From a few years ago::
In the last few days I have been fortunate to train and teach a wide spectrum of the Filipino Martial Arts. Today we see such crazy violence, and those who abhor such, as any person should, ask me why I support violence. Really?
Martial Arts, and especially my art, is not about violence. It is about gaining a sense of peace and composure in the most difficult of human experiences. When you are afraid, hurt, maybe angry, or just disoriented and surprised. It’s not about stress training, and adrenalin response innoculation, and any other special phrase to describe being scared to the point of defecation and yet holding it together, reaching down and grabbing ahold of oneself and prevailing. As my colleague and friend Todd Labrie said to me once ” I have the most beautiful art, and yet I will not be able to show it” for not only will the average layman won’t really understand it, it will often get the wrong reaction.
Violence is a reality, we do not embrace it, but we do learn to flourish and thrive in it, to allow the human spirit to blossom whithin the eye of the storm. At the end of the Last Samurai, the supporting actor portraying the ‘rebelious samurai lord’ expresses how the art and role of warrior as a class in society had become unecessary, and Tom Cruise replies with “what could be more necessary?” And what could? The thought that confidence and self reliance in the most difficult of human conditions being not only undesirable but also socially unacceptable.
Martial Arts is about Self Confidence, Self Reliance, Self Control, among so many other valuable characteristics. You don’t learn and gain these with success after success, belt after belt.. but failure after failure and learning to get up every time. The old saying “Seven times down, Eight times up”, goes a long way in expressing this virtue of perseverance and indomitable spirit. I have a particular student whom I am particular proud of, and when I promoted him to instructor I said something to the affect of “I can’t seem to hit you any longer, so I guess it’s time for you teach now”.
There is a satisfaction and confidence in oneself that is imparted in a method of training where the tradition is to build you up, break you down, build you up, break you down, and again and again, till to the average man you become impervious, imperturbable. Being a product of that myself, remember how my father would bear down upon me and harden me with trial and tribulation, attacking both my mind and body, my spirit. And coming out of that training a different person, “What could be more necessary?”
I don’t regret not participating in sports that much, just a little rugby, and even less of soccer. I do not regret missing out on friday night partying, so that I could be ready to train Saturday morning. I don’t mind missing out on prime time TV then or now. I wouldn’t trade it for the confidence I can walk with in some of the hardest places in the world. To put myself in harms way for others, with little thought.
Keep the TV and Pigskin, I’ll take the knife, sword, stick, fist and foot everyday.
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