Category: Physical exercises

The power of thought and concentration

Posted on by joeharman8 | 10 min read | 102 views

The mind is continually open to suggestion, which means moment by moment it is subject to the influence of whatever is influencing it. This means if you entertain negative or counter productive thoughts, it creates an imprint which you gradually come to identify with as it leaves it mark. Fortunately, the same is true of positive thoughts. 

Basically, If a particular message or suggestion is continually reinforced, it becomes impressed on the mind, for better or worse. How does this occur? Over time, our thoughts and feelings, which we create, form habitual behaviours in us, which become second nature as we develop. These states  become imbedded in our subconscious, the core of our being. Therefore it is essential to keep the mind occupied with thoughts of a constructive nature, and hold on to feelings of  energy which enhance our strength.

Many religious, moral, and spiritual teachings have attempted to instil certain and symbols and behaviours into the minds of people. This has been done by providing model leaders, codes of conduct, and various exercises and ways of life to follow. Some systems have gone further. For example, there are certain Yogic methods which advocate the seeker identifying with specific deities. In tantric practice, powerful imagery is created in the mind which gradually takes on a form of its own by influencing the state of the Yogi. These are said to have such a powerful effect that they influence his physiology and personality, so that he can overcome various hereditary tendencies. Of course, often practitioners of these systems have gone about it the wrong way and ended up psychologically damaged by these powerful procedures. Caution is needed.

More recently in the West, psychological methods have focused on enabling the practitioner to create literal images, for example, mental rehearsal of skills in athletics. This is no different from tantric Yoga, except imagery rehearsal is self centred rather than aimed at transcendental experience. For example, the drive to enhance a tennis serve is useful as far as it goes, but it is hardly enough to absorb our attention at the highest level. Such imagery requires mental effort, rather than effortless absorption in something which is captivating by itself. The trick is to use an image as a stepping stone to something greater. If contemplating a tennis serve allows you to do that, then go for that. But don’t stop there.

Recently, Western psychological methods have been criticised for drawing attention to the individuals current state of development and capabilities. For example, it has been demonstrated that ruminating over ones problems simply reinforces them. For example, you might imagine overcoming a fear that you have created and reinforced, and often it might be better to forget about it entirely by viewing some awe inspiring stimulus instead, such as a waterfall or sunrise in the minds eye. Such imagery can have a positive impact and enhance concentration, so that the mind is not distracted by petty problems, which it often blows lout of proportion. Of course ones problems are very real, but a lot of the time it can be a better use of ones time to tap into a certain state of mind and feeling of harmony, so that negative states are simply dissolved and given nothing to feed on. 

In any case, the attention of the individual for a period of time can directed towards some meaningful goal or principle which enhances motivation. As such, it does not matter whether the imagery practiced is aimed at individual performance, adoration of a deity, or contemplation of the sunrise. The important factor is what sort of state this activity creates, and what feelings of warmth and energy are transmitted to the body. In other words, the thoughts and feelings do not necessarily need to correspond with the current physical reality if they can be used to create an entirely new experience of life.

Thought can be directed towards anything, whether that is towards making money, scientific discovery, battling mental illness, or whatever else. The methods for achieving success in this vary, but the principle is always the same. The idea is to moment by moment, day by day, keep the mind occupied with thoughts of a purposeful nature, being careful to avoid lapsing into a counter productive mindset. This often starts as a daily routine, scheduling in a practice session at certain times of the day. For example, someone might join a class and practice positive thinking with others, or simply devote fifteen minutes in the evening towards thought training. For some, it becomes a habit, an addiction even, that they can’t do without. It is even possible to become absorbed in constructive thought at every moment. Of course, even Masters of this art forget from time to time, but they just remind themselves to push forward relentlessly.

A good exercise for martial arts is to imagine yourself doing footwork or aligning yourself to deliver a punch, perhaps during certain moments of the day. The whole body does not need to perform this action necessarily, just the core and centre line. For example, you can twist and align the body in a similar way as you would in martial arts when walking down the street. This is a very basic exercise which allows you to see the connections between every day activities, and martial arts practice. Your health and fitness will be greatly enhanced without wearing out the body, providing you become fully involved in the activity.

All motivationally charged movements, whether that is powerful speech, throwing a spear, or reaching for an apple, share the same underlying movement patterns. Actually, even if the body doesn’t move, the neurons of the nervous system transmit energy which stimulates the cells. Science has even shown that by thinking about recovering from illness, it greatly enhances health. Lets take this further. By thinking about a state that you want to be in, you engage in an activity which allows you to evolve and transcend physical limitations imposed on you in the past. In this way, you become involved in an process which directly experiences life as it is, so that you become a transmitter of life rather than a shadow.

If you try to act with purpose in whatever you are doing in the day, you can enhance motivated behaviour. This method gives you an advantage over the typical one, in that you will experience a lot more training time. Rather than waiting to go to the gym, you will be training as much as you like. A disciple once asked his master: “How much time do you train in the gym?” The Master replied: “About ten minutes a day. You see, I have become martial arts”. What this means is that the time you spend doing the specific drills becomes less and less the more you apply the lessons to every day life. The mind and body reach such a degree of development, that the underlying experience of energy and motivation come much more effortlessly. Of course, the traditional exercises are useful as a means of achieving this inner unity of mind and body, but if the mind can make these connections more broadly then there is less and less need for them.

As we have seen, the mind can turn everyday activities into highly motivated pursuits by simply perceiving them as such. This does not mean that every action becomes dazzling to look at. Not at all. In fact, such a practitioner might look so ordinary that you wouldn’t suspect them capable of such powerful practice. To them, no action need take place that can be read by anyone else. In fact, this prevents hostilities from being drawn towards them. If a bacteria wants to invade the body, it cannot latch onto the subtle activity of the mind. Recent research has shown that viruses can learn to predict our behaviour because it reads our often rigid biological activity. The trick is then, is to work at the level of the mind so that biological activity itself can be influenced and given a new direction. If the body doesn’t decide what the outcome is, then a virus can’t follow the logic. In a similar way, if an opponent can’t tell what you are going to do, it is simply because you are acting intuitively and beyond simply instinctive intelligence. 

Just as the religious man enters the kingdom of heaven within, The athlete enters into the inner mind gym. Mental practice can take place in an effort towards winning the world championship, whether that is during specific training slots or subtly throughout the day. Importantly, the accumulation of these small instances of practice has a large effect size. Many prominent scientists are said to have created ideas in their minds, which years later have materialised into inventions or grand theories. This is an ongoing process with far reaching consequences. The same laws which govern creation of the physical world apply to the mental world, and there appears to be no limit because the universe is expanding all the time. There are no rules in creative thought, it is just a question of how productively ones uses their energies according to their own individual needs.

The possibilities for the application of thought and focused attention are endless. Anyone can think, but not everyone is able to sustain the thoughts they desire by focusing exclusively on them. However, some individuals have learnt to develop in this area so much that it becomes the number one goal and the ultimate experience.

The creative imagination of the individual is limitless in its potential. This more closely correlates with the reality of physics than the the potential of the physical body as it is now. This allows for the possibility that our performance can be measured against high ideals rather than past achievements. In the same way, the process of scientific discovery always aims at truth but never actually arrives. It is always in the process of becoming, which is what human beings are doing too. Human beings as they are now are not the finished product. However, the limitations the impose on themselves with their attitudes often create obstacles in the path to self realisation.

Powerful imaginative ideas cannot help but have a positive effect on the ignorant and weaker side of our nature. This is because we harness our true strength only when we overcome our limitations in spite of ourselves. It seems impossible, yet we do it anyway. Whether such an idea bares any resemblance to our current physical experience is beside the point. It didn’t matter to Galileo whether his ideas resembled what was already out there. Nor does it seem to matter whether motivated thinking even materialises into anything that we had in mind. As long as the mind is occupied and moving forward, then it is moving in the right direction, and an individual is at worst removing some aspect of their own ignorance. It often happens that a person has to move through successive stages of ignorance and suffering before they get much tangible success. The absence of constructive thought has the reverse effect. In our ignorance, it can seem as though everything is going well, until our health and well being are undermined later on. It is true what they say, that “Nature unaided fails”. What this means is that nature has a habit of pressure testing us and taking away our allowance after a certain period of upbringing and indulgence. This is to develop the side of our higher nature, which is not subject to the same laws as our lower nature, bringing us the necessary conditions for inner evolution. The higher nature works at the level of the mind, so that we can dissolve certain physical and mental states.

Stick Work

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 5 min read | 103 views

When working with weapons it is often better to practice the movements and actions around a target, articulating the joints and paying close attention to your every move. In this way you will be able to intuitively build a strong understanding of attack and defence by thinking consciously about your every subtle movement. But you have to be fully engaged, not thinking about smashing the thing to pieces, otherwise you will not be aware of the subtle movements. During inner Martial Arts practice we should realise that we already know how to do these things, it’s just a case of concentrating and genuinely feeling these movements and skills so that we manifest this understanding.

If you are simply seeking to smash the other person, you may well achieve your aim, but this is not to your own benefit. Personally I hold on to the idea in my minds eye that I am a living light, trying to illuminate the target, or forces of darkness. This can inspire the most attentive and inspired behaviours so that ones actions converge towards the highest ideal of perfection. But this is a very delicate point, do not confuse and delude yourself into think of yourself as a figure of light physically speaking, it is a mental tool.

You will find that by using this method you will awaken and stimulate skills and techniques which would otherwise remain dormant, even with extensive technical training. This is because we need a high ideal, and a simple symbol of power to surpass ourselves, which is often more effective than accumulating scars of lifeless information1. In other words to fully absorb ourselves in work, it is better to relate ourselves not according to our physical capabilities and limitations, but our creative imagination. You might say “What a load of rubbish, I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous”. You are free to think that and I wouldn’t blame you. However feel free to try it for yourself as I have no reason to deceive anyone.

It is better to concentrate fully on the task at hand, and then if you can put it into safe practice with a partner. Too often the partner drills lack any real intuition and freestyle improvised flow. These aren’t always conditions where your keen senses really develop, because you either get whipped up into a rage when hit by the other person or the exercise becomes dull and predictable. If you have a good training partner then great, but the subtle side of martial Arts requires relative silence from chaotic environments and concentration on the inner forces. In other words, this is where the lessons are learnt which will enable you to handle chaos2.

Obviously live sparring can be beneficial. But at the same time the inner attitude and philosophy is neglected so that the person engaging in such activities actually ends up more tense and taking things personally, when in fact it isn’t about winning some contest of drill. I only advise engaging in partner drills of this kind when it is clear there is no pride on the line, as pride is the most difficult enemy to overcome. Lots of people engaging in these activities say that they are humble but the way they go about training often betrays the fact they they are training their pride and vanity, which when active simply takes up all their concentration. They may pound other into the dust but in their ignorance they’ve stunted their development.

Only train with others if you think it will benefit your development. Otherwise it’s likely that your so called training partner will just undermine the exercise by letting the chaotic forces within them ruin the spirit of the activity. From my point of view, any training should seek to reduce the influence of vanity and pride by working on concentration, intensity, and inner understanding, and under those conditions your abilities will emerge triumphantly.

So move around the target, imaginary or otherwise, fully concentrating and immersing yourself in the subtle movements which are demanded of you to keep centred and connected to the activity. Keep this connection and you will find that you flow and understand the movements contained within the work you are performing. Each time you go back to this, your understanding will increase. Why stop there? every instance of the day is an activity to engage in exercise, by contemplating and mindfully practicing anything from lidting a chair, to holding a cup, from breathing to thinking.

It is not important to think only about the weapon. You will make all sorts of other connections by applying the principles learnt from weapon fighting to say, boxing. From knowing how to use a weapon you will better be able to use your hands more generally, and vice versa. Having the right attitude and perspective will allow everything to converge, so that even though you are practicing one thing, it represents everything else. This is worth contemplating.

Stick Fighting and Boxing Example
Stick Practice

References

1 The High Ideal https://harmanater.com/2020/07/26/the-high-ideal/

2 Live in Harmony, Fight in Chaos https://harmanater.com/2020/07/12/fight-chaos-live-in-harmony/

Embodying the Technique

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 11 min read | 159 views

In order to learn certain techniques, it is important to go over them in a simple, detached way, so that the limitations of your understanding can grasp something new. In other words we look at things purely technically at first. But we don’t stop there.

A tree separated from the forest may have the same qualities as the forest but it is not the forest. Similarly, a drop of rain may share some of the qualities as a thunderstorm, but it is not a force of nature. However once one of these elements joins in with the whole again, it becomes part of it. In the same way a technique grasped on the technical level needs to be embodied in the organism to be understood and effective. That is, for it to becomes a force of nature within you.

When you feel as though you have a good understanding of the technique this gives you some confidence. However it doesn’t give us the confidence to go out there and really put things in to practice, or even go beyond the basics. We need some authority over it, a way of verifying that we understand how it works properly.

When you have embodied the techniques properly, you are confident to go out and relate them to everything you do – like a bird showing its feathers if you like. You will be proud to show your colours and cultivate them in the wider environment. You will want to, rather than seeing it as an arduous exercise. Even if you are not very good yet, it’s something. It is instinctive to radiate this confidence if you have a proper grasp of how to apply and embody a technique or skill, even if you haven’t mastered it. This will drive you forward in your practice. In fact I would go as far to say that when this confidence radiates from you powerfully, and if you know how to demonstrate it without arrogance, people will know they are dealing with someone alive and powerful. And no Mugger can possibly victimise such a person, they target someone else weaker.

How do you explain the idea that skills and techniques can be “forgotten” over time. I’m afraid this is impossible if it has become part of you, if you have embodied it like a tree within a great forest. The only way to forget about something is if it was only learnt superficially. And if something is learnt superficially it won’t relate to everything you do. People invent all kinds of excuses, they need to train again starting from scratch, they’re too old to do it anymore, or they lost interest, but they fool nobody except themselves. The fire and aliveness has gone – There aren’t any feathers to wear.

If you form a habit of relating a certain universal principle to your everyday activities, you will be practicing all the time, or as much as time allows. Because a universal principles relate to everything. Therefore, the best way to embody a skill or discipline is to work on the intuitive level, according to universal principles1. The only way to do impregnate your organism with this understanding is to mindfully practice all your everyday actions. Say you a practicing a punch, then play it over in your mind and think how it relates to holding a cup, grabbing an apple, or swatting a fly, for instance. The when you are doing one of those actions, you relate the punch to it. You ill find many overlapping similarities when you investigate this question.

The way I do it is I don’t bother learning all the holds, moves, and stances. I don’t even know which boxing combinations are supposed to be taught. It takes a lifetime to understand properly and intuitively the depths of any one good stance, so it would be a complete waste of time to go over them all superficially. Know one discipline properly and you will have access to them all, because everything else will follow as you gradually increase your fundamental understanding of universal principles and the laws of nature. This is the highest form of understanding, a lifetimes work. It has been called “Form without form” in certain Japanese Traditions, or fighting without fighting2, which is to say the same thing.

Get into the habit, whether you’re shopping, sitting in the pub, or waiting in a queue, of taking a minute to centre yourself physically in all sorts of different stances and positions. This is something Steve Morris Recommends, so that you can be training under any circumstances, remaining linked physically and mentally. This is in order Feel the alignment so that you are for a moment embodying the posture necessary to deliver a particular move you might be contemplating. Then go back to whatever you are doing3.

The point I want to make is that you don’t so much see these similarities, as appearances are deceiving, but you get to feel them. In fact, I don’t see much at all when I am training, I relate things together by the way they feel internally. You don’t need to necessarily do the move externally, just to feel it and relate it to your organism and its other movements. You will soon see how similar the sensations of moving are, and in this way you will be able to determine whether you have got it right or not, according to this “wisdom of the body”, as they call it in the Chinese systems. If it feels right, it is absorbed subconsciously over time quite naturally, but don’t delude yourself, it takes a certain amount of experience and knowledge to feel the right thing! This method can be done as much or as little as you like, and nothing is better for results than this habit.

If you take make it a habit to practice inwardly and feel these moves in action, then the outer manifestation will take care of itself. You will feel such satisfaction, such motivation with your progress, that you won’t bother with all the thousands of tried and tested mechanical routines. You will be working on your subconscious instincts, and moulding them intelligently. This is the aim of the disciple in Martial Arts. You will reach the level of skill you need just with this one habit, provided it becomes a dedicated method of practice. The power of this approach is beyond explanation, and its important to go over it again and again until you do it instinctively and you can’t do without it.

When you have an intuitive feel for how movements should feel, learning particular skills will then just be a formality. You’ll hit the ground running when you pick it up. You go over it for a short period of time in depth, as a separate part, and then integrate it back into the whole. This is the way to practice any particular skill you want to analyse in depth (just don’t get obsessed with the details). Steve Morris calls this “Zooming in” (to analyse something in particular), and then “Zooming out” (to then udnerstand it as part of the whole more generally).

The only thing you need to remember is to work4. Work at this idea of relating all the moves to your more mundane movements and the progress takes care of itself. Put in the practice of doing this, that is work at it, so that this becomes the work – not the individual drills. But nobody bothers with this, they just see everything else outside the special moves as unrelated and a waste of time. This approach may shock you, when you see so many people going over mechanical routines, but these traditional moves are just forms, appearances. For a long time I have been baffled that things continue to be presented in this way, and it’s not the way I think.

If you don’t relate everything together, from, say walking to sewing, then the drills never make any sense, because they don’t relate to the wider sphere of existence. You will say that you can make a certain amount of rapid progress without wider understanding. Yes, but for how long? If you never apply the wider laws of nature to what you are practising you will never see the connections between things, because it is these connections which verify the truth. You will say “So what you are saying is that all the drills have been a waste of time?” No, don’t hold yourself back with this attitude, just disengage with emphasis on differences and make the wider connections. One skill acts as a stepping stone to another, see them all as different forms of the same idea.

So my advice is not too bother so much with the idea of mastering one system in the small sense. You’re just then doomed to remain trapped within this small sphere. As time goes on the apparent gains to this simplistic reality diminish. Whereas, when you work with certain fundamental principles for a long time, you embody them and they help you learn everything else. You no longer need to see with your physical eyes to know how it works, you feel it. “Don’t think, feel” as Bruce Lee once remarked. The more you work with the underlining fundamentals – the universal principles – the more you understand them and the more they work for you. It becomes more and more automatic.

First of all you might refuse to think that one thing relates to seemingly separate things, but your intuition later insist on it without you even thinking. You succeed in spite of yourself. Then you have reached intuitive understanding and can trust your senses rather than being mislead by appearances. You will then observe other talented athletes and pick up revealing behaviours in them, embedding them in you, like a kind of osmosis. You will also be able to identify aggressors in the street effectively. But you only know this by studying yourself5. What can you do then, except have access to all disciplines intuitively? Of course this takes time and effort, from humble beginnings. What is a belt or a medal, even a world championship, compared to this understanding?

The problem is in Martial Arts people don’t know what kind of activities to devote their time to. Since you can only devote your whole attention to one thing, not two, or three, or four, then it should be the most important aspect when represents everything else. Whatever the opinion of others, it doesn’t matter when you are in possession of this kind of intuitive understanding. You are then wearing the inner black belt, because all individuals, systems, and techniques start with an idea. And it is the quality of the idea that counts.This idea then works through us and becomes a physical reality. No amount of inferior physical practice will disprove a truth of this kind, that is a high ideal.

This brings us to another important point. A state at war with itself will not reach understanding, not with all its constituent parts acting according to different laws. There will just be anarchy and break down. Yes, there might be some mutual coincidence, but there will not be time to devote to unified cooperation due to all the conflicts of interest. There will be lots of contradictions, confusion, and suspicion. Progress will be limited because everyone has a different conception of the truth – of the laws. Each is as good as the next. However, if all the members share access to the same higher truth, even if they apparently work in different directions they will work in a kind of dynamic harmony. The human organism is the same. You can acquire all sorts of knowledge as long as it conforms to proper understanding of Unifying laws and principles, these very ideas validate truth, and seductive but bad ideas betray themselves. Otherwise you will be divided and trying to give your attention to everything at once, rather than dominating this situation with authority.

References

1 see Which Moves? https://harmanater.com/2020/04/30/which-moves/ ,

2 See Self Defence without violence https://harmanater.com/2020/06/14/self-defence-without-violence/

3 See Alignment and Tension exercises https://harmanater.com/2020/03/22/alignment-and-tension-exercises/

4 See The Skill is not separate from the work and contemplation https://harmanater.com/2020/07/04/the-skill-is-not-separate-from-work-and-contemplation/

5 See Identifying Aggressors https://harmanater.com/2020/07/30/identifying-aggressors/

Elbow Strike

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 1 min read | 86 views

You can do the front or rear elbow. It is the same principle as the jab or straight.

Steve Morris makes an interesting point in this regard – that if you are doing a rear hand strike it is offensive on the front foot, and vice versa for the front front hand. This is an incredibly powerful principle.

You can be offensive as well as defensive, in that you can shift your body forward whilst being on the back foot. Think about this carefully.

As far as practice goes, nothing beats relating to important concepts tirelessly.

The Round Kick

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 1 min read | 77 views

The Round kikc is quite hard to do without practice. The basic idea is to turn out the standing foot (Otherwise you pull your groin) and swing accross like a basball bat.

The Most simple and effective target is the knee area. Use the shin or foot.

As with all the techniques, you don’t just turn the body or swing it round. You do both: Shifting the weight in whilst extending your hip and leg in.

Steve Morris has done a video on youtube talking about the whole body round kick, which I recommend you should watch.

The Hook

Posted on by joeharman8 | 1 min read | 66 views

The Hook comes across from the side and is delivered with either hand.

It isn’t just a question of slapping the side of the target area. This would injure you hand, and a lot of people do just that.

Instead you contort the whole body so as to get all the weight into it, shifting the weight to the side. If you simply twist the back you’ll get a back injury, another common mistake.

Steve Morris says it’s a kind of angulated straight punch. In other words the movement is the same, but with the hook you simply peer across the face of the target and punch through from an angle rather than straight ahead.

The Straight

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 1 min read | 83 views

The Straight Right, as it’s called, isn’t thrown often because it has potential to swing you off balance.

Throw it like you would thrust s spear, you would jab it through the target from distance and without being taken of balance. This is a powerful symbol to work with.

Generally speaking you keep it tight, and pivot the body into the strike so that the arm is the last to actually extend. This ensures balance.

Steve Morris recommends turning the body so that you are punching outwards, like the extension of a wing. another helpful analogy.

The Jab

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 1 min read | 78 views

Whichever Martial art you are into, the jab is used as the range finder. It is as if you were blind and scrambling around in the dark to get a sense of whats in front of you. This is how you get a feel for the distance.

In this way it isn’t important whether you land a power jab, it can simply be used to gauge distance by touch.

It is the same action either way, you just increase the voltage for power, driving through the target, or flick it out lightly with speed in a kind of pawing action.

High Intensity Work and Balance

Posted on by joeharman8 | 9 min read | 132 views

One of the reasons for training is to develop strength and power through high intensity work. However it is often the case that those engaged in high intensity work completely over do it. High intensity work, by which I mean 100% effort, is actually a kind of stress on the body. But it does you good if it is performed in short bursts over a small time period. For example, a one hundred metre sprint takes an athlete just over, say ten seconds. However they would not do this over and over again or for much longer than ten seconds. And for good reason – it is hugely taxing on the body.

Now the most important aspect of fitness is health, or harmony within the body. In other words your strength, endurance, energy levels, and all other aspects of health should all be in accord. This is all achieved by living sensibly and actively. High intensity work improves your capacity to do this. Unfortunately, many people are completely out of tune with health, and have instead bolstered some aspects of fitness at the expense of overall health. This lack of balance eventually leads to wear and tear and a decline in capabilities. And therefore health. It is therefore wise to take care of all this before injury occurs and health declines.

What I do is, whenever I train I try to reach my highest intensity of work by doing no more than a few minutes on the heavy bag. I go for intensity over duration, and in short bursts. For example, I might do a minute or so and then rest, and then go for it again. Of course I warm up a bit and practice a few concepts and skills before getting to work. I then do all sorts of things like walking, everyday activities like gardening, and breathing exercises, sport, etc., to fill the day. Once again, high intensity work, or a short duration, improves my capacity to do everything else. You might say “Only a minute? That’s nothing, professionals do twelve 3 minute rounds!”.

Yes, I admit I’m nowhere near the fitness levels of some athletes, and I tell myself the same thing daily, as I am just as concerned as anyone of still not attaining my goals This forces me to work twice, or three times as hard within a small time frame, because I have other things to do. To do huge quantities of low level work is easy, to condense this down is another matter. All those people who want to be champions of this or that are obliged to push themselves towards performing huge amounts of intense work that can’t be maintained. They may get away with it for a while, but not for long. Of course they limit themselves and stagnate eventually, by getting worn out. And yet these are the people who everyone looks to for advice!

Many people talk of having survived life threatening situations, but I wonder how many of them have any idea of how to train for the urgency required. Having been in these situations myself, I can tell you that the experience is so intense and only lasts a few seconds before things get life threatening and you are killed. So I train to condense everything down to this time frame. Yes, you must condense it all down to a smaller time frame to increase the demand for quick decisive action. However nobody does this, or thinks its beneficial. Instead they go about doing whatever every other Tom, Dick, or Harry are doing.

It is situations of extreme urgency which give you the intense desire to change and improve the mundane training practices adopted by the many. Perhaps quite a few experience this, perhaps without analysing it much, but they often abandon their new found motivation after a day or two.

If you cannot devote as much time to training as a professional athlete, or you think you’re not any good, you must try to achieve the same intensity of work. And then you will be able to achieve the same output as someone else who has more time to devote to one thing at the expense of everything else. Yes, you might not have the same capacity for repetitive work in one narrow discipline, but you will be able to work at the same intensity. Intensity is what counts. This is important because you will gain the same benefits of strength, and power.

The health benefits that come from high intensity work are numerous. Increased defence against disease, more vitality, higher energy levels, etc., but don’t over do it, because it will wear you down. It’s not enough to “leave it all in the gym” and then flop in front of the sofa. No, that just means you have stripped yourself of energy and probably lowered your immune systems defences. Instead go for quality over quantity. That way the high intensity work will increase the body’s demand for energy, which sets the ground for increased health. There will therefore be an increased supply of beneficial forces acting on the body’s capabilities, preparing it for greater work. It’s an inescapable cause and effect process.

As soon as you go beyond your limits in an attempt to go do what you’re not capable of doing, things fall apart. You pay the price, in injury or burnout. What else can be expected? Many people try to “push through” when they “hit a wall”, and at this point they’re not even interested really. Sapped of energy they lose motivation, which carries on to the next session, and the one after that. They then come to associate hard work with depletion of reserves and boredom. In that case walk away and come back to it another time revitalised. The only reason Martial arts becomes boring is because people lose motivation in this way. They practice for hours on end when they should have looked after their health and developed themselves before even attempting high intensity work. Instead they jump straight in!

And things often go from bad to worse. Training is increasingly moving away from a more balanced approach, and people are become more driven to overdo everything, whilst achieving nothing. Wherever you look people are mimicking some guru who insists they go beyond their limits. What usually happens of course is that people work at a very low intensity, because they have run out of energy. And then no amount of work can replace the energy which is not given time to replenish. They are forced to work at a slovenly pace because they haven’t put in the real work of maintaining health and balance. They are then congratulated for at least giving it a good go.

Don’t bother focusing on some magic exercise programme to do the work for you. There is no secret technique or wise sage to do this work for you. Focus on intensity, and then in one stroke you will have achieved health benefits as well as power and fitness. Sure you won’t be as big as some people in the gym, who, in any case are usually fatter than they are muscular, but you will be on the right track. And don’t bother learning loads of combinations in the hope that you can then perform them quickly with no effort. It can’t be done, and takes much too long, a whole lifetime would not be enough time to learn everything bit bit bit. You would have to pick one discipline, learn all the moves, and the other indispensable techniques would be neglected.

This is what I do: I don’t bother increasing my fitness by doing boxing combinations, and then Muay Thai drills, etc., it would be a waste of time. I’m interested only in intensity. I perform the basic skills, and sometimes I go over them more slowly and deliberately, but if my only goal is to work at one hundred percent effort, this forces me to put together any number of combinations within a very small time frame seamlessly. It happens naturally if the desire is there. This forces me to pick out the most important skills because every second counts. Just try being fast and powerful if you are exhausted and fatigued, you won’t succeed. And for no other reason than because you tried to push beyond your limits for too long.

I would leave all skills practice more or less alone. Don’t bother with the drills anymore, at least when doing high intensity work. “How can you give such bad advice”. Whilst no martial arts expert would advise this, I am a generalist, and therefore we aren’t singing from the same hymn sheet. Take a few moves here and there by all means, but son’t suppose you will perform them well without intent to work at one hundred percent effort. I cannot stress this enough, you must be intent on supply maximum effort. The technique will then take care of itself. Obviously there are people who don’t do this and still do well, but they could do better.

People often say to me “I used to do boxing”, or “I used to be good at such and such a martial art, but today I’m injured and don’t have the time”. The reason is that you devoted too much time to the wrong thing. I remember reading that Steve Morris, who is in a league of his own when it comes to martial arts, said that he thinks “intensity intensity intensity”. And that he trains for a few minutes at a time at maximum intensity. There you have it. Instead people get addicted to drudge work, which eventually erodes away their abilities, because it’s not intelligent work.

Instead you should accept that intensity boosts your bodies defences and increases its durability. This is self defence against the greater enemies of overwork, burnout and stagnation. So what I recommend is to do all the exercises you want but focus on intensity within a short time frame. High intensity effort and work is the force that will boost all your capabilities to do all the other exercises. It is as if your body collective system says “We need to up our game!”. And then the adaptation to greater challenge takes places as time goes on. That is provided it is given proper rest afterwards and isn’t pushed beyond its capabilities too far or for too long.

Which Moves?

Posted on by joeharman8 | 8 min read | 87 views

There are hundreds of martial arts styles out there each with thousands of different moves. It can be challenging to know which ones are the best to focus on. One things for sure though, you should focus on a few key skills and repeat them as often as you can so that they become part of who you are. Which particular skills you chose will depend on your background and experience, and developed capabilities. Personally, it would be no use me jumping around like a gymnast and doing head kicks. I’ve tried that and I’m simply not built that way. Instead I go for football style low kicks, as I have been playing football all my life, and boxing punches essentially. Boxing, as far as striking goes, contains the most true form of hand fighting.

Whichever you basis, these skills will serve as your simple exercises, through which to understand everything else properly. This will never happen if you do a bit of kick boxing here, and a bit of wrestling there, followed by some Juijisu after that. Your few daily exercises are a vehicle for practicing the truth if you like, they symbolise an idea representing the truth. For example, the jab in boxing represents the left hand being a kind of searching hand: quick and light. There is no “true” system, because truth is without form.

Often it’s the case that you’ve been doing a martial art for a long time but you’ve grown tired of its limitations. Great! You’ve just made further progress possible. Often people fear losing their abilities in one area by practicing something else. They reason that they might give up on their new discipline, so they just stick with the old one and practice the same old tired routines. But if you know one discipline well enough, the “essence” of it will remain in you. And you’ll never be bored of the truth, even if it’s limited to practicing just a few basics. Yes, it is by getting to the core of it that you learn the truth, not through the peripheral aspects. Peripheral aspects aren’t important.

Capturing the essence must be what Bruce Lee and others were talking about with the water and the cup. Lots of people thought he meant you must always be adaptable and change according to circumstance without form. This makes no sense on the physical level because we have a human form, it can’t change. This form of detachment would lead to death. In fact it is very dangerous to attempt to change the physical form and what it’s capable of beyond slight parameters. We must be Like water, but no ones saying anything about becoming water, taking the form of a wrestler at one moment, and then a mantis the next.

Lots of people attempt gymnastics style martial arts by leaping around all over the place. This usually ends with a hip replacement or knee surgery. Others learn mechanical routines resembling lizards, snakes, or robots, hoping to become super human. No, our core composition doesn’t change, but the way we use our form, the peripheral aspects, can. In the same way the arm is peripheral to the core stability. However, this doesn’t stop people building massive biceps in the gym hoping to improve their power. It might look good, but it’s far from optimal and it’s a huge waste of time away from what’s vitally important.

The peripheral aspects are merely symbolic of the core truth, and it’s varying forms. Let me explain. Using the analogy of the water and the cup, the style is the cup which varies in size, shape and composition. The water, or the “essence” fits into the cup but remains the same. In another Analogy, the molten iron is placed in the blacksmiths forge. It can be melded again and again by heating it up and recasting it to different shapes according to different weapons. This molten metal is the “essence” which doesn’t change it’s make up. The style it takes the form of is the weapon to be created. Never change the essence because it is the truth.

The true underlying fundamentals which govern all movements don’t vary from one discipline to another. This is the core. Importantly, according to these higher principles, every discipline is of the same nature. Get familiar with this nature. This nature will verify whether your technique is right or not, because they are subject to it. The skills themselves are just different ways of expressing this nature effectively and are dead without it. You don’t adapt the truth to the peripheral considerations, or if you like the details, represented by particular skills. The devil is in the details.

All too often I have had experts approach me in the gym to tell me that according to such and such an art my technique is incorrect. To be honest, I have usually benefitted from this advice on the peripheral level. In my experience, it is often highly experienced practitioners who give this kind of advice if they sense someone might be able to take it on board. You can quickly learn a lot about a skill from this kind of advice. However, beware, because many shrewd experts out there will try to give out a few “details” and then try to claim that it was them who were responsible for the improvement at the “core” level! You have to admire the tenacity! Shrewd business sense at it’s finest!

You’ve got to create a unified martial arts style, rather than trying to bring together a load of disparate skills from all different disciplines. Of course, some skill compliment others well, and as long as they share the same underlying principles then they are compatible. If you want everything to unify, it’s got to be in accord with these underlying principles, they come before everything else and the skills have to conform to them. This unity is the causes the skills to be effective, and it has to be experienced to be felt. It doesn’t matter how dazzling someone is at boxing, if what they doing completely limits there development in all other areas. They’ve cut themselves off from the source.

It’s when you try to entertain two, or three ways of fighting at the same time that you risk being seriously injured or worse. Sure, go and do, say, a boxing a course to get familiar with the basics so that you have a fairly stereotypical explanation of the basics. But once you’ve got that stereotypical model it must fit with a higher level of understanding beyond a separate and cut off system1. Trying to get them all to fit as they are already unified is extremely frustrating, and will eventually sap you of your motivation because it will never become second nature. This way only leads to mediocrity. The key ingredient is you. You’ve got to somehow pull together all the seemingly conflicting skills and make them converge to serve your purposes by reducing them to their essentials.

This is what I do. I’ve got the basic boxing punches, I then compliment them with a few low kicks, knees, etc., and some basic wrestling techniques. After that I’ve got a few ground moves. That’s basically it. I have practiced a lot of Steve Morris’s principles so that I know how to distribute my weight properly in everything I train, from walking, to sitting, to lying down. I can do this all day and this is the bulk of my training.

When you practice aligning yourself in the activities of everyday life, there’s no limit to the scope of your training. Everything becomes a training exercise. Because you don’t want to stand one way, punch another, and then sit down in a fundamentally different way. Instead practice aligning yourself, dropping your weight into things with dynamic stability, and breathing in sync with what you’re doing day to day. If it’s true of walking then it’s true of fighting.

There you have it, a few things to think about from an endless list of possibilities. The core, the truth, fundamentals, they are just different ways of expressing the same thing – The important points to keep in mind, the sign posts.

References

1 See Steve Morris http://morrisnoholdsbarred.com/ His method is by far the best. My advice is to ignore the other “practical” martial arts systems and focus on this. Steve shows you how to develop the fundamental skills, you can then play around with them, mixing up the tempo, applying them in thousands of ways achieving a wide range application within a small range.

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