The point of training
Jun. 11th, 2010 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arriadI pen this with a heavy heart. Wow, that sounds so cliche, doesn't it? Organs do not gain or lose mass to suit our literary or emotional needs, yet we manhandle phrases, manipulating them, "turning" them with our oafish, clumsy hands, trying to grasp that which is, at its very nature, ephemeral. I also do not really pen it, because pens are not involved in this construction, but saying I type this belies importance, places it one step above "I text this with a heavy heart".
It is appropriate, I suppose, to start this journal when my sensei has left for Japan. He has taught me for two years, and is now leaving for two years; I cry while the Libra in me smiles.
I remember when it all started, how I came to train with Rafe. Were this a movie, the orchestral score would start (hopefully I would have a heroic score by Hanz Zimmer, but I would most likely get a comedic one by Randy Newman). I walk down an alleyway in the bad part of town, stupidly late at night (que orchestra [Zimmer] or "Walkin along, late at night, dangerous part of town, robbers jump out, scary fright, my pants just turned brown" [Newman]). Robbers jump out, knives in hand. One of them says some slick line like "Yer money or yer life!" or "It's not safe walking out here at night, you could get hurt!" Rafe would jump in and, with a flash of martial arts prowess so fast I would only see blurry fists and feet, all accompanied with that "whoosh" sound and the "crack" as they hit the robbers, you know, to show it really hurt,, he would dispatch the hoodlums. Thus would begin a lifelong love of martial arts.
Ah, for things to be that extraordinarily generic and generically extraordinary. The way it actually happened was more commonplace and more extraordinary than I could have imagined.
We had gone to middle school together, where he was a year behind me. I only remembered him as a thin, goofy kid with a pony tail. We hung out on the bus, and saw eachother at school. Our interactions were minimal, however.
We met again on a train platform, as we waited to travel into the city. I was going to class for Elementary Education, and Rafe was traveling to Temple to take a class. We had the stereotypical moment of recognition and "how the hell are you, you big so and so!", which was made not so stereotypical when we realized that we actually had things in common (a love for martial arts and exercise physiology), and that we were both teachers.
We chatted the whole ride, and he invited me to have a free lesson with him. Being a frugal lover of awesome things (not a lover of awesome frugal things, VERY different), I smiled and said sure. I went a few months later (life intervened and conspired to keep me from awesome, as it so often does), and had my first lesson.
After showing him the scant bit I knew (small bits of Capoeira, a smattering of Tai Chi) I sparred him. The sparring, where Rafe danced around me like I was standing still, showing me, with light touches and pokes, where I was vulnerable. Everytime I thought of making a strike, he was countering it, and moving it so that it met his designs, aided him in finding leverage over my body. From that eye-opening you-know-nothing-about-martial-arts moment on, my training began,
I say all of this to explain why it is I train, and why people should train.
I had a martial arts lesson where I was taught that I knew nothing, yet I went back to it. Why would I do that? To keep doing something when you have such a humbling experience as an introduction is a way to eliminate your ego. I train so that I can continually know how little I know. It keeps me humble, but also allows me to find out more things.
The training we do is not about destroying opponents. Rafe did not destroy me when we sparred; he taught me. The Martial Arts I learn is all about teaching others, not about destruction. Far too many people are obsessed with Arts that are "good on the street". They are so focused on combat effectiveness that they miss the spiritual aspect of Martial Arts.
Those schools, those "street ready" schools, are backlashes against the full spiritual Tai Chi schools that have cropped up, where the form of the art is more important than that form's effectiveness.
There is a middle path, where most schools do not tread. We can study the art of movements without ignoring movements that are not aesthetically pleasing, and we can study the effectiveness of movements without dissolving into slightly more evolved "fight clubs". Come with me on this journey as we try to discover what good training is, how to participate in it, and what the use of Martial Arts is in the age of guns, those "great equalizers" in terms of fighting. Training for form? Not purely. Training for fighting? Not entirely. Training for Budo, the art of fighting? absolutely
It is appropriate, I suppose, to start this journal when my sensei has left for Japan. He has taught me for two years, and is now leaving for two years; I cry while the Libra in me smiles.
I remember when it all started, how I came to train with Rafe. Were this a movie, the orchestral score would start (hopefully I would have a heroic score by Hanz Zimmer, but I would most likely get a comedic one by Randy Newman). I walk down an alleyway in the bad part of town, stupidly late at night (que orchestra [Zimmer] or "Walkin along, late at night, dangerous part of town, robbers jump out, scary fright, my pants just turned brown" [Newman]). Robbers jump out, knives in hand. One of them says some slick line like "Yer money or yer life!" or "It's not safe walking out here at night, you could get hurt!" Rafe would jump in and, with a flash of martial arts prowess so fast I would only see blurry fists and feet, all accompanied with that "whoosh" sound and the "crack" as they hit the robbers, you know, to show it really hurt,, he would dispatch the hoodlums. Thus would begin a lifelong love of martial arts.
Ah, for things to be that extraordinarily generic and generically extraordinary. The way it actually happened was more commonplace and more extraordinary than I could have imagined.
We had gone to middle school together, where he was a year behind me. I only remembered him as a thin, goofy kid with a pony tail. We hung out on the bus, and saw eachother at school. Our interactions were minimal, however.
We met again on a train platform, as we waited to travel into the city. I was going to class for Elementary Education, and Rafe was traveling to Temple to take a class. We had the stereotypical moment of recognition and "how the hell are you, you big so and so!", which was made not so stereotypical when we realized that we actually had things in common (a love for martial arts and exercise physiology), and that we were both teachers.
We chatted the whole ride, and he invited me to have a free lesson with him. Being a frugal lover of awesome things (not a lover of awesome frugal things, VERY different), I smiled and said sure. I went a few months later (life intervened and conspired to keep me from awesome, as it so often does), and had my first lesson.
After showing him the scant bit I knew (small bits of Capoeira, a smattering of Tai Chi) I sparred him. The sparring, where Rafe danced around me like I was standing still, showing me, with light touches and pokes, where I was vulnerable. Everytime I thought of making a strike, he was countering it, and moving it so that it met his designs, aided him in finding leverage over my body. From that eye-opening you-know-nothing-about-martial-arts moment on, my training began,
I say all of this to explain why it is I train, and why people should train.
I had a martial arts lesson where I was taught that I knew nothing, yet I went back to it. Why would I do that? To keep doing something when you have such a humbling experience as an introduction is a way to eliminate your ego. I train so that I can continually know how little I know. It keeps me humble, but also allows me to find out more things.
The training we do is not about destroying opponents. Rafe did not destroy me when we sparred; he taught me. The Martial Arts I learn is all about teaching others, not about destruction. Far too many people are obsessed with Arts that are "good on the street". They are so focused on combat effectiveness that they miss the spiritual aspect of Martial Arts.
Those schools, those "street ready" schools, are backlashes against the full spiritual Tai Chi schools that have cropped up, where the form of the art is more important than that form's effectiveness.
There is a middle path, where most schools do not tread. We can study the art of movements without ignoring movements that are not aesthetically pleasing, and we can study the effectiveness of movements without dissolving into slightly more evolved "fight clubs". Come with me on this journey as we try to discover what good training is, how to participate in it, and what the use of Martial Arts is in the age of guns, those "great equalizers" in terms of fighting. Training for form? Not purely. Training for fighting? Not entirely. Training for Budo, the art of fighting? absolutely
