Overcoming Tension – Stretching: Your Experience [Part 1]

The fear of loss in martial arts is not only to do with the fear of getting hurt. Essentially it has to do with losing face, or damage to the ego and reputation. This causes a tension within the system, which can create a fear state. At the same time, today fear has evolved with increasing pressures from society in many ways, which are different in nature from the past. For example, people now fear the taxman rather than a sabre toothed tiger! This is not to trivialise the matter, it’s just that fear has taken new forms and other dimensions. This is because fear does not have a basis in one particular situation or another. It varies between individuals as to what triggers it. There is no right and wrong here. Fear arises from the pressures we tend to put on ourselves for various reasons, whether this is to do with social situations or physical hardships. What can be done to alleviate these pressures, or more specifically, what mechanisms are there to decompress from these pressures?

Physiologically, pressures have always been there. Today, we have largely removed physical pressures, which have been replaced by mental pressures. In some ways this is more difficult to manage. In the past, between threats to ones life, which were few and far between, there were parties and celebrations within the local communities. This all changed perhaps around the time of the world war, where fear and suffering in the trenches became the experience of many who fought. At the same time, increases in communications left us feeling less tribal and less fixed to particular groups. For example, many people now associate across the internet rather than locally, and are even brought up on there from an early age in terms of socialisation. This involves a level of risk, because everyone is living at close proximity, yet who knows what their beliefs and values are. In the past, densely populated communities were managed by strict codes of conduct, which made for less friction in day to day life. The challenge now is to somehow blend diverse beliefs into a kind of organised chaos, rather than a melting pot in which everyone assimilates into the same beliefs.

For many people, fear and stress has become the norm. The world has changed dramatically in recent years, and it is difficult to predict what will happen next. So this is the basis of fear in the age of technological advance, fear of the unknown rather than fear of something in particular. This is largely the case today, even if it gets attributed to other happenings and gets labelled as something in particular. So in an age of uncertainty which is unwisely navigated, fear is inevitable. One way to get around this, as we will see, it to stretch the body and mind to experience something beyond the tension and insecurity which is felt during increasingly pressurised environments. One way of looking at stress and pain created by chronic tension is to see that it is not so much the result of the load being placed you, but the absence of a method to re lengthen the compression which has taken place. This is what martial arts is about, the balance between pressure and extension.

In martial arts, there is a certain fear of physical pain, but once you get used to and conditioned to it, it often becomes diluted down anyway, at least psychologically. You see that once you are capable of fighting back, there’s not much to fear other than being unprepared. So you just do the necessary preparation. Past a certain age, more physical preparation to restore the body to its natural state of balance is needed. this is not so for children, because their natural tendency is upward growth against gravity. So it happens for them usually automatically. So whilst a certain conditioning is needed, it is not good to get into the habit of experiencing pain. It will just be experienced elsewhere if it is blocked out. However, it does have some practical benefits for survival in the short term.

A certain experience of pressure and tension within the system is inevitable. For example, the tension experienced within a muscle helps to stimulate growth and activity within that region. So not only does it teach you that you need to extend yourself and grow, but tension is a kind of initiator, like an instinctive drive. The drive is a potential energy that is yet to spring fourth in a fully fledged way. So expanding the boundaries of the muscles afterward tension and compression creates new space for growth so that the pressure does not build to unmanageable levels. Animals do this when they stretch out after eating a meal or just to stretch for a variety of reasons. This is why stretching has always been important in martial arts. It is not just about flexibility of the muscles, but of the entire system. You also want to make space for organs to function properly1. This is particularly important after a stressful or traumatic events to flush out the build up of stress hormone.

Martial artists often describe how they couldn’t feel pain due to the adrenaline rush at the time of a combat situation. This is necessary when facing life and death situations, which if they become chronic can actually undermine the life process. Life is not survival, this is confusing a downward movement of life for the upward process of growth. If the system is not returned to a functioning state, or if chronic tension becomes the norm, this is the beginning of all kinds of ailments and diseases. This is why in the traditional systems of Chinese medicine they say the the cure for any disease is self created. One way of doing this is through stretching the body and organs, to create space for growth rather than increased tightening over time. There are other aspects such as diet, sleep, and just about everything else which are beyond the scope of this article. But basically, when a person needs to defend themselves against someone, that’s one thing, but when survival becomes the main goal and an entire pre occupation, then this becomes counter. Stress is important biologically, but relaxation and slowing down of the mind is needed. In the Chinese systems, Yin was given as much prominence as Yang. In other words, compression and decompression are equally important, but in different ways.

During a combat situation, there’s so much experience going on that it’s difficult to process just one aspect of the whole as though it were the defining factor. For example, there is fear, there is anxiety, and all those intense feelings. There is also awareness of the opponent, the environment, where the exits are to the area, and all such external considerations for safety. So to experience all this as though it were entirely yourself is a distorted view. You are experiencing what is not you as you, but it is not you. At least not entirely. Stress depends on external factors as well as internal, which means the burden or load is spread across the external and internal, and experienced across both as though it were one.

When the ancients talked about “There is no enemy”, this is the same as saying that you can learn to stretch your experience to include everything as one, and everything as yourself without discrimination. They didn’t say there isn’t an opponent, just that they aren’t your enemy, not really. This is symbolised by the yin and yang symbol according to Chinese tradition, which includes two aspects as the whole experience. This is why it was never the result of a situation according to personal outcomes which was considered the important factor traditionally. Separating victor from loser was necessary for the more theatrical events. Nothing wrong with that. However, the famous swordsman Myamoto Musashi said that it was a sickness to always be obsessed with winning. why is this so?

It is possible to make the fear of pain, or perceived damage of ones reputation, an all important factor. However, in doing so you lose contact with the reality that these things are not so important. It is even possible to experience the exhilaration of a contest as though you were a winner, even if in the eyes of others you are considered a loser. Personally, I have never cared about the result of a competition match. When I was involved in competitive sparring in Taekwondo, I just wanted to lose my sense of individual self in the experience as a whole. This has stuck with me ever since, and is a method I have used to contribute me individuality towards a higher purpose for myself. This is my experience at least. On a more practical level, my physical practice revolves around getting lost in the dance, rather than to focus on one aspect or the other. This may seem stupid to someone who sees things in terms of outcomes rather than processes. But even on the outcome level, you will find that your performance is better the more fully involved you are in paying attention to the whole process.

References

1. https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/06/29/inner-physical-practice-karma-and-riding-the-wave-of-the-inner-fight/ Inner physical practice – Karma and Riding the wave of the inner fight