Tag: inspiration

From Expectation to Inspiration

Posted on by joeharman8 | 12 min read | 108 views

There in many in Martial Arts who believe that it is best to switch off your concerns about the opponent. For them, the thinking is “We should handle it severely, and that’s it, to Hell with the other guy”. When you follow this line of reasoning, then you justify maiming your opponent or worse. However, when you say “There is no opponent”, it is possible to lapse into defeatism and accept your fate. This has always been the problem with the spiritual side of martial arts. However, the goal is always to develop your consciousness and awareness, without being defeated. In other words, you do what is needed to ensure your survival, but when your survival is ensured and you just want revenge, this becomes a sickness.

It is not about embarrassing the other guy. This requires a certain resentment towards the opponent, that they are the bad guy and you are delivering justice. When you hyper develop egotistical thought, your own mind stabs you in the back. It cuts you just as a sharp blade wielded by a novice. When you carry bitterness in your heart, or sow the seed of it, then this is not what is referred to as the empty mind approach. This is a sickness.

So the idea behind taking action is to ensure that it does not grow into something bad. For instance, the goal of winning a contest is to strive to the utmost. this becomes bad when you try to secure a victory, or you fear losing such a status. This is because such accumulated baggage becomes burdensome and you are no longer driven by inspiration but by narrow minded expectation. Never waste time become self satisfied in such a way. If you are never satisfied, then that is good, it means you expect a lot from yourself. If you expect little from yourself, it means you have given up hoping to stretch and surpass expectation.

Empty Mind

The empty mind approach simply means you have emptied the car of its petrol. This does not mean you forgot to fill it up, or that you drove nowhere. No, instead “empty your mind” means drive to the destination, not anywhere that’s unnecessary. So you empty only after you have reached. So you are driving your own inspired action to its natural conclusion, rather than an unrealistic or unnatural conclusion.

Let’s say you wanted to become the greatest martial artist ever. It is only when there are such grand expectations that inspired action becomes possible. So reaching the goal would only inspire less action. It is better not to reach that goal in that case. Or, if you did somehow reach it, you would quickly need to find another way of staying involved. This is where most people fall short. When they have achieved their dreams, they no longer see the point. But you can always push a little further, couldn’t you? If your dream was to achieve ten thousand hours of practice, then raise that expectation to double, and then triple!

Empty mind means you take no sides and you just see things the way they are. It is said that there is honour among thieves. What this means is that when you take from a situation to benefit yourself, you will find many other corroborators to encourage you for your efforts. So a thief is never short of friends. If you lower your expectations and inspirations to something achievable, you will find no shortage of encouragement. This is self robbery. It is only when you disregard such encouragement that you will truly surpass realistic everyday goals. This is important, because most goals people make are usually too easy to remain motivated with for long, or they are inspired by others expectations for them. This is for them, not for you. Quality is measured not by fulfilling some goal. So the goal need to be measured in terms of whether you are applying yourself totally or not.

Becoming Aware

But when you remain aware, aware for instance that your opponent could be less dangerous than you immediately think, you open up different possibilities. This is equally so if you see them as more dangerous than you. We will get onto this shortly. It is often the case that people walk around without concern for how they are behaving towards others. If you walk in a forest loudly, you will disturb the wildlife so that they run away. This is happening everywhere, people disturb each others peace and then blame each other for their own lack of consideration. I would say that this is how the vast majority of fights break out, due to sheer ignorance. This is a huge development of the ego that was never there in previous generations.

Assailants are often like wild animals, they pay attention to these things and are in a hurry to react. This is partly because they have hyper developed their survival circuits so that they are on red alert all the time. To achieve this is beneficial, but to stay there indefinitely is a disaster. From the survival perspective this makes sense. From a well being perspective, this is every day torture because it’s overusing the senses which become unavailable for anything else. Your whole experience then becomes one of emotional chemistry geared towards survival rather than prosperity. So the survival circuits should be available when needed, but not compulsively reacting to outside events indiscriminately.

The human being is built more for well being as its ultimate goal. The same body that hates can contain the opposite emotions too. Therefore, it is not about the body. It is instead how you perceive the world and the way you orientate the energies which itself creates the chemistry. I frequently change from struggling at a task to being dead to the world. this is not a problem for me because one state naturally transitions into another if you go about closing and widening the gap between activity and rest form that occupation.

When you look at what people fight over, these are petty, useless matters. Someone spilling your drink in a bar has nothing to do with you. This is simply societies experience playing out in a social situation. It may be happening around you and in a situation you are involved with, but it would happen anyway without you there. These situations are just thousands of years of evolution by trial and error still happening. The intelligence within you should guide you towards intelligent action.

Being No. 1

You should not have a problem that someone is bigger and stronger than you. If you meet somebody more capable than you, this is good because you have an opportunity to learn. If you can befriend such a person, then this will be a great partnership. If your idea of winning and victory is beating down somebody else, just to secure your own image, then this is a horrible waste of potential. If however, you engage in a martial arts contest with somebody far better than you, then you are pushing yourself to the limit. You will reach your full potential. You can never do this against an easy hand picked opponent, or an easy target. If somebody is pushing you to the limit, then this will just make your experience more intense and meaningful. It will make you perform better and experience the richness of life.

So far we have looked at how, most of the time, just paying attention to how you might rub people the wrong way in an environment stops most altercations. You see their intensity as a means to switch yourself on and become more aware rather than threatened. Through certain meditative practices you can be totally involved in chaos yet keep a fire between yourself and the outside world. Fire is a pressure that burns everything.

I would say that around ninety percent of fights can be avoided by paying abolsute attention to how you are in your surroundings. This makes such situations positive rather than negative. The problem is people pay absolute attention to fixate on how somebody has looked at them the wrong way, or bumped into them. You cannot pay absolute attention to two things. You can have the two things going on at once, but they need to synthesise into a coherent vision. It is not either or.

Instantaneous Analysis

In martial arts, it is necessary to develop an instantaneous analysis. This isn’t a case of stopping the response to danger and slowly going over the options. No, because then you set yourself up as a mark who cannot think on the spot. You don’t want to come across hesitant. Hesitation kills. If you hesitate, you are then clearly demonstrating that you are incompetent to act. It is about seamlessly going over the options and doing what’s necessary instantaneously, there and then.

Similarly, in a martial arts match if you are going over some exercises in your mind without perceiving what’s in front of you, you miss the point. You are building an experience based on the past rather than building a future based on the present. This way, even if you make a mistake, you are paying absolute attention and full awareness so you know where you went wrong instantly. You can then auto correct in a kind of flow state of improvisation. This is something master guitar players do, they play the wrong note on occasion but it is dealt with then and there and actually opens new possibilities. So a mistake accepted as a pathways becomes a means of liberation from hesitation and inertia. It is part of the creative process, not fearing mistakes. This requires a certain clarity and consciousness about life.

From powerlessness to Power

When a cornered animal fights, it just goes into survival mode full on. Does this require any sort of power? No it requires a powerlessness to do anything else. When one is powerless and insecure, they always seek to squash somebody else because they know they’ve had it otherwise. This is not a bad thing, there is no good and bad in nature. This kind of emergency mind set is obviously what will happen if somebody comes along and butchers your family in front of you. This is not meant to scare you or sound harsh, but in all likelihood you will grab the nearest thing and survival will happen as it does in the jungle. You will just do what’s necessary to stop them, yes or no? This requires responsible action to avoid. So this doesn’t need to be practiced or rehearsed. This is what we want to avoid, but it will happen if we don’t take precautions to ensure our own security.It is the avoidance which needs to be practiced as means to gain control over the situation.

Fear is a powerful externalisation of energy which happens whether you want it to or not. However, the way it expresses itself can be changed. So even the automatic survival process can be harnessed to some degree, or it can be left to react with events on its own. Men in particular tend to become more aggressive when under threat. In martial arts we say that the greater the challenge, the greater the potential power to overcome. This means that under extreme circumstances, if you can harness the energy and squeeze opportunity out of it, this is where true power lies. So when under threat, you can just dissipate the energies at the level of the instinctive reactions, or you can send it upwards. There are many ways to go about this.

Not for the faint of Heart

Say you have particularly powerful energy emitting outwardly. You need to develop certain tools which are purely receptive and absorb this energy. This is where the breathing comes in, as well as the postures and stances. The Hara Centre1 is the powerful energy centre for generative purposes. The Solar Plexus, or heart centre, absorbs this energy when breathing becomes properly attuned to the internal system. This proper attunement does not happen when you are breathing purely in reaction to external events. So by concentrating here, at the Hara Centre, you remain more in control.

The other way is to make certain sounds2, which create the right kind of internal attitude and synchronise the breathing patterns with a strong posture or stance. So remaining mindful of these considerations can greatly enhance your ability to respond to emergency situations and find cunning ways of subverting them altogether. This takes the fire and intensity of a situation and transforms it into something beneficial. The idea is to become aware that the situation is happening, but conscious there is more going on than just the survival process.

In many self defence classes, you are advised to fight back automatically. For example, there is the whole “It’s me of him” mentality, or “he’s trying to stop me feeding my family, so I must put an end to him”, this kind of thinking. Either that, or you are told to pre meditate a minimal damage response. The thing is, that if you’re wrong about this, you have a big problem. This kind of thinking came about when martial arts became a mass production affair.

Just like we predicted that people would always work in factories, we predicted that the situation could be planned for in advance. Evolution does not work this way. So it become necessary to pre package techniques which are said to work in the absence of awareness or even basic competence. This gets people moving and gives them a bit of confidence to take further steps. However, if you make the mistake of taking on some sort of quest to defeat people, then then existentially this requires a huge level of self responsibility and competence. It is not me saying this, it’s a condition of taking things on in life. This is why martial arts was deemed not for the faint of heart.

References

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

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

The Imagination

Posted on by joeharman8 | 10 min read | 140 views

When training in your mind, get into the habit of imagining yourself as the most powerful being possible. Concentrate, for example, on the light emanating from your eyes, on the brilliant white colours of your clothing, as you destroy and burn away the darkness, so that you begin to identify with this image and correspond to it in your physical gestures and bearing. This is a simple example to start with. Whilst it might do you some good to imagine winning a title and how great you look on television for example, this ideal is not high enough to inspire the greatest inspiration to surpass yourself1.

By aiming at something totally beyond physical possibility, you unleash the powers of the creative imagination. This is what fills the apparent gulf between reality and the unattainable. And you don’t ned to worry that this ideal can never be realised, because it will be realised in the mental world of ideas, which although invisible can have a real effect on the physical life. In this way the invisible reality of thought and imagination is an aspect of the physical reality, which although real, does not have a material existence. An everyday example should surface to illustrate this point.

Imagine, for example, that you are feeling ill and weak. Just by willing yourself to be in a state of harmony, through the intermediary of thought, you can to some extent at least, improve your health. Yes, because every physical reality starts with a corresponding thought which represents an ideal. And from there the effects of this ideal manifest physically, although not immediately. It is only in the imagination that space and time have not hold, so it is here that we can often do the best work. The results may be poor at first, but the more high the ideal, the more powerful the effect, particularly if you are accustomed to doing this habitually.

You might say “We’ve heard all this before, but the effects are so miniscule, it would just be a waste of time”. Whilst its true the effects are very minimal for many, this only proves how little effort is put into mental practice. Because most people think it is a waste of time, they give in to all sorts of immediate needs and neglect this longer term work of forming constructive thought habits. This is why so many people relate instead to misery and low expectation. Something else to understand is that thought itself cannot act on the body directly. However, the high ideal, which imagines a limitless reality can encourage feelings of inspiration and enthusiasm, and it is through these intermediary sensations that the physical effects manifest.

Simply thinking about light, darkness, and martial arts practice isn’t enough. You need to relate to though through the power of the will, which is responsible for directing our motivating energies. Otherwise your thoughts will likely just turn into listless daydreams. For example, imagine you are fighting the forces of darkness, with the weapons of light. By relating to the light and bringing these images to life by willing them into action, this can have an uplifting effect on your feelings and state of consciousness. Once this is understood, it becomes easier to use the will to concentrate your attention on only the most inspiring and evocative ideas.

Ideas inspire thoughts, and thoughts act on feelings, which act on the brain, and which in turn acts on the physical body. The reverse is also true. For example, by engaging in noble and inspiring behaviours towards others, this is a clear pathway to encouraging luminous thoughts and corresponding to the highest ideals, however dimly represented here and now physically. Whilst we are often unable to do much in the under immediate physical constraints, we are under no obligation to do so in the imagination, which can take any form, and represents an aspect of our high self2. The imagination can envisage the most diabolical things, as well as the most luminous.

Physical practice helps us make better mental representations. And Better mental representations help us to build an ideal model, which surpasses us and guides us. You could call it the God head, the higher self, the spirit, Prana, the infinite. Whilst a master or expert may also symbolise such a model, too often such masters are full of the same weaknesses and bad habits as those whom they have taken responsibility to instruct. To be sure, it is not a problem to have weakness, so long as our habits and behaviours are sound. We need a perfect model, an incorruptible model, with which to relate and feel so that it can act upon us and guide us. This solves the problem of our inherent weakness, common to us all. What this model example is will depend on the individuals subjective imagination, and can take myriad form. The important thing to remember is that the imagination is a tool to develop the most inspiring thoughts and ideas so that they can act and course through our every action and gesture.

Hopefully you are beginning to see that the realism of the mental representation does not matter. In fact, it should be deliberately unattainable and inspire the same sort of mimickery, love, and adulation that a super hero does on a small child. Once you have succeeded in imagining such a visualisation, the physical effects upon your health and well being, not to mention your enthusiasm and energy, will be so powerful that the reality of the idea will be unimportant. In fact, your own improvement will be the measure of reality. The objective results of exercises of the imagination, if practiced and developed over time with focus, will power, and attention, will become self evident. What started off as an unrealistic idea, ended up having very real effects.

I once travelled all the way to Taiwan, where I was invited to take part in a grading event where people from across the Country went to receive their 8th Dan black belts and International qualifications from World renowned Masters. Whilst there were some talented individuals there, I was surprised to find such poor role models, who were neither skilled, healthy, or inspiring. There were people breaking wind in the training hall, eating and leaving wrappers everywhere, lots of noise, and nowhere to practice and concentrate before the assessments began. I had come to learn from the Masters of the World and there I was in the midst of all this. I realised I needed to aim higher, rather than adjust myself to this kind of community.

It is often the case than when we try to pursue physical results directly, they allude us. The models aren’t their to nourish our urge to transcend ourselves. For example, by practicing a form over and over again in a technical and robotic manner, we often end confused and unable to perform with any real effectiveness. However, when we imagine ourselves in our minds eye as a great and powerful being, or even in the shoes of a great champion, we can feel we have the enthusiasm to be like them. We do not need to know how they do it, any more than we need to know how to digest food, we just follow their example and it nourishes us. This interplay between the imagination and our physical actions does not produce the same effect from one day to the next, unlike physical mechanical practice, even if our actions look similar.

This process of striving to surpass ourselves, to align ourselves to perfection, transforms and directs our instincts and desires, which are so often squandered on aimless activity, and this transformation can be used to sustain and develop our mental and physical practice. I’ve been doing this for years, and I entrust myself to this process alone, as a refuge from the seductive illusions created by many so called experts. I found early on that giving myself over to systems and icons weakened me by by making me too vulnerable and sensitive to the criticisms and praise of others. I needed to find this essential inspiration from an inexhaustible source within so that I could live it.

What you should remember is that appointed experts are often little more than actors, who have developed a certain allure and use their powers to seduce and encourage daydreaming in their students in a sense. However, by following a high ideal fuelled by the imagination, and perhaps encompassing aspects of genuine experts, you can then be content to move forward without fretting about what exactly you should be doing or learning, because of this strong sensation and guidance. Without this inner guidance you are obliged to simply fret and worry about the details. However, the details take care of themselves in this process driven model.

When we place this high ideal at the summit, our goal directed behaviour is given a much higher ambition than simply gratification of instinctive animal urges. Instincts are the fuel and are at the root of all behaviour. But why stop there? Gratification of instinctive urges, for example aggression, is not an end in itself for me. In the language of logic, instinctive behaviours are a necessary but not sufficient requirement of action.

Often instinctive reactions blind us. When we let anger take over, all we see are enemies and we want to destroy them. When this obscurity takes over this paints an illusory world that Hindu Philosophy calls Maya. This is our lower self, our emotions taking over. These are the real enemy and need to be fought and driven to into submission3. The meaning of Martial arts, for me, transcends mere perseveration of existence. It needs higher meaning. In any case, Killing the instincts is not the way, because they are vital for energy and action, and without them our behaviour is flat and dead. However, so many fighters are driven to waste their energies by simply supercharging their instincts without any high ideal or thought power to direct them intelligently. Personally, this truth has been the most defining factor in my my life and practice.

So, the high ideal inspires the imagination to create the most inspiring images and fills us with certain feelings which are indicative of truth. Our actions are then aimed at corresponding and orientating our energies towards striving to the highest standards if this practice is taken seriously. Obviously, it is up to each individual to decide to what extend this work is taken seriously. But if we concentrate on this, we relate more and more to it ( even imagining ourselves with others also doing this work), and eventually we are able to tell truth from falsehood merely by looking at others example and seeing to what extend their actions and words inspire a similar state within us. In this way the creative imagination is a key to truth.

References

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

2 The Higher and Lower Self in Martial arts https://harmanater.com/2020/05/04/the-higher-and-lower-self-in-martial-arts/

3 The True Meaning of Martial arts https://harmanater.com/2020/05/18/the-true-meaning-of-martial-arts/

The Economics of Martial Arts Part 1

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 13 min read | 151 views

Economics involves the distribution and use of scarce resources. Now, using up scarce resources so that they don’t materialise into anything more is a waste. We see this all the time, even amongst professional athletes. This concept of using up resources is clear from the simple fact that if we do not use up oxygen effectively we die. Similarly, in Martial Arts Training, if we do not allocate our energies effectively the outcomes will be less than impressive, even if we are trying hard and engaging in intensive work.

It is often thought that to get anywhere in professional Martial arts that you have to cheat and ingratiate yourself with key figures within the industry in order to gain privileges. From there, you are obliged to use up all your energies and resources for short term capital returns, in the form, say a title belt or money. Along the way you get a certain amount of physical abilities, tools of the trade. However, what is the point of all this if you are left impoverished, that is, injured and worm out, by the end of a short career?

In a sense, the organisation you are working for as a professional is like a shop. You are encouraged to spend, waste even, all your resources in the superstore. You are then rewarded with all sorts of membership deals, services, and reward schemes. In another sense, you become an advertising board, or a franchise shop. In yet another sense, you are given the opportunity to surpass yourself as something bigger and better. Depending on how you look at it, all of this is true. The important thing to remember, is that you will naturally want a return on your investment, that is, something better than you started out with rather than being conned into something with hidden long term liabilities. You might say “Well, in this fast paced world we have to just grab any opportunity we can”. Maybe, but it can at least be helpful to have your eyes open.

The thing to do is to use your energies and forces in such a way that you capitalise on the returns. For example, if you work hard what you get back should be more valuable than the time and effort you gave up. Training in such a technical manner as many people now do, you give up all your time and energy and the result is purely technical knowledge. The consequence of such superficial knowledge is often increased laziness and decreased personal initiative, which is a cost. In other words, you may gain some technical knowledge but you undermine the source of your own wealth – initiative, inquisitiveness, discovery, etc.

There is an eternal battle raging between the rich and the poor. The rich are said to keep the poor down, and the poor are envious of the rich. However, the rich don’t always stay rich for long if they hoard up all their resources. This is why you must keep giving away your skills, so that each time your practice is as if for the first time. That is, you must rid yourself of old habits and evolve ceaselessly. In this way, think of yourself as an entrepreneur who is ceaselessly investing his capital into new enterprises which, although you might not know what future developments may bring, end up surpassing the previous ones, even if you lose a couple of investments here and there. It is the daring effort to do this and never give up that is the true wealth.

If for example, you eat too much food and don’t use the resources it gives you, you will grow fat and lazy. Similarly, if you don’t develop your skills but instead live off the existing capital, without expanding your enterprise, you may well end up losing what you have worked for. In the same way, the rich who do not provide much need goods services to the relatively poor will find themselves in trouble. In this way, you should seek to give to the poor, or if you like those in need of your expertise, all that you have acquired. The poor then benefit from the rich and eventually become the rich who help the poor, instead of the rich simply exploiting the poor and the poor remaining helpless as is often the case. Then each individual will be like a nation passing through the industrial period into the new horizons of the future. In other words, weak people may suffer for a time but end up better off if they unite under the right conditions.

People get rich, generally speaking, by working hard and finding a service to provide in the market. Yes people get lucky, inherit money, etc., but generally speaking this is how it works. The mistake they often make is to lose motivation in this as they get more comfortable and lose their edge. The result is that they become lazy, flabby, and unenthusiastic, lose their zest for life, their impetus, and then can no longer enjoy the process of becoming enriched. This benefits no one. All they can then do is sit on their material wealth and squander it on amusements rather than developments, even though that does not bring them the happiness they had as captains of industry, or a leader. In other words, they rested on their laurels and became inwardly poor as a consequence of hoarding wealth. as you can see what happens on the large scale is true for the individual, both on the physical and mental level.

On the other hand, Many people who have never had to work hard or use their initiative to surpass themselves have remained poor and idle all their lives. They were too comfortable, preferring instead to remain idle, self satisfied and comfortable. This is what most people want, time to amuse themselves with pleasures a material gain. The problem is that this way of life kills their spirit and enthusiasm and they settle for mediocrity. And it has such a grip on people that it drives out all memory of anything more inspiring and noble.

What I am proposing is that you use all the motivation and determination to enrich yourself to reach a high ideal. You use all the means available to the capitalist to enrich yourself inwardly according to a glorious ideal, rather than just money a title, or comfortable arrangements. In this way you make the method of the capitalist the goal of your behaviour to reach the ideal of the communist. Symbolically speaking, you become the serpent eating its own tail, by uniting two polar opposites2. The two philosophies are not mutually exclusive according to this perspective.

Instead of the goal being some title and then stagnating after you’ve got it, aim for the stars and beyond using the means of determination, perseverance, and willpower3. These know no limits so there is no need to be ‘realistic’, so long as you are inspired and enlivened constantly. In this way it doesn’t matter if the ideal is unrealistic because the consequence it has on the human psyche has the effect of bringing about greater harmony than simply going with what’s immediately viable. In this way you make your training and development the priority and place the ‘goods and services’ you produce, such as skills and abilities, at the service of this inexhaustible ideal. Unless the ideal is beyond reach it will be realised and progress will stop. And to be inspiring enough humans, I would argue, need a goal which allows them to transcend themselves.

Once you have adopted this attitude, you are then free to become a communist in the true sense of looking out for others, providing for them, and treating everyone as part of a brotherhood. Even those who get in your way force you to develop and evolve, opening your eyes to new challenges4. Your enemies are often your true friends. The capitalist within you gets richer, and you pass on your abilities and skills to others, via the goods and service you continually turn over. Because old ideas are thrown on the scrapheap and you are obliged to evolve with the times, and you are continually required to work and surpass yourself, using your old products as fertiliser and manure for your new fields of production3. So you even also become an environmentalist in your mental life.

As you can see, for me at least, their is no irreconcilable differences between capitalism and communism. They are simple a duality within a unified whole, two polar opposites working for the same cause5, and the more you develop one aspect the more corresponding demand this places on the opposite aspect. It all depends on the perspective you view the whole from.

If you are concerned only with one thing, say, capitalism, then you will probably not look any higher to see how, further up the hierarchy, it springs from the same source as communism. To me this is obvious but it seems most people would rather be at each others throats. Just seeing how upset everyone gets about it says it all. Consider that the more skills and abilities you develop within your capitalist enterprise, the greater the demand there is for a corresponding spirit of communism to share your ideas. Otherwise you’ll just hoard the goods and never get them onto the market and contribute to evolution. And the greater the supply of your work in spirit of community, the greater will be the demand for your products, because others will be enriched, if only by your attitude.

And so, when you are a true capitalist, you are at the same time required to become a communist. If you have a great abundance of wealth and never share it, you just end up despised by others. It is only natural, because you will inspire envy and act as a model of selfishness. You then have to watch your back constantly, because of this. This becomes quite draining and saps you of enthusiasm and will power over time, in other words the source of your wealth. This is why so many fighters lose their edge, because they get so puffed up and look to dominate others, that they lose all perspective. Their own arrogance turns them as weak and vulnerable as someone who has never trained a day in their life. When people accumulate too much, they are often as unhappy as the ones who possess nothing. And if no one likes you or wants anything to do with you, you are obliged to hide away as a recluse because their is no demand for you. Therefore the capitalist mentality by itself is often very counterproductive, even if it appears to be the way to go for a short time.

Or, you might just become so bored and disgusted with yourself, because trampling all over others to get to the top of the pile tends to have a corrosive effect on character and self worth. So it is then that you are required to become a communist, in mentality, by offering a service to others of some kind, if only to selfishly save your own skin. Then you are not depriving anyone of anything, you simply convert the resources at your disposal to the service of others. It then doesn’t matter what people think of you, so long as you stay true to this cause and continue in your work, you are saved and invigorated daily. Why not extend this attitude across your whole life? Leave the others to their whining and boasting.

The best way is the middle ground, where you develop both your capitalistic tendencies and your communist side equally. Inside us there is an inner capitalist who creates wealth, symbolically speaking. This is achieved by working on your skills and abilities, often single mindedly without the community having much of a say. You have then satisfied your selfish tendencies rather than supressing them. The inner communist then distributes these goods to the community. They are often transmitted indirectly, through your motivated attitude and enthusiasm that you bring to the table in the occupation of your choosing, which may otherwise be dull and uninspiring. In this way you will be enriching your own otherwise mediocre day to day life even if nobody is receptive to you “goods” or products.

The capitalist within will want to hoard everything for itself, but don’t listen, the communist side should be in charge of distribution. On the other hand, the communist side will want to distribute before the goods have been made competitive. In other words, the inner communist will be so eager to share that it will want goods on the market which don’t benefit anyone and therefore don’t make anyone’s lives any better. So the inner capitalist must not listen to the inner communist as far as innovation and drive are concerned. In other words our drives and ambitions serve the communist ideal so that they are not purely selfish, but should never be killed off. The communist side leads the capitalist side and directs it. It is like a person riding a horse, they should never be led by the horse but must dominate and handle it, so that they can travel great distances.

On the smaller scale using in the example of martial arts practice, it is not the move that is important but the energy transmitted through it. In other words, if the drive and ambition to produce a powerful attack are there, and the senses supporting this are educated by hard work and knowledge, then the outcome will be a vigorous and lively technique. This is why I don’t personally care about form or technique, a person could never have practiced any form or martial arts and still have adopted the right attitude and I would congratulate them as a true fighter. If an inventor wants to bring an innovative product to the market, he needs inspiration and learning, drive and educated work, to bring it to fruition. The very next day he needs to do the same if he wants to continue evolving, otherwise his wealth, that is his inspiration and drive will dry up, even if yesterday he changed the world. We mustn’t be stifled by the past, but instead should make sure out present conditions are conducive to the future progress we want.

It is absolutely normal to want to posses power, knowledge, wealth, and all the rest of it, it is just the primitive instinctive side that often needs educating to better serve the wider sphere of life. In the true sense, we shouldn’t think of communism and capitalism as two opposing notions. For me this is absolutely clear. For example, I spend half the day working and serving others, and then the other half I spend developing myself and my capabilities so that I can continue to help and apply myself to the benefit of others. I don’t really concern myself with my own little ideas about what I would rather do, this is just the best way to demand the most from my efforts whilst supplying the best of myself, as far as I’m concerned. If I wanted to give without possessing anything then that would be of no use to anyone.

References

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

2 Signs and Symbols in Martial arts part 2 https://harmanater.com/2020/06/06/signs-and-symbols-part-2-pedagogy-and-the-art-of-war/

3 Will Power https://harmanater.com/2020/05/10/will-power/

4 Self defence without Violence https://harmanater.com/2020/06/14/self-defence-without-violence/

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

Intuitive Sense

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 19 min read | 190 views

In my experience, by focusing on mechanical routines or forms too much, I find I often get more and more confused and further from the truth.”Don’t think, Feel” said Bruce Lee. Whilst there is rudimentary mechanical practice needed to intuitively feel something, I don’t recommend making mechanical forms the basis of practice. Why? Because you will likely lose touch with inspiration and dynamism, and by being technically correct you may well end up the loser in the long run. I’ll show you why.

Analysis tends to divide and separate, to specify rather than unify. Instead, the starting point is always the idea; the high ideal1, and the mind fuel is will power2. From this perspective, your practice can inspire you to shape and mould yourself as a living example of this art. This is a higher goal than just remaining ordinary inside and producing some outside forms. Technical specialists have never studied or accepted this idea, which is why you won’t obtain any methods from them. So, by all means, practice technically for a short while, but then return to this centre, this source. The image of say, a certain style in action, is merely the stepping stone to propel you into practice of this nature. The image, the form is a starting point of reference not the end point. It is simply a means of practicing intuitive action, not the goal.

Don’t bother with over thinking and analysis for the most important tasks. As I was saying, you can view the technical details for a moment, as a starting point. You then get back to concentrating on embodying the technique, that is to practice it more naturally and intutively3. This requires serious work and development. But eventually this inner process of intuitive practice then sculpts your and fashions the physical organism so that the body itself reflects a particular form. You will then no longer need evidence of what is effective and what isn’t because you will simply feel it within. It starts off a conscious effort, but with training a honed intuitive sense will enable your practice to become second nature.

It is worth noting that the end products of your intuitive practice only reflect the technical forms. You will not be an exact replica because your are creating. Unlike mindless imitation, your execution of such forms will be adaptable, flexible, and alive. Your embodied practice reflects a likeness, not exactitude, because no individual is the same exact expression of truth. With knowledge of this, you are free to improvise and act with finesse, instead of sticking to a predictable script. This makes your movements elusive and cunning.

Truth is without form, we clothe it in our expressions and give it forms. In other words it is we who give expression to truth, and it inspires us to do so. To look for truth within a form would be illogical, because truth is above the constrictions of form. It is better identified by a feeling, a kind of developed sense. Personally, I have no idea what truth is and I can only look for the signs. This kind of intuitive training approach may not be for everyone.

Repetitively performing in a robotic way fails to make an impression on the instinctive sub conscious level, and therefore no evolution takes place inside. It doesn’t become part of us, or even second nature. If we train this way too much, it is as if we are just putting on a costume and then going back to our normal behaviour. It is possible to then be left with nothing, even after years of formal training once the conditioning of such training stops.

Scientists are beginning to take serious notice of how our environment effects our organism. However, the true meaning of Martial arts is not to act in our outer environment, it is to shape and mould the inner environment of ourselves. This inner transformation then later effects the outer environment. In other words, we are not prepared to shape the outer environment sufficiently before doing some serious inner work. We use the art forms we cultivate to channel our energies and surpass ourselves with our creations. This is true art.

In my opinion we must work on our instincts to transform their expressions, working with our inner raw materials, not against them. Desire motivated by a high ideal fuels this process. The instincts are often deadened by robotic spiritless exercises, which is why so many promising athletes burn out over time and lose their edge. This is not surprising when we set our sights to low, simply to perform a move mindlessly. If there is no selection pressure (as biologists would call it) to evolve ourselves within, then their is no need to harness our inner resources to surpass ourselves. That is, there is no evolution without getting our house in order. How can we expect to control the outer elements if we haven’t prepared ourselves properly by doing the same work inside?

Whilst our instinctive responses are crude and unrefined they do not require drowning under a tide of regulated behaviour. Nor are they the finished products. This is what people don’t understand. They suppose that our instincts simply get in the way of technical progress and can’t be channelled. What I am saying is that we need to intelligently assign work to our instincts to keep them busy if we want to take things to the next level.

When you are focusing on looking perfect, good for the camera, to impress onlookers, to win points in a match, etc., you are investing in something which appears correct or certain, but is actually very uncertain. In other words, when our behaviour is not motivated to develop our natural intuitive expressions, by the time it reaches the physical form its potency is greatly reduced.

That’s why I say it all starts with motivation, the inner drive – the high ideal. This calibrates our intuitive thought to expectations beyond normal. This explains why people who contrive an artificial appearance of beauty, without feeling it, often end up uglier over time. There was no solid foundation upon which to base expression, and later other individuals surpass them who were apparently behind to begin with. So, start from humble beginnings with the goal of greatly surpassing the norm. To be sure, the intuitive sense is hardly developed at all when we begin to work on it. The other sense like sight seem more reliable. However the more you practice the more intelligent and expressive you will become.

In the long run, endless imitation often ends up being a servitude even if it apparently seems like a good idea to begin with. This is why appearances are deceiving. People often become fed up of behaving this way only later, when the costs are seen to outweigh the benefits. So don’t worry about others overtaking you, it isn’t at all important. This lesson is a hard one but necessary for our development.

How can technical certainty lead to confusion? When you prioritise with all these external things like looking perfect, there is an inner tension, which prevents intuition from taking the first place and ruling. It is inhibited rather than trained into a force of nature. Even experts experience this, although because they have trained for so long to overcome it, they have succeeded in negating a lot of the negative effects of all this. One of the ways they do this is to commit totally as technicians at the expense of everything else. Ordinary people with more conflicting demands would simply tire out quickly. However, when they retire such experts often retrogress, become flabby, unenthusiastic, and bored. All this because they have failed to embody their practice by taking a more balanced approach4. But this takes time, which is why people don’t bother with it, because you don’t get anywhere very quickly.

The inner approach is intrinsically more satisfying for those who commit to it seriously. Most people consider getting bored later in life perfectly normal, “that’s life” they say, “it happens to everyone”. “Do what you can whilst you’re young”. What ignorance. Thoughts, like actions require sorting and correcting, there are some bad which shouldn’t be indulged, and other good productive ones that should be developed. Some thoughts are bad initially but can be refined and worked on so that they more accurately represent truth. I won’t go into that now but it worth thinking about carefully.

What kind of philosophy determines that we have only a few adult years to develop our talents before we lose all drive and motivation? The truth is, we lose all drive and motivation because precisely because we believe this. We assume our development has stopped and we stop putting the work in. From the intutive point of view, which has not even fully evolved in adulthood, this is idiotic.

Those who engage in short termism often win a few matches, get a few certificates and martial arts belts, and then that’s it. You retire and reminisce over what you were, a professional champion. You are obliged to wear yourself out and become fed up with it all. You are then said to be a somebody. Instead of moving beyond this kind of practice, they are instead charged with instructing others in this method. But there is something they have not seen. This kind of practice is only the reality for those who have used their resources within a short time frame to ensure their future comfort and status. Others have a choice. It is understandable that people desire this, and as far as I’m concerned they are welcome to this way of life and I leave them to it, they find meaning in it. But it’s not for everyone.

The problem is that all the training recommendations out there abide by this mentality of short term returns, and prescribe accordingly. I have no idea why. It is like someone who made a million pounds during the first few years of his career, at the expense of everything, and then after going bankrupt, telling others how to do the same. But this is not my model. It has nothing to do with success as I see it – for me, success is more of a long range broader goal. Later years should be more and more fruitful, and they can be. There is no point in initial benefits with long term liabilities which prevent enjoyment later. You only need to look at how many previous world champions are now broken down by injury and embittered by it all. For them, it may have been worth it, I will leave you to decide, but at least be aware of the realities.

For me it is about pooling your resources across a wide range of investment and then gradually watching your investments grow, figuratively speaking. You then see whilst others have over spent and pay the costs later, that a more sustainable and sensible model might be preferable. Each of your investments grows and grows and are reinvested into other ventures and existing enterprises. None of them collapse because they are all related, mutually supporting one another. You will notice these law of economics, of benefits incurring costs, and long term growth, apply equally to all areas of life.

Work on the intuitive level is only capable of working through the intermediary of certain fundamental movements patterns and the wisdom of the body5. This is the level to work at (below conscious thought) because the cause of progress is not simply chasing the effects without first doing the inner work. These subconscious pathways can be brought to the level of consciousness with training. Make sure your investments are based on these golden geese, you’re evolution depends on it. Progress will be slow, but certain. You will understand more each day. It’s not much, but its something. Those who understand what I am saying will benefit greatly from this knowledge. You can concentrate only on technical correctness if you want, and see what the results are.

The work of any Master who has created a form is not finished even if he dies. Yes, he is dead physically, but in spirit he will live on in an idea which has permeated others. And whilst there are many Masters who were simply idolised for no good reason, I am not talking about them. Such gurus die – that is, the spirit of what they stood for died – the moment they took up the path of comfort, ease, and short term pay off. I don’t suggest taking them as models. Only model yourself after the most inspirational figures who aim relentlessly at perfection without selling out. It doesn’t matter what field they are in, or even if they are technically highly proficient. You are better off working alongside someone who inspires, even if he is ignorant of many things.

Whilst you can relate to great masters through their work, you must also try to relate to their mentality which brought to fruition their gifts. I try to do as they would do – continuously work with inspiration and enthusiasm6. To work from the form and then try to reach a state of high motivation and enthusiasm would likely end in disappointment. It would require nothing of my creative input or spark. There would be no demand and correspondingly supply would cease. Instead I try to take something from outside of myself, an energy conveyed by others who have the spark, ignite it within myself and get to work. I don’t pay much attention to the appearance.

Instead of over analysing all the time, and consciously controlling the body, view things from the perceptive of the intuitive senses. Once you have embodied certain techniques and skills, your intuitive sense will make sure that your actions and techniques flow in such a way that ensures coordination and power without even thinking about it. Yes, but only if you take the perspective of the intuition, rather than copying a set drill or routine mindlessly. Then, everything is done in a balanced and relatively harmonious way, and we succeed in our work. You will get better and better instead of worse. We then start to feel, understand and realise what to do, in all sorts of unpredictable rhythms, in spite of our limited technical understanding of facts and mechanical knowledge. Even the most ignorant person can become very effective when using this method. It’s incredible, you should try it.

If the brain itself is in charge, with its tendency to overthink and micromanage the body, everything becomes clumsy and awkward even in the most intellectually developed. Yes you start off with technical imitation, but you then move on. Just look at all the scientists out there who analyse and think they understand everything, but haven’t even bothered organised their inner machinery. This takes many years of practice, but your intuitive sense will then have the conditions to instantly succeed if you practice intelligently. I assure you it is worth the effort for those who want to work in this direction. In fact you will feel so enlivened by this method of practice that you simply won’t be able to keep it to yourself.

In my view the goal must be an unattainable perfection, because evolution is relentlessly advancing and our little minds cannot possibly foresee the conclusion of this journey. arrive there before you’re body and brain do. This high minded ideal will ensure we don’t stop short of perfection. Therefore practice must reflect this reality. Perfection is without form so don’t look for it in forms, feel it, out there in the future and surpass yourself.

Form is just a passive state, an empty shell. It is the end. You may have noticed earlier a contradiction, that I said form is the beginning. But there is no contradiction because it is the beginning in the sense that it starts us on our journey, but once we have arrived we cast it off. It’s a circular relationship. In this way, the physical “fruits” of your labour if you like, that is the forms you create, then lay the ground for subsequent generations of future forms. The seed is then planted once again, and the whole process continues once more. It is exactly like the flower whose seed is spread and then starts all over again after flowering. Using a similar analogy, the old form takes on the new use of manure for your field of progress. Yes manure, get rid of it but don’t waste its recyclable properties.

As you progress, it is better to combine existing forms, using them to create, and in this way you inspire motivation, enthusiasm, and true art. This is a form of reusing and recycling. You are then progressing. It is a long and arduous process, but you will understand it better every day the more you practice with it. It is not necessary for any authority to give you the stamp of approval before starting with this method. Begin at once.

In fact, you can work on your actions and behaviours which are seemingly unrelated to martial arts. Working mindfully on your everyday gestures has a tremendous effect. Picking up a cup suddenly becomes an exercise, where you handle it with care and grace with your articulations. Form a habit of relating a certain universal principles to your everyday activities. First of all you might refuse to think that a particular thing relates to seemingly separate things, but with perseverance and practice your intuition later insists than your reasoning is wrong. You succeed in spite of yourself. It just takes time and work7.

It is important to understand that there is no way of gauging the power of this process if we have never seen the effects of it in action. In other words, those who have never worked with this method are unlikely to be aware of its power. Nobody thinks about this. This is because for the most part Martial Arts practice traditionally consists of working with fixed forms. These fixed forms were intended for the masses. Here, there is then a visible, tangible objective reality to imitate. Intuitive sense is the other way round, this visibility emerges from a subtle intangible reality. This is the Spirit of Martial Arts taking the forefront.

For me, I’m not interested in noticing all that is wrong, how good or bad other people appear, whether they are more refined… Or at fault. I try to visualise nothing when I’m training. Once you reach an inner harmony and silence all the noise, this is the way to see most clearly and simply sense what needs to be done. This is the way to reach towards perfection, beyond form. You will then be able to act instinctively and below the level of conscious thought, because by silencing the inner noise you will notice the subtler realities. This cannot happen with background noise. There is a scientific method behind this approach8.

By observing and practicing only what is most inspiring, unpretentious, and what makes sense intuitively, this is the way to do meaningful work which leads to success. I leave the other approaches alone – What they emphasise is none of my business. Many styles of Martial Arts emphasise separation from intuitive movements. They retain the physical forms but become estranged from meaningful action and behaviour underpinning them, the human input. In this way they become the contorted demonic forms we observe in certain Asian Traditions depicting evil entities. These evils are merely symbolic of reality.

When people are technically minded, exact, and ordered on the outside this is how they measure everyone else. And those who feel intuitively how things work tend to view others according to the same criteria. In other words we measure and sense the value of others by our own criteria, how we see things. This is why I said earlier that unless intuitive practice is actually practiced, people will remain unaware of its benefits. Personally, if I see what others is doing is too pretentious or technical I don’t bother trying to extract anything from it, I just move on. I just get on with my own work, and anything that doesn’t correlate with that is of no interest to me. I would expect the same from those who view things from the other perspective.

If I’m coaching I don’t correct other people by insisting they do things the same as me. If they are doing something dangerous or they’ve misunderstood, then that’s different, but if people insist on interpreting things their way then I take them as they are. They can then progress at their own rate. More often than not, people want technical explanations, and we will just be talking at cross purposes, but I tell them anyway. And since there are others to give them technical prescriptions, I leave it to the others.

As for me I try to convey an impression and spark an interest so that others might want to work with enthusiasm and motivation. Not a superficial excitability, but an energy. Seeing that technical descriptions, formulas, and lifeless routines offer no results to me, I see others in the same way. In fact, far from learning superficially, I feel as though I am unearthing something deep inside me which I already know. Yes, I have a criteria that I apply to others, based on my own vision and experience. I try to convey the same inspiration which was passed on to me through others, which helps me continue to develop.

References

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

2 Will Power harmanater.com/2020/07/26/the-high-ideal/

3 Martial arts and Health https://harmanater.com/2020/08/09/embodying-the-technique/

4 Embodying technique https://harmanater.com/2020/08/09/embodying-the-technique/

5 See Instincts, Behaviour and Archetypes. https://harmanater.com/2020/03/31/instincts-behaviour-and-archetypes/

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

7 See The Stance https://harmanater.com/2020/08/05/the-stance/

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

Martial Arts and Health

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 11 min read | 92 views

We can think of health as energy available to us to live an intense meaningful life, free from disease and debilitation. It is this state that we should reach in order to train properly in Martial Arts. And so we must cultivate and live in this state as much as possible, so that we can put this energy into everything we do. That is, of course, if we want to devote ourselves to this path. We don’t need to go looking for this energy outside ourselves by learning all sorts of complicated moves, hoping this will give us power. No, instead we should move naturally in ways which correlate with the intuitive rhythms of nature.

Now that science has given us complicated explanations and exact methods of technical performance, we exploit the resources of the body in order perform these techniques. And yet, many people find themselves more unhealthy than ever and plagued with injuries, not to mention lacking in energy. This is because people think about performing certain moves, like a punch, rather than strengthening the body which animates them. They do all sorts of robotic moves unthinkingly, which just causes wear and tear as the years go on. In truth, much of scientific advancement has made us lazy and unwilling to do work.

Whilst skilled people don’t wear out overnight, the abilities they have developed, often during youth, don’t last forever, and before too long they end up stagnating or in a sorry state. Many people put all their energy into the move instead of cultivating health through exercise. What they are forgetting is that the move is just a means of expressing the goal of perfection. Instead they get it the wrong way round, thinking that the move itself is the goal, and perfection of this will lead to truth. They think “I’ll perfect this move and one day I’ll become perfect”. But really, People are deluding themselves if they think they will make long term progress in this way, because once they are worn out and no longer able to animate themselves with zest, they lose the impetus to grow and develop. The real goal is keeping this zest, as this is the means of evolution.

Yes lots of people get big muscles first, but even a giant brick wall will develop cracks and fall down if the foundations and alignment are incorrect. And it is the same situation for Martial artists. Say, for instance, you are driving a stake into the ground. If you take the mallet and hit the stake off centre, it might bend. If you hit it dead centre it will drive into the floor creating a stable root. In the same way, if you direct pressure through the ground using gravity, aligned from head to toe, you will be much more structurally sound and dynamically stable (Steve Morris, the authority on the subject talks about alignment and whole body tension extensively on his website). On the other hand, if you contorts the body in all sorts of unnatural ways, without the means of stability stability, it’s only a matter of time before you damage your structure2.

How do we learn these “Fundamental” means of action? There is an imprint of how to move, breathe, and learn correctly inscribed within us. If we follow these intuitive pathways we can, with work, learn anything relatively easily to our own specifications. Think of the body as your instrument, you might be inspired by other peoples music, but you yourself produce the harmonies which resonate with your requirements and tastes. You might copy someone else at first, to create a stereotypical impression, but this is not the end of it. You continually develop. This will ensure you never lose interest and keep on growing, which itself is the only real indicator of success. When you train intuitively, all the knowledge is already in your possession you just need the inspiration and living examples around you to bring it out.

So what about adding our own flavour? After we have a fundamental knowledge of how to train and work, we can then add certain embellishments on top of this these forms we create. What Most Martial Arts practice involves is putting on the embellishments first, rather than making sure the basics are in order. It takes many years to learn to walk, so how do you suppose you can embody more complicated actions quickly? This just shows how much work needs to be done, and if the great fighters have to do this, how much more so for the rest of us?

In other words, many people go for the martial arts form without working on their body’s structural capabilities. Many of them go on about persevering through difficulty, and being patient, but in reality they are often looking for the easiest way to learn as many moves as possible to earn a certificate or belt. When you see a fighter in action, ask yourself “Does this form or style embrace universal principles of development and practice?” And, “Can I embody this practice so that it relates to everything else I do?” If not then it does not represent the truth3. There is no point is beating others up around you whilst your practice becomes devoid of meaning.

A true Martial Arts Master takes no interest in mechanical dead forms. There is no point because they do not relate to everyday matters of health and life. In fact they often ruin health because moving so violently without art or grace wears out the joints and causes fatigue. The temptation to stop developing, through pride, dogs the heals of even the best Martial artists until the end.

Routinised, meaningless practice has a terrible effect on health and energy. And then what weapons will you have when you are older and worn out? What will happen when your inner weapons of energy and enthusiasm has gone? You will have nothing. But if you learn to increase your health, training intensely for only short durations4, you will be able to have a profound effect on your abilities whilst not squandering your reserves on mindless work. Yes it is possible, through intelligent work, to remain healthy and vigorous even into old age. This is how you know you are following true Martial arts practice, you will increase your abilities, happiness, and senses.

To the extent that a form of martial arts is useful, you should integrate this with your everyday behaviours and gestures which underpin movements in all domains. Obviously, this works by degrees. Then martial arts simply becomes another way of moving more generally. You simply take the forms in homeopathic doses, letting them colour your existing movement repertoire, and receive a new expression of the same intuitive movements you already posses. Yes, because we already have within us the means to learn, intuitive movement, enthusiasm, and intelligence, combine all three and you will learn anything naturally.

All movements share intuitive gestures and actions with which we should mindfully engage in order to connect the dots between seemingly different activities. In this way throwing a ball, swinging a bat, etc., is fundamentally the same as throwing a punch or kick. They are different expressions of the same truth. It is up to us to become aware of these connections. To divide is to destroy, what you must do is unify everything. You divide up simply to analyse, and then it becomes part of the whole again. Otherwise it becomes dead and disconnected. This is why once analysed, it must come back into our being adapted to the wisdom of the body. We want to work on this wisdom of the body, in other words, to embody knowledge, but what we often end up doing is practicing nonsense. The form is merely the model to aim towards within a discipline, but the greater form, the true form, encompasses everything.

We practice according to a perfect model, that is a representation of the higher self. This mental model, and physical representation, is always better than we ourselves are. It assimilates what is useful, in other words the essentials, and discards what isn’t. These are the fundamentals, and the intuitive movements we all posses like walking and grabbing are used as building blocks. I have no objection to practcing a specific style, they are good as far as the go, but the problem of inner evolution and and progress cannot be solved by an existing physical forms. But back to fundamental building blocks.

A baby can learn to crawl, and then walk, and then run.But adults often have difficult applying the concept to even more advanced movements as they grow in intelligence and power. Because they fail to capitalise ion this, they stagnate and go backwards. Martial arts is just an extension, and evolution, of these basic fundamental actions. Once they are tapped into, these basic movements stimulate and trigger the development of more advanced skills such as punches and kicks. They are not simply new movements disconnected from previous learning.

The flowers of one plant spreads and multiplies new plants which then blossom into new flowers. In the same way humans learn one skill and then cultivate it until it is ready to spread into new domains. The whole thing then goes on and on again, even into later eras after the death of the practitioner. These ideas are then passed onto someone else and then come back to where they began, inside the individual. That individual is then in possession of certain knowledge that he must then pour out onto others. If the flowers are uninspired, dull, and disfigured no one looks at them and it is as if they never existed.

By helping other develop, you will find solutions to your own questions due to this effort applied to the process of “blossoming”. Others around you will be attracted to your flowers as a bee is around nectar. Naturally, this is how ideas spread. In this way your own practice will develop, fuelling your optimism and abilities. There is no escaping this process. I know that this may seem naive and childish, and it may not be taken seriously, because as everybody knows that you need to flatter people and quote recognised authorities, otherwise you don’t get anywhere. This just proves that despite of the hostility and hazards around you, you must keep fighting, and it is these trials if you like which oblige you to develop will power and evolve. I will go further to say that this is a blessing in disguise.

People tend to be happy one minute, unmotivated the next, always changing theirs moods and ideas. The least little problem knocks them off balance. This is why we need a high ideal, or if you like a perfect model to orientate ourselves towards. Compared to this ideal we are weak and ignorant. We keep failing, making mistakes, making enemies… We then think this weakness represents truth, and we bring everything down to this level. And then progress stops because we have focused on our lower nature and its insecurities rather than treating the high self as a living being. So many people have received so called wisdom in this form, and became disillusioned by it. They think “That’s just the way it is, I’ve invested so much time is this big lie, and since my livelihood depends on it I’ll just be the one to lie to others as I have been lied to”.

But perfection does not have an enemy, nor does it make mistakes or errors. Perfection, of course will never be achieved, it just orientates us in the right direction. That is why it is without form, and greater than form.

Like the earth around the sun, we must become “Centred” around the high ideal5 which inspires us and keeps us in motion, keeps us revolving. All people posses this faculty, but they often spend their whole life not knowing how to use it. Some people think that they must resemble exactly the perfect form, other believe that having an ideal is a waste of time because it can never be attained. But really it is something for our will power to strive towards, representing essential truths symbolised by martial arts practice. All the forms are merely different representations of the same truth.

Our will power must desire perfection, because it has an infinite scope which can reach far beyond physical limitations. Only the best satisfies it and will empower you towards real success, and by success I mean reach your full potential6. It does not matter if you achieve the ideal, but the important thing is to keep trying.

1 Steve Morris http://morrisnoholdsbarred.com/

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

3 Which Moves? https://harmanater.com/2020/04/30/which-moves/

4 High Intensity Work and Balance https://harmanater.com/2020/07/05/high-intensity-work-and-balance/

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

6 Will power https://harmanater.com/2020/05/10/will-power/

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