Many peoples believe that they don’t have time to train in martial arts. For example, it is common to train during ones adolescent years, and at university, and then to stop altogether after that. During this time, there is an increased enthusiasm because you want to build an integrity within the system to withstand the later pressures which are inevitable in many peoples experience. So it is best to use this time as wisely as possible on the one hand, whilst seeing it as an opportunity to bring you beyond these things later. That is, if tomorrow ever arrives.
For many people later in life, training becomes a side activity, and I’m sure that lots of people believe that it’s too time consuming and tiring to bother with. So what was once a central activity, becomes peripheral. I’ve heard many people say this sort of thing, and it’s perfectly normal to feel this way. However, if you train with intensity and desire to improve, then the whole of your life will take on this same quality you once gained from formalised training. Or, it can be the other way round, if you work intensely the rest of the time, then naturally your training will be the same as it always was, enthusiastic and energised. This amounts to the same thing, that you can experience everything you do intensely.
The problem is that if you experience the majority of your time in a dull way, and then all of a sudden you expect to overcome this during the training, then everything else becomes a distraction. It’s not like a child has to force themselves to run around and climb tress most of the time. They do it of their own nature, because they haven’t burdened themselves with more activities which people have told them are more important as priorities. There are too many people blathering on about making time for more important things, or that martial arts is some sort of distraction from responsibility.
This is an age old question, how to overcome distractions, including work and family obligations. Either that, or how to engage in training without it becoming a distraction from other things. On the other hand, if you see everything as a training tool, everything becomes an opportunity to exude intensity and involve yourself fully. It then does matter whether you are at work, with your family, or in the gym. This doesn’t mean unnecessary flamboyance towards everything. What you want is to experience the mundane as profoundly meaningful because of the inner meaning you give to it, rather than let circumstances decide what should be meaningful. Who wouldn’t want that?
Of course, many people claim to be too bored with life to take the mundane day to day tasks seriously as an opportunity for growth. They are too burdened to see the potential in what they consider to be mundane. In other words, people have given up. So they want to experience the full involvement of the senses in martial arts activity, and they do it as an escape from the mundane. So because that’s what you want, you have to turn everything into martial arts1. There’s no other way. Otherwise your efforts will just Peter out after some time. How do we avoid this?
It is not that we lose the fire or passion for things, it is just that it must always gather momentum by swallowing up everything around it increasingly. After all, what does martial arts mean? It means employing your energies, faculties, and skills to overcome inertia and defeat, and to evolve from this. So it is in realising the value of these so called limitations that you learn to use them. Luckily, awareness of how to do this is always active, like gravity, its opposite, which pulls us down5. It took millions of years to evolve from one creature to another, and now nature is just instructing us that this very source of evolution is functioning within us, which includes all life forces and events. There is an old saying that war is not won on the battlefield. In other words, your efforts to improve and progress create an energy in you which establishes the very possibilities you are looking to accomplish by training in the gym. as we will see, it is from this energy that the right potential is realised.
You’re walking down the street. Isn’t this an opportunity to move out of the way of people with control and poise? Are you able to spot threats from harmless individuals2? Or, you’re with your family and an argument breaks out. Isn’t this an opportunity to develop self control as well as long term awareness of your actions and consequences? Many relationships break up because of lack of this awareness of cause an effect. Peoples attitude towards each other can degenerate, and without the necessary attitude the situation becomes something to avoid rather than a stepping stone towards greater balance and interpersonal capability. So they give up when it exceeds their procedural knowledge. It’s often the same as why people stop training: giving up trying to work things out, to the advantage of nobody. So martial arts is like a relationship.
You were born a complete individual, so it’s a case of working things out as you go and moving with the evolving situation rather than giving up because it isn’t what you thought it was. Your work is a training tool, your family situation is a training tool. At some point in your development, you realise that this is inevitable. the so called mundane is where you spend most of your time so it is a question of making the most of it, rather than living these parts of the day in low gear. Then, you won’t be particularly daunted by training to accomplish your martial arts specific goals, because you will already be in high gear energy wise.
People are always telling you that you have to train to fight, to earn a belt, or to become a competitor. Forget about this nonsense. Just use every situation you come without preferential treatment, as it is, in the best possible way.
So when I say “turn everything into martial arts”, I don’t mean turn everything into a bitter war. This is happening around us today. War is a mistake, but it can be turned into an advantage with the right awareness and if the lessons are learnt. Otherwise it’s a disaster. People are turning everything into a competition, a fight, and in an effort to get out on top. When they do this, they end up miserable and depressed, blaming others around them. No surprise there, the energy created compiles certain activity, mainly reactive and compulsive. Here, you might get into the habit of misusing every situation rather than using it effectively.
If the situation is handled properly, everyone benefits, even during disagreements or rivalries because ultimately everything is related. If your martial arts practice is successful, you will look after your own well being by doing the right things. If you slip down the snake, you inevitably climb up the ladder eventually. The roll of the dice is not down to your efforts, it’s the set of circumstances playing out. You just play the game as best you can and develop a certain acceptance and determination to succeed, no matter the outcome. In many other situations, you can influence them more than you might think. If you are making the best decisions to do what is right, even under pressure, then your martial arts activity naturally becomes very determined. So these two considerations, using everything, and doing well in particular situations are complimentary to each other and mutually reinforcing.
Your own success and self mastery is never at the expense of anyone else’s. Yours and someones else success is not separate. If you take advantage of someone, you might live off this for some time before seeing the futility of taking advantage of others. Use this person as your teacher, the lesson being that you only grow in resentment and lose track of what’s actually happening in front of you by dwelling on some past impression of someone who has mistreated you. The same goes if you mistreat them, you see yourself as better when actually, it is a past glorification you are viewing rather than an evolution unfolding. Similarly, if someone takes advantage of you, just see to it that you don’t dwell on this situation as just another excuse to stagnate. so it is about viewing things as they are than as fixed instances spare from wider reality.
In Eastern martial arts, the competitions were only held in the right atmosphere of reverence for the competition, rather than glorification of the individual. There is a lot of wisdom in this. For example, even in recent times, the Japanese Pride fighting championships were held mainly for the fans, who wanted to see a top level contest. They weren’t concerned who won, just that it was done properly. If a guy lost, he would just come back next time provided he put on a good show. Later on, when Western mixed martial arts took off, the whole thing became more of a personality contest. Obviously, this is a simplification but it is true on many levels.
The point is that when the right atmosphere is created, this blossoms in a certain way as a reflection of its own nature. This is why if you treat every moment as a time for self development, your own inner atmosphere will blossom regardless of whether you win or lose an exchange. If a sharp sword is mishandled, the quality of the sword isn’t in question. If a driver can’t drive their car properly, this is not the fault of the manufacturer. In the same way if you mishandle your own apparatus, no matter how well cultivated, it is bound to be of limited effectiveness, even if you’re quite a good driver in many ways. So what I’m saying is to become an active participant in the manufacturing process, not just the driving. Rather than letting the circumstances and events decide upon how your inner system is manufactured, make sure you have a say.
It happens all the time, doesn’t it? You think the situation is not under your command, whether that is the job you do, or the income you earn. This opens the door to massive deception. You then withdraw energy and effort. Instead, if you see these things as a chance to manufacture the kind of system you want to drive, the kind of brakes you have, the shape of the design, then you will be upgrading yourself all the time. So turn up the heat and jump in the forge. Instead of just hoping to pull something out of the bag on race day, the key is to stay in tune with your own system so that you have working knowledge of it twenty four seven, and you are fully aware of all the subtle workings of your mechanism. You then become a creator rather than a creation of somebody else.
So don’t just think about whether you are achieving some short term goal or not. It’s not the result that matters, it’s the constant desire to burn and fuel yourself with everything around you. This is the reason why historically, fighters have abstained from sex before certain events3. In reality, they are not abstaining from anything, it is just that they are using the energy in a different form. According to the integrity one has created within themselves, certain practices are either supportive or not to ones energy state. I’m not talking about moral integrity, because it’s not a question of sinning or not sinning. The integrity is in terms of structural integrity and what the fuel is used for. The same goes for all types of energy, including anger, fear, and joy, for instance. Just use them wisely as you know how. It is not necessary to avoid all these things, just to become aware and use them responsibly.
However, the tendency is for people to see anything unrelated to martial arts as a distraction from training, or they see martial arts as a distraction from their own pleasures. Make no such distinction. All of these various situations are opportunities and tools for your own self mastery and development. It takes a lot longer to get going again if you are distracted by one situation, and then another, and then another, before getting back to what you were doing an hour ago. Instead, see it all as one block moment of variety, and then the momentum you generate will be so much greater.
So it is not a question of separating out experiences and compartmentalising them into different situations as is often done “I will be joyful here, energetic there, and then switch off totally”. That is one way. The other way is to see everything with a single minded passion towards cultivating your ultimate reality. So how to get rid of distractions and focus yourself on the task is to include everything within it. I know very well that lots of people prefer to take themselves away from reality and into the gym, where they can be surrounded by success and greatness. But have you ever met anyone like that? Even at the elite level, many athletes have taken to drugs and chemical aids in order to replace the inspiration they have lost4, because they are unable to manage their own states.
References:
1 Martial Arts in Everyday Life https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2021/07/13/martial-arts-in-everyday-life/
2 Psychology of the knife attacker https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/06/01/psychology-of-the-knife-attack-part-3/
3 Sexuality energy Martial Arts https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/06/04/sexual-energy-and-martial-arts/
4 Conquest at all costs: Drugs and martial arts https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/04/24/conquest-at-all-costs-drugs-and-the-evolution-of-martial-arts-part-1/
5 From knowledge to intuition https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/03/31/from-knowledge-to-intuition-part-2/
