What Are We Learning in Martial Arts?

Balancing Combat and HealingAnatomical-Geometrical-Proportions-Albrecht-Dürer

It’s a tedious balancing act.

When I teach martial arts, I really want people to move better. That’s about it. That’s (almost) all there is to it.

When I learn and I look to improve my own methods, that’s the key… to move better.

In Taijiquan, people come from two ends: some respect the martial capacities of it, and others try to tackle some kind of health or healing goals. But in either case the hidden agenda is the same: move better.

  • If a martial artist can move better: that person can defend the self and others
  • If a healing or health person moves better, then health and healing become more certain and more robust.

So why do I press on the Fighting Skills?

I don’t always…

When to push fighting, when to push health and healing agendas?

Generally speaking…

Push fighters: to relax. Push them towards some health and healing agendas and give them the courage to stand still, to seek stillness and calm, and to open up to tenderness.

Push people who seek health — into fighting. (To exaggerate…) A couch potato will do better to learn to fight than to move around for health. Moving with a goal of losing weight, for example, is hollow… and many a fad is built on shallow goals because such goals can be revived again and again with out helping people gain success.

In Live Taiji Classes

I can see people more clearly. I can attend directly to a person’s spirit: encourage softening or enlivening a drill to wake awareness. For online classes I lack such clarity (I cannot see you).

In Early Online Classes

I’ve switched things around.

I realize that many folks may not have access to a dedicated Taiji practitioner in their home. And because I cannot see you, I’ve blended the visions. I want you to fight and to heal. So, in the Old Yang Online Classes, applications are arranged for use on your mate, roommate, spouse, or child… in nice, healthy, healing ways.

Apply Taiji postures, using acu-points, with relaxed, healing touch and intention. Apply them to your friend in a way that helps your friend relax, and you’ll get two things:

  1. You’ll learn how close you need to be to touch someone’s Dim-mak points: it’s like a silent way to learn to fight.
  2. By learning to help someone else relax: you must also relax… again: it’s quiet… it’s a silent way to learn health and healing.

Those are direct benefits.

Ultimately, there’s a hidden agenda…

I want everyone:

Inume-Pass-in-Kai-Province

  • Me
  • You (dear reader)
  • My wife
  • My son
  • Your family
  • And, of Course, Students of Taiji

To move better.

What’d ya think? Could it work?

Fight-Healing or a Healing-Fight… could it help you move better?

9 Responses to What Are We Learning in Martial Arts?

  1. day says:
    20 April 2010 at 2:11 am

    This one I like! Cutting through many bullshit reasons in my head!

    Learning to move better, for fighting and healing, sounds like the essence for martial art. Perhaps this can be applied to the mind too.
    Learning to be cautious while enjoying, aware while having fun, aggresive and calm, etc.
    Nice!

  2. S.Smith says:
    21 April 2010 at 4:31 pm

    Yeah: move the mind better. That concept reminds me of Takuan’s the Unfettered Mind.

    I, like you, find that I stray from the simplicity of “move better” often. I’m glad you like the reminder.

  3. Sean says:
    13 May 2011 at 6:20 pm

    I like the whole idea of teaching fighters the more mental/relaxed side of martial arts while teaching the people who just want to be healthy the more aggressive side of it all… kind of comes full circle that way.

  4. James Smith João Pessoa, Brazil says:
    30 May 2011 at 3:53 pm

    After over 38 years in the martial arts, I have learned some important lessons. One of the most important is to avoid teachers with the Woo-woo approach. That would be you. All BS and nothing real.

    • Steven Smith says:
      30 May 2011 at 4:28 pm

      Wow…me…woo-woo?!

      Rather than be defensive and point you to some burlier visions, statements, and demonstrations of something worthy of your years of experience…I’ll accept your vision of me. I suppose, after all, something like compassion is woo-woo. Sensitivity, however powerful and important it is, is also pretty darn woo-woo. Besides: I like the word woo-woo.

      I’m not very good at BS though; try as I might. And, as I twist my mind, imagining your intentions to insult (is this what they mean by “troll” on the internet?), I can consider making “nothing real” or bringing “emptiness to life” a task worthy of only the Great.

      I’m working on Nothing. But I’m not there yet ;)

      • James Smith João Pessoa, Brazil says:
        30 May 2011 at 4:56 pm

        From your description of how you are teaching, you are very good at BS. As far as “woo-woo” That’s an expression I picked up elsewhere to describe assigning mystical explanations for what is, in reality, either direct applications of known physical principles or lessor-understood but still natural items.

        For several years, I was a regular invitee at an annual science fair in Tucson demonstrating how martial arts applied basic laws pf physics. So I am well aware of the difference between the woo and the wow.

        Nor have I ever taken advantage of the gullibility of students to promote my teaching, nor have I ever taught anything that I didn’t would work for them.

  5. Steven Smith says:
    30 May 2011 at 8:07 pm

    Do you imagine that, when I write “attend directly to a person’s spirit” I mean some kind of aura-reading? I don’t. I simply mean “whether they lean toward fighting or health and healing.” Anyone can attend to another person’s spirited nature.

    Please don’t offend my students or my readers. They’re not gullible. Many are well-read scholars. Many are dedicated, skilled, classy martial artists. And all are smart enough to have strong opinions.

    While I won’t BS you or any readers or students, I will occasionally make mistakes, write inaccurately, be too vague, or use ridiculously intellectualized words…that’s just the way it is here. Please enjoy that stuff or don’t waste your time here if you don’t enjoy my writings.

    Judging by your website and because you have experience as a martial artist, scientist, and teacher, I’d welcome your participation here. Just be nice.