immerse yourself into the process that you can seek to create something more. It becomes more that just fighting when you move beyond that and attempt to understand why one kicking one way works better than another, then it becomes technique, something that varies between people, the most personal aspect, understanding yourself. Another part of all arts is audience or knowing your opponent, knowing who you are catering to. You wouldn’t serve burgers at an upscale top 10% gathering, would you? You must learn what is appropriate, what is useful and what will have the greatest effect. Then there is content, what defines your art. Some visual artists love to draw in a sketchy unrefined style as opposed to creating masterworks, some martial artists prefer to move softly rather than aggressively and some culinary artists prefer to cover their platters in a myriad of spices and herbs while others prefer to let the natural taste of the process and the food speak for itself. But that isn’t content, content is what drives you. While two artists draw in similar ways, one might do it because it feels natural another might do it because they feel it just looks better. I’m finding content is hard to describe accurately, because I feel there are so many levels to it. Visual art for example content might more easily be understood as subject matter, but when you translate that to culinary, it isn’t as simple as what is being served to you but how it is being served you, with or without salt for example, and for martial arts in particular content can be the particular methodology of the style or merely the intent of the practitioner, although admittedly the two usually go together. Philosophically, content is when you Understand yourself, you understand your audience (your opponent) and now you seek to reflect nature’s beauty and perfection in your movements. I find the martial arts method of achieving this to be perhaps the most beautiful. Seeing two experienced and skilled martial artists come together is one of the most amazing things. Every motion and movement becomes a small part of a grand dance that conveys emotion and feeling, displays tenderness and aggressiveness and reflects all facets of nature through the human medium. Simply, fighting becomes much more than that once you become a part of it, you must immerse yourself within something, not just physically, but mentally, to understand the art behind it. Since I reached this conclusion, I’ve begun to see everything as an art, (the art of walking for instance, just because you take it for granted and you think you’ve mastered it, and many people haven’t, doesn’t mean it isn’t an art within itself)  simply because the human condition is a natural reflection nature. After all are we not a part of it? Man should never seek to be above nature, but simply reflect it. Somehow I feel I veered very far off topic, but it all works out. I hope this reaches the ears of many people who haven’t seen martial arts in such a light and that it changes their perception of the art. Of course keeping with my idea of there being more than one way to do anything, martial arts in particular, this is all just my humble understanding and consideration. Many people may think much differently of all the things I’ve mentioned and should, variety is the spice of life. 

I feel that considering my slackness I should post twice today. And considering that I feel most potential martial artists get discouraged about the time that they realize it’s not just about doing pushups and breaking breaks, maybe I should speak on inspiration. Doing anything at all requires inspiration, but maintaining that desire can be very demanding and tiring. I feel that a martial artist should find inspiration in everything, though. Nature itself is an inspiration to the aspiring martial artist. Powerful oaks rooted firmly in the ground, the strength of a powerful gale that can also be a caressing country breeze. And even the more violent facets of of world can be inspiration: The power of a unstoppable earthquake and the liveliness of an erupting volcano. Or even a role model, at the risk of sounding like a stereotype, I greatly admire Bruce Lee and I look to his example whenever I’m not sure where to go. When I was younger I even looked up to cartoon characters, hoping to one day be able to do some of the amazing things they do. Think back to what first got you interested in whatever you want to do, even if it’s not martial arts. What kind of feelings did that experience inspire? Happiness? Awe? Maybe even sadness or fear? Whatever it was, you should hold on to it and use it to push you forward. However one should make sure that whatever the inspiration was it will be long lasting, something that will persevere along with you. And never forget what got you started.

I haven’t posted because I’ve been really unsure of what should come after understanding movement. There are a lot of other things that I want to speak about and expand on that were getting jumbled up in my head. I realize now that that’s a big problem that I have in general, I get way too far ahead of myself often. So I figure it only makes sense that after understanding movement, the next step should be to understand how to move, rather than haphazardly moving forward. The student should learn what movements are entirely unnecessary and how to avoid moving too quickly ahead of himself. Many beginning martial artists even just in thought. They begin to think things like “If he does this I’ll do that” or “After I do this I’ll do that”, when they should simply be thinking of what to do in the now and take things a step at a time. A good exercise for this is shadow boxing, although I must say it only works to develop a mindset for impromptu movement when the practitioner has a really active imagination and thinks very, very quickly otherwise it just reinforces the idea of ‘expecting’ something and reacting to it, which is, in itself, a good thing to practice, but not the point of this post. A lot of martial artists get so caught up in what they will do that they forget what they should be doing. The concept of ‘Mushin’ is something that relates directly to this and should ultimately be the goal of every martial artist. A lot of martial artists, just with movement, don’t even begin to think of cultivating and fostering this considerably essential part of martial arts until they are very far down the line. Of course sometimes you hear people say “I’m not sure what happened, I just reacted” while this is the pinnacle of Mushin, a person should be able to implement it at any time, not simply under times of extreme stress or emotion. Another thing to be considered is that half the time when people say they ‘just reacted’, it’s usually a reaction that in the situation was probably unwarranted, which also insists that one shouldn’t simply give in to violent actions at the drop of a dime and call it Mushin. It’s a bit of a complicated subject but simply put Mushin is a state where a person ceases to be under the influence of thought or outside distractions and exists simply in the present, prepared to respond appropriately and intuitively to anything that comes his way. The best way to sum up would probably be that after understanding how to move a person should then understand how to keep themselves from being distracted by movement, the prospect of being able to move ahead of an opponent, and simply move in the present rather than the future. The idea of a chess master rightfully thinking two or three moves ahead would be an interesting analogy to somewhat overturn my idea, but even a chess master cannot abandon his present situation to focus solely on moving his bishop to what might be a desirable position in three turns. Even more so it’s not only more distracting but riskier in a martial arts environment to actively attempt to predict your opponents moves due to the fact that every opponent is a jumble and mix of variables, not everyone’s horse will move in an L shape. Certainly after coming to understand a person physical limitations, you can begin to understand how they might move, such as understanding that the reach of their punch is only so far or so fast. But even then taking an opportunity when it comes is different from expecting it and even that is different from baiting an opportunity, and both of the latter opportunities will leave you quite flustered if their rook decides to move diagonally. In conclusion While a chess master can be certain that a bishop can only move in diagonals, a martial artist can’t assume something so easily and must simply be ready to take a pawn when given the chance, not wait and plan for their king to be open, he might be able to move more spaces than you think. Somehow I feel that I’ve gotten really far off topic, but generally everything in martial arts is related, so I’m not too concerned with it. The general idea, though, is the very same one I started with, a practitioner shouldn’t get ahead of himself. Just because you’re a fast runner doesn’t mean you should sprint everywhere.

I’ve been a bit distracted because I started school again recently, but I’m going to try to be consistent with updates anyway.

Moving on, I said I wanted to start writing my opinions and ideas about the more physical side of martial arts. And I feel that movement is easily the biggest and perhaps most important part of martial arts. It’s very basic and yet can decide matches. A martial arts practitioner’s movement can easily make or break a match. Now when I say movement it may sound broad, I can be referencing the movement necessary for a proper punch or the movement necessary for a proper sweep. But I’m referring to something that should come before that: simple understanding and movement of one’s own body. I feel that a person should come to understand the ins and outs of their own body. Now saying that at first may seem redundant because a person obviously should have a deep and subconsciously embedded idea of their body as a whole, but you would be very surprised at how little a person might consciously understand their body. In a way what I’m suggesting is one of the goals of Tai Chi Quan, but I feel that people start smaller, and understand their body on a simpler level before even incorporating any martial arts. The idea of movement as such a large thing came to me a few years ago, quote randomly actually, I was walking from the kitchen to my room and suddenly I noticed how loud my footsteps are. I’d prided myself in being light of foot and generally soundless when I moved or at least that’s what I practiced for, so coming to this realization was something of a shock to me, that I would have so little control over my body naturally. From then on I started studying my walking motions and seeing how I could move easily and smoothly while also not hindering myself and slowing down unnecessarily. And I was very disappointed in my inability to tightly control a movement that is hardly thought of. From there I started thinking about my other body parts, how my arms move when I walk, were I place them when I sit, how  my back responds when I hunch and slump and even how I hold my head. These are all things a person should understand about themselves. It’s the most fundamental part of martial arts, especially considering that everything in martial arts is movement and it’s disappointing to find that so many people aren’t focusing on that part of martial development. And while many people would insist that you discover the movements and motions of your body as you learn, I feel that an at least intermediate understanding of your body is required to properly learn and understand the various movements in martial arts. Understanding your personal movement is even more necessary because we all have different bodies that react to everything differently. And while you may have a fantastic teacher, his or her body type might not necessarily be the same as yours and certain motions and movements may not be as easy to grasp right away because of that, like a very heavy set man trying to run the very same way as a fit young lady, but if you understand your body you might be able to work around it. Imagine a man attempting to do a spinning back kick exactly as his master did, but cannot seem to pull it off nearly as well, maybe his timing is off or maybe he can’t complete the full turn at all, but rather than taking things slowly and going through the movement understand what parts of his body go into the move and what gears are turning and what might be his internal issue with this motion, a lot of people will simply shoot out kicks until they think they’ve got it, and of course they will certainly get it eventually, but if this John Doe simply took the time to understand the way that his body moves rather than attempting to mimic the observation of his teacher’s movement, he might have understood and performed the movement much faster and easier. In martial arts the only tool you have is your own body, even weapons are to be treated as an extension of yourself. And you wouldn’t attempt to use a circular saw without knowing how it works, what to do and what not to do, right? So why practice something as complex and precise as martial arts without first understanding yourself?

I really like this image. The calming silence, the humble modesty, togetherness even in solitude. I really like the backlit hair and shoulders as well. It’s very relaxing to look at.

 theworldwelivein:

couple / vintage / culture / kimono / traditonal : geiko (geisha) kotoha, kyoto japan　芸妓 琴葉さん　日本・京都 (by Michael Chandler)