A Church of Fighting?

A church of beat down? A religion of beating up? Sounds a little wacky, eh?

The fact of the matter is that you have to ask one question…where does motion come from?

My muscles make it, man!

Yeah, but what tells your muscles to do their thing?

Well, my brain! My brain is back there sending all sorts of messages down the nerves to the muscles.

But who tells your brain what to do? When to move? Where do ideas come from?

Whoa, now you’re getting confusing!

No. It’s simple. Who tells your brain to move the muscles? Who tells it to think?

Well, uh, I guess…I do.

Okay. Who are you? What are you?

I’m a man!

Yeah, we know that, and a man is a body and a body has muscles and…who tells those muscles to move?

I told you! I do!

But what are you?

I don’t know…I just am!

Now we’re getting somewhere!

 

Do you see the quandary here? Do you see the state of confusion? A guy thinks he is a bunch of meat and muscles. But when you ask him who’s in charge of all that meat and muscles…he comes up with himself. But what is ‘hisself?’

In the words of Popeye: I yam that I yam and that’s all that I yam.

And the truth of the matter is that if you do the martial arts, if you move those muscles long enough, you start to experience energy beyond muscles, called chi. And if you keep going you come up with the question: what’s behind the muscles? Where is Chi coming from? And…who am I?

And right there, the martial arts have become a religion.

So, you learn to fight, and you discover yourself, and learn the truth of the word Budo…not just martial arts, but the ancient meaning, ‘To lay down the spear.’ To stop fighting.

So you learn to fight so you can stop fighting, and what are you going to do then? How can you find out more about yourself and chi and these new things that you can do? What, exactly, is this universe thing? What are all these people running around? Are they ‘I ams’ too?

Well, we’ve opened the door to a new kettle of fish now, so come on in, or out, and let’s figure it out.

The name of this site if Church of Martial Arts, and it’s all about you, and where the martial arts can really take you.