Category: yoga

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

Posted on by joeharman8 | 10 min read | 97 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.

Creating harmony within: Avoiding discord between yourself and the outside

Posted on 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.

Emotion and Martial Arts

Posted on by joeharman8 | 14 min read | 126 views

“When you treat an object of desire with a level of deep respect, then you no longer view it as something to acquire and gain conquest over. So it is not a question of doing away with passion and desire, but of treating it with the same level of respect as you would a prize of some sort.”

When it comes to martial arts, many people believe that they must get angry in order to summon the energy to defeat an attacker. It is not so much that you must not get angry or taken by events. This happens whether you like it or not and is out of your control to a large extent. At the same time, it isn’t about becoming excessively reactive. What isn’t out of your control is where you steer this anger. In other words, it is about how you respond to the emotional situation.

The confrontation you enter into is fraught with emotional energy. It’s in the air. It is an emotionally charged atmosphere. So it is important to accept this within yourself. Planet earth would not exist without this kind of atmospheric pressure. Only when you accept the situation as it actually is, can you steer the emotion in the right way. This is why traditionally, martial arts involved dropping the idea of winning and losing. It was a tool to make you focus on the process rather than the result. It wasn’t to stop emotion from happening, but to stop emotion from becoming unbridled and leading to all sorts of excesses.

In the past, the master would put the disciple into some kind of aimless work. The more they did this aimless work the more they retained a sense of balance and equilibrium. This could be something as simple as carrying a pot from a well. In the past this was needed before taps became widely available. But long after it was needed, the rituals stayed. However, nowadays this sort of aimless work has lost all meaning. You simply call for a delivery. So we are becoming far removed from normal work which we now see as pointless. However, in the past cultivating the right state within oneself became paramount, rather than the fruits of this labour.

If you try to become devoid of emotion in a confrontation, you will not summon sufficient energy to survive an attack. You cannot shun or suppress emotion in such a situation, or any situation for that matter without become dried up and lifeless some degree. At the same time if emotion becomes unbridled, it becomes a kind of passionate madness. In the ancient past, you would be dead at a fairly young age in many places. So the game was up fairly early. Today however, people are living in states of stress and tension into later years which leads to inertia and chronic fatigue. This is why so many martial artists have taken to performance enhancing drugs, their sense of ambition becomes uncontrolled and has turned into a pursuit of stimulation to overcome inertia.

“The Master would put the disciple under such pressure, and then all of a sudden they would burst open. So after a certain period of incubation, the seed shoots out and grows. In this context stress must be understood as a stimulus for growth.”

When you become dried up, you will look for scraps or left overs to feed off of. For example, some sort of reactive situation to get into, like fighting someone. These are what stimulate such people. This includes all sorts of reactive states. This is why Martial Arts is often depicted as a struggle rather than a liberation. Initially, this is to be expected, but is not the end goal.

Unfortunately, many martial artists have learnt to associate deep experience with pain and loss. They toil and toil, and then at the end there is just pain. The majority of people don’t tend to develop pleasantness to its full extend. We will look at how this is done in a moment. So the long term progression of work became associated with pain and loss. No wonder people give up, if that is all they see for their efforts. They have seen drugs and heightened stimulation as a temporary escape to lift them out of such a pit. In doing so it is only natural to consider emotions as a problem to escape, because it carries them off into an abyss. The majority of the time is spent functioning in a state of stress rather than pleasant emotion. This is because many of the institutions and ways of society exploit the human being as a resource.

You don’t need to go about supercharging yourself full of rage and passion. Yes, this makes you more reactive, but it also makes you less responsive to more possibilities. This is why people become mad about beating people up. They become averse to losing and so they gain pleasure from winning. This is an instant gratification due to indulging in a state of reactivity. So it is said that you must fight someone in order to win some contest down the line somewhere, otherwise you will be unfulfilled. But this is not so.

However, if you were more pleasant in your experience, you would not think about objectifying some person as a means escape from stress. All sorts of alliances have been formed under such a limited understanding of emotions and how to handle them. With such a mindset, there is a deep sense of enduring struggle, there is less and less room for any kind of pleasant experience other than the pleasure of winning or beating someone. Of course, struggle is natural, but it is what we do with it that counts.

What to do about emotion? First and foremost you must make them into something very pleasant, rather than experiencing them in shoot form. The shoot is an initial burst of life which occurs during certain contrasting weather conditions. For instance, after the cold months, the air pressure changes and you get spring. This understanding of human beings is what gave rise to various master disciple relationships. The Master would put the disciple under such pressure, and then all of a sudden they would burst open. So after a certain period of incubation, the seed shoots out and grows. In this context stress must be understood as a stimulus for growth.

Various systems of martial arts have told you what sort of emotions will arise during a confrontation. Psychological studies have also shown what sorts of emotions are felt most deeply during such situations. But no one talks about how these can be incubated. More than that, emotions have been treated as static and unchanging. This is ridiculous.

Incubation means keeping emotions warm rather than burning them out. When you incubate something, it transforms under such heat. There are ways of doing this, such as mediation and mindfulness exercises. Mediation simply means sitting still or directing the energies in some way. Mindfulness means you concentrate unwaveringly on whatever it is your are doing, such as martial arts form. This is a way of quietening the mind so that you become focused.

So we end up studying emotions and theories about them in the initial stages rather than experiencing them to the fullest extent possible. But this is a stagnant analysis, rather than a live observation. When you become mediative, it is not that you become passive. It is just that you have travelled through emotion and come out the other side. You have used it for your growth, rather than being used by it and the provoking situation.

When you sit with pleasantness for a long duration of time, you begin to experience every emotion differently. This requires a certain experience of stress as well as a Deep acceptance. There is also a time lapse, because the chemical nature of the body requires time to process reactions into new solutions. The mind can get there straight away. This is the meaning behind deep focus. This does not mean you just sit with stress and accept it as it is. Instead you are transforming it with the right vision about what to do. Once you have done this, emotions are no longer a problem because they act as a springboard to something else. This is the true meaning of emotional development. Only when your emotions have transformed into something else will you take the time to look at anything other than survival and conquest over others.

For most people, the fullest extent of their emotion is passion. This could be passion towards sex, drugs, fighting, or whatever else. Whichever way, passion is used as a way into deep experience. The only problem is, the journey often comes to a halt prematurely. It is is like jumping off of a cliff to experience the rush. It is right to take the jump, but the problem is you didn’t think of hitting the ground hard! As a result, peoples deepest experience becomes associated with risk taking and pursuing some object which eventually causes them suffering. There is no limit to the madness of unbridled emotion, anymore than there is for your capacity to develop.

It usually never occurred to people that when you treat an object of desire with a level of deep respect, then you no longer view it as something to acquire and gain conquest over. So it is not a question of doing away with passion and desire, but of treating it with the same level of respect as you would a prize of some sort. This is why traditionally martial arts always aimed at inculcating a deep reverence and respect towards the Master or the forms of practice. The idea was to observe the thoughts and emotions passing by, just as the wind turns from high to low pressure. This is why it is important to reduce the hype of your activity and slow down the breathing and movement in mediative practices.

In martial arts, risk taking heightens the sense of adrenaline. This can become a powerful tool if you learn to use it wisely. This increases pressure within. It causes butterflies in the stomach, and anxiety associated with loss and overcoming pain. This is why some people develop heightened appetites and abnormal sensitivity to the environment. At the same time, when you learn to respond to intense experience towards martial arts practice rather than simply reacting, you are released from the fear of losing and the negative emotions associated with it.

It is all about searching for a bigger experience of life, which is what everyone wants anyway. So you have to become conscious of this. You need not stop at anxiety and adrenaline rushes. You use these reactive states as a root to spring from, a core of experience rather than a peripheral one. When the flower sprouts out of the seed it is no longer a seed. In the same way, when you overcome fear and anxiety, you no longer experience difficulty and pressure in the same way. You create a certain distance from it even though you feel it.

Say for instance that some weeds are growing on your flower bed. At certain times of the year, weeding takes up most of the day. The flowering happens as a consequence of working the land properly. Only then can you cultivate the flower bed expertly. If the weeds go unattended, then they can grow out of control. So you need to understand that you are working for something greater.

You may have noticed when it is cold and wet, and then the following day it is hot and sunny the weeds grow tall and gangly almost overnight. This is due to a collision of atmospheric pressures and weather conditions. Amidst this collision of these forces the weeds take full advantage. The same is true of your own pleasant experience. In other words, the same conditions which create negative emotions are the fuel for positive ones. This needs to be understood.

Most people have taken stress and anxiety as their own experience, and pleasantness and joy as some sort of fantasy land. However, it is just a case of putting in the necessary work. When you experience some level of heightened emotion, you go from low to high pressure. This is a stimulus, not a goal. This is particularly the case when you are in survival mode, the pressure suddenly increases. This is why in martial arts, you are taught to become always fully aware. This does not mean hyper vigilance, but perception of danger and readiness to act. They said stay ready, not stay reactive.

When you let the emotions develop within you, they can spring forth and take over the flower bed. These outcrops can be of different sorts. You can have weeds that take over, which is to say negative emotions of hatred, envy, and other reactive states. These flower into certain forms too. At the same time, the weather conditions permit the growth of other flowers. These other flowers include less reactive states which are a result of responding to situations consciously. For example, you can distend the Hara Centre or sink into a posture, rather than become rigid and tense in the shoulders and back1. Tension held in the shoulders and back leads to fatigue, stress, and headaches. This is a breeding ground for certain negative chemical states within the body.

Initially, there is always a reactive state of tension which you then respond to with a postural adjustment.This can be in any situation. It is not that reaction is better than response to it, it is just that tension is an initial stage in the cultivation of kinetic energy. This is just one example. If you don’t make this dimensional shift, then you leave yourself open to stresses and the build up of negative emotions from reactivity to events. You must instead be like the plant which uses the heat and energy of the stressful season to convert energy into transforming yourself. You then don’t let the weeds which have made there way onto your land define who you are as a person.

So it is about experiencing the storm to the full extend whilst doing the necessary work to create something pleasant out of the situation. When the branches of a tree bend in the wind, this sends a signal to strengthen the roots. If it snaps, this sends another type of signal that says it’s all over. This is the reason for pressure testing used in the traditional systems of martial arts. Pressure testing was used to develop flexibility. This has almost disappeared due to obsession with winning contests rather than being open to the possibility of losing. There is nothing wrong with winning, obviously it is a good thing, but the aim and orientation of your work needs to be correctly understood in order to get the most out of competitive forms of martial arts.

So when you have too many weeds in the garden, flowering is no longer your goal anymore, the flowers are a side effect of weed infestation. You then see these flowers as outside of your control, which they are not. You then become a bed of weeds, which take over the nutrients of the soil. More than that, the whole flower bed becomes distorted. Of course, you can weed it out, but it becomes a lot more difficult than if you had been aware of this happening initially. Better to start off properly. There is nothing wrong with weeds, but they share the same plot of soil as flowers and prevent the possibility of flowering. I hope you understand what is meant by this.

A martial artist must ultimately learn to treat emotions with reverence and respect. Only then will you be able to express them beyond their crude forms. If you are going to experience these things, why not cultivate them further than their initial expression? This involves accepting them and nurturing them as you would an ally or a friend, for this is what they are. The moment you accept a friend they way they are, they are more pleasant towards you than if you try to use them for some objective means. You then develop as a result of that relationship. Otherwise there is only suspicion and a mutual distrust between the two of you. Whole communities have developed out of both crude expression and cultivated expression. It is time to develop the right communities in martial arts.

References

1 https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2024/02/13/hara-centre-seat-of-creation/ Hara Centre: Seat of Creation

Diversity and Sustainability in Martial Arts

Posted on by joeharman8 | 10 min read | 95 views

“The need for extreme states of adrenaline is just like the need for cocaine or other such substances. The need for silence or space is just like the need to be out in nature. Out in nature, there are vast periods of inactivity, but there is a certain intensity about it which can be used to energise the system.”

Efforts to increase the varieties of practical martial arts training have left them all with similar flaws. Because the modern commercial styles are so popular, the benefits outside of immediate practical application have been forgotten largely. Traditionally, martial arts meant a complete system of health and well being. Today, there are systems of self defence, and then there are separate well being exercises. So there is a separateness about it, rather than a unity of diverse aspects.

By focusing only on self defence, rather than health, this leads one open to other dangers, such as disease and other ailments. Disease is one of the biggest threats to humanity, much more prevalent than a mugging on the street. None the less, people opt for self defence over general robustness against disease. If there were infinite time to do both, this wouldn’t be an issue. In reality, there are severe constraints placed on us by our circumstances, as well as scarce time and resources. So it is important to prioritise.

Let’s say you exhaust yourself each day with physical exercises. You might end up with big muscles, but a run down immune system. So it is about getting the balance of exertion and restfulness. However, when you stress the body with over exercise, it is increasingly likely that you will end up mentally stressed too. Then you experience interrupted sleep and feelings of hyperactivity. This can lead to various patterns of addictive behaviours, because the body is out of balance. This takes years to come into effect, so people tend to think it happens out of nowhere. Then the panic can set in, and in such a state it makes sense to feed off of extreme states, rather than steady ones.

The system of practice itself will depend on what you consider the best way to fulflil a need. The need for extreme states of adrenaline is just like the need for cocaine or other such substances. The need for silence or space is just like the need to be out in nature. Out in nature, there are vast periods of inactivity, but there is a certain intensity about it which can be used to energise the system. You may have noticed that traditional system stress the importance of training outside and away from the masses. However, modern day training environments cater for other requirements. We have moved from nature to the laboratory of study. In the lab everything is seen in isolation.

So getting away from stressful environments can also be a means of combating stress. The body’s reward systems, such as endorphin release, can be triggered by being away from external reward triggers. How is this achieved? The subtle and less extreme states experience in more natural environments go through kind of cycle, where they start off small but with large effects. They take a while to kick in, they go through a longer cycle, but this is a more sustainable means of energy cultivation. This does not eliminate external need or dependance, but reduces it drastically.

Take the example of nutrition. You break down the food, digest it, and then it ends up assimilating into the body via the mind and gut connection. Along this cascade of events, various hormones are created and neurological signals are sent internally which promote a sustainable sense of health and well being. So you are creating and fulfilling the pathways for your growth naturally. The receptors which uptake this energy cultivation are directly targeted by various chemicals, which trigger such receptors into stimulation. Let’s say you take some steroids. You will probably get more muscular. At the same time, the hormones won’t pass through your entire organ system. this is why many people who abuse steroids suffer organ related ailments. You then end up being weaker overall, even if you have a strong muscle.

The mistake everyone makes is in thinking that it is the chemicals themselves which cause health and growth. However, many scientific studies are now showing that these receptors, which are target by drugs, can naturally be activated by internally produced substances common to all people. This is why meal times have been considered an important, and often sacred, aspect of the day in many traditions. Because nutrition is a means of growth, and the more this becomes a mediative process, the less reliant on external supplements you become. You will even need less food to fuel you because it is being used more efficiently with less waste.

Martial Arts has been admired for its exotic appeal for centuries. However, the mysticism surrounding it has given way to clinical applications. For example, it makes no sense at all to take part in the mediative practices if all you are looking for is to knock out another person with a punch. So because people fail to see the value of meditative practices, they get increasingly ignored.

Despite the large number of martial arts styles that are popular, they all seem to share a common mentality. This mentality is limited to only a few generations of thinking. For example, Taekwondo, a Korean Martial Art, is known only for its commercially viable appeal. Most people assume it is all about flashy kicks and athletic performance. However, even just under twenty years ago, when I started training, there were many popular practices which are no longer widely taught. For example, one needed to sharply exhale and make a “Kiap” shout when kicking or punching as part of the practice. This was based on ancient knowledge that the sounds you make with the breath has a deep impact on power expression1.

“If you have a fast car, you don’t need to run at full speed all the time. Just having a high performance car allows you to drive slowly but with optimal efficiency, this is a blessing in itself, to be able to enjoy the ride. Driving slowly does not indicate incompetence.”

It is generally considered that the western inspired martial arts styles are superior to the Eastern ones. But the Eastern ones are not for wimps, as is often thought. There are various movements which involve stick fighting, animal forms, and energy cultivation in the Eastern styles. These have a practical value in themselves. For instance, because the eastern styles are based on ancient agriculture, rather than hunting, it makes sense that they have developed from a different platform to the West. In agriculture there are seasons. In western thought it is summer all the time. In the Chinese systems, the practices you engage with will often depend on the season largely. This is just one aspect.

Day to day life in the Eastern cultures, has largely centred around defending oneself from animal attacks, and worshipping the Earth. Obviously, this is not always so much the case now, but traditionally this is so. So how you defend yourself against a snake or a wild animal, will look different to how you defend yourself against a person. More than that, how you defend yourself against a force of invaders will look different to how you fight in the ring. An invasion can happen anywhere and at any time, not just when you are fresh and prepared for the date of the fight. So the need for general health, rather than specific conditioning was valued.

Western heritage is largely thought of in terms of conquest2. In fact, Western culture is also deeply steeped in agricultural heritage, but more recently there has been an aggressive culture of conquest and expansion. Violence is very much apart of day to day experience, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Whereas in the East, it is common to never even witness a crime, much less an assault. Obviously, every culture has its problems, but largely it was traditionally accepted that you stick with your clan in Eastern cultures, rather than look to take over your neighbour. It wasn’t considered a good idea to destroy an opponent in order to achieve liberation. The basis of creating good karma for yourself is that if you mind your own business, then you don’t quire baggage or excess that you don’t need.

So this loss of diversity in martial arts, in favour of conquest and strength, could leave us open to disease and disaster. For example, many of the practices in Yoga, as well as Tai Chi and other styles, are beneficial in disease prevention as well as relieving stress. In modern times, we have shielded ourselves from dangers to a large degree, such as petty crime, and violent killings. Obviously the dangers are there, but in general our safety has never been so secure. But at the same time we have opened ourselves up to other dangers. These include pandemics of mental and physical health issues. These dangers were always known in the Eastern tradition, which has already been through material affluence many centuries ago and so knows what happens when you are not careful what you wish for.

With the modern hybrid styles of martial arts, only a small amount of the diversity of practices is held onto. We have already looked at what some of these involve. It is important to hold onto ancient practices, because they contain a certain wisdom within them. It is not that they need to be practiced all the time, but they should be held onto. Nor is it that everything is about self defence and preservation of the species. It is like if you have a raincoat, you don’t need to wear it all the time, but you hold onto it none the less. Most of the time it may be so sunny you don’t need it. But that doesn’t stop you wearing it when necessary.

If you have a fast car, you don’t need to run at full speed all the time. Just having a high performance car allows you to drive slowly but with optimal efficiency, this is a blessing in itself, to be able to enjoy the ride. Driving slowly does not indicate incompetence. At the same time, if you run at full speed, you must be aware of the dangers and become increasingly switched on and intensively engaged when necessary. You need to be aware of every inch of the car, and how the weight is distributed. You need to feel it. This is why the traditional systems spent so much time tuning up and engineering the body’s performance in martial arts. They spend a lot of time in the garage engineering so that peak performance was possible without becoming run down and exhausted.

The reason these more traditional practices are not held onto is that due to passing fads, changes in industry standards, etc., force certain popular trends. However, there are individuals and organisations which always preserve the purity of systems of practice. Another reason is that due to the vast quantities of energy consumed in fitness practices, these require bio chemical enhancement or supplements to train in such methods. We have looked at this already. So at the same time as increased output, and decreased down time, we see an increase in the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport. Looking after and enhancing your health, rather than just aspects of physical fitness, can reduce the number of chemical supplements that are needed by the modern athlete.

References

1 https://intuitivemartialarts.com/2023/12/20/sound-and-form-part-1/ Sound and Form [Part 1 of 3]

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

Hara Centre: Centre of Creation

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 16 min read | 110 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

  1. https://wordpress.com/post/intuitivemartialarts.com/2227 Conquest at all costs: Drugs in Martial Arts.
  2. 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.

Sound and Form [Part 2]

Posted on by joeharman8 | 7 min read | 116 views

Previously we looked at why there was a tradition of passing on various sounds vocally. We also looked at how the sounds can support the muscular system and create a certain inner state which is conducive to health and power. We will look at exactly why this is, as well as what kind of sounds are effective and what this all means according to tradition.

In martial Arts there were spoken forms which were used to support the movements themselves. When we say spoken forms, we mean that syllables are put together and also this means the body must be moved internally or externally. Or both. This is the way it was done for thousands of years before there were elaborate writing or recording systems. It is still effective today. Later on things were written down and passed on like that. However, the tradition of learning directly from the Master is still strong, and involves not only mantras but energy shouting, as well as various sound forms. There are all sorts of Ragas, mantras, and chants learnt this way in different disciplines. For martial arts it is the same kind of thing. You follow a particular sound, or apply a sound techniques to support a movement.

Not surprisingly, Martial Arts uses sound in many ways, particularly the devotional arts such as those with a spiritual dimension, like Tai Chi as well as others. In my own experience, I learnt Taekwondo in such a way that you had to shout each time you did a kick. You had to shout “Kiap” every time. This feels silly at first and often it isn’t enforced anymore because of this. However, we did it religiously, and every time we kicked we would shout “Kiap”. At first I did it totally wrong, but eventually it became more effective and more amplified as well as deeper into my core. This is why you need a dedicated space to practice, if you start doing this in a casual gym, people will often find this socially unacceptable or weird.

I thought at first all of this shouting was just to increase confidence, and the idea was that you attacker might get scared. So even in this, the energy shout, or “Kiap” has a certain practical value. However it is much more than that, as I realised later on. It has an effect on you as well as others. This effect has various application according to what state you want to get yourself into.

In Tai Chi there are also various sounds that one utters during practice. It is the case for all martial arts, but it is not often emphasised enough. These sounds can be done externally or internally. When they are internal, you are just breathing and this supports the nervous system and circulatory system. For example, simple mediative sitting has an effect on ones energy system without any moving around. It also supports posture and the muscular system by inflating the body and moving the internal breathing muscles in various ways. In physical and practical martial arts they always focus on the exhale. This is where the shout is done. There are certain sounds one can produce to emphasise this exhalation, making sure that one follows the technique all the way to the end of the breathe. We will look at these next.

Internally, you will create all sorts of poetry when you establish the right equilibrium within. In fact, this is why there are so many poets are associated with Martial Arts practice. Miyamoto Musashi himself was both an artist and a poet. So was Bruce Lee more recently. The writing from both men tended to blend science and poetry together seamlessly. This is why they can talk about doing serious harm to somebody in one instance, and then raising their consciousness to heaven in the other. It wasn’t a problem for them because they had achieved mastery over these two contradictory aspects, the internal and external. Science has shown that when two opposite poles separate, this creates a charge. This separation of charge is what gives form to energy and what actually unites energy in movement.

The Sound “Aa”

There are various art expressions Which have come out of sound forms. You can create musical compositions, mantras, chants, or simply utter some simple syllables.People have done extraordinary things just by sticking to the ordinary principles. when it comes to rapid martial arts movements, the most appropriate form of sound you can utter are the more simple syllables. These can be performed in a staggering variety of ways. For example, let’s take the sound “Aa”. When you say this sound, the energy starts at the Hara Centre, 3/4 of an inch below the naval, and reverberates across the body. In other words, you ensure that the movement starts from the physical centre of the abdomen.

When you fully concentrate on saying the “aaa” sound, which can be long and drawn out, or short and quick, you feel an interconnectivity of the abdomen and rest of the body. The more physical martial arts focus on rapidly exhaling and making this “Aa” sound. You can shout it or or simply breathe out. A runner would improve their breathing by making such sounds, but they would shout it. They would just link the breath to the movement in a more subtle way that was less audible. So you do as needed. The “Aa” or “ahh” sound creates maximum pressure in the Hara Centre, whilst relaxing the rest of the body. This is the aim of gaining mastery over you physical centre, you want to apply pressure here so that freedom of movement is possible elsewhere.

In the Chinese forms they shout “HA”. This is adding another syllable in to the “A” which means it has the same kind of effect. Depending on the situation, it tends to come out differently. For example, if you punched it would come out differently than if you lifted up something heavy. There are many variations. It could easily be “Heeyaaahhh”, “uuuaaahhh” or “Yaaa”. It all depends on the situation. In fact, you would just be pronouncing the sound “ahh” differently with the addition of a few syllables. with “Heeyaaahh”, you go more up and down rather than just sustaining the continuous line of sound you would with “ahh”. However, you can also go up and down with just “ahhh”. So “Aa” or “ahh” is enough by itself, but modifications have been added in. The important thing is to become aware of this and make it a conscious thing rather than merely accidental. This means you respond on purpose rather than reacting unconsciously.

In Taekwondo we use the sound “Kiap”. The Kiap puts a “P” at the end of the utterance following on from the “Aa”. This brings it to an abrupt end, which is suitable in certain situations. The main point is that whichever way you pronounce the sound, that is the form which will be possible for you to do. You must have noticed that when when you punch rapidly, you use short sharp breaths. These come out in a vibrating kind of fashion, rather than up and down, which has a sustained shaking quality about it. This is used in many mantras and Indian Ragas too. In fact, some certain Chinese systems focus on this shaking power.

So to summarise, there are various ways of modifying the basic “Ahh” sound. These change the quality of it by allowing you to become rapid or slow for instance. Next we will look at how the volume of sound, such as how much energy you hold back and how much you let out and how quickly, affects output. There is a time aspect to this. So when the movement is longer and drawn out, so is the sound and the time it takes. One needs to pay particular attention to the volume of sound energy which is released and how to set the body to express this accross time. A big volume requires a big space. And a big space permits a larger distance for sound to more deeply reverberate across time. This means you stretch you experience of time according to the space you can create for yourself through certain sounds.

Do you Need a Coach in Martial Arts?

Posted on by joeharman8 | 10 min read | 100 views

The word Coach, or instructor, suggests that you are taught some skills and then given some advice about what to do with them. For this, obviously some instruction and expert advice is needed. So an instructors job is often to change you or modify you in some way, according to some sort of teaching. There are good and bad ways to conduct yourself. So in many ways the coach is employed to act as a source of knowledge. This implies an end point, rather than become an architect of your own creation, or becoming something no one else has ever been in the ultimate sense.

When it comes to a Master, or a Guru, this means something far more profound than learning a set of physical and psychological skills. Through them, you are to become your own source of knowledge. One decides to follow a master because they want to transcend the duality of competence and incompetence, of theory and practice. With a Master, you can learn from them how to become free from dependance, whilst at the same time utterly dependant on their guidance in a psychological and physical way to some extent, just like you would a coach. There is no right or wrong about this, it’s just that whatever the source of you competency, you use the guidance of somebody to improve.

A coach is an example to follow. They demonstrate the skills, and then they are transmitted to you. This is done because the necessary inspiration has been demonstrated. In this way, the instructor and the instructed form a symbiotic relationship or receptivity and transmission. The blossoming of this particular flower is done in laboratory conditions, according to a step by step approach. this is the modern way, according to scientific instruction. However, in the wider nature, a flower blossoms naturally, and the tendencies of the seed can go various ways depending on the conditions of the soil, or the environment. The Coach is looking to create the flower, by digging around in the structure, as if it is somehow buried inside there. They may even look at a natural flower and then seek to artificially recreate it. The Master knows it is not possible to blossom in this way.

So the Master works outside the lab, according to what they are presented with. The bond between master and disciple is then created. It is in this particular relationship that the master is able to function. Otherwise, without the necessary inspiration and trust, the only thing they can do is show some techniques with limited success. Indeed, this is why in the past nothing was transmitted to the disciple often for years. They needed to develop a certain level of striving and longing to know more, rather than satisfying some egotistical expectations. For example, the master is never openly criticised in certain cultures. This isn’t because they are perfect, it is for the benefit of the disciple, so they learn not to blame others or become self satisfied. The level of trust from the disciple the grows because they are not suspicious or envious any longer. However the expert coach is often criticised unless they bring success upon the athlete or instructed student.

Depending on what you want to learn, the coach is needed or not. For example, you want to learn some particular set of skills. Then certainly the coach speeds up this acquisition by providing sound advice and bringing clarity. However, if you want to go further, then more is needed from you. For example, you might learn how to punch or kick from a coach. But this says nothing about the existential problem of bringing stress upon yourself by dominating others and challenging other people constantly. A Master will usually advise against fighting, because they know that one who declares themselves as an alpha specimen knows no end of up and coming challengers. This eventually leads to peoples downfall in the end. However, in terms of confronting an opponent, a coach can instruct you on this.

The Master will suggest seeking peace or enlightenment rather than fighting. It is not that they are against combat, it’s just that they are more focused on blossoming than hardiness. However, you can also blossom with sufficient hardiness and tenacity. The Martial Artist knows that this can never happen unless he is well armed. So psychologically, and physically, many are prone to disagree that peace is even possible or useful. So they give themselves to a set of martial techniques. the only difference here is that with the Master, the disciple gives him authority of what they should be eating, drinking, behaving like, and sleeping like. It all depends on whether you value the every day things, or just the spectacular in terms of who you give authority to these matters. Defending your own life or eating properly are not of any more or less importance to one another. It actually depends on how well in advance you wish to safeguard your own security. This is why expert advice is needed.

When the Martial Artists experiences martial arts psychologically or physically, it is like a a prism which has reflected light. The light of incoming information has gone in, been transformed in some way, and then expressed as an appearance of light on a spectrum. For example, energy can fuel a thought, an emotion, or stillness. It actually depends on how much light you throw into creating stillness within yourself whether or not you experience it. Equally, whether you step off a cliff or into danger is not dependant on your bodily control or mental effort, but in the trajectory of your of your ongoing efforts.

This is what is meant by being in the moment, which means not to give attention and awareness to emotions but rather to pure knowledge, or the light. When disciple decides to take in the outside information only to absorb it directly, rather than transform its form in some way, then he becomes the master of his own destiny. Then, such a person can find meaning in whatever they do, from whichever inflection of light. You then absorb more light as a consequence, to the extent that you see it more often than others or shed light on matters which would otherwise confuse you physiologically or psychologically. The threats and challenges from others then have reduced psychological and physiological relevance or intensity, and therefore seem increasingly irrelevant.

When the body, mind, and emotions are in survival modes, the martial artists experiences this as himself. The energy coming in has been reflected into various subsidiary forms, often without awareness. Just try breathing in a shallow way rapidly for some time. Your emotional and thought state become one way. When you breathe more deeply, you begin to align more of the body physiology and framework to deal with the incoming waves of breath and energy coming into the body. Wether you create these or perceive them is beyond the point, you simply experience it as you so that it and the body is one and the same. This has been the goal of internal Martial Arts for Millenia.

When you slow down the deep breathing, focusing on the Hara Centre, feeling it circulate the body, gradually you feel as though there is no external threat and there is a greater internal awareness. In fact the external threat is simply a stimulus to kick start all this. This doesn’t mean you can’t act externally, just that you are no longer experiencing the outside internally. You are creating it yourself. You are instead experiencing the internal and projecting that outward. This is known as moving with the Chi, or projecting the chi. What this means is that there is an inner unity. This Chi is interwoven with other energies systems, like a scaffolding, so that it can add to the longevity stock of the whole system. This is why in Chinese medicine they focus on Chi energy to heal the body, rather than some other component off the body. The Chi body is not just some energy, it is literally a body of energy across many levels.

Moving with the Chi, or Chi energy, is a partuicular dimension of energy which is more subtle than emotion or thought. At the same time it influences both, and is part of the same structure. This is expressed differently in Yoga, which deals with various Sheaths or Koshas. Imagine you have a scaffolding around a building you are making. You need this scaffolding so that you can continue expanding the main body of the building. In the same way, the bones, emotions, hormones, and blood, all need a strong structure to circulate through. However, they would crumble is the scaffolding where removed. You are creating and recreating this all the time. In fact, the bodies cells are said to turnover completely after seven Years. This explains why peoples can overcome adversity, regardless of their past.

So the Chi is fundamental to building the Body. This Chi is also known as Prana in the Indian Systems. The more gross bodies are not enough by themselves to keep the body going in a powerful way for long. There is simply an upsurge and then decline as the body matures physiologically speaking. This is why many martial Artists who experience prolonged states of stress and tension eventually compromise the integrity of their organism if they have not worked with other aspects. If instead the body is used as a platform for the experssion of this more subtle Chi Energy, then it both holds the body together as well as strengthens it. This is why the Masters of tradition have emphasised working on the energy body, whereas todays athletic coaches focus on the materials of the structure and exploiting those for short term gain.

When you work with the Chi body, you do not need to change anything because it is all there. For example, when you work with the Hara Centre and Deep breathing techniques, you will feel as though it is no longer you that is breathing and the breath even stops. This can be very of putting for people who count the breath or over think the breathing, because they begin to panic and the breath quickens again. However, what is actually happening is that you are tuning yourself like a fork to the cosmic breath, which isn’t actually air, because the same air follows a different universal pattern to that of the planet or the body. Obviously all of the planet contribute to what we are experiencing here on earth, but the most fundamental is the solar energy, or the sun. The sun can be intense of relaxed, but it always expands and contracts in waves, rather than cycles of high and low.

The Hara Centre is the body’s beginning, it is where you started in the womb, and it is from there that you generate and circulate the energies of the body. It is in fact the master of the bodies energies. For example, if you are deep breathing using the Hara Centre and applying sustained pressure here, your emotional states and thoughts will become altered because it is playing a more central role in the generation of cellular and bodily changes. Otherwise thoughts become less concentrated and more scattered. So you can change all the social situations of you day to day life, as well as the thoughts and emotional states you experience externally, but you cannot change this fundamental factor that this storehouse of energy is and where it all begins. Depending on how central to your experience this activity becomes, you become less acceptable to the cycles of the outside circumstances, which are outside of you control and which happen in cycles rather than waves. Internal breathing focus and work is one hundred percent within your control, even if outside conditions hamper development or help it.

Lubricating the Joints and Hydrating the Body

Posted on by joeharman8 | 11 min read | 75 views

When we speak of internal martial arts, what we want to do is amplify the quality of what we are doing. Take the example of a microphone. If it is ramped up, the output is greater even though the speaker is the same. So this is what we are doing with the body, we are amplifying its output internally rather than adding effort externally. Or, we are doing both in some way. One way to achieve this, a major way, is to lubricate the joints of the organism properly. When we are talking about lubricating the joints, this is what the internal styles are about, and this is why there is meticulous attention paid to the form. we want to make sure every aspect of the body is paid attention to. It is not that it is outwardly effective, this just amplifies output. So there is a connection between the inner and out expression.

Once the joints are lubricated, they are more able to move freely and without hindrance. As soon as you wake up everything is less flexible. So stretching first of all wakes the body up. This is what you are doing with the reaching and extension motions of the traditional martial arts forms. it is just an organised way of doing what is natural when you stiffen up. You are looking to extend the energies in various ways. Otherwise you walk around as though asleep in a dull and lethargic ways. Yes, you don’t have to be asleep to be unconscious, you can even walk around like that. It is possible to reduce the consciousness whilst a certain agitation fires you up. This is known as unconscious activity. We will see how to increase the transmission or energy as well as the fluidity of its expression.

In general, the potency of the cells becomes so much greater when fused with water, and it almost seems supernormal and everything becomes magnified. Let’s look at this. The body is over 70 percent water, and this has tremendous implications for brain function, which we will look at in a moment. For now let’s look at vision. In fact, if the cells of the eyes, such as the cornea, are lubricated, only then is it possible to magnify. Otherwise, ones sight fails.

There are times when you don’t want to focus on the external.So, if the eyes are closed, then other cells become more active internally. This is known as internal vision. This is the reason for closing the eyes during intense internal focus. This assists perception and even outward vision eventually, by magnifcation of your faculties. Various scientific studies have shown the the corneal cells are among the most taxiing of the entire system metabolically, which is a major reason for widespread exhaustion in todays hyper focused and artificially illuminated world. Personally, I find it difficult to focus in the presence of applied artificial light. So what I do is soften my gaze and focus internally, as there is often no real need to focus on what is made obvious by the external environment.

When the joints become lubricated, everything becomes more effortless. Or everything that was once a big effort becomes easful and full of energy. So there is a certain grace and harmony within your movements, a fluidity about them. This is what the traditional forms aim towards in many ways. Otherwise, all the traditional forms just become meaningless and ugly, or just limited. This is intricately tied to the breathe as well as the activity of the joints and transmission of energy. So when during a meditative posture, the diaphragm moves closer in alignment with the abdomen, the tide rises just as when the moon is full on Earth. This is the meaning behind all the talk of the moon, the sun, and the earth in various scriptures. Because the human being is largely water, all of this has a profound effect on the individual, just as the moon affects the tides. This obviously affects the emotions and thought in a subtle way, which can become amplified. So, it is not that we look like water, it is just that our being is largely to do with water.

So then the water pressure increases and it tries to raise up, there is an increase in energy. The blood is trying to circulate more widely, and everything becomes more oxygenated. The internal pressure builds higher and is less localised. The greater capacity to receive energy from the outside, in the form of oxygen, makes it possible to increase this internal source of pressure. This pressure is the greatest at the Hara Centre, or the Dan Tien. If this energy can be sustained, it fuses with the organism over time. For example, the Hara Centre, the body centre of gravity, is the warmest area of the body. If the pressure is built here through various internal martial arts practices, or Yogas, then the charged particles become more potent. This causes a certain polarisation which is assisted by upward pressure. You then get an ellipsoid shape, leading from the Hara Centre towards the Brain, through the breathing apparatus of the Diaphragm and lungs. This is symbolised by the tree, where the energy gradually turns more towards bearing fruit rather than raw base energy at the roots.

Fire and Water: Yin and Yang.

So depending on the style and temperament of the martial artists, there is either more fluidity and grace involved, or more violence and thrusting of energies. With the more violent styles, these are more Yang. This means they make more use of heat. The more subtle styles make more use of Water, or fluids. This thrusting action, whether fluid or violent, occurs through the spine, which is full of cerebrospinal fluid. This can be increased by various internal meditations and practices, which radiate through the spine via the fluid. This radiation from heat operates through the body, specifically transmitting through the spine and the cerebrospinal spinal fluid, as well as elsewhere. Obviously, this can greatly affect emotional and thoughts, and in a big way these can be influenced. This is the reason for the various explanations of how fire and water styles interact and mutually reinforce one another in various ancient texts. It all depends whether you use the fire to ignite or to connect more deeply and then extend upwards via a process of transformation.

When the outward bound senses or focusing intently, naturally the eyes become more hydrated. This comes at considerable cost. For example say you are looking at a screen all day. The amount of hydration required of the Corneal cells is amongst the highest in terms of metabolism in the system. If the gaze is softened or the eyes are closed this brings the focus inwards. In other words, you move from outer to internal vision. It is the same as if your emotions are used to gratify what the outward bound sense are perceiving, or if they are used in the service of supporting the organism internally. Or there can be a combination of both, and enjoyment of both perspectives. Generally speaking, an internal martial artist will be more focused on using the emotional states to turn inward in focus.

What is internal vision? Well, if outer vision is a reflection of light, then internal vision is a perception of it in various ways. Light enters into the system via different frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum, and only a small proportion is visible light. The rest is perceived as heat, or even sound, as well as other forms. So sound waves requires a medium to transmit themselves though. How well we receive these waves depends on the level of hydration and where about it’s happening. So one way to perceive more deeply, is to lubricate the joints and close the eyes using various basic martial arts forms. there are countless numbers of these, and most are effective. Alternatively, you just perform any meaningful movement, such as picking up a ball, and pay total attention to it, feeling each articulation.

So if you lubricate the eyes only, then that is where everything is focused. If you lubricate the joints effectively, then this transmits various internal sounds and breath vibrations through the body more potently. This is the reason for the classical martial arts forms as well as the sound forms. For instance, the sound “Ha” encourages and activates the Hara centre, which is the body’s centre of gravity. The sound “Sh” or “S” encourages extension of the action of the Hara to the very end of the breath. this links breath to action, and action becomes more fluid. When various classical forms or performed using this sound, the articulation of the joints encourages greater hydration and transmission of energy. This is a profoundly powerful practice if it is done with the right understanding.

The the internal attention is like the external attention, it is just focusing on a different and more subtle energy. The vibrational quality of a hydrated system, which aims to become in tune with the classical forms, has a very different aura about it than when it is performed without presence or preparation. It Gains an entirely new vibrational quality. The fluidity of the movement is also much better if everything from the fingers to the arms are in synchronisation. When we say fluidity, this also means the internal fluid, which is encourages by gracefully and subtle outward motions. For instance, if you make a fist, practice doing so by first extending the fingers and hands, and then slowly folding in each finger one at a time in a smooth fashion. This lubricates the hands effectively. This can be done with the entire body.

Throughout the day, our attention is drawn towards often meaningless trvililities. This is a kind of theft when you think of the possibilities lost. The water element is being externalised more and more, which must come at a cost. So when the entire body becomes lubricated, the Chi energy, or simply vital energy, becomes much more able to transmit rather than becoming localised or constipated. With effort and practice, it is possible to remain in such a state of energy and transmission of energy even in the midst of external distraction.

When I say hydration, it’s not just a case of consuming water. This is just one aspect. If you breathe, you can breathe with the lungs only in a shallow way. You can also distribute fluid in a shallow way, to just the peripheral limbs or senses. If the circulation or hydration becomes bad, then things dry up. Hydration can be done badly. For example, the use of steroids retains water in the limbs which causes bloating. On the other hand, if water is used to hydrate the joints and even the deeper areas of the brain, then these faculties begin to become more full and vibrant. So by focusing on the internal energies, the deeper areas of the brain become hydrated, not just the instinctive and peripheral areas. this has profound implications for internal perception as well as intelligence. This explains why intuitive faculties seem like nonsense to those who are simply analytical and in the habit of orientating themselves just to the external environment. There is of course nothing wrong with it, it just one perspective.

So the absence of light in certain ways has a power of its own. This is the power of darkness, which is always represented by nothingness, or Yin. The absence of light, or yin, actually has a strong and vibrant presence. It is just not visible. This is why whatever you can do consciously, you can do much better once you have internalised it and are able to move to a no mind, or intuitive state. This obviously requires practice and mastery, but essentially, this effortless effort can be tremendously more powerful than deliberately trying for a pre determined outcome. So when you are able to internalise the breath and lubricate the joints well, this contributes towards a massive change in perception and capability. This is why in certain Chinese Styles, they have referred to cultivating the energies as the birth of an entirely new body of perception, or the Chi energy body. It is not some extension of the physical body, it is at once separate and connected.

Fullness and Emptiness

Posted on by joeharman8 | 9 min read | 97 views

Fullness and emptiness are two aspects which work together. Say you have a cup of water. You will drink the water, which will lubricate the system and go towards creating energy. This energy can be used to do various things. If you eat food, then it becomes part of your body in various ways. It can be used as energy which you immediately expend, or it can be used to regenerate cells. If you wish to regenerate cells, this takes a lot more time and energy than simply eating and then rushing off somewhere to do an everyday task. this is why various forms of energy healing rarely work in peoples experience, because in todays world they are often expected to rush around from one appointment to the next as if they never run out of energy. Either that or it is as if you just go and get a job done, and then rest if there happens to be time. However, there is never Time unless you see the value of waiting and slowing down from time to time.

When you eat food, it can be delivered to the blood, or stored in the liver. This happens in different proportions according to a persons lifestyle and approach to nutrition. Today it is common for athletes top eat blended food. This is because due to their demanding schedule, they don’t seem to have time to sit down and eat. Digestion takes a lot of time and energy if it is to be done properly. This is why elaborate rituals in the past have been established around eating. For example, in fast food restaurants you sit in an overly stimulated environment and eat sugar and salty foods. this is because the senses have been ramped up to cause a kind of craving, whether you are hungry or not. So for someone who is always stimulating the appetite unnaturally, they want to be full all of the time. This has caused all kinds of health complications. However, if you can find some time to sit and eat quietly, this not only improves digestion but also helps restore normal appetite.

The air you breathe can be used to fuel digestion, or it can simply be used to get through the day in a haphazard manner. You can use it to deeply stimulate the internal organs, or simply breathe in an everyday shallow way. All of these things, nutrition, water intake, lifestyle, and breathing, form a complex interaction which produces various results health. So the more you become conscious of all of these things, the more you can make an informed decision. If they are simply done unconsciously, the body’s processes will function just enough to eat reproduce and sleep. However, this kind of ordinary functioning can be ramped up in various ways. One such way is to become empty. As we have seen fast food environments make you feel empty when in fact you’re full. if you sit quietly, or go for a gently walk in nature for example, you are able to increase digestive functioning so that you are more aware of when you need to eat. You then eat what you need rather than out of some kind of built up compulsion through habit.

If your cup is full, then you must do some work in order to empty the cup. Emptying the cup happens in different ways. You can exert yourself in the gym, or simply sit still and let the food assimilate into the body. Or you can do both in varying degrees. So training in martial arts involves converting food into some sort of output, which shapes the person into a martial artist on the physical level. This is why in martial arts, the clean diet was stressed. By clean we simply mean not too much additive or artificial chemicals. Then you are responding to the food rather than the additional chemicals added into the food. Chemical dependance becomes a problem over time, and it is much more difficult today to find food which doesn’t have artificial elements to it. So a good ways to ensure that you diet is healthy is to not eat food which is as untreated as possible, and according to the body’s needs rather than in response to the taste buds only.

So by filling the cup, you create the conditions for emptying it is you are able to take some simple steps. Filling the cup well becomes part of emptying it properly. Emptying the cup properly happens according to certain patterns of energy which can be built up and experienced. These are the reasons for focusing on the energy meridians and chakras. When you focus on maintaining and upright and relaxed posture, you will increasingly feel these established channels operating. They do not happen at random and are a reliable source of feedback as to whether your energies are functioning well. This is known as the way in martial arts, which is beyond form because it is the basis of creating the form itself.

So when you have experienced emptiness, this creates a different kind of fullness on another level. You become more full or vigour and enthusiasm, rather than lethargic from overeating. This is so even if you don’t eat. At the same time you appetite will increase because you are more able to perform work properly as the demand is there. It is not overeating itself that creates lethargy, it is just that if you try to eat a lot of food and then set yourself down in a lazy inert way, then this energy does not convert particularly well. So there is sitting meditatively, and sitting casually. Whereas if you go for a gentle walk, or sit in an upright relaxed posture, this in itself can be a good way to burn clarions in a slow way. More accurately you are converting calories. So there is fast burning, which uses up quickly, and slow burning which happens as a long term process of transformation. it is not a question of good or bad, but if you overdo the fast burning then the need for slow burning increases due to the level of stress hormone which can build up in the body. This is why athletes are continuously looking for recovery solutions artificially.

many people only sit down in an lethargic manner. They believe that you should sit only when you are exhausted. However, you won’t make the most out of this time if you don’t put any kind of effort into the process. I’m not talking about mental or physical effort, only momentum of energy which requires a different kind of effort. For example, you can sit and perform various breathing exercises, which cause deep pressure on the organs and breathing muscles, which give you a deep core workout without moving the limbs around. This is why people athletes often go to high altitude when they train, to stimulate the core breathing muscles. This then clear the lactic acid away from the body effectively by increasing blood flow and circulation. You are then more effectively able to train even though you have not done much in the way of conditioning exercises. The same thing happens in deep breathing without the need for high altitude. Otherwise various drugs can be the way. So you actually want to be full of energy in order to do perform breathing exercises effectively, rather than just as an afterthought once you are empty in other ways. Eating food stimulates the core for this energy, which requires a certain period of rest before you can engage properly. This is why digestion is so important.

Becoming empty pesters the system into various states of need and demand. This is why people who are always exhausted can still remain active even though in many ways they are empty. They are full of a certain kind of anticipatory agitation, which is a kind of energy spike. Such people can go all out but then often require days to recharge. This kind of expenditure is enough to ensure survival, but because it is unstable requires various other kinds interventions to support. For example, the mind and emotions play a big role in supporting such states of stress, whereas one who has done the necessary preparation can become self supportive because when the energies have built up to a certain level, these energies are never wrong. The mind however can be wrong, just as emotional response can be wrong. But when the energies are driven in a powerful way, the emotions and mental energies follow in their rightful place. This is a kind of intuitive intelligence. It is not a question of better or worse, it is just that when the energy systems are cultivated to a certain extent they are able to see much more of reality than the normal mental and emotional states of energy alone.

So in Martial arts we say that to become full you need to empty the cup. At one level, this means expenditure of energy. At another level, it means conversion of energy. To heal the body after a fight or stressful situation? This obviously takes a large amount of energy if it is to be done quickly. This means that you apportion a certain amount of energy to stretching and breathing exercises for example. There are many such exercises, which can be easily found online so I will not go into detail right here now. Even a small amount of this will have some effect.

To engage in a fight or stressful situation recklessly, this is a certain expenditure of energy in itself, which obviously cannot then be converted into something else. If people thought about it carefully, they would see that massive expenditure has a knock on effect the next day. It is not that you just get though the stress of a situation and then back off and hope for the best. This is a limited approach. If you recognise the toll a situation takes on the energy systems, then it becomes immediately clear when these systems have been compromised because they reflect the tuth of a situation. Mentally you tell yourself you’ll be fine. Emotional, you are involved. There are many deceptions here. However, once the mental, physical and emotional energy shave found their appropriate place in the hierarchy, they will follow the high systems of energy, the energy body, which actually overlaps the other physical and mental bodies, and has an entire reality of its own. This is why the bodies were so called in Indian systems, because they are entire realities of experience rather than just offshoots of the physical body.

What is Real Martial Arts?

Posted on by joeharman8 | 14 min read | 100 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/

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