Change Your Life with Martial Arts Chapter Two
Change Your Life with Martial Arts -- Your indispensable introduction to the martial arts. Chapter Two of Change Your Life with Martial Arts is available online as a sample of the content offered by the book.
By Linda Davis Kyle
Students who study martial arts under a dedicated, certified, and well-seasoned instructor can gain better balance, discernible direction, and a panoramic view of the world. Among the vast wasteland of the seductions and sidetracks of society are scattered a few treasures that can better humankind. The practice of martial arts is one of those treasures.
Even the jewels are sandwiched between often degrading and debasing elements that are served as a daily diet. Much of what society offers neither stirs the spirit nor maintains good mental or physical health. Some entertainment sources tarnish our society. A lethal ongoing and imperceptible fallout rains down on its unsuspecting followers. An unpalatable and unacceptable way of life locks in as commonplace. The addiction to the expectation of constant entertainment and instant gratification threatens and weakens our society. Discipline is disregarded widely. Pure thoughts rarely are enhanced. Attention spans and concentration abilities are diminished by incessant interruptions. A deeper reality must be sought.
Embracing the Highest Standards
Self-improvement does not just happen. It is not a gift. Martial artists seek, embrace, and endorse the highest standards of behavior. Martial artists know that constant entertainment is not a necessity; that instant gratification is an illusion; and that working to achieve a worthwhile goal is its own reward. The ethical standards of martial arts are set. They are adhered to and modeled. Under sound instruction, the rules do not change. Predictability creates stability and supports solid emotional health.
In a sense, the kata, also called -- as you know -- form, hyung, poomse, and sequence, depending on the particular martial art, is a solid learning device whose predictability nurtures emotional well-being and stability. These patterns of defensive and offensive techniques against multiple imaginary opponents do not change. As they work to learn the moves and to grasp the timing, the stances, the arm and hand, leg and foot movement to execute each kata, students coordinate mind and body completely in the present moment. Students must train both sides of their bodies as they work their arms and legs alternately to perform the moves. Such practice supports strong bilateral development and adaptability, unlike some sports, which are approached in a one-sided fashion. Students learn to combine the basic techniques in their practice of kata. Students must demonstrate techniques with balance, shifting of the center of gravity, controlling speed and power, and executing swift defensive, offensive, and evasive movements with smooth transitions. In addition, the kata must be performed in all directions.
Some students find that practicing blindfolded once they know the pattern of the kata builds a new dimension of confidence as they conquer recognizing direction intuitively. If you practice blindfolded, make sure that someone whom you trust is with you to observe your every move to prevent you from endangering yourself in any way whatsoever. Kata completely take one's attention, and in doing so become "moving meditations" and constant teachers clearing and strengthening the minds of their practitioners every time they practice and opening them more and more to meritorious goals for a better life. The challenge kata present requires patience and perseverance to achieve and helps to build endurance and mental ruggedness.
Dealing with the monotonous details of kata creates patience and, oddly, at the same time can lessen stubbornness. The relentless repetition required to excel tests one's will power and perseverance and reveals to the students their psychological natures, their weaknesses, and their strengths and helps to balance them not only physically but also mentally and spiritually. Students can achieve an incredible sense of well-being, which may immunize against the allure of alcohol and other narcotics. Instead, their appetites for health-building foods may be whetted.
One of the additional advantages of kata lies in the fact that they can be practiced in a fairly small space in a modest amount of time with no special equipment. So, indeed, you carry them with you wherever you go. They even can be practiced mentally. This practice too nurtures your well-being for it fosters concentration and imagination. When you do practice kata mentally, be sure to imagine doing each with the utmost care to excel. Practice with a forthcoming tournament room in mind or your own martial arts school or your own backyard. Imagine yourself practicing facing north, then south, then east, then west or some other combination of your choice. But practice in numerous directions to make the kata your own. Above all, always picture yourself doing well. Kata also can be practiced in teams, which contributes to the feeling of camaraderie. As students continue to study and practice, they apply the basic skills in kumite (sparring).
Martial arts, well taught, can take students into a cosmos like none they have known before. In the world of martial arts, striving and working and achieving goals are recognized as honorable. Students get to know themselves. They begin to see their interior natures. They see themselves learning and striving. They work through impatience and frustration. Hard training and persevering show the way. The martial arts bolster a never-say-die attitude. Martial arts can teach goal setting and can reward the attainment of those multifaceted goals. Students can feel their strengthened self-esteem surround and support them as they achieve one difficult task after another and clear away one obstacle after another. They feel good about their efforts, not arrogant, as they start to apply their new skills. The influence of martial arts overflows into every aspect of a practitioner's life. Martial artists do not tolerate an attitude of just getting by. Martial arts instill the push to excel and the drive to a positive position in life.
Focus, balance, and discipline are the strongholds of martial arts. Martial arts encourage students to overcome fears, to prepare to succeed, and to invite a full life of adventure. Recognizing that the best way to overcome fear is to confront it, martial artists face fear after fear to mow them down one by one and to gain greater strength and more control of their lives.
Some movies lead the uninitiated to believe that the martial arts are about tough blokes and babes breaking boards and cracking skulls. Students of many of the types of martial arts can break boards with bare fists and bare feet, but the martial arts go far beyond demonstrating the balanced speed and power of a well-executed punch or kick. The martial arts encourage the striving for excellence in all endeavors within the range of human possibility. Martial artists are realists. They know that perfection cannot be achieved, but excellence is their noble goal.
Focusing and Achieving Balance
Martial arts instructors observe that often people are "programmed" to try to be perfect. Many people are unaware that perfection is an illusion, so they fret about past problems and future uncertainties.
The importance of focusing on the moment is a key concept in most worthwhile activities. One must be present in body, mind, and spirit in order to learn. Learning the minutest traditional details of martial arts, along with gaining a fuller grasp for its broad background, requires focusing on the moment.
Being in the moment not only encourages self-discipline and creates positive character, but also it urges students to go beyond their limitations. The martial arts nurture a fine balance of body and mind that helps to create physical endurance and mental ruggedness. Patience and physical endurance and mental ruggedness are opposite sides of the same coin. With patience, one can achieve physical endurance and mental ruggedness. Yet, physical endurance and mental ruggedness foster patience, for it takes time and much practice to acquire the physical and mental skills necessary to perform martial arts well.
Serious, diligent students are rewarded by their patience. As students concentrate to become proficient in the physical techniques of a particular martial art, they learn not only to control physical power and motion; but also they learn to gain command over their thoughts, emotions, and expressions. Skewed views of the world become straighter and smoother. Students gain understanding of themselves and others, as well.
Being physically balanced makes kata sparkle and protects students in kumite. The competitor with stable balance and proper posture can execute techniques more effectively and can keep his forthcoming moves a surprise. The martial artist with more experience can recognize off-balance posture in a student of lesser experience and maintain an edge; so every exercise and every routine that contributes to better balance should be practiced properly with keen attention to improving.
Strengthening Self-Discipline and Creating Character
Learning martial arts requires a regimen of practice year in and year out. Seasons come and go in baseball, basketball, football, and many other sports; but a martial art is an ongoing, year-round extension of one's life. The study of martial arts can perpetuate tenacity. It is a philosophy of learning, growing, living, and persisting.
The practice honors effort, and it rewards excellence. The practice of martial arts helps one to focus on inner quiet and peace in a world sometimes fraught with despair and turmoil. Serious involvement in the teachings of martial arts goes beyond self-defense and beyond sport. The martial arts are deeply rooted philosophies. Under astute and levelheaded instruction, the martial arts ingrain ethics. They instill drive and determination toward excellence in all endeavors. The goals of martial arts at their best are the antithesis of many of the pursuits of our current mainstream society.
Setting a Schedule
Setting a schedule to practice, then practicing consistently and diligently requires self-discipline. Staying on track both requires and helps to develop self-discipline. The mere fact that students dedicate themselves to practice consistently without regard to their own moods, whims, the weather, or the chaos in the outside world helps them to create character.
Warming Up First, Stretching Second, Working Out, and Cooling Down
The best results come from always doing proper warmups, stretching gently without bouncing, building to the full workout gradually, drilling the basics, executing the basic techniques in forms and in sparring with power and poise, then doing useful cool downs.
Warming up with calisthenics before stretching and working out is crucial. Warmups should produce a mild sweat but not fatigue. They prepare the mind and body for exercise. Psychologically, warmups help you to relax, and they boost your concentration. Physiologically, warmups enhance metabolism, circulation, and respiration and make more oxygen available to the cells. Warmups increase muscle temperature, which relaxes cold muscle stiffness and smoothes muscular contractions. Warmups of large muscle groups diminish the risk of cardiac ischemia (obstruction of blood supply). Warmups followed by careful, static stretching, without any bouncing, prepare the body for a vigorous workout and decrease the chance of injury.
During warmups, even, some instructors give students practice reaching for a "next" goal. Among the variety of calisthenic exercises, for example, some instructors order 50 pushups and then call for 40 more. They may continue dropping the requests each time by increments of 10. Students perform the variety of exercises of the regimen and are delighted that they can conquer the task.
When students practice careful warmups and then careful stretches to prepare their bodies for the demands associated with a full-blown workout of basic techniques, they gain not only physical stamina but also mental ruggedness. When their diligent practice culminates in kata (prea-arranged fighting patterns) and then kumite (traditional fighting techniques) for the dynamics of correct form and timing, students push to achieve what is required.
Cooling down is essential, indeed, for the gentle cooling down helps to glide the body smoothly and safely from the rigors of strenuous exercises back to a quieter state.
Having now broken through their limitations physically in numerous ways and in their chosen martial art, students realize that they can do the same in chemistry, in math, and in life. Pushing beyond the limit helps to overcome insecurities and fears and builds self-esteem. Martial arts can be a great key to personal power and a model to finding direction and to achieving worthwhile goals.
Enhancing Physical Endurance and Mental Ruggedness
The teachings of martial arts emphasize incremental learning and embrace a vast range of both physical and mental abilities. Students develop basic skills. They must work on form and balance. They must practice techniques and execute each as well as they can for each stage of their development. They must emulate and develop rhythm according to the instruction of their teachers. They must remain relaxed until just the right moment to deliver a carefully targeted and exactly placed punch or kick. They also must coordinate control, distancing, and timing with a balance of speed and power. All this must be carried out in a stable stance with a low center of gravity. Students must be careful not to stand too low, however, which can impede their movement.
Also, learning to position oneself from a competitor in the ring can be crucial. If you crowd your opponent, not only will you not be able to see their full body, which will hinder your prediction of your opponent's next move, but also you will not be able to act effectively either defensively or offensively. On the contrary, if you are too far away from your competitor, you cannot execute even an excellent strategy, for you will have to overextend your move and get off balance. Or as you move in, your opponent can read your next move and thwart your plan. Making yourself a moving target by continually moving in and out can keep you within a safe range from your opponent and can give you an advantage in discovering the perfect distance from which to deliver your strike, punch, or kick.
Improving by Degrees
Students refine their talents as they move forward by degrees. For some students it may take some time to see a gain in skills. As they become more adept and have an understanding of the basics, they learn to recognize their improvements. Some naturally athletic types may see rapid improvements in their techniques. Those who experience a rapid gain in improvement, though, must not become complacent nor should they become disappointed when they reach a plateau and are unable to see subtle improvements. Continued practice is important. Patience and mental ruggedness are fostered in both cases, for perfection is not expected, but excellence of effort is required at every step. Training is a long-term challenge and even can become a life-long endeavor for serious students where body, mind, and spirit become balanced.
Striving for Excellence
The study of martial arts instills in the individual the belief that the striving for excellence and the patience to strive is the greatest virtue of all. Such study encourages its practitioners to be the best they can be in every aspect of their lives.
In a world where many people seem to embrace a complacent attitude of just getting by, martial artists insist on lengthening their limits, making meaningful lives for themselves and those around them, and balancing the basic aspects of their natures. Martial artists are known for their quests for excellence. When one knows what is expected, holds a meritorious goal, and sets out to achieve that goal in an environment of discipline, direction, and devotion to duty, achievement, excellence, and honor follow as a natural reward.
Excerpted from Kyle, Linda Davis. Change Your Life with Martial Arts. Austin, TX: Blueberry Press. ISBN 0-9673651-4-7 LCCN 2001 130661 All Rights Reserved.
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