Do Men and Women Really Understand the Purpose of the Martial Arts?
I posed a question for a martial arts forum a couple of weeks ago, self defense I think it was, and it got a lot of interest. The precise question I asked was: You Killed Him…Do you Turn Yourself In.
A lot of interest, and let me tell you, what I say here may seem cruel, but that is not my intention. It’s just that I was struck by the responses of some very intelligent people, and my conclusions may seem harsh.
Let me preface this piece by recounting an incident that happened to me back about 1974.
A bunch of us black belts were sitting in a bar called ‘The King’s Table.’ Wonderful place for winding down after intense work outs where you were pushed past the limit…of spirituality.
One of the fellows asked my instructor, a fellow name of Bob Babich, what Karate was really all about.
Bob didn’t even hesitate, ‘Karate is about survival.’
We all sat and sipped our drinks (no sissy beer for us) and pondered his answer.
Oddly, though he had been fast in his answer, I didn’t think it was the kind of thing he ever thought about. He was a fellow who did. Didn’t talk much. And I just didn’t think he had thought about it, and I realized that this was likely one of those rare instances when you saw the forms at work. Simply, his intense study of Karate, especially through the forms, had afforded him that intuitive, innate answer.
Yet, I thought the answer wrong. At first I didn’t know why, but upon reflection over his answer I finally, after many months, realized what it was.
I believe that Karate is to seek existence as. Survival is fine, but that doesn’t necessarily lead anywhere. Animals survive. We should expect more of ourselves as men.
So I came to believe in Karate, and the martial arts, as a method to seek existence as…as awareness.
Decades later I posed the question for a forum: You killed him…do You Turn Yourself In. The responses reminded me of that long ago conversation, my purpose in the martial arts (to create more awareness). The responses to my question in the forum were often of two varieties.
The ladies engaged in a deep discussion regarding teaching people with ADHD. Very interesting. Not Bob’s purpose, not my purpose, but a purpose intended to aid thedisadvantaged. Noble, but…interesting. But it made sense because women are of the nest, and men are of the spear. A generality, I know, but a truth of mankind. Though I should say that this generality held true more before the introduction of the pill.
The men seemed to slant off into what the law was.
But the intent of the question I posed included the condition that law had broken down and was not to be trusted.
But the men kept spouting things about what the law required, and so on.
I was struck by how far from survival the Martial Arts had become, and dismayed by how far from ‘to seek existence as’ (awareness) they were.
Now, you can check out the discussion on linkedin, it is quite interesting, and you can see if you reach the same observation as I did, or even dare to make the same conclusions as I.
But let’s get to the point of this little diatribe. Or, prepare for the left turn.
We can divide mankind into three classifications.
Sub human.
Human.
Superior human.
A subhuman is going to be a criminal type, one without morals. Very unaware, except as to how to twist the moment to his own advantage, and then he might or might not be incredibly brilliant.
A human is your average go to work oaf. He makes payments, he votes as he is told to, and he is mired in normalcy bias (loosely – hold to the least threatening path). The odd thing is that, because he removed from the immoral survival level of the subhuman, he is often (but not always) less aware.
A superior human is going to be a fellow or gal with morals, an upward plan, and the personal drive to make that upward plan work. He is going to be aware, or at least on the path to awareness. Enter the Martial Artist.
Now I don’t have much argument with the ladies. They rise above culture and its expectations, and though I think the martial arts used to reach ADHD students is far afield, who can fault their motivation?
But the men…when the question posed calls for survival…they argue over what the law says. And here is a point of fascination for me.
The law is a bunch of made up rules so men can get along. To temper their ‘spearlike nature,’ as it were.
Now I know this could possibly just be my disagreement, and you are certainly free to hold to your own opinion as to what the purpose of Karate, or whatever martial art you study, is.
And you could even attack me for being anachronistic…having trained with men who dated women ‘before the pill.’
There would even be cause for that.
But to allow yourself be bound by any law can become immoral itself.
Yes, law is a bunch of rules to allow warlike oafs to live in some semblance of peace. But laws can be immoral, or immorally applied, as was implied in my article. In which case it is actually one’s duty to rise above the law.
Not in mob, but in individual initiative and action.
Anyway, while you grok with that concept, or not, let me return to my thesis, my purpose, that the purpose of the martial arts is to seek existence as.
My specific, as intimated, is ‘to seek existence as…awareness.’
When one does a Karate Kata, or a Gung Fu pattern, or any such type of exercise, one is building a circuit in the mind.
Done not long enough, and the circuit is binding, actually slows one down, mires the person in automated responses that are not always even logical. This, incidentally, is why many people attack Karate, or like arts, as unworkable…it simply has not been done long enough to work.
Done long enough, however, and the circuit pops…disappears, and the person achieves enlightenment.
The enlightenment is sometimes qualified, slanted to a particular method of art, but it is enlightenment, and there is more awareness. Thus, one has sought, and achieved, existence as…awareness.
My problem is that if a person is a knock on wood, solid citizen, concerned with the law, that he is bound…and that means that he has not achieved the enlightenment offered by the martial arts.
And here is the tragedy, a person can be VERY advanced in the martial arts, and unable to break the binding, unable to pop the circuit, unable to reach enlightenment.
Why? Poor training. Poor instruction. Not enough time being instructed by a qualified person.
Usually achievement of enlightenment has to do with one of these three items.
Poor training, of course, includes any slant of the martial arts, such as for tournaments, for the training of children (sorry, ladies), commercialism, and so on.
Commercialism is the big bugaboo, of course, and I constantly wondered at how many of the people who entered into the discussion, who held to the law as so important, even over their own survival, were instructors.
But what were they instructing?
A system based on the memorization of random techniques. Circuits.
Yet they had not broken through their own circuits!
One of the things that matrixing a martial arts does is break through the circuits, and it does this by the simple fact of introducing logic. Putting the techniques in order, causing understanding to happen.
Understanding always breaks a circuit.
But here is the cruel trap. A person still in circuit will hold to the circuit no matter what. He will resist logic and all other intrusions.
Well, of course he will. He has invested time and money in the devil…a belief system. And, believe me, most belief systems are the devil. They are like The Law, binding hopelessly, not to allow men to live together, but to control them.
You’ve heard of the Golden Rule? He who controls the gold rules?
The more insidious cousin is: he who controls the rules rules.
That bit of juice observed, and under threat of wandering far afield, let me return to the point of it all.
Normalcy Bias is when a person holds to his path tightly, no matter the signs of impending doom, because…because he can’t deal with the coming disaster.
Yes, it’s a prepper term, but it holds true in this instance because, for person to devote his life to seeking enlightenment, and then to get sidetracked with concern for the law, or tournaments, or commercialism, or even the raising of children, is a tragedy.
Simply, you must not stop seeking existence as (awareness) for any reason. That would be to stunt your growth, and return you to Human, or even Subhuman existence.
A person guilty of normalcy bias will not see his own normalcy bias, and will not complete his search for existence. He has become comfortable as a superior man, without ever making the final leap to that exalted status, and will become nothing more than (he will return ‘down’ to…) a normal, knock on wood, do your job and vote as you’re supposed to oaf.
Thus, I was struck by the responses to my article. Sometimes gratified, even surprised by the depth of perception and the proof that individuals were seeking existence as.
But I was also dismayed by people who held to the rules, could not think outside the box, were obviously still ‘in circuit.’
Final word, remember, Matrixing WILL teach you to think outside the box. It WILL create more awareness. It WILL break the circuits of the martial arts and allow you to understand the martial arts, and life, to an enlightened extreme.
Remember, it takes discipline in the proper method to achieve enlightenment. Random discipline, as in current martial arts, takes twenty or thirty years, if it can be done at all. Logic, through matrixing, can speed up the process by as much as ten.
But to hold to the current course, doing random series of techniques with no logic, and certainly without the understanding that understanding the whole picture that logic brings, is to risk disaster…a lifetime spent spinning your wheels and never achieving enlightenment. Never achieving an existence as…awareness.
Please, if I have stepped on toes, apply lineament and remember that my purpose is good…to seek existence as awareness, and to cause others to find that same purpose.
Have a great workout!
Al from MonsterMartialArts(dot)com.
MonsterMartialArts.com for matrixing.
ChurchofMartialArts.com for further enlightenment.
Old, decrepit, but still searching…and able to put out a candle from over a foot away without using force. This is one of the many incredible things matrixing can do.
