karma – Intuitive Martial Arts

Liberating the Genetics: From Determinism to Determination [Part 2]

Posted on 28th August 2024 by joeharman8 | 15 min read | 104 views

Part 2 follows on directly from part 1. Here, we look at how the influence of the karmic structure and the genetic body influences our behaviour. We will look at ways which have been used in martial arts traditions to use this powerhouse of energy in a conscious and productive way. By using the energy body in certain ways it is possible to make the energies more malleable rather than concretised, which we will look at now.

Contraction and Extension

From the tightly compact seed, the truth unfolds into an infinite possibility of expansion.

Part 2 follows on directly from part 1. Here, we look at how the influence of the karmic structure and the genetic body influence our behaviour. We will look at ways which have been used in martial arts traditions to use this powerhouse of energy in a conscious and productive way. By using the energy body in certain ways it is possible to make the energies more malleable rather than concretised, which we will look at now.

The reason for various back breaking martial exercises was to put the body under such pressure that the bodies energies would recede inwards and concentrate itself more tightly. This had the benefit of increasing fitness, and harnessing will power and discipline into focused activity. At the same time, when the energies have been compressed and made more focused, it is possible to spread the energies in a more organised way. This may seem counter intuitive, but condensing and concentrating this force of energy increases its possibility for expansion. In this way it is said to be possible to wear out ones karma by contracting the internal mixture, and then extending it like baking bread. The bread transforms the mixture into something else. This is one way of looking at it. This is also known as internal alchemy.

So these martial exercises were a preparatory stage for influencing ones own genetic material, or the energy body. By concentrating this dispersed energy, the physical body becomes more malleable and more open to transformation from within. Otherwise, the energies remain reactive to the external environment predominantly and you never know the potency of their potential. At the same time, when you have shrunk the genetic influence over the body and reduced it down, you leave space for increased wave forms of energy, which bring about a sense of ease and pleasantness rather than agitation and reactivity. When you have reduced it down, particularly within the area of the Hara Centre, it becomes warmed up and more able to extend itself further rather than contracting the energy body. When it goes out again it disperses more widely and as a less dense layer, until it dissolves altogether. This is known as dissolution of Karma.

When the energy becomes concentrated in the Hara Centre, the seat off the self, it is experienced in a more intense way which is more focused and powerful. This awakens a powerful wave of upwards ascending energy known in Yoga as the Kundalini force, or Linga Sharira. In Chinese systems, the awakening of this energy is known as grand circulation, amongst other names. It is essentially the full fledged functioning of the energy body, which creates a fire in the belly, which is partly responsible for both activity and dissolution of Karma. By becoming a wave form of energy, like water, it no longer sticks so stubbornly to the body and mixes with the wider existence. At the same time it becomes part of your own existence. I realise this sound like nonsense, but I am attempting to make this mumbo jumbo into some sort of logical explanation to the best of my ability, so bare with me.

It is only because of fundamental misunderstandings of the energy body, that people have gone about handling it in limited ways. Because of the power of the kundalini force, traditionally certain behaviours and codes of conduct have been instituted in those trained in its ways. For example, it has been linked with increased sexuality or instinctive behaviours, but only in situations where the energy dissipates at the level of the Muladhara, or root chakra1. For this reason, disciples were put to back breaking work or held in protective atmospheres in temples, so that they could fully explore the spiritual significance of this rising energy without inflating its influence over other areas of life.

When you want to move to the ultimate possibility, without developing the right internal circumstances and scope for development, then you are missing a vital first step. This first step is including the necessary cultivation so that this blossoming happens naturally, rather than by force. This is why certain qualities and virtues were always instilled in disciples of martial arts. This is particularly the case when doing something like raising the energies a higher level of functioning, or dissolving ones karmic influence. Otherwise, it is possible to diminish ones karma to the extent that there is no stable root, or make the energies lopsided in the body.

The whole point of martial arts is to develop the relationship between our internal and external environment. This is symbolised by Yin and Yang. In martial arts tradition, this has always meant developing the qualities of self discipline and work ethic, in order to cultivate an attitude of perseverance and self transformation. If this determination to develop is cultivated, then the genetic component of an individual is brought to its highest possibility. From the tightly compact seed, the truth unfolds into an infinite possibility of expansion. This is the essence of life. For instance, the sperm cells are amongst the most potent and tightly packed cells, which means they have the capability to create a body, along with the egg. This is one example.

Everything must be done according to ones capability and understanding. And above all, everything can be used intelligently rather than excluded due to judgemental prejudice. This is why it is foolish to try to destroy something like ones karmic structure or instinctive nature, without putting it effective use. If in the process of self realisation it leaves you, then this is good. At the same time a certain necessary amount is needed to function properly. This is the reason for harsh austerities which masters impose on themselves, which seem illogical. They create for themselves a resistance, a karmic load to carry, which gives them a strong root. At the same time they don’t get entangled it the process, and routinely work through their karma, which becomes a conscious choice for them. This choice can de dedication to certain exercises, a certain diet, or just about anything which they deem appropriate. There is no right or wrong here, it is just that there are different life goals and orientations.

It is not usually advisable to attempt to handle powerful internal energy situations head on initially. It certainly cannot be mastered by force. Since childhood the genetic influence has been campaigning about how you have be be dictated too by them, and how they own you. Fighting them only makes you more identified with them. The best way is to leave them to their nonsense until you experience something more than they are. Then you will never take them seriously. This is why the Master would make sure the the disciple was serious before moving to serious forms of practice. It was not uncommon for the disciple to have to move in with the master of the temple, or to dedicate their entire life to a system of martial arts practices. Today, these practices would not fit with the social norms of society. However, the practices are still alive.

It is ridiculous to talk about liberating the mind from misconceptions, when a large percentage of social media content relies on misconceiving reality as some superficial appearance. It is for this reason that the authentic practices have been left out of mainstream thought, but at the same time they are to be found in certain hidden places in full view.

The Masters of today will encourage the disciple with rudimentary seminar classes, before inviting them in for more advanced programs. Before they know it, they have moved from a weekly course, to a weekend seminar abroad in the middle of Thailand, for instance. This is done according the the discipline which slowly builds in the disciple. It is rarely the case anymore that people jump right in from the start.

The origins of genetic determinism

The idea about genetics defining a person comes from the need to keep practices within certain clans. It has little to do with what nature has endowed people with genetically, because this itself is largely unexplored. Nature has certainly not made genetic influence the defining factor in most people, because it is in and of itself not capable of doing so. At the same time, it is open to any possible influence. This is because the genetic body is intermingled with the karmic substance, as well as the physical and mental bodies. This is according to traditional thought. So what you are looking at is a complex amalgam, which can be a different mixture depending on the person.

It is like, if you plant a seed into the soil. The plant itself will grow according to the soil in a certain minimal way. Whether the soil is good or bad will determine much. Along with that, much of its growth depends on the sunlight, and other environmental factors, which taken together are responsible for the majority of the plants growth. If it grows to full potential it will look a certain way, but this appearance is not why it grew to its full potential. In fact, it may look the same way if it is healthy or unhealthy. It is just the longevity and the susceptibility to certain influences may be different as a result of its growth. this becomes apparent as time goes on.

So the environment can influence the genetic body, or energy body, to the extent that it becomes intertwined with the physical body. This creates a powerful link between physical practices and disciplined lifestyle. In fact, it is not even true that you have an energy body separate from the physical body, or even a brain separate from the body. It is this energy, which is largely to do with environmental influences which is responsible for the organisms development and cultivation, as well as the expression of so called genetically determined factors. It is through pride that people have labelled themselves genetically superior, or other inferior, which has led to racism and ideas of genetic determinism.

The idea that genetics determines a persons future is flawed for several reasons. First of all, genes are said to be almost the same in everyone. That means that the genes of your grandparents, as well as relatives from thousands of years ago, are probably the same as you. Even in a chimpanzee, they are 98 percent the same. Yet, we still see a lot of variation in people. This is because the same soil is responsible for the cultivation of an infinite variety of life. This is what makes a forest the way it is, full of variation and organised chaos, where everything has its place.

Over the course of thousands of years, human experience has changed dramatically. Human experience has also changed dramatically in the last 20 or so years, with the massive development of technology. It has changed to the extend that modes of living from a few decades ago are now almost totally redundant. So factors such as these determine the transformation of our experience more than genes do. But at the same time they alter the expression of our genes. This is why it becomes complicated, and also this explains why the old ways can so quickly become redundant. At the same time this explains why timeless traditions can also remain relevant.

Various other factors aside from genes have played a vital role in determining the course of our development. You could say that genes provide the constant platform for infinite possibility. From this platform you would not make a roof or a window, for instance. So the platform is the fundamental constant. The rest you can play with any way you want. This infinite possibility is inside of our genetic code, rather than outside of us. At the same time we become intimately linked with our external experience, which we ourselves can gain increasing mastery over. So I am not down playing genetic influence, I am merely trying to demonstrate that its potency has been assumed to be something less than it is by making out that is defines the outcome of our experience. It is much more than that.

Learning from our environment

So genetic disposition is predominantly to do with the social norms and habits which themselves breed a certain kind of genetic energy within groups. These live beyond individual lives, so for this reason they are passed down from generation to generation. Nobody wants you to be liberated from this. It is an individual thing, which can none the less be done in a community. It is the tribal mentality of separatism which inflates the differences between peoples, as well as the genetically determined aspects of sticking with the tribe and loyalty towards certain causes.

Take the planet, for instance. It is the planets warmth and electromagnetic force which sustains life on the planet. This is what sustains its development, and this energy is what is passed onto life on this planet. It is not owned by the sun. In the same way, the habits and practices of people far outlive the physical body itself, but they are a consequence of the planet. These practices and the body itself are connected to each other, but it is the coherence between life and disciplined practice which determined the inevitability of genetic disposition. The other choice is to become liberated from this, by following the dictates of a more casual influence, which has to do with the greater existence.

Practices you can do

“The abdominal wall sends waves through the system which travel further than the abdomen, ensuring that the energy transforms appropriately rather than creating high pressure everywhere.”

This environmental energy can be an enormous factor in an individuals growth. This is why certain traditions have kept secret practices within their own ranks, because they either thought they created them, or they thought it was too dangerous to include people who weren’t receptive to the environments they created. These environments became entire cultures, such as in the Himalayas and India for example. These practices provide the driving engine for developing the necessary fire of the body, whilst at the same time offering a water element for its cooling.

The brain works best when it is cool and at low pressure. This is why nasal breathing has been recommend in order to send cool oxygen straight to the brain directly, rather than through the bloodstream. Try this exercise. Find a quiet place to sit, and simple breath through the nose in an upright cross legged position. Feel the nasal passage expands you touch the roof of you mouth with the tip of the tongue. If you sustain this position for around ten minutes or more, a sense of ease and energy will generate in the nasal area and enhance your sense perception, leading to increased well being.

The body’s physical centre, the Hara Centre or the abdomen can withstand more pressure and heat without overheating. In fact, the intestines have enough potential force to crack a Brazil nut. So when you create this pressure through abdominal breathing exercises, as well as other martial arts exercises, you create an area of relatively high pressure to the brain. In this way, it was understood that certain physical practices to develop the Hara Centre would naturally and sustainably cultivate the area of low pressure, which is the brain. This is based on the law that areas of high pressure naturally flow to areas of low pressure in waves. For example, the abdominal wall sends waves through the system which travel further than the abdomen, ensuring that the energy transforms appropriately rather than creating high pressure everywhere. Basically, this encourages bioelectrical energy, or neurological energy, to travel throughout the system at sustainable rates.

Try this exercise, which can be done at the same time as the nasal breathing above. As you sink down into the cross legged posture, into the sitting bones, utter or imagine the “ahh” syllable2. At the same time extend upwards, lifting the upper spine and stretching the lower spine. You can repeat this at least six or so times, or even for as long as desired.

So this is why the brain is always kept cool by certain modes of conduct and meditative exercises. If the brain becomes the driving force, then you are going increasingly by theory rather than experience. Keep the brain cool therefore, and the body (particularly the abdomen) warm, balancing out the Fire and Water elements. This is the idea behind the practices of abdominal and nasal breathing, taken together.

The brain is likely to become a source of entanglement in the aspiring martial artists, because it excessively complicates what the body understands genetically or in the energy sense naturally. It is this unwillingness to work with the body and go through the necessary disciplined practice which is scaling down the overall understanding in the energetic sense of the body. This comes at a huge price for the aspiring martial artists. In this way martial arts has become increasingly theoretical, because of hyper development of cognitive activity, and lack of involvement and aliveness of the physical and energetic expression.

References

1 Sexuality and Martial Arts https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/05/01/sexuality-and-martial-arts/

2 Sound and Form [Part 1] https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/12/20/sound-and-form-part-1/

Liberating the Genetics: From Determinism to Determination [Part 1]

Posted on 28th August 2024 by joeharman8 | 10 min read | 96 views

This article is split into two parts. In part one, we explore why there are so many misconceptions about genetic influence. In part two, we will look at specific exercises you can do, as well as taking your understanding further. According to Yogic lore and martial arts sciences, the energy body contains genetic factors which influence the physical body. Within this energy structure there are certain influences which can determine the outcome of the physical expression of this nature. We will explore how this is so.

“Nature itself has programmed our energies to a certain point. How we evolve further is largely down to our own conscious development.”

When we talk about genetics, something we need to understand is the influence they have over our physiology. The genetic components make us human, and to a large degree they makes us driven to succeed in life. They are for liberation and expansion. They have gone through millions of years of evolution. This has lead to a high level of complexity. Deep within our cells, there genes act like a kind of hardware. So this aspect of our genetics is fixed, but the expression is open to infinite possibility. Let’s see how this is so.

It is no wonder that genetic complexity can become confusing in our minds. It can appear to be a huge mess, just because it plays out in a haphazard way. But this mess can be made into a complex and beautiful symphony. By arranging the components in an organised way, the cacophony of influences in life can be harnessed for our benefit. Then you have an organised mess which is perfectly coherent. This arrangement of a potential mess and disaster is what martial arts aims towards.

We need to also understand the factors which genetics do not in themselves influence. Say for instance, you have a genetic predisposition to some sort of disease. This predisposition need not become an overwhelming influence on your experience of life. In fact, the influence over your life can be reduced dramatically depending on the kinds of martial arts or other health practices you engage in. Nor does it mean you will end up on the operating table in need of medical intervention because of this predisposition.

Genetic predisposition means there is some sort of factor which may increase the likelihood of something happening, which at the same time has to do with a whole host of other entangled factors. What this has to do with sealing your fate or determining your genetic inferiority or superiority has been debated throughout history. In fact, genetics and hereditary predisposition are so intertwined with traditions, social customs, and unconscious behaviours, that it is impossible to separate these factors. So by adapting your attitude and behaviour, it is held in traditional martial arts circles that you can actually influence your own destiny directly by adjusting these factors.

Separating the entanglement

When one factor is entangled with many other factors, this gives the appearance of all the factors being one big mess. So when everything becomes a mess in your perception, it is natural to try to control things and limit your experience of life. Many people think that by limiting their experience, they gain control over the situation. This is true to some extent, and is enough for some individuals. Others will want to liberate themselves from such impositions and controlling circumstances altogether. It is like how a bind weed attaches itself to a plant. You can separate the bind weed off so that the rest of the plant grows, or accept the entangled weed as part of the overall construct of the plant. Once you eradicate the weed, it becomes necessary to weed some more too.

Say for example, you have a genetic predisposition to stress. This is at once an evolutionary tendency, as well as being developed within the high pressure situations you were brought up in and have experienced. So it is possible to experience this evolutionary pressure as a negative thing, and to label it as bad. However, pressure is not in and of itself a bad thing necessarily. It becomes a bad thing when the mind fixates on it and inflates its influence over your experience of life. However, it is only part of the overall mixture of life. You can increase the percentage of this mixture so that whatever you materialise becomes a high percentage part stress. We will look at how this works shortly.

Increasing receptivity

Often the best way to influence the disposition of a person is when they are least aware of it. This is why certain practices and ways of life have been promoted in martial arts according the the individuals level of receptivity. From an early age, a martial arts practitioner would be put into intensive work, as well as brought up in the right atmosphere. During the early years of childhood, the young martial artist was yet to build up a wall of resistance. His involvement with martial arts was indiscriminate. It is not that you cannot remain this way later in life. You can, it is just that societal influences tend to push people into narrow identifications, to specialise into a particular role.

Say you are asleep. Your body is in a relaxed state so that you are open to rest and regeneration. In the same way, if you have brought down the stress levels within yourself, through martial arts practices or mediative exercises for instance, then your receptivity to factors other than stress is increased. You have brought your internal mixture down to those elements which are receptive to more sustainable resources, rather than reactive just to high intensity situations. When this is experienced directly, this is when the masters message can be most keenly appreciated and heard. Otherwise you remain unreceptive and distracted, or even dismissive.

It is entirely possible that you will go back to normal ways of life after a profound experience, so it is always advisable to maintain a certain level of discipline appropriate to your experience. What this means is that a profound experience can change your receptivity to things, but at the same time you will require a certain level of discipline and willpower to keep up this level of receptivity. This is why it is said that you reap what you sow, or that the process of work should be focused on rather than the results.

It is like if you cultivate a flower, you will need to do the weeding in order to flourish. Or, if you want to create a sense of wellbeing and pleasantness within your chemistry, you will need a higher percentage of oxygen to the brain, as well a lower percentage of stress hormone build up. This is one simple example. Say you bring down the stress hormone build up, by engaging in breathing exercises or martial arts forms consciously. Your body will remain the same to look at. It was just the the internal mixture haw changed. You might have a higher proportion of oxygenated blood, or an increased blood flow. The are all small examples of how things look the same, but the experience, particularly over time, changes your whole perception.

Determination over nature

Aside to being predisposed to stress, there may be many other factors, such as lifestyle, social dynamics, diet, etc., all of which may contribute to health ailments, or good health. From early childhood, many people have been told discriminate against certain things around them. In doing so they may have accidentally limited their scope for development. For example, someone might control their exposure to germs or types of food excessively. This often becomes detrimental to their overall health. There are cases where this is necessary of course. On the other hand, a more varied diet and acceptance of potentially stressful situations can build a tolerance towards what would otherwise be debilitating. So the same pressure to evolve as a species can become an inhibiting factor leading to health ailments. There are exceptions to what I am saying, but even so, it is possible to reduce the ill effects of certain disorders by amplifying the positive impact of surrounding factors.

In martial arts, it is said that the energy body can become inflated, or compressed depending on the types of activity one engages in. The energy body is in many ways describing the genetic material of the body. It can be a chaotic mess, or it can be an organised chaos. This is why according to tradition, certain warrior clans would enforce strict discipline in terms of life style and diet. They would therefore develop within the warrior a certain rigour and resilience, even under extreme pressure. The idea was to influence the genetic material of the body in an energy sense, rather than by controlling external factors. In doing so, the body would naturally become more invigorated and less reactive to external factors, which may otherwise prove detrimental. The idea was to influence the determined factors of the body, so that your actions determined natures influence.

When the genetic material is spread vastly over the body, it is felt everywhere in an extended sense. In Chinese medicine this is known as externalising the Qi. There is said to be a certain level of so called pre birther qi, which we see children externalising quite naturally and harmlessly. All that is needed is the right level of nurturing. What is lacking in modern society is what to do about the rest of the energy which enters the body after around the age of thirteen onwards. There have of course been elaborate practices developed in systems of martial arts and yoga which aim to install a sense of inner power and self liberation. The disciple who follows these practices diligently and unwaveringly will eventually gain control of nature, and liberate themselves.

The externalisation of energy after childhood is essentially survival based. This is necessary in certain situations, such as when fighting an enemy for instance. Obviously, during normal activity it just goes where nature intends it to. When this Energy is concentrated in a certain spot, usually the Hara Centre or the lower abdomen, it becomes a potent and concentrated force. The Hara Centre is the seat of the self, and it is from here that the energies gather and can be sent upwards to the brain, according to Yogic and Martial Arts tradition.

Nature itself has programmed our energies to a certain point. How we evolve further is largely down to our own conscious development. This is what the internal martial arts practices aim at. And without the necessary restraint and protective atmosphere, these internal forces of energy could easily be mishandled or overwhelm the individual. It is for this reason that such practices were kept secret. Instead of articulating this scientifically, it was often done through symbolism. For example, the awakening of the dragon when the hero arises means that when you obtain mastery over your energies, that is precisely when you need to take maximum responsibility and become fully involved in your practices. This often falls at your feet rather than being a chosen responsibility.

Can fighting be used to raise your consciousness?

Posted on 11th August 2024 Last updated on 11th August 2024 by joeharman8 | 18 min read | 92 views

If you pay sufficient attention to any particular aspect of life, you can greatly raise your general awareness. This is true of fighting. The question is, are you able to raise enough awareness to turn a survival process into a conscious process? In other words, are you able to turn a process which is self persevering, into one which is transformative in nature? This requires a great deal of discipline, much more than most people are aware. without the needed discipline, it usually just becomes a process of building the ego in a game of winners and losers.

Because people are egged on by those around them to achieve various forms of glory, it is often the case that their environment creates this attitude. It is like living in an echo chamber where you hear loud cheers over and over again to go in this direction of winning against people. People then start to think that if they don’t want these things then they are not normal, or that they lack motivation or desire. There are ways around becoming absorbed in this attitude, if you want to, which we will explore here.

So people think it’s normal for everyone to want to be the best. Either that or slightly better at some specific task. This is not true however. Some people are compelled in this direction, due to being brought up in war or desperation for example. There’s nothing wrong with using these drives therefore, but for many people it is not necessary to use fighting and aggression to move to the next level.

Fighting is not the only path in martial arts. It is true that martial arts comes from war, but this does not mean destroying those around you. There are many masters who have developed themselves simply by appreciating the fact that they can train, eat, and breathe well. If you develop this appreciation sufficiently, it is possible to become appreciative of absolutely anything, including waking up each morning as you are. If you are appreciative of this fact, then you will no longer waste time on things which are no longer important. Because you are appreciative of every moment. This is one way. There are many who do not achieve this every morning. Remind yourself of that from time to time.

In fact, it is usually better to use some other means than fighting to achieve the best possible version of yourself. And then, you end up becoming a powerful being by virtue of your own nature, rather than some attitude or personality which has been forced upon you. If you fully develop who you are, and celebrate this, then you will obviously be driven to develop in the best possible way. There is no time to waste then. You will then develop according to your potential, rather than some narrow preconception based on a small aspect of the whole.

Because achievements such as winning in martial arts contests have become glorified, then in becomes tempting to make this a general prescription for success. As we will see, there is no general need for most people to compete against others in this way. There is nothing wrong with fighting for the right reasons.

The warriors of old would die or become crippled after a small number of contests in the past, simply because there was no proper operating table or soap. A sword wound would be lethal, you would get a serious infection. There would be no guarantee of winning either, you didn’t know anything about the opponent. Sometimes, a soldier would kill himself if he lost, or dishonoured his tribe in some way. Yes, this was the reality, which you were probably born into. Today we see people fall apart mentally, even killing themselves over pride. So it is best not to go there in todays world, where we have much better opportunities for self development.

There are certain groups of people are naturally more aggressive than others, but essentially for most people it diverts them away from who they actually are. Musashi, the Japanese swordsmen, was that way. He was driven in that way which most people are not. He had no Master, no training centre. He simply went around engaging in deadly contests as if it was the last thing he would ever do. A Shaolin monk, who is seeking longevity and spiritual enlightenment, is another way. He is seeking to use the martial arts as a means for health, rather than destruction. The same energy can be used to destroy or to bring life. But it must be developed properly and with the right attitude.

The House of Cards

“This is a crime against your own humanity, to make the mistake of studying something so profound without the necessary recognition of its worth.”

Building the ego and becoming a winner seems appealing enough. But this in itself is a huge Karma for somebody who gets to into it unnaturally. when I say unnaturally, I mean in terms of what is needed by yourself and the environment you live in, not just some small aspect of yourself development. This small aspect of yourself, the ego, does not need developing in most people, in fact it needs curtailing. This is why in traditional societies, and martial arts centres, they curtailed the ego if they had build up the fighting capabilities of the individual.

Today this curtailing the ego is being ignored, and with dire consequences in many instances. people develop their fighting skills without the necessary discipline. The result is they get bored and restless because they already know everything through the internet and instruction. This is why such things were never taught to the masses, because without the right attitude you will just take for granted everything you see and not experience it totally. This is a crime against your own humanity, to make the mistake of studying something so profound without the necessary recognition of its worth. So you end up learning lots of rubbish but have experienced none of the reality which the Shaolin monks and Musashi spoke of.

The present day environment does not contain within it the same level of violence as before. There are happening here and there, but there are also much bigger threats to the existence, such as viruses and poor health. This is why practiced such as yoga and well being are on the up swing. Once you have survived a certain experience, it is much better to move on a transform your situation into one of prosperity. Otherwise, if you are hyper developing the survival aspect, this gets blown out of proportion and you never see it for what it is.

“The power of the mind is such that it can be used to focus on one aspect and then draw everything else to it”

If you can handle the consequences of your actions, then there is not problem. But in general, putting up with severe stress and anxiety about a far off event, such as a competition, is not only exhausting but it also reduces awareness of the present moment. It reduces awareness that the threats to human well being are becoming more undermined by misuse of technology, and poor maintenance of health. Thankfully, martial arts exercises take care of these things without blowing up the need to win at all costs against people.

winning at all costs builds a fixation with social approval, as well as experiencing life and stress and anxiety unless you win a major event. These are small thing in life, why blow them out of proportion? For some elite athletes, for a short period of time in their lives, this will be necessary. But in general, it is better to look within yourself and enhance your wider perceptions. That way, you will gain from every aspect of your experience, which will build and reinforce itself from a larger pool of experience. This is the power of the mind. If mind becomes a tool for imagining some glorious winning situations in the future, rather than of processing the experience of the moment and transforming it into something else, then this is limited. The power of the mind is such that it can be used to focus on one aspect and then draw everything else to it. Or, it can be used to pick something apart and lead to more complications.

The Inner Fight

A sense of ease and flexibility, as well as awareness and competence, is what the internal martial arts seeks to create. It is possible to turn trauma, stress, anxiety, or any other negative emotional states into positive ones. This is why traditionally they do not fixate on winning, because they already knew how to turn any negative experience into a positive one. Transformation has nothing to do with good or bad, it is just that you are taking any thought or emotion and channeling it into something more. You are focusing on one thing and drawing everything else include it within your experience. The other way is to focus on one thing and exclude everything else. This just leads eventually to reduced vision and therefore an illusion of reality if this is all you see.

This is the real goal, to move beyond your current situation, rather than to solidify it or blow it out of proportion the way it is. It doesn’t matter whether this is stress or happiness, all of it can be used. Otherwise, it just dissipates at a certain level of expression. Depending on how much you have transformed the energies, this level can be raised or minimised with the right attitude and training.

If you sit in stillness for a certain period of time, then the emotions and chemistry of the body dissolve and create a new form of expression. This was known as internal alchemy, or the internal energy medicine in certain Chinese systems. Basically, it involves daily meditation, as well as exercises to increase the circulation of the body, as well as the fluidity of the energies. There are many ways to go about it. It can be achieved by performing daily martial arts exercises, and then sitting in mediation and stillness when you have worked out physical need to expend energy. The amount this needs doing will vary between individuals. Even a small amount of this per day, perhaps for an hour or so, can be hugely beneficial. As a process, building in mindfulness and exercise as part of the daily routine works towards the same end.

Motivation

“If you make every moment of your life worth living, then you will not have to motivate yourself towards a future goal of any kind. It is already there for you to explore in its entirety, to the fullest extent possible”

Why would you want to win against somebody else if you are already satisfied with what you have? At the same time, if you are satisfied with what you have, you will long for more, because the nature of the universe is to expand. So when you have fully developed your capabilities, there is a natural expansion. When I say expansion, I mean an expansion of what you are, rather than an accumulation of accolades and additional baggage. If you are satisfied with what you are, then you will naturally want to defend this so that it develops, if it is valuable to you. This means making daily exercises the basis of your transformation, rather than looking for ways to rest at the end of an ordeal.

So if you make every moment of your life worth living, then you will not have to motivate yourself towards a future goal of any kind. It is already there for you to explore in its entirety, to the fullest extent possible. The problem is that if you fill the mind with all sorts of fanciful ideas, and you develop all sorts of strong emotional attachments to objectives, then this naturally clouds the mind. You are filling up the hard rive instead of leaving it free to process. another way of looking at clouding the mind is, it is like if you paint over a window, all you can see is what you have painted over it. You can’t see anything clearly beyond it, and it is no longer useful for perception.

Cultures of Combat

“Overcoming injustice and fighting wars is deeply ingrained in the human being, beyond their personality and situational experiences.”

Combat lifestyle was cultivated in traditional societies in such a way that would today be considered unnecessarily restrictive. It was not restrictive necessarily, it is just that if you are going for discipline, then why not go all the way. In modern day societies, we see that in the army a huge amount of discipline is instilled in recruits. However, without the right mental and spiritual training, the trauma of such events has been shown to have a detrimental effect on the mental health and emotional well of many individuals. So how does one develop fortitude and self discipline needed to carry such a responsibility?

When you go to war, it is not a case of planning to come back a champion. It might happen, but there are serious risks. Instead, you go in defence of the nation, and you might not come back. You might also go out of naiveté, but that’s different. If you can go anyway, whatever the costs, then it means that you have transcended your own individual needs to some degree. This is an initial step.

For other people, there is no need to develop tenacity by going to war. For many people, their own nature compels them to see injustices and war in every aspect of life. They get there by themselves, by their own nature. This explains how the idea of overcoming injustice and fighting wars is deeply ingrained in the human being, beyond their personality and situational experiences. This is why they said that if you train in the traditional martial arts forms, all the secrets will be revealed. The means are within you already. This means that fighting is inherent in human experience generally, and can be used by any one as a means for development and transformation, without or without a physical enemy.

This example of war shows you that it is not the idea that you will win that is the primary motivating force, it is the idea that you survive the process and develop from it. More than that, you don’t actually need to fight in a war to be subject to the same forces of nature which transform an individual. Perhaps if you are engaged in war, it speeds up the process, making you more immediately attentive to certain realities. But essentially, fighting is not to do with winning and losing. This only permits a certain gratification from the idea of it. So basically, thoughts about wins and losses only exist as ideas in the mind, rather than realities to be experienced.

You cannot experience a process out of an idea, you can only experience the reality of it. Otherwise, it is just a theory or an attempt to live through an imagined process or a remembered event. The imagination and memory are not suitable vessels for the full expression of life, only life is capable of doing this. So the idea is to become sensitive to these energies, rather than sensitive to some imagined social process going on in your imagination of memory.

Of course, in any contest you want to win, and you do everything to do so. This enhances your awareness and consciousness. Naturally, you capabilities go up over time as you experience the intensity of the situation. But winning is not an expectation necessarily, and if you lose, it’s not a stain on your character or profile. If you are really honest with yourself you will see that social approval and objectified situations are not set in stone. In fact, you are free to experience them as you wish, as good or bad, or inconsequential In terms of your success.

The instinctive energies can be used a platform to transformation. By themselves they only reach a certain point. It is not like you can save them up and when they reach a certain number they change their quality. It is like if you light a fire, the fire only burns for a certain amount of time. If you heat a saucepan, the heat remains for longer as it transfers on the metal and in the water container. The hot water is then used to heat a room for example, or to cook a meal, which can be stored for long periods. So you are using the heat to transform a situation, rather than stock piling it. From this example, you can see that the possibility for expansion of heat energy is increased by using it as a fuel rather than an outcome to be preserved.

So it is not so much that you develop toughness and fortitude by going to war, it is more that you better have those qualities going in to start with. In other words, you can develop these in so many other ways than fighting. One person wins a medal. I might eat a Banana, sit down, meditate, and have a profound experience. What does it matter? If the experience is profound and impactful, then this is what leads to transformation. If you have already decided that the experience is defined by an outcome or by social approval, then you are not able to experience anything new, any transformation with nothing left of the old.

In terms of the spiritual side of martial arts, you become a nobody rather than an iconic star. This is to bring down the association between winning and success. Because of the idea that you have to win at something to prove you are the best, success in this sense has be blown completely out of proportion. Because more and more people are involved it in martial ares contests, it becomes harder and harder to stand out as slightly better than someone else. So not only are peoples energies becoming increasingly dissipated in limited activities, but it also takes more and more to stand out against the competition.

Combat is used to heighten the fighting capabilities of an individual. This was neccessary during times of war. The problem is, when the war was over, people got restless, and bored. As a result, various combative arts, as well as competitive sports, were instituted into the society to alleviate the tension which built up in times of peace and prosperity. At the same time, these activities have always been in society in various forms to stop people getting lazy and unmotivated. They are also great ways of people celebrating their own vibrancy and creative energies, in such a way that they can enjoy a contest between in each other. The right balance has to be struck. The problem comes when the process of the contest becomes less important than beating the opponent. The competitive process which lead to transformation is then circumvented in favour of fighting for an outcome.

The instincts of survival involved in fighting, such as aggression and ambition, are trying to fullfill certain certain narrow objectives. They are trying to go for a particular outcome. This could be acquiring a mate, getting food, or fending off an attacker. Essentially, all these instincts are trying to fullfill is some short term objective. They are not looking for well being. It is very difficult to turn these energies into something else, especially if you blow them out of proportion. To transform them into an ultimate possibility requires a lot of wisdom and perseverance. The real question is, can these instinctive energies be used to fuel you towards something greater? Yes they can. And in the process you can discover that you need much less insticintive drive and ambition to function properly once you have learnt to focus on other things. You become too busy to blow them up uncessasrily, and everything goes into your work. They very energies of the body become a great possibility rather than a conclusion.

When you heighten the instincts of survival, this prepares you to take on opponents. These opponents are not usually in front of you most of the time. So to become sensitive enough to the environment that you can produce the necessary energy to act, is the main concern. Now, when I say sensitive, I do not mean that you get depressed or anxious about someone looking at you the wrong way. Naturally, you then become more and more aggressive and hostile to people who you consider competitors. This is why traditionally, anyone preparing for war or combat was typically put on a healthy diet, a disciplined lifestyle, and great care was taken to limit the volatility around them. Otherwise they just ended up becoming wantonly cruel or unable to function outside of severely competitive environments.

However, in todays world, in which more and more efforts are made towards ones well being rather than just survival, there are several ways to go about conducting ones lifestyle. You don’t have to go about meeting the social standards of warriors or elite athletes. Whatever you chose to do, if you put everything into it, it is possible to circumvent any unnecessary stagnation or dissipation of energy at the level of aggression and other unpleasant emotions. At the same time, you are engaged in a process which makes the most of your energies, making you more dynamic and creative than if you were under external pressures and stresses.

Creating harmony within: Avoiding discord between yourself and the outside

Posted on 2nd August 2024 by joeharman8 | 17 min read | 94 views

“Deal with your own situation and all its concerns, which at the same time encompasses anything from the outside which influences it”

Sometimes, when you enter a room there is a hostility in the air. For example, say you walk into a bar, you might get looked at funny. This might be because the person looking at you funny has become territorial and starts glaring at you. On the other hand, someone in a martial arts Dojo, which has within it a certain etiquette, might not even get noticed by anyone if they walk in there. So these two situations and the environments are highly charged. The atmosphere however, is completely different. The people in the martial arts Dojo will be too busy training and occupied with their own work to even notice. This is the sign of a proper martial arts centre. This tradition has today been lost in many cases.

In many martial arts centres, people might think it’s their duty to notice outsiders and make a certain impression on them. This is a marketing and promotional strategy. This can be good or bad. However, basically the way of dealing with problems is to become too busy with your own situation to deal with them. In this way, you deal with your own situation and all its concerns, which at the same time encompasses anything from the outside which influences it. In other words, the internal situation and all of the challenges eventually merge with the outside situation too. This is called creating harmony between Yin and Yang. This is one way.

Emotion or Intelligence?

“You first become emotionally attached to some form of practice, or view it intellectually. This is a way in, a starting point. Naturally, as you organise yourself around this goal, your internal structure also becomes more integrated and organised, so that the very need for rigid routines goes down.

The other way is to become so into the practice on an emotional or intellectual level, that you surpass the limitations of both of these dimensions of experience. So you first become emotionally attached to some form of practice, or view it intellectually. This is a way in, a starting point. Naturally, as you organise yourself around this goal, your internal structure also becomes more integrated and organised, so that the very need for rigid routines goes down. You are then able to stick with the practices, but if the life situation gets in the way, you remain flexible to that. This is the beginning of various ritualistic and sacred forms of practice. These then get handed down through generations of people, which have practiced and benefitted from them. They need not still practice these as individuals, they may have surpassed the need to do so. These forms of practice must be modified according to the times, but the principle form of energy orientation remains the same fundamentally.

So the external forms of practice aim to raise your energetic experience to a new level. This is the aim of the physical martial arts, such as competitive sparring and belt graded pressure tests. The idea is to overwhelm you to the point that you disintegrate. And yet, you are so much more. If you simply do the practices for social prestige, it’s not the same at all. When you do them to enhance your experience of who you are and what you are capable of, then your whole experience becomes broader and more powerful, whether you benefit materially or not.

This is how martial arts can be used as a way to overcome certain limitations. What you believed to be anxiety surrounding an event was your means of salvation and overcoming. It is like if you fall in love. Your whole sense of who you are drops away. And then, if it succeeds, your anxiety about impressing that individual or not living up to their expectations, fades into the background as you merge with them. In term of martial arts, this entails initially being involved with the external aspects of training, but then shifting to something more when the time comes.

The anxiety around training is natural at the beginning, but when you have raised the roof, this becomes a smaller aspect off the overall experience. It is a necessary part, but becomes less and less of an emphasis. At the same time, the sense of achievement, which was a small spec to begin with, becomes more and more. It is not that you chose this achievement to happen, any more than you chose to fall in love with somebody. But carefully the Master has put you on this track. Or maybe it within you all along. There is no way around it if this is handled correctly, because it lies at the heart of human experience. It is the law and the path is set.

Once you have raised the bar of your experience, naturally you are then left with only dedication and discipline to surpass yourself. The energy has been used up and a certain sense of clarity and orientation towards more remains. That is, once you have overcome whatever trial you have been faced with. In both instances, mediation or physical training, you eventually surpass yourself. It is just like how the mother surpasses who she was before she had children. In terms of martial arts, one way involves blasting off the breaks, and another way involves maintaining a steady speed to get there. Physical training often involves pushing oneself to the utmost. Mediation is a steadier ride. The key is to consciously deal with the pressures of each situation. Do not think that mediation is easy. There are unexpected twists and turns that you must consciously handle, just as against a physical competitor. Against an external situation, this may be physically more demanding, but both require full conscious commitment to transform the situation.

Become Air Bourne and Grounded

Whichever the path, the inner or outer, there is the same level of testosterone and other bio chemical processes happening, but these processes are happening in a completely different way. Let’s look at why this is. Do not think that a hulking athlete has more testosterone than the meditator. The expectant Mother has as much chemically going on within her as any other woman. In the same way, you could say that the mediator is developing a child within themselves by nourishing their energy body. Indeed there are many mediative practices which speak of these things. The energies are just being used in different ways. One person is sustaining the energy body, and one is sustaining or developing the emotions and physical functioning. So what the mediator is looking to shed, the physical athlete is looking to build.

When a mediator sits and observes himself with enough light on the matter, he eventually disintegrates the particles and energy forms which the physical martial artist is using to integrate within himself for physical strength. Just as the child within the womb uses up energy, so does the spiritual body. This is both life sustaining, in the sense that you identify with this role, or life taking, in the sense that you feel it is too demanding.

Studies have recently shown that light, or electromagnetism, can destroy carbon particles with sustained energy being focused on it. In the same way, when the human system is allowed to function at a sustained level of focus, the energy body, which is associated with the nervous system, can produce enough energy to burn away other hard to get rid of particles. This has been named the body of light in certain practices. The aim is to disintegrate hard to remove stains. These so called “forever particles” which are so called because they are tough to get rid of, include many forms of disease which we today consider irreversible. This is why certain internal practices of martial arts have been called forms of energy medicine, because they are a form of medicine which is non chemical and are often used as preventative measures.

So energy medicine is working at the level of the nervous system predominantly, where as the other is working at the level of the chemical processes. But the two are not mutually exclusive. Say you were to practice certain hard styles of martial arts. This would raise the energies of the body, which over time would cause of build up of waste product within the system. This waste product accumulates over time and leads to various injuries and disorders which tend to develop later in life with many athletes. This has happened to many athletes. So the same thing which once kept you functioning optimally has now become a hindrance without the right corrective practices. This is where mediative and internal martial arts practices come in.

It is like if a rocket takes off and discards its launcher. The launcher has been used up and sends off the rocket into space. The rocket is now out of sight and has discarded its shell. The shell was what got it where it needs to go, and was useful to this end. Now, the launcher appears to be going backwards, but really it still hurtling forwards. It will eventually catch up with the rocket if the rocket stops. It is just that the forward momentum of the rocket is so greater by comparison. This gives the illusion that it is the only one moving out of the two. No, both are moving as they need to. In the same way, when you mediate, it is possible to soar off somewhere away from you mind and emotions to a large extent. They are still there but you, the rocket, is not. This is how mediation creates a space, which can be enhanced, between you and you emotional and mental experience.

The emotions and mind are still there. They will catch up with you again, because they have not disappeared entirely. The rocket eventually reaches a point where is can go no further, and you come back down to Earth. So a certain amount of activity is needed to build the integrity of the system, so that it can sustain and power itself for greater possibilities. It is not a question of which is better, physical or spiritual practice? This is why I say the human system is like a multi stage rocket, which launches and breaks away from itself. This is why physical martial arts as well as the mediative side have always gone hand in hand. This is a journey which happens over and over within oneself. So this is why the martial artist must remain grounded as well as airborne.

The Art of Martial Art

“It is not a question of destroying your enemies, but of transforming yourself to make use of your enemies and therefore greater use of yourself.”

Martial Arts means war turned into an art. This does not mean some frivolous or egotistical art of self indulgence. The art of war means to turn the process of destruction and creative energy inwards rather than outwards. The best way you can do this is to transform an enemy into a friend. In doing so you transform yourself. As I was saying before, if someone “falls in love” with you, they are no longer there as an enemy as they have been transformed and so have you. This is a beautiful thing, it is only ugly when misconceived.

So energy itself is the same fundamentally, wether or not it is used to create or destroy. The question is, do you want to hunt an animal for days, or do you want to run after it with everything you’ve got in one sprint? Both work perfectly well. According to your own tendencies and development, this will alter the path you take. Either way can be used to unshackle yourself. The key is to hold the utmost respect for the process of your own development and unfoldment. It is not a question of destroying your enemies, but of transforming yourself to make use of your enemies and therefore greater use of yourself. There are 7 Billion candidates for this role!

“Martial Arts has traditionally opted for creating harmony within rather than discord amongst yourself and your enemies.”

Respect for this body of energy, yourself, and a competence to use it properly is the only important factor in martial arts. When you maximise this potential, you are on the path of authentic martial arts. You might go to a trainer in this system or that, but these are encyclopaedias of knowledge. This is very useful, because such people can point you in the right direction. However, the knowledge itself is out there for any one to see in modern day. What is missing is the discipline and self knowledge. The problem is that todays knowledge is presented in such a frivolous way online, that you are almost encouraged to access it so casually that no sense of discernment or commitment is required. What you need as well is self knowledge and discipline.

What is this self discipline and self knowledge? When you encounter an enemy, you can either externalise them or internalise them. Poorly internalising a problem leads to depression or anxiety in many ways. Excessive outer expression of energy can do the same thing, or creates other problems, such as compulsions towards someone or something for your gratification. As I said before, it is about transforming this need so that none of it remains. Simply moving from one stage to another is not enough. What was once a self defeating thought finds expression in some sort of repetitive activity which needs to be sustained for self validation. This is not the most intelligent way to handle the situation.

Competition or Cooperation?

The best way to handle the external situation is to respect foster a sense of dedication and responsibility. This makes you more fluid and flexible to changing demands, whilst fundamentally strong. This is so everyone can benefit and you are also included and fully involved. For this reason, any duels or contest between two people traditionally put respect for each other and dedication towards each other as training partners as the first priority. This means that whatever war is going on, no one exploits the rules or makes advantage of some loop hole which fundamentally undermines the process of self transcendence. If you are not working for harmony, then there is duality and discord.

It is like if you marry someone, you respect them and dedicate yourself, which leads to a happy marriage. Then, what’s the problem if you argue? Anything is a means for harmony if the principle binding you together is strong. The dedication is there that you won’t run off. If you just use that person as an object, and take them for granted, then resentment grows and you fail to see them for who they are except a superficial image or an expectation. This happens all the time mainly because you begin to see others in terms of what they can do for you.

So in many ways, fights break out due to a lack of respect towards the Opponent, or the environment. Say you walk into a seedy bar, with people in there who are acting purely unconsciously, intoxicated with alcohol or other substances. This is not an environment which fosters respect or trust between people necessarily. At the same time, the sense of “us against them” is high. So now you’ve walked in, you have a problem. If you walk in and understand this clearly, you can walk in and out by not creating much friction, or even leaving immediately without hesitation, as if passing through. Instead of thinking “I have the right to be here, what’s the problem?” You clearly see the situation for what it is. Most of the time, you can anticipate this sort of thing easily with the right clarity if you practice in daily life. If you have to act you have to act, that’s all.

Seeing the situation for what it is, rather than what you think it is, is important obviously. In most cases, people flock around overly stimulating places because they are bored and in search of excitement. Otherwise, there is no need. If they had occupied themselves before hand proactively, the attraction towards these situations goes down dramatically. This is true in many other instances. So whilst it is not possible to eliminate all dangers, it is possible to eliminate the need for seeking out such risky situations by handing your own situation properly and avoiding certain environments.

The enemy within

How often does it happen that we think an enemy has triggered a certain reaction in us, when actually this happens just as severely in the absence of that enemy? Of course the enemy may trigger something within us, but at the same time, this would happen anyway if we have not attuned ourselves and handled our life properly in a disciplined and effective way. Martial Arts has always said “The only enemy is within”. It is this enemy which we are trying to transform into a friend in terms of mediation. It is there before a particular person exists, because these pressures are inherent in existence before any particular form takes shape.

If you take an aggressive and hostile person and put them into an intensive activity where the process of work is more important than an outcome, this will transform that person. For instance, this happens in the army as well as in sports. So you have somebody who could be a big problem, becoming a big success. A change of circumstance has delivered them from there problems without fundamentally changing who they are. Any particular outcomes of this takes care of itself according to the dedication and focus on the task.

In todays world, many of the algorithms and ways of presenting oneself, particularly online, are geared towards attention grabbing. For instance, you might see a martial artists posting videos online. A lot of the time, there will be a focus on their muscles and body image. This is entirely different to viewing such a person under the pressures of working and seeing them respond to life’s struggles in a dignified way, for example, as you might see them in a martial arts contest or in the army doing drills. It’s not the the army or martial arts centre is better, it’s just that it can be a more productive way of managing ones time and energy. On the other hand, forms of practice which glorify certain egotistical personas, tend to distort ones energies over time even though it appears as though they are very successful and attractive.

Focus on the Work, Not the outcome

“Ones scope for development and self transformation occurs in direct proportion to the expansion they allow for it.”

So these were always the fundamental unbreakable laws of martial arts, to focus and strive for improvement. Whether or not martial arts worked in any practical sense was meaningless in this context, because not only does work and dedication cause results and progress, but assumptions tend to screw things up. For example, if you assume that you will be able to beat an opponent easily with a small amount of training, then this itself is an impediment to learning and progress. On the other hand, if you have clarity and strive towards whatever you know best, preconceptions come down drastically. You get to the point of attaining what you never thought possible, rather than what you thought about on day one. In other words, ones scope for development and self transformation occurs in direct proportion to the expansion they allow for it.

Of course, it is perfectly normal to go around making enemies of people. People do this all the time. But it is certainly not an optimal way to function in most situations today. There are more and more people populating the Earth, so a certain acceptance of this and methods of handling things more diplomatically are needed. This is why Martial Arts has traditionally opted for creating harmony within rather than discord amongst yourself and your enemies.

Hara Centre: Centre of Creation

Posted on 2nd February 2024 Last updated on 13th February 2024 by joeharman8 | 16 min read | 109 views

“The earths atmosphere, which is electromagnetic, would not be possible without the earths core being the way it is. The Earths core is hot and high pressure, like our own physical centre. The surround electromagnetic atmosphere of the Earth can be likened to the nervous system. So the core directly affects the nervous system, and the nervous system is not possible without the core. So you can transform you energy and situation by working with this core in ways that are not possible otherwise. “

When you perform an action from the core, it radiates outwardly to the periphery. This is the case for any martial arts movement. In fact, it takes a lot more competence to do this than to perform the move superficially. So the idea is to move the core, the abdomen, and then extend out from there. It does not happen the other way around, that you start with the limb first, and hope that this creates a whole body motion.

It is like how the Earths rotation begins at the core, and this moves the mantle and the plates. The plates and the surface do not move the core. In the same way, the chemical receptors on a plants do not make its roots grow. If pesticide is used too much, then this just impedes the plants overall development of certain internal processes which produce these things naturally. The same thing goes on in the human body. In terms of movements, the internal signals which are related to the core, function much better if the core is the initiator of the movements. This helps you memorise and imbed certain movements more deeply. Even on a superficial level, it is better to perform core movements because the core leads all basic movements. In this way the only things that changes is the particular limb you are using when driving from the seat of the abdominal core. So your kicking and punching becomes very similar.

Knowing the Unknown

When you do a punch, it is only a punch from the core if it starts at the core. This is why in martial arts they say “Hit from the core”. This core is the abdomen or Hara Centre as it is known. “Ha” means Sun in Chinese. According to the Indian Sutras, “Ha” means the same thing too, and “Ra” refers to a radiant sun, the centre of the Universe. So together, “Ha-ra” can be taken to mean the earths centre, or the universal centre. It is from the centre that the rest of creation happens. You can only illuminate the vastness of the unknown from the high pressure centre which eventually creates light. In the Solar System, energy starts as non visible. This energy only becomes visible light after some time when it extends out from the Sun and certain particles react at a certain distance from the source as the pressure drops. This is the case with Martial Arts.

The Hara Centre, the physical centre of the body, is the only energy centre which can transmit itself anywhere in the body directly. It manifests differently depending on the action. In terms of technique, it can go to the arms, legs, or elsewhere physically. This is why it is universal in nature. In others words, it is not just located in the abdomen, the energy can be transported anywhere. The lower abdomen is the source. For example, if you drive a nail into a block of wood, you do so from the core, just as you do with say, a golf swing. This applies to everything. It starts one place and ends up somewhere else. All these things are driven from the core. It is impossible to start from the end, because this isn’t yet in your experience. This is why in the traditional arts they never rushed learning, nor were they given to over analysis.

It is just because you don’t know how to do a movement before you have learnt it that we say “drive from the core”. You cannot do a complex kick before you have learnt to do this. So you practice something you don’t know by doing something you do already know. This is why I always say “drive from the core” first. Personally I don’t bother with explaining all the details of a particular move because this becomes obvious over time with the right fundamental platform. This platform is a strong core. It is not necessarily an athletic strength, but the right energy and maneuverability.

So develop the Hara Centre first. It is only possible from there to know the unknown. It is only when this unknown comes into your direct experience that you learn the mysteries of martial arts. The core functions much better in children. this is why they learn everything naturally. The adult core usually becomes lazy from excessive sitting and poor lifestyle habits which we develop in society. The point is that we can switch on this source to learn anything like a child does, even as an adult. So this core is like the little white dot in the Dark space of the Yin Yang symbol. This is called mastering technique, so that it manifests properly.

Drugs and Chemicals

The expression Energy takes can vary dramatically depending on a number of factors. But when it originates in the Hara Centre and finds expressions elsewhere, then there is some discretion and volition as to where it ends up. Otherwise, if it starts elsewhere, it is often an unconscious act, or simply accidental. Conscious acts are always intentional and consciousness is always a choice. Let’s say that the energy is taken in from external sources, such as some sort of chemical supplement. Such chemicals tend to inebriate the system so that it acts purely from a chemicals basis, or dampens other energy sources in the body. This is the problem with drugs and chemical supplements1.

So chemical energy is itself a manifestation of pressure and heat. These are naturally occurring when things begin in the gut. For instance, many chemicals can be created internally which people are now ingesting more and more because their system has gone taken a kind of backwards step. This takes a bit more time and particularly a mediative digestion, so that the body can rest and regenerate properly2. But people are “Go, go, go” all the time. It is for this reason that Excessive physical training can happen at the surface level, because the chemicals are just being replaced by supplements. It is like with plants. The soil quality is going down, so fertiliser and chemical sprays are needed just to get some fruit and ward off disease. None of this is necessary until you exceed the natural capabilities of the earth. The Hara Centre is like the Earth.

So chemicals come in, then they will run their course over a certain period of time and then dissipate at some level. Often, these chemicals are being abused, so the natural production goes down and a kind of external dependance happens. Of course, the biggest intoxication from outside occurs when greed and corruption take over in the mind. It is for this reason that in the traditional arts, they urged against competition and prestige. Competition is fine once you have develop the necessary mental fortitude. In my experience, there are so many life lessons which I have absorbed that it almost derailed me completely. So if I didn’t have the necessary inner tools of development, I would have been broken by certain experiences. This is why I stress “Meditation, meditation, meditation”, or some kind of meditative dimension and development of this.

Overcoming Self Deception

The biggest deception if from the intoxication of conquest. The lust for conquest brings about the same disorders as actual chemical abuse in many cases. This is a false high. This is referred to as Maya in the Indian systems, or simply self deception. This is because when you overcome the need for these things, it is as if they never happened and the events become meaningless. This is not so with any reality which is learnt from the core of truth, which is the Hara Centre. There is nothing wrong with chemical supplements, they can be taken if needed. But the very same things can be created internally, setting in process and lasting mechanism. The results are often the same but more sustainable. But what a difference it makes if you can produce these things internally.

Inter Transformation

We have looked at how the Hara Centre can transmit itself anywhere in the body. With the other centres of the body, such as the chest or head, these act as relay points, so the energy takes a more roundabout route. There are exceptions to this, such as Martial Arts masters whose physical body’s have failed them but they have developed the proper energy channels. These are exceptions however. With the Hara Centre, it can reach anywhere. It is like how you can create a heater with the use of electricity, there are transformers involved in that kind of technical process to convert energy. If you want to create heat, movements is needed for example. Movements is a kind of transformer in the human body. There is all sorts of mind work that goes into it, such as knowledge and motivation to move. This is why in many ways, reality begins in the mind. Importantly, the mind is linked to the gut, not just the brain.

The earth itself transforms heat into water, and then water into steam. All of these processes are only possible because of the earths core dynamo, which is molten iron largely. This is like the Hara Centre. The earths atmosphere, which is electromagnetic, would not be possible without the earths core being the way it is. The Earths core is hot and high pressure, like our own physical centre. The surround electromagnetic atmosphere of the Earth can be likened to the nervous system. So the core directly affects the nervous system, and the nervous system is not possible without the core. So you can transform you energy and situation by working with this core in ways that are not possible otherwise.

Let’s look at technique. If the punch begins at the shoulder, then you are not punching from the core. You can still do it, but a lot of additional steps are taken, often unconsciously. So the idea behind “using the core” or the abdomen, comes from this idea that from this centre of mass everything spreads outwardly. There is an inner intelligence that grasps this intuitively. So if you get this, then you are 90% of the way there. Why 90%? because the microorganisms of the body account for 90% of the body’s make up. And these guys are largely in the core and work according to the gut primarily. From the core, the rest radiates outwardly. In terms of cognition and learning, if the brain and nervous system attempt to perform a particular movement without the cores involvement, the results are limited. This can produce many problems, such as over use injury and a whole host of physical ailments, particularly later on in life.

From Gross to subtle

If you point a finger, this can be performed from the core, or you can simply wave the arm out and point the finger. If the action is led from the core, then the finger pointing is just the final expression at the end of the movement. In other words, it is the end phase of a core movement. You might say, that everyone can point a finger, what’s so special about that? However, anyone who doesn’t pay attention and concern towards these things on the path of martial arts is setting themselves up for problems. This is why in the traditional systems, the master would look at how you conducted yourself in every aspect. So to take care of the large, you can pay attention to the small things, which is required if you wish to transform these initial steps into greater possibilities. The idea that you can do something carelessly but repeatedly and yield good results is completely wrong. You go from basic to complex, from gross to subtle expertise.

So one initial movement sets up the possibilities for the next. It is the same with a punch. You rotate the core into the punch and there is a lot more power and transmission of energy as a result. This is because it began from the centre of mass and transformed into a punch as part of a complex process. It’s not like you get each phase technically correct separately and then it works. No, instead you have to transform one phase into another. It is like the pressure of the earth gradually dissipates as you move away from the core. This creates the complex physical reality around us. Due to this pressure release, other forms of energy, such as gravitational energy and electromagnetic energy, gradually express themselves. These act upon the physical word we experience. This is a complex process, but it is an intuitive one. Gravity can then act upon larger masses, whereas it is weaker the closer you get to the centre. This is because other more powerful forces of Chi energy, or radiation in Scientific terms are happening closer to the centre. This is also known as dark matter1.

So in the human being, when you perform a punch, it is only possible because of a release of energy which gradually takes another form. This is how you create something from nothing. This nothing actually contains the whole possibility, it just that this has not been Brough to bare in your experience yet. But it will the more you work with it. This is why there are no set traditions other than oral transmission in most traditional systems. You have to work for it internally.

Self Creation

If you just swing the arm at the opponent, then there is an entirely different effect even if it looks the same as a punch from the core. This is why there is so much emphasis on breathing from the core, digesting properly from the core, and moving from there in the traditional systems of martial arts. The diamonds are produced there. In the Earths core, Molten Iron erupts out of the surface from the core. It is only when the atmosphere changes that we see the diamond formation of this same heat energy, which has now solidified. These diamond are what we create in martial arts, expressions of high pressure which have materialised. The Earth doesn’t think about it, it is an energy intelligence. These diamonds can absorb electromagnetic waves from the earths atmosphere. So the Earth itself generates an electromagnetic fields which sustains the outer surface. The same thing happens in us, and this is entirely intuitive when you develop the right perceptions through practice. When you rely too much on physical strength of the limbs, you can easily forget about using the core properly. This leads to various injuries, which although inevitable sometimes, become chronic and excessive. It is just like if you exploit the nutrients of the earth more quickly than they are created, you will likely have issues.

Let’s take the example of digestion. If you eat whole foods, or healthy foods generally, then these have to be digested in the stomach properly. The thing about sugar is that it goes straight out of the stomach and into the blood stream. It doesn’t go into deep nourishment, such as bone and deep tissue regeneration. This is why it is linked with so many internal problems, even if it gives you a sugar hit. Healthy whole food on the other hand, goes into reproducing the cells and creating an entire person. Over the course of around seven years, Science has show the the entire organisms cells are likely to be replaced. This isn’t so if degeneration is happening too much at the same time as replenishment. So when anything is done at the surface level, whether that is learning or nutrition, there is a certain level of nourishment which gets neglected and undermined..

When blood sugar builds up too much, you can get a range of health complications, such as nerve damage, and inability to produce enough insulin. We have also looked at how osteoporosis may happen too, because the bones need nourishment, not just the muscles and blood. So when a person exists at the surface level, what you end up with is an irritable or excitable mood with a kind of frantic and compulsive disposition. This undermines health obviously. This can in itself lead many of types of mental health conditions, as well as physical ailments. The variety of these are countless, and exploding across the world. From this, we can see that a physiological problem can become a psychological one quite easily, once certain patterns of behaviour become habitual. So certain patterns of behaviour are thought replenish or undermine ones pre birth energy, or chi.

The point is that what appears to be a mental health issue, often has its origins in the physiological or energy realm. So by taking care of the physiology, you end up taking care of the mental side. This is the same with martial arts. It is often the case that people train with all sorts of gels and sugary liquids, just to keep certain chemicals active in the blood stream. From a performance perspective this has some benefits, such as making one more aggressive and reactive. This comes at a heavy price, because it intoxicates your system just like a drug. Drug and chemicals are just a different part of the cycle. You take them in and perform some activity. It is possible to take in various supplements properly, but that is something else. It requires a level of self restraint and awareness to perform certain activities properly. From a health perspective, over supplementation is not only stupid but disastrous. So when the body eventually breaks down with age and wear and tear, the solution for many is to take a cocktail of supplements to keep the game going. But this only hastens decline or fails to get at the source of the problem to change things.

References

https://wordpress.com/post/intuitivemartialarts.com/2227 Conquest at all costs: Drugs in Martial Arts.
https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2024/02/02/how-to-use-stress-for-your-own-health-and-the-importance-of-the-hara-centre/ How to Use stress for your own Health, and the importance of the Hara Centre.

The Beginning

Posted on 14th October 2023 by joeharman8 | 13 min read | 88 views

This is the first of many stories about our protagonist, Rahul. Although he won many contests, Rahul often comes out the loser. But this is only part of the story. Todays world sees the story of a loser as a waste of time. Rahul sees wasting his time as a means to an end, a development of patience, and reaching that point where you realise that you will never fully get it anyway.

The essence of martial arts lies in dealing with adversity and overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. You have to be a loser to take on the impossible, if only to make that a possibility for you to eventually overcome the impossible. In doing so, you lose a sense of certainty within, or detach from it. These are the lessons which Rahul imparts to us. If he is to become a loser, then this is because he has chosen this form, either consciously or unconsciously. By losing a sense of certainty within, you become uncertain but prepared. Let us begin with the first time Rahul entered the temple with this sense of uncertainty…

Rahul approached the temple grounds, unsure of what he would find there. He had gone there out of curiosity. At once he was told by the Master there, “you must fight against my chosen opponent”. Who was this opponent, and why had Rahul been given such a challenge on his first day? He was not expecting this. So it would be a contest, but the rules weren’t made clear. In truth, he knew nothing about the culture of martial arts, only vague stories and fantasy. This would become a tremendous boon for him. The question is, can he retain the sense of childlike uncertainty as well as deal with the responsibility of knowing?

Rahul had heard of these martial contests, but could not understand the need to finalise a winner. For him, a winner is a loser because he has ended the journey. At the same time, a loser can excuse himself from responsibility and succumb to the self deceit of excuse making. So it was not about taking sides. So far he had partaken in physical sporting contests, and never found himself out of his depth there. At the same time, he had never found himself better than anyone else particularly. Some days he won, other days he chose the losing side to try and contribute to it and balance things out. It all depended on many factors what the outcome was. Rahul’s love of the game made him in such a way that the humanity in him would always give the opponent the advantage if that evened the odds. This was not due to some moral code, it just made the game more interesting and always fresh.

Rahul was a well rounded athlete, but not yet a fighter. He had pushed himself athletically, facing his fears an insecurities as a game rather than to vanquish them in a contest. H was about to come face to face with these fears, which would be brought out in the form of sparring partners, which he would face alone. Up until now, he saw such states of fear and apprehension as transient states. It never had occurred to him that there was anything at stake, or that victory was final. This was correct, but he had not yet come full circle. He had not yet logically assembled the foes within himself into formidable sparring partners to overcome. They just came and went without form. Never before had he entered into the world of martial arts, where the culture was that you directly fight in order to win. Or so he thought.

In martial arts, participants push themselves to the utmost. This often appears pointless. Rahul had heard that people often went mad with the desire to win, and in the process they became overpowered by fear and greed. These are the enemies within which were furled rather than minimised. Their desires become over nourished and morphed into various forms. He could not stand this on the playing field. He had seen that such vulgar displays undermined the integrity of the game. This way of thinking had not happened to him yet, but it was time to step into this world, of positive and negative polarities within himself, which was to be like managing a nuclear power centre.

Rahul would have to logically construct a certain form to pit himself against, whilst seeing that he himself was not that. This is the challenge each fighter must face, to keep the enemy at a physical, emotional, and logical distance, so that you don’t become what you are battling against. Like this you can classify the enemy without reducing the energy situation between you and them. This energy situation, between yourself and the enemy is the fight itself. When you don’t pick a side you become the fight.

Whether or not you win or lose, the experience is often the same. You can experience the downfall of pride, or the humility of innocence or defeat, whether you win or lose. More specifically, the experience is what you make of it, and you can evolve through it and be come more than a result. Fear, pain, misery, ecstasy, these feelings are common to all in martial arts circles, from champions to recreational fighters. But after some time, they fade into obscurity and you must renew all sense of self rather than relying on past glory. It is like the Water Lilly which rises out of the water. It is nourished by the sun and everything else rots away. When the sun goes down, obviously this is a problem, because the foundation crumbles. Like this the fighter must switch from roots to flowering when needed.

It is useless to hang on to that which is within the memory or imagination and not in direct present experience. So these psychological states are enemies, friends, and transient partners. A stimulus to beyond. Rahul did not understand all of this yet, and he was yet to become proud of anything he did, or saddened by any loss. He did not see these things as linear developments which remained for long. He was yet to classify into his logic that which remained in day to day experience.

The Master called Rahul to the pit, and said it was time to fight. Rahul did as he was asked, without hesitation and readied himself for battle, just as he did on the fields of play. Anxiety arose. Rahul was momentarily overcome by the very emotions he had created within himself as he perceived the gravity of the situation. So he quickly assumed a confident posture, and sunk deeply into it. So he transformed the anxiety into confidence to pursue his challenge. He then turned confidence into activity, which again changed his disposition, his very form. He did this automatically, it was natural to him. He went though the entire process in an instant, experiencing the entire contest before it begun. This again was natural to him. It never occurred to linger this process, or attribute aspects of it to an outcome of any kind. He needed no carrot.

He began warming up, preparing for the contest. He played it over in his mind. He was at first the loser, and then he become the winner. He experienced both possibilities even before anything had happened. This was a glimpse. Rahul learnt his first lesson, to transform the energy of a situation to his advantage, as needed. This was not something he learnt formally, it was knowledge transmitted to him as the first part of the nameless trial. This could only be experienced directly, not theoretically. In the same way the teacher teaches the fight show to punch. He does not teach how to experience all the possibility within it. The anticipation was the same as in his sporting contests, except this was more intense, there was something different about it. The difference was he was now a beginner, and took on the form of one just as anyone else would starting out. This is an essential first step. It creates the conditions for development and evolution. he took on the form of a nobody gladly.

That is what Rahul is like, he does everything without hesitation, absolutely uninterested in whether he can achieve victory or not. For him, there is no victory, because there is no sense of self worth or confidence. There are just ebbs and flows, it is not a linear path. This linear expectation only comes about when you identify with a particular side. “I won therefore I’m an eternal winner”. He had not yet learnt to take side. when you don’t take sides, it is impossible to conclude what will happen from any particular perspective. So right away he had to make a distinction. Was he going to win? Was he at a disadvantage? He quickly decided that he should become a winner. He didn’t really know how this would happen, so he drove this image from his mind which became blank. His approach was existential, rather than psychological. How can you experience that which you have not experienced? You become empty, devoid of anticipation or past knowledge.

At the beginning, Rahul became receptive to experience rather than what was going on in his mind. His mind had got him here, his emotion had been satisfied in staying for a while. The third step was beyond mind and emotion. It was into the unknown own he must step. He forgot to create an image of himself, to separate himself into a winner or a loser, for there was no need. He would later become both at various times, tearing himself apart in the process of heart wrenching training. But for now he was nothing, the possibilities endless.

When you are without self regard, without egotism, you see yourself as nothing but at the same time without limitation or boundary lines. The path to nowhere is an inward path, a path which starts where it ends. This makes no logical sense, but at the same time he has already left logic to one side. So Rahul is everything you would not want to be, there is no goal or timeframe. But at the same time he is a blank slate full of possibility.

The Master said to Rahul “You must fight against my chosen disciple, and whether or not you are declared winner or loser, this is just a metaphor.” This was the first hint of the masters wisdom. Rahul was intrigued. The fight is unitary, and which side you are on depends on many things. Above all, you can decide the perspective, not the situation deciding for you. So it is better to lose if that is the biggest contribution to the overall experience, the dance of duality. The aim is to destroy the limited vision of the intellectual mind, which always divides, and enter into no-mind, which always unifies. This had been Rahul’s experience thus far, he had always enjoyed the process in the many sport games he had lost himself in. Now however, he was overcome by a restlessness, a certain agitation. This was his first opponent, over which he would seek to gain victory. He did not know why this was happening. The Master said “I can see you are hungry, and to fuel the fire you must test yourself in combat”.

The Masters disciple was called Gakeet. Gakeet was a seasoned fighter. He did not play games or enjoy them. He wanted only victory. He did not yet possess the wisdom to know anything other than all out aggression. He did everything on a whim, so the master paired him up with Rahul, who was not in such a hurry to dominate. The Master always had trouble directing Gakeet, who was unstable yet powerful. Gakeet simply let the emotions of the situation charge him up. When he went about his furious ways, others regions within himself would wither away or cease to develop. He didn’t care about any of that so long as he won the fight.

To stabilise Gakeets efforts, Rahul was summoned to become the foundation of the Masters new form, which the two of them would create and perpetuate. One would balance out the other. For Rahul, there was no reason to fight, so Gakeet would rile him up to create some kind of big bang within him. Rahul would be an example for Gakeet of the other dimensions within, which one day he would need to develop. This was the real challenge, the outcome of the fight was meaningless really. T This whole process would require both to take on a role. The two of them would befit from the arrangement, and thus the rivalry began. Because Rahul formed no conclusions he always had time to spare. For Gakeet he was in a hurry to finish everything.

Gakeet took on the boxing stance, his fists held high. Rahul did the same, as this is what he had seen in all the classical forms. Gakeet was much bigger than Rahul, so naturally he was the aggressor. The master said “no headshots”. Knowing this Gakeet rushed in and started pummelling Rahul using his natural strength to his advantage. Rahul thought, “I could attack his head an any opportunity, why is this Gakeet leaving his head open to attack?” Obviously Gakeet was exploiting the rules to win, there was no other concern. Rahul received several body shots, which although powerful did not subdue him. After 2 minutes the master called an end to the contest.

Gakeet had outpointed Rahul, and at once declared himself the winner. Rahul did not feel any real contest had taken place, but it was clear he had been made an example out of. As proof of his victory, Gakeet explained how many points he had scored in the exchange. Gakeet walked away happy.

The Master turned to Rahul and said “To claim victory in an unending process, to win within rules where none exist except for technical analysis, this is the beginning of certainty. In a process where there is never any certainty, this is self deception.” He went on to say “When you become full of what you have done, then you deprive yourself of the privilege of not knowing. To awaken from ignorance to the no mind state is to enter the borderless infinite. We want this for Gakeet, and his path is different from yours. Rahul listened on.

The Master said of Gakeet, “He must must win many pointless contest to see this, and you must waste your time with him to rid yourself of any nonsense you have accumulated to exhaust your body and mind.” Rahul thought about these words. He decided that he was no better off than before, which means he is still seeking the truth. At least he had not found ignorance or untruth. He decided to agree and become the masters servant and accomplice. His job would be to continually rid himself of any accumulated matter which might build up. Gakeet on the other hand would be taught these truths by winning contests. He would have to win thousands of more times in order to leave behind this limited state of experience and move beyond it. Gakeet was told by the master that he too was chosen to teach Rahul how to become a champion like him. This is the strategy the master used, to impart the teaching in such a way that it seems like an abuse or a lie to anyone who is unwilling.

What is Real Martial Arts?

Posted on 3rd September 2023 by joeharman8 | 14 min read | 98 views

The purpose of traditional forms was not to practice them as though you were fighting. Obviously, fighting proficiency is best achieved by actual combat practice, otherwise it’s predominantly in the imagination. This largely took place experientially rather than in theory. There was no shortage of the threat of combat in the past, as it was all over the place, so it was a constant pre occupation. When something is constantly around you, it is natural to want to move beyond it. This is the case with war. It was not by avoiding it that we become more civilised, it was because we knew the serious consequences if severe efforts were not made to avoid it. This is how the world moved on from World War Two.

The question is, did the fighters of the past believe that by practicing a martial arts form without an opponent, that this was the way to learn how to fight? No, because they already knew how to fight, just as the people involved in World Wars one and two did. They could not have just picked it up before hand, because a lot of them were Youths. So it was not through training, which was very rudimentary, but through an awareness that it was needed. When people put their very lives into something, then there is no question of holding back or being unsure. You simply jump into it without thinking much, overriding the cognitive process altogether.

Today, the cognitive process is often what people validate everything with. So today, like never before, people are thinking about everything and overthinking things. this can be good or bad, however it makes everything much more complicated in many ways. However, It is this awareness of what is needed, rather than theoretical knowledge, that makes apparently difficult concepts obvious, such as what works and what doesn’t in so called real martial arts. so condition can point you in this direction, or make you avoid it altogether.

If you have got to a certain stage of development that requires survival skills, then there is no question that you will fight. You may also choose to rune away, but the important point is that you are shown through experience what needs to happen for you fighting capabilities to work in some way. This isn’t so much a training principle, but of an awareness and perception of certain realities in life. Today, we are shown different realities predominantly, for example that it is important to win a contest rather than to simply get through it irrespective of the result. However, the reality is that for many who won a fight or war, would anyway be dead slightly later, because they would be infected with something and there was no medicine, or even clean water. This is why, certain codes or conduct and moral teachings prevailed over brute force in societies. However, there is no need for this and more than there is for ongoing organised training, if you become profoundly aware of the consequences of your own actions.

Training makes the learning process a habitual one rather than simply one of life and death. This can be good or bad. Say you know how to fight, but you want to train for a particular style of competition. A certain habitual practice is engaged with to channel your activity towards a certain goal. This can be beneficial or not depending on what your circumstances and goals are. If for example, you learn to grapple properly in a match, you may be taught to avoid punching and kicking. This is wrestling. However, in a no rules setting, this attitude may make you miss what is obvious to an untrained fighter, who may even be a savage. So for most people, the middle way is best, to channel the innate aggressive tendencies into some for of productive exercise or skill set.

In the past, survival and enemies at the gates were just part of everyday life for many people. It is commonly believed that Buddhist Monks or whoever else, practiced the so called traditional arts as if they lived in total ignorance of what worked in fighting. In fact, they had usually chosen to renounce certain survival based ways of life, in order to live the temple way of life. There were many who did so out of fear or societal pressures, but there are those who did so for reasons of self evolution. This in no way presupposes that they avoided violence altogether or had no experience in it.

Say, for example, that you had numerous fights in your life and were sent to prison. You then get out, and feeling the same pattern of dishing out street justice to anyone who you think deserves it, you decide to break the cycle altogether. You can sit around in sorrow for all the bad you have done, or you can skip this step as well and go straight into action for your own development, regardless of your past. This is to become free from the cycle of karma, by taking on a new body. This is not a new physical body, but is the energy body, through which you alter the physical and mental bodies. This is the reason for imitating Buddha.

New brain patterns, habits and cellular growth can occur in the right internal environment, and it is as if the physical body becomes invigorated by the new energy systems you are working with. This is why the internal systems work from within, you can begin this process of identification before results start to show outwardly. This can be done with behaviour too, however, this is more easily achieved with the youth who naturally want to copy a role model. Another way is that it all starts with the mind, which is actually related to the body anyway through the neural pathways and other systems. This is the meaning behind the internal arts, it wasn’t to satisfy the needs of the existing nature, but to create an entirely new energy nature and form, which altered the physical in many ways. There were many ways of doing this, but essentially cells come and go, being replaced every few years, so it is important to establish new patterns of growth too over time. This is different from just copying a system of martial arts superficially and expecting such impressions to make a profound inner change.

So breaking the cycle of the past is known as breaking the karmic bond, which means through your actions you overcome your limitations. This is obviously difficult, because others around you may assume you’re getting soft or not understand. However, the reality for many fighters is that they feel the need to break free from certain societal pressures which they react to with violence, but they don’t have the tools. Otherwise the fear ending up in prison and wasting their lives. It is obvious to them because it is something strain g at them constantly. It may be realised intellectually too. The point is, that when you are familiar with something intimately, you naturally want to see what’s beyond it rather than just stay there. If something is fleeting anyway, then you just want to hold one to it in many cases.

For the people of the past, it cannot be the case that they were somehow ignorant of stress and violence. In those days society would have been steeped in war and threat for ones survival, if not from an invader then from the natural conditions of the environment. Growing up in such circumstances, it wasn’t that you could just chose to take part of not. The situation melded you. These threats included simply getting infected by a blade someone might be carrying, or poisoned by an animal for instance. This means you can’t hunt for food and you can’t feed your family. You had to be clever. Then, there is no question of honour and victory because the basic conditions for survival have not been maintained if you slip up.

So for one who is constantly engaged in holding onto survival, there is no spare resources for much else. at the same time there is a driving force to move beyond it. So this is the Yin and Yang, the push and pull, which are very much connected. At the same time, if your whole life becomes martial arts, then you do not need to rely on theories and styles. This does not mean that you training repeatedly, only that you whole being becomes martial arts, which simply means turning warfare into an art. Art is war, and war is art. This can be the inner or outer form of warfare, depending on the individual and context.

So due to the fact that an opponents blade could infect you and you would lose an arm, it was not considered particularly good to go out and look for a fight. It was not considered glorious as it might be today. There were no such pretentiousness. There was an inner sense of who could pose a threat and who couldn’t, which is still true today. When you know the consequences, no one can tell you “If you do this technique, you will be safe”. The stakes are too high and you know better through your experience and life knowledge. In society nowadays there are still such dangers, but these are in the back of peoples minds. This is particularly the case when people try to learn martial arts. For example, you might try a techniques on someone without the awareness that at any time, there could be an opponents friends ambushing you at any moment. The attention gets fixated on a techniques rather than the environment. This is good practice but a bad habit to get into in the wider environment.

So when there are so many considerations, multiple opponents, dangers of minor injuries having fatal consequences, it is not so simple as dedicating your time to practicing a particular style. You cannot formalise something into a system in that sense. You have to bet your life on it, otherwise it’s not worth it. You also had no theory about what worked, because necessity is the mother of invention, which means if it didn’t work you were dead. This sense of urgency brings out a whole new level of attention to detail and awareness, which is rare today. Therefore, to make up some theoretical system of self defence against an opponent was not a luxury that could be afforded to most people at many points in human history.

Once violence and day to day strife is assumed to be a given, you no longer need to condition yourself to some kind of fighting system, because war is an everyday reality. Even if it doesn’t happen to you, you may still sense a deep feeling of loss or victory, depending on the situation. For example, because communities were much tighter in the past, what happened to you happened to everyone nearby. On the individual level, when you develop a certain inutuitve sense of empathy, it is possible to feel the loss of you opponent as if it were you. This has always been my experience, that I often can’t tell what is my victory or my loss. On the other hand, you can also feel victory yourself without any need for a particular result1. It is not that it needs to affect you directly, but you feel it like you might watching the emotional ups and downs of a reality TV show which you experience through others and yourself.

If you go out looking for a fight, it means your family won’t be fed if you end up in bed for a few days recovering. This was the reality for most of human history. If you get through a fight and injure ankle for instance, then your ability to work the land all day is impaired greatly. You’re as good as dead. Emotionally speaking, engaging in fighting is a costly endeavour, so bringing up the family whilst being a fighter and waking up emotionally drained from a contest has to be factored in. Contests of high intensity are costly in terms of energy, which is a pre requisite for serious spiritual training. By spiritual I mean inner martial arts. So serious competition and violence costs a lot. This is even the case today with modern comforts and systems of recovery and medical care, and many athletes put life on hold until they retire. So it is not difficult to imagine what it would have been like to become a fighter as well as raise a family, have limited life expectancy, and no medical care in the not so distant past. The life expectancy up until relatively recently may have been around 30 years old, so to get everything in order before then would not be possible if you were constantly battling the people unnecessarily.

It is only in modern times, where we are fortunate enough to live in relative ease and comfort, that we have the choice whether or not to engage in some sort of martial arts fighting system. Before, you’d better be ready to fight at any time, and more importantly you’d better be aware of how to strategically avoid fighting most of the time. It is possible even today to obtain this level of awareness but it is increasingly rare. The systems of martial arts were set up to fulfil certain social obligations to society, much like the systems of sport are today. There are other ways of going about it, and other things that can be done, but for the most part people equate an organised system with the practice itself. This is a goos starting point and it is not necessary that everyone achieved the same mastery, but it gives everyone the opportunity to become aware of certain possibilities. So today, this is the role of martial arts, to demonstrate how to improve and progress, which is up to the individual to decide for themselves.

When I look at the forms of Tai Chi for instance, it is obvious to me that these things were performed as an internal medicine because that was what was missing then, not the ability to fight. Now that health is taken for granted through medicine, it is equally obvious that there is a need to remind people of their roots by engaging in martial arts. If this is obvious to you, then there is no need for such organised practice, except for such things as competition and social recognition. Anyone who has practiced these for a number of years and looks at themselves will see the possibilities contained within some of the most simple exercises.

Avoidance is not necessarily through incapability but through necessity. Anyway, anybody when they are under constant pressure all the time is vulnerable to collapse. we are beginning to see this more and more, as for various reasons stress is happening more widely even with increased comfort and ease. The societies of the past obviously knew how to survive, probably better than now, and their well being was completely related to competence and survival. So to combat the modern problems, I think it is essential to become aware of the same level of urgency towards health and well being that was the case for our ancestors regarding survival. Because really there is not much difference whether you are lieing in bed due to injury or due to certain states of depression. Both are dangerous to ones physical and mental health in different ways, and certainly your energy for supporting life. This is the value of the inner practices, such as breathing and traditional forms.

References

1 How to experience Victory all the time http://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/08/23/how-to-experience-victory-all-the-time/

Uniformity or Organised Chaos? [Part 2]

Posted on 18th August 2023 by joeharman8 | 14 min read | 81 views

If you are hungry, you seek. If you are satisfied, you no longer seek. So remaining hungry is not in terms of winning a match here and there, or some other magnified glory which mimics day to day ordinary experience. It is to do with staying hungry for self expansion, which is the real urge. This can never be satisfied, it is just a question of ever expanding horizons. This is known as innovation, which can’t happen unless there is openness and space to become active.

Maintaining this awareness, there there is never an end point, is a tool in the arsenal of the fighter. Planned outcomes are limited. There is nothing wrong with pre planned strategies, it’s just they aren’t for everyone, but they are prescribed to all increasingly. They are important for professional contests which have to have a certain feel to them. It is entertainment and business. The crowd expects to see it play out in a certain way. There are institutional requirements. You’re paid to win in a specific organised way.

You can’t be crammed with conclusions and still remain open. So for the competitive athletes, there are certain conclusions to be drawn in advance about what to do rather than spontaneously deciding. At the same time, there are methods that top level athletes use to maintain a constant state of awareness as to what they need to do. When you pay attention to the organised chaos around you, which is the nature of the universe, you will not lose focus. In any event, what you are focusing on in terms of technical training is a reflection of the inner experience. The boundary line is so thin, but definite. Say for example you are in a martial arts match. The experience going on between you is very similar, it’s just that there is an outside experience and an inside contained experience. The key is to learn how to define the experience is terms of the whole thing, rather than just what you have accumulated in terms of impressions and technical expertise. This is known as letting go of assumptions. You don’t need to worry about forgetting, just pay absolute attention, the organism knows what to do.

How can you think more holistically, rather than just on technical details? There are some simple methods. In martial arts, if you train moving backwards rather than forwards, you are able to spontaneously know what to do because you maintain a space and awareness, including what your opponent is doing as they come forwards. This means you are adjusting all the time, rather than just because you want to or not. This may be confusing at first, because it is a new way of doing things. It’s not to be confused with evasion and escaping the contest. This is a positive strategy to maintain your awareness on you forward momentum whilst at the same time pulling back so they you keep that equal and opposite force to maintain equilibrium. This will bring inner balance.

In Muay Thai your strategy is to break down the opponent over several rounds, not avoid such a contest. So here, in Muay Thai, they are known to be able to fight moving backwards as well as forwards. This does not mean they are evasive, it simply means that they are active if the opponent rushes them, or they maintain their balance even if they miss the opponent whilst swinging at them.

The Creative Process

In modern martial arts training these days, it is more and more about practicing what you are going to do before hand, rather than remaining creative and spontaneous. This is a negative strategy which does not empower the fighter to systematically break down the opponent. If they thought only about doing this as a process, moving around in such a way as to remain constantly aware of their mission, this would empower them greatly. This takes time, and this is also what can’t be coached. However, it can be imbibed and transmitted through the right atmosphere quite easily over time.

Having an excess of rules and regulations simply makes it hard to understand what one is actually doing. when a culture has no room for diversity of individual flair, where no one has their own rhythms, then what you are left with is uniformity and stagnation. So the rules make it difficult to become creative, even if that creatively is supposed to be the goal. For example, as a fighter are you there to push yourself, or maintain a steady result? Many people want the experience of martial arts, not the so called results of winning a contest. Martial arts is what you can do, or it is what you can become. These are questions to ask sincerely. This is not at all clear in peoples minds, so what you often get a situation where you have people become disillusioned or get crushed by pressures they did not consider.

So the reason for centralised or regulated sport is not to control people or simply to use them as a commodity for the industry. This only leads to limited aspiration. Centralised control originally meant not for profit, either for glory or for funding. Martial arts has always been about aspiring for more than just fulfilling institutional requirements. The institution should provide some simple structure and organisation.

In the past, the knowledge was kept separate across the land or according to different disciplines, even within the same population. It was necessary to develop new ways of doing things by travelling from temple to temple, and from discipline for discipline. This was not centralised but there were people who could direct you. This was when there was a culture of seeking, rather than having everything under one roof. At the same time this united people across the land, because you had the opportunity to perform a different discipline which required a commitment and travel to that particular culture within a culture. For example, even in the West, American wrestling requires you to commit to that discipline, which later gave many mixed martial arts fighters an unbeatable foundation. It is then a case of add bits on to the foundation, rather than having a foundation that changes according to the latest popular trends. There are many kinds of Chinese martial arts across China, each insisting on similar commitments in their own ways. this is not really to suppress the martial artists, but simply because most people won’t make it by chopping and changing disciplines constantly.

Minimising Loopholes

In Mixed martial arts (MMA) which is one of the more realistic style of martial arts in many ways, you can avoid the fight by exploiting the rules in some way. There are all sorts of loopholes. This has mainly come about because people no longer see why they are keeping for any meaning other than winning. For example, you can avoid a contest by simply appearing active without doing as much as somebody else. Nobody would do this is the spirit of martial arts and the competence levels were fully on. Entire strategies have developed in terms of looking active to get points, but not doing much in terms of real activity. In an atmosphere of open honesty, if you were to ask people about this who are involved in martial arts, I would say that ninety percent of them would say that this is normal and they would also consider do this. There’s nothing wrong with any of this really, but let’s not dress it up as something it isn’t. In my opinion, to allow people to flourish in competition, what we need are simple rules and minimum loopholes, so that what has been practiced can be transmitted to the arena itself, rather than someones individual expectations.

What are these loopholes? In MMA they are not allowed to hit each other in the back of the head, so all you do is present the back of your head as a target to the opponent to shield your own face, which they would otherwise hit. This strategy has given many athletes the edge in key situations. Because you turn the head away from them in certain situations, they are forced to attack only that. Now if they hit you, they get penalised, not you. If you do this in a fight, you’re dead meat.

In Taekwondo, a style which I used to practice originally, it pays off in terms of points to fall down after kicking, pretending that you slipped so the opponent can’t get you back with a counter strike. This would not happen if your strategy was to break down the opponent and win by superior strategy. For example, if your attack was aimed at kicking the opponent and then landing in such a position that you were strong, there would be no need to fall down because you would exploit your own strength and superior positioning. This is why the greatest fighters have often been those who can fight moving backwards rather than stalling. Fighting is about superior will, and when the opponents will is lost, only then can it be called a true victory. This may sound brutal, but this is the reason for the harsh training conditions of the past, so that even if you failed, you failed spectacularly and won at life. If there is anything left, then the only way you can be defeated is if you give up. If none of this happens then you haven’t lost anything, just a petty scoreboard result at most. This is the law of the jungle, if you know how to live you will find a way, even if you are beaten down.

Winning the Match, Not the Result

The original aim of MMA in the West was to see which style was the best and most effective. This is what Art Davey, the original Founder of the UFC said in his book. Obviously MMA existed elsewhere, such as Vale Tudor competitions in Brazil. Some of these early matches, which can easily be found on Youtube, involved the competitors fighting in a mixed style and then backing off to give each other a break if for some reason the opponent got a cut or something. The fight would then continue promptly. They didn’t do this very often but it happened. I’m only mentioning this because these examples show how the culture has changed from upholding the contest to winning it for yourself. Letting the opponent back up may be seen as an act of weakness to finish the fight by many, however, these were the best competitors around at the time. And if an opponent is broken down, it doesn’t matter much if you allow them the courtesy of checking with a doctor if they can continue.

When you consider that the goal was not just to win but to win properly in a fair match, it immediately becomes obvious that although there were no rules as such there was an agreement of practice that the contest must be allowed to be true.

In previous generations of mixed fighting, there were no rules as such but there were points to follow, such as a fighters code. This may seem like a worthless agreement, but when there are no rules, trained referees, vast sums of money, or security, then the procedural knowledge of conduct is paramount. Otherwise you have a war on your hands when the different teams of trained martial artists feel cheated. There is simply no standing in such a community if you are seen as a cheat. When I say community, I don’t mean an organised governing body or anything like that. That is a governed community, not an organised chaos. What I’m talking about is an organised chaos between rivalled groups, which understood the dynamics were such that you couldn’t go round asserting yourself without paying certain consequences. This is life, which can lead to unecessary war if you’re careless about such matters.

Mixed Approaches to Martial Arts

There are various rules sets all with their own backgrounds and cultures within them. For example, in and around China, there are hundreds of styles of martial arts. It’s not like there is one system which created all the others. Each of them believe themselves to be authentic. When you consider that each group is free to develop themselves uniquely, this becomes a real possibility for all. I used to travel to Taiwan from time to time and I discovered that they had a self defence system which involved joint locks and other self defence practices. This did not look like a Chinese system as we are familiar with. Lots of people suppose all they re doing in Kung Fu or Tai Chi out in the far East. However, what I also found out was that the systems of self defence had evolved in the context of police training, rather than mixed martial arts competition. So these weren’t taught to everyone. Everyone needs a different approach. This makes sense when you thing of whether things are relevant or not to certain people, rather than getting the same system out to everybody.

Mixed Martial Arts is nothing new, the idea that it is prescribed as a sport or to everybody in a systematic way is the new idea. Not every has the capacity or cultural set up to endure such emphasis on brutality. This is why many of the MMA fighters who have retired have taken to violence or drugs outside of their careers. If you engage in violence without the right social structure, then it is very possible that the intensity of the situation will destroy you. I’ve seen this myself many times. So it is not because of the lack of knowledge that these things were reserved for only certain segments of society in the past, but because they didn’t want a culture of barbarians. In my experience, martial arts is such a powerful tool for transformation, and as such you can easily open yourself up to severely negative experiences if you don’t take precautions. This must have been why it was banned in many Countries following certain wars.

A very widely skilled martial artist will have to break hundreds of rules to reach the potential in what they are doing. That is if they confine themselves. However, just because you might be practicing Taekwondo, Shaolin styles, or any other type of martial art, does not mean you are confined to them. So what needs to be understood is that very specific practices, such as sports practices, aren’t the answer for everything. For instance, in Taiwan they were practicing Taekwondo and Tai Chi in various forms. That was for competition, and for health. As I was saying, the practical stuff was mainly taught to the police and authorities. So it’s not that they were unfamiliar with anything to do with what people call mixed martial arts, it’s just they that didn’t use it for competition so widely. Since nobody is attacking each other much out there, there seems to be no point investing so much into it when economic growth requires much more attention than survival necessities.

Say for example you are defending the border of your country. You won’t actually fight that often unless it’s an emergency because you have to be diplomatic, find ways around conflict, and plan in advance how to do all this. It is the same in martial arts. In a Country like Taiwan, there is virtually no crime. At the same time, there is a constant looming threat of potential invasion one from neighbouring Countries. Nobody attacks each other in the street, however the authorities themselves must be highly trained and have a certain martial attitude with practical value. So the only difference is that their practical styles of martial arts are mainly taught to the police and similar authorities, rather than the man on the street.

Feminine Energy and Intuition [Part 2]

Posted on 12th August 2023 by joeharman8 | 16 min read | 91 views

When it comes to training, the level of structured organisation often means that the athlete has to experience the fight largely in terms of imagining the outcome in advance. For example, they train various scenarios, and then think back to what they did in the past rather than responding in the moment spontaneously with something new. So they are in the moment, responding to the past. This can be disastrous for the creative energy of an individual, even if it yields short term results. It is as if you are looking at the truth of something evolving and you are trying to make sense of it by historical facts only. Obviously this is not enough.

So, often, when when martial artists are in the ring itself they have to experience the contest through memory of what they planned to do rather than what actually needs doing. This is ok as a support system, but not as a long term solution for growth. The common argument here is that it’s supposedly too difficult for intuition to govern response. If this is the case, it just means you aren’t good enough to use intuition effectively as a faculty, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong in that, it can be great to develop the more masculine side of doing things, although it is still possible to express intuitive action even under rigid social structures.

Actually, it isn’t necessary to burden yourself with knowledge, carrying it around like a collection you’ve gathered. When the integrity of your physical structure is bent and stretched through training, you might think that the body then resets to a state that it was in before. No, in fact it the body is warped by gravity and the space you create. So you take on a new composition. There are several ways of looking at this. In terms of the Karma you carry, whatever you do creates new possibilities. It is not a case of repeating the same karma, although that is a choice. It’s not like you are doomed to repeat things over and over. It is like how sometimes people are defined by genetics. This is the more modern way of enslaving people to certain societal notions which have no existential basis. This only becomes reality in your experience if you continually make the choice, consciously or unconsciously, to remain in a fixed state. So in a way, rigid training which does not evolve keeps one in a state of sameness. This is good until you have worked out your karma, or what is known as pre birth Chi in Chinese systems, into a greater possibility.

Stretching the Gravitational Pull

When you act according to the body’s intuitive need to expand and work with gravity, for example when you stretch a punch out, sinking down into your centre at the same time, you are stretched one way, and pulled in another. You take what you are and expand it. This can be done in a seconds, for a minute, or for year. There are different ways of going about it. The idea is that you transform you capabilities and potential through training, rather than just refine the existing capabilities. This is a subtle yet powerful way of transforming yourself over time. Because your composition is always changing, your potential is also changing. That is why genetically it is possible to overcome hereditary dispositions, just as it is possible to develop the same dispositions later even if there is no genetic basis. For example, say you inherit a bad heart. It is just as easy to develop this later through various lifestyle choices, and there are many examples of people overcoming such conditions through life. This is done in various ways by stretching out what was weighing them down.

The direction of your movements in space as well as the waves of energy you send through the body create what scientists call “Gravitational memory”. This has a universal as well as individual basis to it. This gravitational memory leaves a lasting impression on the body’s centre of gravity, the Hara Centre or abdominal area. This is stretched continuously as a child, when you run around endlessly. This is actually the body’s maintenance and growth centre, which means you experience yourself from here in many ways as well as the possibilities presented to you. So this growth happens unconsciously in children, but it must be done consciously in adults.

Just as gravitational memory happens in the universe as it interacts with energy, this is what happens in your own centre of gravity when you take action. Your own centre mixes with that of the wider environment, just as your own inhalation takes from plants and gives back to them. So half of you is actually outside, and the other half is inside. So as one gets older, they tend to move towards stretching themselves, either as part of a family or into wider society for example. This can be done on the individual level by bringing a more meditative dimension to your practice.

Changing Your own Memories

The body remembers just like gravitational pull within an object remembers. Memory is not just remembering in the brain, it happens outside too. For example, the brain and gut interacts to produce various hormones and states within the system itself, which we call experience and we remember this. This is because the memory is contained between two objects, the body and brain, it’s not an isolated system. So the more activity you perform, the more this impacts the memory. This memory builds up in terms of substantial potential energy over time within the human system, much like the karma you accumulate through action. For example, say you do a good deed, immediately you might not see the benefit. But the congruence and harmony you create in yourself and others around you allows energy to function within you more smoothly. So the wider environment impacts you, and you impact it. Your experience is to do with both. It is not a case of doing a good deed to be congratulated, I’m just talking in terms of causing less friction within yourself and therefore others. It’s then a matter of time before the structure begins to experience visible change, but it’s a process going on all the time. It’s the same with martial arts movements.

When you follow the line of least resistance physically, you are actually lightening the load of karma and becoming more receptive. This changes the foundation of your memory. It is even possible to experience many different lives in this one. This means in many ways you are becoming more feminine, as if you were creating a new child and experiencing its needs and life energies. Instead, you are becoming life’s creation rather than forming a new separate body. This is the meaning behind reincarnation, which is not separate from this life. You are part of the cycle itself. It is possible to become a process rather than an outcome. It is not necessary to die to be born anew, but death happens anyway. So this self transformation creates new memories or interprets the impressions you have received up until now in a new way, transforming your experience right now rather than the next time round. Otherwise there is no point in striving for much more than your allotted karma or pre birth Chi energy.

From Feminine to Masculine

Obviously, you need to work out the masculine side of your energy first, which is what the forms are all about in martial arts. So at first you are just working your way through the inherited karma, or what the Chinese systems refer to as pre birth Chi. This is used to create a platform rather than establish anything. This is known as the fire element, which requires activity and is the masculine in action. After a while of doing this, say ten or twenty years, you end up providing yourself with immense potential energy for conscious activity. Then if you chose to continue the same training, it becomes conscious rather than routine and becomes more to do with the water element, which is to say the feminine. So whether you are a man or woman, you move towards the feminine in the same way. You include both of course, its not an either or thing. The post birth Chi in Chinese systems in known as the Water Chi, which is to say what you acquire after birth. In other words, you move from masculine to feminine.

By making your actions conscious, as in becoming aware, you more wisely utilise energy which would otherwise dissipate at a more initial level during compulsive unconscious acts. This is what martial arts competitions were historically about, working out the fire element within the fighter. It was not about winning but transformation. It is only in recent years that the notions has come about that this could become a commodity or system to be sold as a solution. But if you get rid of the karma only to create more of the same then this is known as getting caught in a cycle. It is believed in Tibetan Schools of buddhism that the path to enlightenment involves escaping this cycle. So accordingly, once you evolve and transform yourself , you have done just that and you have become a life process rather than a repitition of the past. This can happen only by embracing the feminine, because the feminine does not know organised repetition.

Organised Repetition

Obviously it is is normal to act according to institutional demands in sports situations, where the athlete is paid to win. Here, in martial arts research on the opponent is done in advance, as well as the setting and other details such as time and place. However, when the outcome cannot be known in advance, nor the weight of the opponent or their character, this approach hinders direct perception of the unfolding reality in front of you, as in the self defence situation of life or death. Acceptance of death was always talked about more traditionally, but today this is seen less and less. This is like avoiding the elephant in the room, it just becomes more and more obvious. Because martial arts has largely moved away from matters of life and death, there has been an increased movement towards the theoretical rather than the experiential learning. All of these things were normal in the past, there were no weight categories or advanced preparations, time constraints, etc., so there were different ways of preparing. You needed an attitude of fearlessness, which is what black belt means.

This attitude of plunging into the unknown can be seen in mixed martial arts as early as 30 years ago, where there were no rules. You needed to be more spontaneous and exuberant in the moment, which is what the feminine energy is all about. Too much organisation simply dampens such faculties. When spontaneity and aggressive energy mix together, you can create an entirely new energy, which is at once intelligent as well as reckless. This cannot be understood theoretically, but experientially. So there is a need for the feminine, unbridled striving, fuelled the masculine, which is is raw externalised energy. If raw energy has nothing to aim at, then it just ends up blowing up. If the famine is not brought in then it just remains outside your experience, even though it is there.

Becoming Receptive to Transformation

The dimension of thought which is to do with acting in the real world, in the present moment, was in the past kept clear rather than stuffed with ideas. You cannot ascribe meaning to the process of martial arts, because martial arts is what is. Traditionally, conclusions were not formed in advance, but rather during the unfolding situation according to time and place. This was to develop and cultivate the feminine aspect of intuitive knowing. Any number of temples were consecrated so that this space could be supported in society. In terms of martial arts forms, any exercises were based around performing them until the raw energies of youth were worked out. Afterwards, it becomes choice.

So the true disciple in a way was willing to waste their time repeating the same things over and over again. It was only after some time that the value of this was perceived rather than known in advance. The platform for the development of the feminine is the masculine energy, which has to do with fire or heat. The heat needs something cool to temper it and channel it into something more than it is. At the same time, the feminine needs some energy to express itself. The fire is used up in this exchange to create an entirely new expression of energy. This is the meaning behind the burning of devotion, or the fire of belief. These were just things to get you to act, rather than conclusions to understand in advance. Whether this is religious fervour, or martial training, these thing shave been used to make the recipient more receptive to transformation by channeling the energies. Of course there is potential for misuses, but that’s true of anything.

According to modern notions, it seems as if little is being taught in terms of practical value if people are given space to transform themselves from within. For example, in traditional martial arts they told you how to do the move exactly, but never how to apply it in every situation. You were to go away and ponder rid. When you look at the temples of the past, they were wide open spaces, which would seem boring by todays standards, which are characterised by busy and colourful gyms. In addition, people are often sold conclusions rather than ways of seeking. If you have been sold a conclusion, it looks as if someone who is seeking is simply clueless. However if you make a conclusion, that’s the end of seeking. So to question and to believe at the same time, this was the way the masters encouraged seeking as well as activity. This ensured progress and transformation, if the disciple became receptive enough to the process.

Evolution cannot be known in advance, even if there are various possibilities which can be practiced in advance to reach some kind of end point. So these conclusions we make are just tools rather than outcomes to prove or disprove. These scenarios were seen as a support system rather than as a reality to aim at. However, those who practice martial arts with a spiritual side to them, are considered frauds in many circles. This is because their styles have been proven wrong in various scenarios. Anything which is not practical is often considered totally wrong, and especially if you have a master to guide you in this. such masters are considered total idiots by pragmatists. There are many instances of how people go and challenge martial artists from schools which are considered impractical, and the first thing they do is beat them up. However, some of them are able to fight back well, and the others are quite capable of socially handling confrontations without getting physically embroiled.

The need for planning everything derives from fear of the unknown. This modern variety of the fear of the unknown is largely a western phenomenon, which probably started after the Second World War due to the massive wars that went on previous to that. Following the Second World War, there was a move towards planning in terms of industry, education, and peace, which had been existentially threatened severely. In martial arts, this meant that the largely traditional arts were converted into exercise regimes and outcome based practices with a mass production framework to them. This is not a bad thing, but if structures are to function properly, there needs to be an element of spontaneity to compliment this organised structure so that it can evolve naturally.

Prisoners respond to excessive structure and routine, and are known as hard men, but often they lose all hope and competence when the certainty of their environment is gone and they get released. For example, prison has certain rules, and you just put fear in everybody to get by. On the other hand, there have been rare individuals who have functioned well in the outside world, and then if they end up in prison they just go with it without attachment.

Upgrading your Hardware and Software

In martial arts, the physical form is considered exact, but the expression it takes in changing reality must be kept fluid and formless. So the form is the dimension which should be analysed, the energy must remain fluid and open to evolution. The physical form is the hardware, the way it is used is to do with the software you upgrade. The capability of the software does not decide the potential of the hardware. Its just running at a certain point in time. This software also impacts the hardware and how it is used. This develops the form from within, rather than from the outside.

The problem I that today the hardware is hardly used in people, so for the physical movements to evolve their capabilities need to be stretched rather than becoming inert. Just going through routines isn’t enough to do this. The expression which martial arts forms take in various situation cannot be known in advance, except by those who have been through it. Even then, each individual is different, which is why there have been many factual versions of one truth. For example, it is a fact that many different martial arts are effective. But it is true that in order to reach a competent state you have to work and overcome many difficulties.

So this is the difference between fact and truth. It is true that in order to win, you need to overcome many difficulties and work. However, in fact, not everyone who wins has done this sufficiently to ensure their evolution. So in a way, winning does not represent truth. Truth is an evolving state, whereas a fact is according to time and place. Obviously all individuals want to win. Take the example of two competitors. They can win according to the process of the contest, or simply gain from it in a more personal yet limited way. So they can run the software as it is, according to a particular situational demand, or they can upgrade it. There is an in-between way too. So the contest is not entirely logical, or though logically it makes sense to win at all costs. By logical I mean the masculine aspect of the mind. So the feminine, which involves respect for the situation as a whole, rather than how it can be exploited, is a completely different way of looking at it. It even has a logic of its own which you can experience as truth.

Overcoming Tension – Stretching: Your Experience [Part 2]

Posted on 3rd August 2023 by joeharman8 | 16 min read | 77 views

Psychologically, people build up winners and losers in a contest. But experientially this makes no sense because the whole thing is experienced as one. This occurs in many different situations other than martial arts. Say for example you are on stage and lost in the music you are playing as part of a group. Where it comes from is not important, it’s that you feel it enlivening you that counts. It’s not that you cause it it someone else doesn’t, how you feel is how you are. So here there is a fusion of people and a union between them, which is experienced in the situation as a whole.

Psychologically, you might get some boost knowing that you were at a certain situation, like a music concert. But there is no need to see this from the egotistical point of view. None of that would be possible without the atmosphere, the onlookers, the rest of the band, all of those factors. So when a start is born, it comes out of that atmosphere. So when you experience something to the full extent and it becomes part of you, it doesn’t matter where it comes from particularly, only that you are receptive to it. This is important in martial arts. Even the air you breathe isn’t fully yours, it’s coming from outside and you and running through your system, which you count as you. So in this way, you are both in and outside of the physical structure in your experience. There is no need to think it is you that produces all that you are doing by yourself. I use the example of breathing because this is the basis upon which all other others experiences are lived.

Create Room for Growth, not for the Ego to Take Over

When you stretch your body, or its capabilities, you are creating a space for growth. For example, if you stretch a muscle, you create new room for growth. This allows extended possibilities which have yet to manifest. It is not about cramming this space immediately. If this new room for growth is not established, there is no gap to fill, and there is no space to grow. When it comes to the body, If the muscles are continuously compressed over long durations, the cells actually actually die off eventually or degenerate into a fixed state without the flexibility they once had. They change composition, allowing less pliability and transformative properties. Modern science has proven this, because the wisdom of the body is such that compressions from every direction can cause tumours to form in otherwise healthy cells. This is because the fascia of the body stiffens. For example, you have two muscle tissues that begin to fuse together which were once two differentiated separate connective tissues gliding over each other. This is the beginning of problems.

So when cells no longer feel themselves being stretched, they begin to reduce the production of fibres and the entire structure becomes more hardened. This is because your cells no longer respond to the need to expand because there is no demand. The ego likes this because it means an easy existence where everything is in an established way. So you can become a tree that is solid but snaps in the wind. Instead, you want to become solid yet flexible, which involves challenging the ego.

How do you become solid yet flexible? We will look at this. Basically, the body naturally sinks to the earth through gravity, and it is you who must trigger and expansion in various ways. The higher nature within you, which is consciousness, needs to work against the natural earthly tendencies of inertia and stagnation over time. It is not a question of excluding this inertia but of working with it. This arrangement of expansion of consciousness and compressional forces of nature mutually interacts to produce an ongoing journey. This is what we call the wheel of life, because the inside forces are compressed by the outside forces to produce a certain stability.

Shaking the Bottle

There is so much going on in the ring or in a fight, that you tend not to notice the pain at the time. For example, you might get punched but usually the adrenaline will cause your energies to become so external that the pain is not experienced at the time. It is there, it is just that it is beyond your awareness. This idea, that you override potentially negative influences which are present, is true on many levels. This allows you to shake things up rather than stagnate. It is as if you are shaking up the bottle so that the bubbles expand into a given situational space which you are filling by your actions. They then go back down again changing form into a settled surface film1. This process has a survival basis to it too. By externalising the energies, you don’t notice you are in pain so you survive an event because you have changed your state in that moment. You have expanded the bubbles.

If you go to the office, once the initial apprehension is over with you fly though the day with nervous energy that gets channeled into productivity. You are more flexible. More than that, your state has transformed. Have you noticed this? Living in a state of perpetual anxiety is largely avoided by staying busy and channeling the energies properly. For most people, if they can find an activity they enjoy and can engage with, this sorts out the problem and they can convert their energies into something positive. They expand their experience to more than themselves.

Stretching the Bubble

When you consciously apply yourself to a task, you realise that there is nothing to lose because everything has to be gained. It is not that you need to seek reward, but that you become receptive enough to open yourself up to the changes experience within the system if it is kept in a certain healthy way. It is as if the bubble is being blown bigger as it takes in more air. When this is done for a long enough duration, as well as repetitively, you self initiate this process from within.Just as the stretching of a muscle can produce changes in gene expression, you can produce changes in yourself by making yourself more flexible when needed, like a bubble that expands.

When a muscle is hydrated and the surrounding fascia is flexible, this fascia acts like a bubble containing pressurised air. This allows for expansion of the muscle tissues, and greater oxygen flow to the muscles. Blood contains a larger percentage of oxygen than air. So it makes sense to increase circulation of blood more than it does to just increase the size of your lungs or the amount of chemicals in the blood stream. For example, it is common for athletes to turn to testosterone replacement therapy2. But these are back up systems. By expanding the bubble, which means increasing blood circulation to the muscles and creating that space for oxygenation, you bypass the need for external supplements to a large degree.

Testosterone is needed to produce heat and increase oxygen levels in the blood. So when you perform certain breathing and physical martial arts exercises which demand you to warm up and circulate energy, there is an increased amount of these chemicals produced. This is because there is an increased amount of oxygen in the blood which you obtain outside of yourself which transfuses into the blood. This is why traditionally, before artificial methods, certain martial arts forms and breathing exercises were taken seriously. The difference is that they are used up in the process rather than externally manufactured and placed into the system artificially. The problem today is that athletic performance has become totally disconnected from this process and in many ways seeks to extract work from an athlete in a non sustainable way.

A way of life

It’s not like you one day make successfully and you no longer have to put effort into transforming a given situation to your advantage. It is an endless cycle in which your are in the middle. You are the dot in the middle of the circle. So what seems like chasing your own tail becomes a journey towards self fulfilment. Like I said before, gravity pulls you down and creates a certain stability and compression when you counteract it with efforts to expand. Your efforts to expand create space. This goes on and is the life process in action.

In martial arts, it was traditionally the effort which was sustained for as long as possible rather than the results or outcomes. This is why it was a way of life rather than a results driven thing. In other words, the effort to support the life process was seen as more important that gaining this or that. For example, note taking did not take place traditionally in the Chinese Monasteries, for example the Shaolin Temples. This was not to keep anything secret as is popularly believed, but instead this was to ensure that knowledge was experientially transmitted rather than intellectually studied. It is useless to take notes unless you understand somthing through experience, you can only get a theoretical grasp. When something is analysed intellectually it is bound to be misunderstood. When it is experienced from within properly, there is no question of misuse or misunderstanding, there is just an evolution which goes on and on.

This is why there was an insistence in experiencing the training with full involvement, you wouldn’t notice anything in particular, it’s just that you were just observing a particular exercise until at sank in over time. You became a process of doing this, which was a way of life for those who chose to. You didn’t need to remember any secret moves, because when it is known from within, when the time comes to act the wisdom of the body knows what to do and it happens naturally. This is if your perceptions are fully switched on. It makes no sense at all to know somthing and then switch off the machine and expect it to work somehow. This is mastery, which initially takes a leap of faith according to some factual studying, but then becomes an experienced truth.

A change of State

Even if someone was totally inept, transformation is possible. In this way it is even possible to transform if you start out with no potential. Potential has to be created in an ongoing way. The potential for growth, that is. If you throw a stone in the air, it can easily come back down unless it is kept up. When you sustain an effort towards expansion, you welcome in change and transformation. Eventually this cause a change of state within, because the energies running through you allow for more experience as well as better health. With the example of the stone, you are not changing the stone, but you are changing how it operates by making it airborne. In other words, you are not transforming the aspect of you which takes flight, you are transforming the part of you which is a stone, which sinks you to the earth. The stone is becoming airborne. In this way it is like you were a meteorite which came from space as a meteor. You are just returning to a more original state, which you forgot you were.

The part that expands limitlessly, the spirit as we might call it, does not need to be transformed, because it includes everything in its experience ultimately. You just need to rise to meet it. This need not be physical effort, it may be energetic effort in maintaining a still posture in meditation for instance, or simply keeping the system in an optimally functioning way through day to day tasks such as walking, or even actions in the service of others. There are many paths. This is why students traditionally served the master, it was not for his benefit but for theirs. The Master asked them to work, that is all. So with positive action towards extending your range of activity, In doing so, the fear of loss or decline in motivation is largely taken care of because you have created a change within the system itself. You have created an upsurge that requires maintenance not only to keep it that way but to continue transformation. This is the nature of transformation, it is a continuous state not a fixed one.

Fear of Loss

There is fear of losing financial independence through some sort of debilitating injury, or losing the respect in the eyes of others. But this has no real basis in fact. For instance, when two warriors go at it in the ring, this makes for an exciting exchange where both fighters are immortalised in the eyes of others. Many fighters fear that they will never make such an impact. They play it safe and never get fully involved. This has some advantages, but will never be fulfilling totally. So the key is to become the best possibility that you can, always striving towards improvement and expansion of your own possibility. This will vary according to each person developed capabilities as well as circumstances outside of their own control. This is why it is important to focus on what you can control, which is your own conduct and behaviour, your own effort.

Outside of the ring, even if a person dies defending others, their memory is also immortalised. It’s not about glorifying death, it’s just about realising that no one actually loses face going out as a full blown expression of courage who has surpassed themselves. It’s not about going out and dieing for some cause. But in various situations, people that push themselves develop their capabilities by stretching themselves to the maximum. Once again, they can come back down just as a stone does that loses momentum. It is a question of keeping up that momentum which creates the best state. So in a less extreme example of losing a martial arts match and giving it your all, there may be a loss, but it’s a good one if it inspires many others and even yourself. There is no failure in taking flight only in landing and never taking action. Many fighters have felt honoured to be involved in a contest which was a full expression of the human possibility. An empty victory is less impactful in this way. So whether one wins or loses, both parties gain from the exchange if they prize the importance of the contest above their own personal results.

Some people may fear looking less powerful to their children or spouse if they were to lose a fight. So the biggest fear people often have is whether or not they can provide security for those around them they have chosen to defend. However, opening oneself up to the vulnerability of caring for others more than themselves has been a method employed in various ways by people to overcome their own self importance and limited identification. For example, when a monk is sent to a temple, they are charged with feeding others ahead of themselves and looking after those weaker than themselves. This means even looking after the humanity and life of an attacker who opposes them. This is why there is respect for the dead, even if they are your enemy. For instance, if an attacker is seriously injured by you when you defend those weaker than yourself, you at least must respect the life process acting through them, the same one you are reaching for. It is not about respecting their cruelty. This means constantly being aware of the humanity within yourself which does nothing unnecessarily gratuitous to a violent attacker. There is no need to respect the cruelty within yourself, so you just transform it. With the enemy it is the same thing.

The Purpose of Stretching

When you stretch the area of you concentration, you widen your awareness. In other words, you experience a larger expression of life. This can even apply to the somewhat distorted expression of life which is the violent attacker. If you can do that, you have ensured your own evolution because you have understood the reasoning. It’s not a moral thing really. This is the fundamental reason for showing compassion to the opponent. This doesn’t mean that you go and beat them senseless, and then if there’s time you think about whether to hold back and show some mercy. If you know this is what you are likely to do, then I suggest some preparations. For example, after you have performed your martial arts training, try returning to a state of relaxation in the muscles and system via stretching activity. You keep vibrant and fully alive, but the muscles are relaxed to circulate the energy. it’s not a passive state. This can last just a few minutes, and may seem a bit pointless, but in fact in doing so you will come down from the stress of intense training. By coming down, your energies are actually raised to a higher pitch and less rigid. This will allow your to become less hyped up about yourself and view things in a more balanced and reflective way. It might even save your life.

If you performing some stretching exercises before performing some activity, your system can take more pressure before fatiguing or stiffening up. If you do so after, you can return yourself to a less reactive state so that you can more appropriately respond to any kind of stressful situation more consciously and with intelligence. If the strength of a wheel were on the outside, the inside of the wheel would break. Essentially, this is what can happen to the human being if the energies remain too externalised for too long. This does not mean you do nothing in the face of danger, or second guess yourself when it’s time to act. It just means that you judge the situation more effectively so you can deal with it with confidence. Otherwise, it is easy to slip into a pattern of chronic stress and externalising thre energies as a matter of compulsion rather than choice. This is the danger of the macho martial arts practices.\

In the same way, if your temperament thickens in such a way, it is easy to become attached to this identity as an alpha, and fail to let situations slide over you. This is why so many martial artists have become so hyperactive over time. So situations often get out of hand not so much because this is what needs to be done, but rather because of a lack of return to a normal state of decompression. This dampens the faculties of rational thought and perceptions over time, leading to largely non voluntary response to stressful situations.

References

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

2 https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/04/24/conquest-at-all-costs-drugs-and-the-evolution-of-martial-arts-part-1/ Conquest at all costs