Although I had pursued martial arts for many years, it took over fifteen years for me to see myself as a competent martial artist. This sense of falling short of my expectations was nothing new to me; I had played the trumpet since 4th grade, and picked up the guitar in my sophomore year, but even after 25 years of doing that, I never saw myself as an artist. Even though it was me playing that trumpet, I believed that I was cheating in some way; at the very least, I was falling far short of my potential.
It is my contention that we are all moved by forces unseen. Some of us state that we are only a particular way because of some circumstance from childhood, or that we come up with logical reasons for doing what it was that we do. But my reasons for continuing in the Martial Arts were all based upon my experience of the world at that time. I didn’t want some individual to “pass me up”, or I was afraid for my safety, or my self image was so fragile that it needed the propping up that Martial Arts seemingly provides. Then there were times that I continued and had no idea why I was still doing it – I just was. It is only with the grace that hindsight gives, or that time affords us, that I can see so much more clearly now. The truth of my life is that I have a gift, and that gift has brought me to an understanding of movement and timing. As these concepts gradually increased in depth and scale, they also brought me to pursue the gifts of truth and leadership. But mostly, I have developed the gift of sight. At the time, it seemed that the motivations I conjured up were the truth, but only because I was covered in fear. Fear stops you from seeing who you are. Fear disconnects you from your body and your mind. The very life of fear depends on you not knowing the truth –
Nothing can touch you.
Nothing can own you.
Everything is going to be all right.
None of those ideas can exist while fear stands in the way. But oddly enough, fear plays a central role in the development of those ideas. While fear can stand in the way and block your view, it takes an act of faith and courage to move past your fear – hence a chance to see that while fear can present itself in a visceral way, it also allows the opportunity for exercising faith and courage. Fear can cause us to hide away from ourselves and try to stay the same, or fear can give the impetus to grow and expand beyond all previous limitations. While it can be the one thing that stops you from living a courageous life, it is also the one thing that allows it to exist.
Or, at least I thought that I had fabricated it.
We are moved by forces that we will never understand, but the more fear that you have to block your way, indeed the more investment in fear that you have, the less you will understand those forces and how they exert themselves on you. I did not make up the idea that I train to heal; I actually do train to heal. While it was true that I was already experiencing those aspects of my training, I was incapable of seeing or realizing their existence. By coming up with something that sounded reasonable to me at the time, I started down a path that I can never turn around on, and have since found all of these amazing resources tucked up inside a good reverse punch.
But it is quite another concept to seek out technique. The search for technique can be thought of in two parts.
One is the search for unhindered energy running cleanly through your body that is articulated as a dynamic expression of accurately focused power. This is the very real, physical attribute of technique; one that can be tested on boards, concrete, target pads, heavy bags. But there is also a look to good technique. When energy runs unhindered through a physical body, the path that it travels is beautiful. A true expression of power without need, want, or fear has the grace of dancing along with a full exposure of self; indeed there is a nakedness to it, for those who have eyes that can see. For me, the look of a fully supported leveraged movement virtually invokes a portrait by Davinci, with angles and vectors written out on aging parchment, showing ratios scribbled in the margins. But even for those who are not adept at seeing such things, there is a profound difference between a raw beginner attempting to contort their body in what would seem a very unnatural way to force energy out and a seasoned practitioner who has learned to release the things that stand in the way of that flow of energy and allow themselves to be naked. A question that I have asked myself over and over again is this: Is it the practice of the technique itself that refines that movement? Or is it the releasing of that which stands in the way of the natural flow of energy in the human body? In my estimation, it is both; and it is neither.
More about technique next!