“To do Martial Arts you have to be totally dedicated!”…. 

“To be good you have to sacrifice many other things in your life”….. 

“To get there you have to be single minded”….. 

 How often do you hear this?  How true is it?

Words can be confusing because they are a method we use for defining an idea and often they mean slightly different things to different people, but let’s look at the idea that you have to dedicate yourself to one thing to the exclusion of most others to be good at Martial Arts – because I disagree.

Martial Arts are a method of self improvement.  Therefore if they didn’t enhance the rest of your life, they haven’t done their job! 

Martial Arts should:

Improve your physical and mental health.

Improve your social skills.

Improve your confidence.

Improve your awareness.

Improve your relationships.

Improve your ability to concentrate.

Improve your ability to learn.

Improve your ability to listen.

Improve your career possibilities.

Improve your family life. 

Leo was obviously trying too hard.

He was no spring chicken, in his late forties he was trying to compete with the youngsters.  He had old, long term damage to his knees and ankles, he had a bit of “middle age spread” and here he was trying to leap around as if he hadn’t started shaving…… 

“Leo, take it easy,” said Sensei.  But this just seemed to aggravate him more.

Well, it had to happen, his face got redder, his knees more wobbly, his movements more frantic and then one of the young bucks swept both his legs and unmercifully reverse punched his heaving paunch.  Leo just lay there exhausted and empty. 

“Yamee!”  Leo rolled over, dragged himself to his knees like a defeated man awaiting execution and when decapitating katana came, forced himself back on to his unsteady legs and bowed out with the rest of the class.

“Leo, my man, nice floor polish.,” but Leo didn’t even take his head out of his hands and respond to the “high five” offered, he just sat in the changing room looking dejected.  The others eventually shrugged their shoulders to each other and left, saying to Sensei on the way out “you’d better see to Leo……”

Sensei came into the changing rooms and sat down on the bench next to him without saying anything.

The class began with sanchin qigong.  With our feet under our shoulderline, we rotated out on the balls of the feet, releasing our ankles, knees, hips, lower back and chest, then stretched the crown of the head upwards bowing the spine from the top and pulling the pubococcygeus muscle at the base to complete the ‘bow’ and assist the energy flow, putting the tongue to the top palette to complete the circuit. 

We held the arms out in a ‘bow’ (or yin) formation at the front of the body, palms inwards, hollowing the chest to work with the bowing and opening of the back.  Lightly stretching the fingers and stretching and opening the joints in the shoulders and along the arms and hands we encouraged the flow energy until it felt like ran from the arms into the sunken chest and down into the lower abdomen.

After a period of feeling the ‘shade’ at the front of the body we turned the hands over to feel the ‘yang’ side, feeling like we had the sun on our back, ‘sitting’ the laogong points in the palms of the hands  down to their partnered points in the arches of the feet.  Both hands had to feel the same, they were stretched and adjusted to get the best energy flow, both feet had to feel the same, with the mind there, the arches of the feet felt like they filled with ‘cushions’ of energy, the relationship between each hand and foot also had to feel the same ‘balancing’ the body.

Ring ring…. 

“Warriors Heart Martial Arts School.”

“Hi Sensei, this is Sam Jones’s Dad, I’m calling because Sam seems to be losing interest, he was very happy to get his first grade but his peers seem to have gone up and he’s left behind, I don’t want him to give up but he seems to have lost the ‘buzz’ that he had before…”

“Have you seen the feedback forms that I’ve given to Sam?”

“I know he’s had some – but to be honest I haven’t read them.”

“Okay, the reason that he’s feeling like that is because he doesn’t attend enough lessons and doesn’t get the support he needs at home.”

“That’s not fair, he attends all the classes that the others do.”

“No he doesn’t.  In fact I’m looking at the register right now.  The problem is that you see the other students there when he’s there, but he only attends one class every other week whereas the others are attending a minimum of twice a week and you obviously don’t see them there when you’re not there!”

“But we can’t get him there as often as the others.”