Tag: truth

Embodying the Technique

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 11 min read | 45 views

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

The Stance

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 12 min read | 25 views

The Stance is a means of performing a given technique. The problem is that people get stuck in the means. That is, they get stuck in the means of reaching the goal of form, and look no further. But the means is not the goal. The goal is to radiate a sense of superiority so that even your enemies feel obliged to defer to you. This means they won’t attack you. Typically this is said to be something you do in an actual fight with a guard. However, actually it is something you can practice all the time. I will show you how.

As I say, the stance is a means of conducting yourself towards others, rather than for hitting them. The enemy is just a stimulus, of achieving this goal. As such, the fight actually begins far earlier than when the enemy points a gun at you. It begins in our own conduct and negativity we might radiate. Because, we influence ourselves and others around us to a great extent. We forget this inner power. The real goal, therefore can be seen as rising above circumstances which lead to external conflict. This is why you must not engage directly with your enemy. “What? don’t engage with the enemy after he has punched me in the face?” Obviously there are exceptions to this. But most of the time people are often totally ignorant of their own provocative behaviour. They irritate themselves and other around them because they don’t manage their behaviour. And when they react to hostility, it is always justified. Oh yes, it is always the fault of the other person.

Instead of looking for every sign of hostility in others, take the superior stance and work on gestures and actions which inspire respect from others rather than violence. This is a science in itself, and you will find that it changes the way you see Martial arts. The potential hostility in others provides the energy, and you transform it into power. This is a necessary exchange, as the small doses of negativity from others (and our own dissatisfaction) can enhance our efforts. Yes, there is much work to be done inside ourselves. Large doses of this negative energy allowed to get out of control will lead to the practice of “firefighting”.

Inspiring the best in every situation may seem like such a burden, but even if you chose to see others as your enemies you will find that eventually this mentality will take over. You will get good at the wrong thing. So many fighters chose to see every action in others as a hidden provocation In the same way, soon enough, you can with the right attitude begin to see everyone as a potential ally. This takes a lot of time practice, and deep study, but it is the ultimate triumph. Whichever path you chose, the workload is the same, and the physical and mental position you take, the stance, must be up to the demands.Do not delude yourself, this takes a lot of effort to overcome ordeals. Of course, if you don’t want to strive for perfection, then you are free to ignore what I am saying. But for those who want to absorb themselves in meaningful work, I can think of none better.

Instead of becoming obsessed with crushing others, use their hostility as stimulus to springboard above circumstances rather than becoming mired in them. In your training, think of nothing else but controlling your actions so that they radiate positivity rather than hostility. View the enemy as a trial, a trial which was sent to teach you a lesson, a lesson of self control. Many Martial artists boast of self control but it is rare to find anyone who practices this as much as they do hitting things. But, In my opinion this is the most important exercise there is which will give you strength and indomitable will. Of course we have adversaries, but this is often because we are ignorant about how to view them and act towards them.

If you want to live in safety therefore, you must apply your techniques to a wider sphere than just the Dojo or training centre. Your stance, which is another way of saying personal magnetism or bearing, must be more than just combative. Yes, you will want to practice with a stance which is flexible and adaptable to all martial arts forms, but why stop there? There is every opportunity to practice controlling and commanding your everyday expressions and gestures, everything from holding a knife to shaking someones hand. These seem insignificant by themselves, but I assure you the cumulative effect of doing this whenever you can is unbelievably powerful.

Consider for a moment the weakness that must lie in the mentality of an enemy who has nothing better to do than bring you down to their level. They do not have authority over themselves. When you see it this way, little by little the image of their superiority will fade, and you will want to be nothing like them. In fact you will forget all about them, as you will be too absorbed in intensive work.

Instead of defaulting to a fighting stance when the going gets tough, why not use your gestures and actions to make an impression on your enemy that bowls him over with respect for you1. Obviously this is not feasible against someone with a knife to your throat, but if you are really serious about stopping such a threat you should remedy the situation before it becomes serious. In other words, before the threat has even manifested itself. As long as you continue to think of good outcomes and positivity in others as forces separate from yourself, things will continue to torment you. This philosophy of the stance you must take before your enemies is difficult to accept, but it is the superior one. Once you practice it, you will continue to evolve and find every occasion to put it into practice, whatever happens to you.

From a more elevated position, the hostilities of others will be unable to reach you, and as Sun Tzu said “If you wait by the river Long enough, the bodies of you enemies will float by”. He also said be still as the Mountain. This is significant, because the Mountain is symbolic of the highest perspective, from which the bad intentions of others are unable to reach. The rock is the indomitable spirit. When you use willpower to reach this perspective, you are protected from your enemies because you forget they even exist. You are too absorbed in your work to relate to them. You have then performed the operation I’ve been talking about, which is changing the environment in and around you. In other words, you have recycled the waste at the dumping ground into something useful. This takes audacity.

By rising above the pettiness of others, their attempts to attack you simply fall back on themselves. In other words they float down the river. When you use the same weapons as your enemy you make yourself vulnerable. And because you are contemplating how to get back at them, you forget about your inner work, your high ideal2. This what what is meant by staying centred. That is, centred around an incorruptible idea or truth that empowers you to rise above circumstances. In this way, your work should involve uniting with the centre, and putting your full trust in this position. This is the only way to survive amongst the dregs of society who threaten to take you down.

If you begin to relate to the enemy by thinking about them, on their level, they do you an injury from afar because this gives them power. This is what Sun Tzu meant by winning a battle Ten thousand Miles away – they managed to beat you in your own mind by transforming your attitude. Because the idea comes before the manifestation, it is at this level you should work. It is the same as if you dwell on illness and sickness you will end up becoming worn out and ill. You will have created an inner environment in which resources were allocated unwisely, maximising the chances of a bad outcome. Whereas if you think positively, this has an invigorating effect, even if their appears to be no material reason to do so.

So, If you think of the high ideal, your whole bearing and attitude, your stance, will be inspired to take a new form; One that is more refined. It is this that will give meaning to your training, because nobody is motivated by training which results in becoming more weathered and worn out. If you do this you will never lose, and you will remain motivated and never lose the will to win.

Sun Tzu said that by knowing yourself you can win one thousand victories out of one thousand battles. Similarly, certain Famous swordsmen of Japan spoke of techniques and stances which were able to manifest themselves in ten thousand different situations. The ten thousand victories and forms refers to the infinite number of variations a principle of truth takes, and the certainty that it will prevail. The ten thousand battles begin at every instance you become upset or tense, which might be very often, so say to yourself “I must do something to change my rythmn and behaviour”. Behave in a more harmonious way3, handling things with care, because many people have no idea how this effects their inner condition before anyone has even come along to challenge them.

The Asian Schools of Martial arts speak of hard and soft styles. Ying and Yan, body and mind, External and internal, principle and technique… It all amounts to the same thing. They are two polar opposites which form a unity. Because duality is just a way of seeing unity. In other words, many powerful individuals who have mastered themselves have done so by transforming the hostility within themselves into something good. Tese two polar opposite tendencies form a dynamic equilibrium4. In certain Japanese Swordsmanship traditions they say that the sword and the mind or no different. The sword (external) is the physical manifestation of the minds will (internal energy). They are two aspects of the whole.

One must be careful that when they win an external battle, they do not lose an internal one. Other people are incapable of solving our internal battles, so why bother puffing ourselves up fighting with them? You cannot gain much in the way of inner fulfilment by duelling with others. When you realise this, you will no longer be able to seek inspiration in beating others. On the contrary, you will want to help them.

In spite of all the hostility around you, you must keep fighting, only with the weapons of self discipline and inner strength. In this way you use your enemies to develop will power and a stance which pacifies them. The confidence you gain from this reliable law will strengthen your will in a way that victory over others cannot. The enemy will simply see that you are so highly evolved and their attempts make no impression on you.

Even if you beat the biggest toughest fighter out there, he will usually claim that he had an off day or that you were lucky. You see this all the time. And anyway, someone bigger and tougher than you will defeat you one day. When you externalise all battles, it is simply inevitable that you will have to contend with your enemies over and over again even if you kill them. Because they started in you, it was you who created them with your lack of direction. This is why the great Martial arts Masters of the past turned their hands to teaching, because it is thanks to this effort of passing on knowledge that they found the solutions to their own problems, which are never found in others. Indeed, there are many unsuspected possibilities in warfare.

Instead of having to wait around for challengers, who may have been weak and ignorant, the best thing to do is to harness your inner resources to help others. The less receptive others are to your teaching the more dedicated you will have to become. You will then find, slowly but surely, others will seek your help. This is the best way to work on your aura, authority, or presence as it is often called in the Asian Traditional arts. This is just another more subtle variation of the stance. If you use your authority to destroy others, sooner or later you will arouse such hostility in challengers that sooner or later someone will rise up and take revenge. Just look at the history of warfare. This revenge might take more subtle, cold forms. In other words people will want nothing to do with you and you will become isolated and powerless.

Instead of destroying others, use your energies in a way which is always beneficial, and it is no coincidence that these methods were adopted after Martial artists had reached enlightenment. You will be thinking “You must be out of your mind, I want to become strong and dominant, not weak and submissive!”. No, because the need to dominate others will rob your of your reason more effectively than losing a fight. Yes it is indeed possible to win a fight and lose the war. If you see hostilities as an opportunity to practice your stance by taking on a bearing of self discipline and control, you will find endless occasion for exercising will power and directing your energies constructively. And believe me, when you view things from this perspective you will be filled with courage and optimism.

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

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

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

4 Aggression https://harmanater.com/2020/04/15/aggression/ and Strength of weakness https://harmanater.com/2020/03/12/strength-of-weakness/

The Skill is not separate from Work and Contemplation.

Posted on by joeharman8 | 11 min read | 30 views

Many people believe that if they practice the right skill a few times, such as a punch, then they will simply have it at their disposal. And if a teacher fails to give them the right instruction they go off and find a better one. If the instructor doesn’t have the right paperwork they are ignored. The problem with this attitude is that it robs the student of the only resource that matters: themselves. In fact, if you go about practice the right way, working hard and honestly, even if you didn’t plan to be very good success will be unavoidable. You bring it on yourself through cause and effect. What the Martial arts community thinks of you is then of no real interest.

The skill is only a small reflection of the reality behind it. It is the outer appearance of the inner evolution, and present form, that appears on the outside of a fighter. It is this attitude that should be embodied. I don’t wish to spend time instructing others on the “technique” aspect, as you can find all the details you want everywhere. However, what is often missed is the spirit of perseverance, overcoming adversity, time and effort spent, etc., which are all inseparable from the physical manifestation of any punch, kick, throw, or whatever. Like a shoot from a seed, the seed must be planted in fertile soil otherwise it cannot take root and flower. The fertile soil, symbolically speaking, is the mental attitude and work.

When a fighter “effortlessly” Ko’s an opponent, it is often imagined that he did it easily. Or when they are “super fit”, people think that this grace and physical prowess are obtained through some kind of external fitness program. However, as I have explained before, the skills that can be acquired from instruction are mainly superficial aspects. The source comes from within the fighter 1. It is this source of motivation and drive that you must aspire to work with, rather than have someone else manipulate your energies from the outside. Of course, if a coach or teacher has your best interests at heart, and knows how to bring only the best out of you, by all means allow them to work on you. However this is often not the case.

The inner states, such as motivation and energies, are the essential ingredients, the factors that count. The various expressions of these, such as specific skills, I have called non essential, because their form changes, and in any case is context dependant. Form is therefore unreliable as a source in itself. Focus on what is essential, the driving force. You might say “That isn’t fun, and it takes to long without all the answers given to me”. How do you know that? If people worked on themselves diligently and took their time to acquire knowledge and experience, rather than rushing towards mediocrity, they would be amazed at the discoveries they make. The work is too hard, supposedly, but because so many people don’t bother working hard to to think for themselves they lack all inspiration to go very far.

People argue about and try to imitate the perfect from. They work for years imitating a tiger, crane, or professional fighter, and end up exhausted and injured from copying these superficial aspects. They have never been taught that is is important to use these things as a guide only, or if they are to identify with them it should be in the spirit of full commitment rather than passive observation. It is far more important to maximise motivation and health by pursuing what matters, or the meaning behind performance. Neither moves nor world title belts are responsible for this. In other words, it is essential to embody the work that goes behind achieving any great goal.

Specific skills are the peripheral details, the mere expressions, and the central central prerequisites are work an energy. In other words, these existing natural resources must be given direction and specific form, or meaning. It is not possible to perform a skill properly otherwise. And also, it is not possible to think you have learnt something by going over some mundane exercises, and then hope to inject a bit of energy into afterwards. This is why the Masters of the East used to give their disciples symbols and parables to contemplate: It would draw on their internal resource in a specific direction without working everything out for them. Through this method of teaching the disciple embodied the skills they practiced and became inseperable from them. I wonder if this is at all clear? The work and ideas come before the skill, there is no other way of thinking about it in my opinion. If so few actually achieve what they set out to do, it is because this basic truth goes unnoticed.

Of course any ideas conveyed in stories and parables must be symbolic of some truth so that the disciple will later come to understand. Through certain powerful symbols2, the student of old would meditate on images within the mind until the physical manifestation later emerged. This tradition is virtually lost today with advent of scientific detailed explanations. Such explanations rarely inspire any kind of intrinsic motivation within the student, they do all the work for him.

If you want to understand how martial arts works, you should use your mind to contemplate and experiment with ideas. For example, Snake Style kung Fu is really practicing skills using the imagery of a snake. You can do anything in this way, and the mind has an innate tendency to work like this. You must imagine yourself darting in and out from various angles and snapping at your opponent. Your attacks should have venom and bite. Any skills you then practice will take on a life of their own. Hopefully you can see how symbols such as this become reality having started as an idea.

Alternatively you can imagine actually defending against a Snake, as Steve Morris often suggests. Here you can use your mind which is a tool that, unlike the body, never wears out. It is an inexhaustible arena of practice, and limitless in its scope. But it needs to be exercised by creative thought and use of the imagination. It is then that your ideas become materialised physically. I hope this is quite clear. When it comes to images in the mind, I’ve never found it very fruitful to imagine mundane things that correspond to some dull lifeless training centre. Although this is what is typically recommended. Instead I prefer to imagine myself on a mountain fighting some larger than life opponent, but more about that another time.

Another symbol used in martial arts is the circle. In Tai Chi for example, circles are made with the arms. It is very easy to practice doing this in your minds eye, because a circle is an accessible symbol recognised by anyone regardless of their training. Therefore, a beginner can begin to practice, awkwardly at first, until they are adept, with just this symbol alone. Such is the power of symbolic explanation. A simple idea such as the circle can undelie more complex ideas later on. This is why babies play with shapes in early development. They later understand more complex things. This is seen in all areas of life, for example the world is round, and so are stones, both of which rotate around an axis.

All I am saying is that we should have the same child like inquisitiveness for martial arts, which is only beyond the scope of out understanding if we have failed to contemplate what its all about for extended periods of time. We would not expect a child to understand, say, rotation around an axis or the solar system without first playing with circles and hoops. It is the same with martial arts, we cannot learn complex fighting movements and skills without first drawing upon our knowledge of symbols, shapes, and ideas which have created meaning for our adult lives.

But most people say “I get it, it’s easy”. As long as they’re having fun, the musics blaring, and the coach is shouting commands at them, they’re quite satisfied. They are like dough in the hands of a baker, tossed around and pounded into submission, which they call work. I’m not talking about that kind of work, I’m talking about inner work which is the real reason for martial arts practice4. Work is not just going through the motions and simple amusement, it is a chance to contemplate and accomplish meaningful pursuits. Many people would like an approach that inspired their better nature, and it is them that I write for.

At the professional level, it is very much the same story. Many athletes wear themselves out looking for some medal or glory, and end up so jaded and worn out by all the politics, deception, and debilitating training, that they ruin their health. “I’ll do it whilst I’m young and able” they say, not matter the cost. If they had thought about it, these athlete “development” programs do nothing but exploit their limited resources of youth a lot of the time. They draw on their reserves, absorbing them in some “peer system” of similarly naive athletes, rather than a wise guide, and then as their enthusiasm grows fainter and fainter they are left on the scrap heap. This is all considered perfectly normal, since this counsel of “talent development” specialists has given them a livelihood and has a right to use them as it sees fit. “Here is a guy who is driven!” They proudly proclaim. Not that they have particular admiration for the superstar, they’re just proud of their hold over him.

What is the point in pursuing all these achievements if you are incapable of enjoying them and lose all inspiration and spirit? In my view “A living Dog is better than a Dead Lion”. In other words, a lion who becomes worn out and incapable of anything is useless, no matter his past glory. He was living on borrowed time. Whereas a dog who is still going and has some fight in it will outlast the Lion in the end. I don’t wish to upset anyone involved professional competition, and anyway there are some exceptions, but it is up to individuals to chose their path. Everything can be found in the manuals of technical instruction, except what I am talking about here. The thing to know is that training is all dependant on how the energies are expended. Are they being absorbed in mindless labour, or is there some left over for contemplation and mental work?

Most animals die in mortal combat in the wild. Clearly, this is the law of the Jungle. However, if we wish to understand how to survive longer than animals we must take the perspective of the child who starts at the beginning. In other words, imagine that you are thinking about martial arts for the first time and work to gradually understand. This is really the case, when you consider how many years it takes to learn even the most simple tasks properly, like writing perfectly. Using the perspective of the child, even in adulthood, you can use advanced knowledge of walking, crawling, rotating the body, etc., and apply them to still more advanced moves like punching. Yes, having spent 18 years learning to walk, there is a further evolution. And then tactical applications. You should then feel as though you are approaching everything for the first time, rather than strutting around as if you are some hard nut looking to prove himself. Here is another example of symbols.

In boxing, you circle the opponent. In order to practice footwork it is a good idea to imagine doing this in your mind. You can first imagine circling round an opponent, and once this idea has been set in motion you can begin contemplating what the steps might look like in relation to this circling. Lots of people get mixed up with the footwork because they contemplate all the details of the footwork separately. Instead, it is better to think of the circle, everything else will begin to make sense when you hold this idea and work with it in your mind. Otherwise, you just end up learning some complicated footwork and it never becomes embodies or feels natural.

Symbols, work, and perseverance. Never rush this process!

References

1 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/

2 Signs and Symbols in Martial arts Part 1 https://harmanater.com/2020/05/16/signs-and-symbols-part-1-the-way-and-the-number-ten/

3 Movement and Breathing https://harmanater.com/2020/04/17/movement-and-breathing/

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

Signs and Symbols Part 1: The way and the Number Ten.

Posted on by joeharman8 | 6 min read | 31 views

The ancient teachers often used symbols and analogies, as well as fiction, to convey meaning. Attempts to interpret the language of these symbolic accounts has obscured the true meaning behind many of these insightful teachings. For example, in Tsunetomo Yamamoto’s Hagakure, it sates ” A true retainer is his lords greatest follower, entrusting all matters, good and bad, to him in selfless deference to his Authority”1. Just what is an aspiring warrior supposed to make of this? That he is to follow his master, who may be an egotistical fool, in good times and bad? No. What this means is that a warrior is to follow “the way”, as this is his true “lord”.

The Martial Arts Master may or may not follow the way, but he should physically symbolise it as best he can in his actions. This is his or her job: To be a living example of what they preach and practice, and to the extent that a Master does this they can be considered successful. Obviously the vast majority of people who aspire to be masters do not actually attain this ideal, or if they do it is often for a short time. But none of this matters. By all means respect and trust your masters, seeing what is best in them, however to be “the lords greatest follower” and to “show deference to his authority” really means to serve the highest ideal. In other words, to serve the “Lord” or “The Way” simply means to aim for perfection in the form of the Warrior.

Yamamoto also says in Hagakure:

“Rehearse your death every morning and night. Only when you constantly live as though already a corpse will you be able to find Freedom in the Martial Way, and fulfill your duties without fault throughout your life”.

If we take this literally we must assume that the way of the warrior is suicide and that physical existence is unimportant. Whilst there have been many samurai and monks who have thought this way, this is not The Way, it doesn’t inspire a high ideal or bring “Heaven to Earth”. Once again, we a dealing with symbols and so what this means is that the warrior should fight the weakness inside of themselves by instead relating to their high ideal, which is to say their “Lord” and not their own imperfections. In other words, you should aim to fight evil tendencies and weakness, as these are the true enemies. This is what is meant by the Way, or bringing “Heaven to Earth”. Abiding by the way cannot mean severing ties with the physical, because the physical body is the expressional of the spiritual ideal. In fact, we would be unable to work on the physical form if we did this.

The mind must follow the way, that is to not dwell on peripheral matters, and keep active in the pursuit of the high ideal, never lingering in “swamps” or “marshes”.

In his Book the Unfettered Mind, Takuan Soho says:

“If ten men, each with a swords, come at you with swords slashing, if you parry each swords without stopping in the mind at each action, and go from one to the next, you will not be lacking in a proper action for every one of the ten.2”

The number ten appears frequently in Martial arts, and Elsewhere. That is why you find 10th Dan Black Belts, that is, the ten stages of initiation, such as found in the Ten Pranas in Yoga. But it also means “the one who bears light and penetrates obscurity”3. The number ten is also symbolic of the sword and shield, that is, the one looks like a sword, and the zero looks like a shield. Another way or saying this, is that the one, the individual, should embrace the truth, which is the zero. The zero should surround him like the circle around a axis of rotation.

The sword is of course symbolic of penetration into truth, and the shield reflects this truth. A further symbol of ten is the ten points of a compass. In this way, a fighter must be able to be aware of enemies from all around his centre, and train to act accordingly without delay. In yet another symbolic form, the number ten also means the unity of the body, the individual “one” and the mind, the “zero”. Here the zero symbolises eternal truths which must be perceived, as they exist before anything else, which form the basis of the individuals world, the circle that surrounds him. Instead he often gets caught up in peripheral matters and loses his centre.

As you may see, it is impossible to sum up the teachings of signs and symbols through techniques or form. Because they are principles governing them. It is equally futile to analyse and define these universal principles because they have such vast application. They apply equally to Buddhism, carpentry, Martial arts, or any other discipline and subject. This is noted by Musashi and many others, which is why he states “When you have mastered the practice of the science of martial arts, there will be nothing you do not see.”

In many of the ancient texts, the Masters state that the techniques are difficult or impossible to express in written form. Perhaps you can see why from the above examples. Any form, technique, or skill is simply a way of expressing the truth. In this way a given form which expresses truth holds true across all forms4. As such, there are conflicting physical forms which seem unrelated only on the surface. Such and such a form might be better against this or that form, but is weaker against still a different form. But there are no conflicting truths, and when this is understood there is unity.

There are peripheral aspects which vary in form, but the “centre” around which a form rotates provides the equilibrium. This is why a Martial artist must always remain centred5. This has obvious parallels with the one and the zero: The one viewed from above is the dot within the centre of a circle, which is the zero. In other words, the centre of gravity around which the body rotates. This is why Gravity plays such an important role in power and equilibrium development of the individual. Similarly, in the solar system the planets orbit the sun. The sun does not move from the centre, it controls the planets. This explains the idea of sun worship, as a concept for understanding truth. On the Military level, the general keeps his distance from the troops6, which is saying the same thing as the sun keeps its distance from the planets. This is in order to rule over them.

References

1 Tsunetomo Yamamoto Hagakure

2 Takuan Soho “The Unfettered Mind”

3 Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov Cosmic Balance, the Secret of polarity

4 Miyamoto Musashi The Book of five Rings

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

6 Sun Tzu The Art of War

Which Moves?

Posted on by joeharman8 | 8 min read | 31 views

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

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

Strength of Weakness

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 5 min read | 19 views

Many people are under the impression that great champions are somehow fearless or without weakness. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. They are simply inspired by the aspects of fear and weakness that terrify others. It is possible with work to develop the capability to use fear and perceived weakness, that is transform it rather than reinforce it.

When you read the biographies of fighters such as Mike Tyson, Tyson Fury, as well as many other successes in and out the ring, it may be surprising to learn that these characters seem to possess abnormal tendencies towards weakness. They have been floored on several occasions despite their great achievements. This should only be surprising if we lack understanding of success. If an individual has more instinctive passions and anger to confront and channel, they have much more frequent opportunity to work on themselves and transfer this energy into useful products. This struggle really is the greatest asset you can have, provided you manage the situation correctly. Trust the power of your instincts but not the immediate expressions of them.

Many people instead take the opposite path. They assume that their base instincts are the final product and let these torment them. Eventually, they exhaust themselves with endless problems and wallow in self pity. They think this is their fixed personality which must somehow be bad. What a negative way to look at ourselves as deadwood. In a sense this is correct. But this lower instinctive aspect of ourselves is actually the source of the higher refined aspect. Our higher cognitive brain must be careful to translate these instinctive thoughts and feelings day and night into constructive interpretations of our choosing. The higher faculties not only have the power to evolve this material, but also the responsibility to the integrity of our system. There is no quick fix solution. Both the higher and lower centres are polar opposites but are part of the same overall whole and are therefore inseparable.

Our instincts and energies are like raw materials which should be fashioned into great achievements of one kind or another. They do not really care what the expression is, so the more unreachable the long term goal the better to ensure a continuous momentum upwards. Grand achievements of any kind are not possible without raw materials, which are like soil to the growing tree. Many people debate which martial art is the most effective but this is really unimportant. Many skilled fighters and eminent individuals have mastered their discipline and crushed their competitors only to be beaten by the enemy within. The external enemies are not at all dangerous compared to the internal battles, which are made all the more deadly because people fail to even recognize them.

People often chose to pursue pleasure, amusement, and material gain under the assumption that the more of these things they have the happier and more motivated they will become. This is a deadly mistake, even if it is universal. All these excesses serve to undermine our motivational states that keep us alive, healthy and competitive, by pacifying them. You are of course free to do as you please and disagree that this is bad, but in my view this is a fundamental law of nature. Recent scientific discoveries have found that adversity switches on certain defence systems within the body which enhance health, lifespan, and motivation1.

Our instincts and energy represent extremely powerful forces which must be mastered and controlled, enslaved even. Otherwise, without wise direction they consume us. When it comes to the external elements or electricity for example, we understand this idea well. Humans used to live in fear of these forces of nature until they gained control over them for the benefit of the species. In my opinion, we should therefore accept that the same must be done with our internal forces, and it wont be any less challenging and it must be achieved through relentless will power.

Our instinctive drives ensure that we continually struggle for improvement and never rest on our laurels. They torment us if we don’t make use of them. This ensures our continual evolution. This is nature arranging things to make us work, rather than according to how we like. The moment we take out eye off the ball when we are overconfident the seeds of destruction are often sown. If this state reflects who you are your mindset should recognise this fact by symbolising relentless drive forwards. There are many champions of one sort or another who have fallen to pieces at a crucial moment or even lost all motivation seemingly out of nowhere. Many people throughout history have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams only to find emptiness and sorrow waiting for them. Or they have simply become bored and lost their edge. There physical capabilities meant nothing at this point. The so called good things had the effect of being bad and ruining them. Why is this?

We are generally quite keen to do all sorts of work to please other people, but we often neglect work on ourselves. But this is by far the most important work there is to do in my opinion. We have come a long way in terms of physical advancement. Rather than making things easy for us, this situation affords us time to work on ourselves at a more advanced level than ever before. Our work has only just begun in the 21st century.

References

1 See David Sinclair: Lifespan – Why we age and why we don’t have to.

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