Nen; Ki and Chi

"Training gives us an outlet for suppressed energies created by stress and thus tones the spirit just as exercise tones the body."

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

"To truly understand the ancient martial martial ways of Okinawa you must stay here awhile. You must see and feel what is outside of the dojo in order to better know what is inside the dojo. You must know our history and our hearts."

-Shimabukuro Osensei

He can walk on something outside of himself, because of his control within himself.

I've spent a lot of time practicing the external arts; martial arts that channel energy outward. Over twenty years. I have only spent a quarter of my time as a martial artist for the last five to seven years practicing any internal, where you develop and manipulate the energy generated internally. I tend to then use that energy to channel it to augment my abilities externally. Hence my passion for Baguazhang.

By energy I am referring to kinetic energy; the same that occurs when molecules or atoms vibrate and become active. Chi, in my opinion, refers to when the molecules in your body are activated and how you use them within your system. Most do so for healing; an active cell composed of thousands of molecules, when vibrated is imparted to become more active and thus heals faster. Ki is similar, one stimulates the molecular physiology, but then impart it elsewhere. Chi in a sense is when a molecule just vibrates, and how it interacts with itself. Ki is when that same molecule vibrates, and then interacts with another molecule imparting and affecting that molecule. In that sense, Ki is external martial arts, whereas Chi is internal. I am very good at the former, but neither are mutually exclusive in any sense.

The best drill I can summarize the difference and interaction between the two is this; to increase one's energy I know of a silat drill. You extend your leg into a kicking position on a stationary object; one that 'resists'. I.e. you try to break it, and no matter how hard, it will not. Metal is the best form of such an object, but a tree works as well. From the extended position you 'push' off the target.

Once you can do so forcefully, you will find when executing the same strike it will become much more powerful than before the exercise. You are channeling internal energy to thrust off the target, but using external to impact the target with your energy output.

There's no way to actually measure this. I suppose you could hook yourself up to nodes, but what you exhibit would be much different than what I exhibit.

This is why in the argument of speed vs. power, I prioritize technique over both. Technique is what allows a proper punch to channel energy from the ground, and direct it through the body to be expressed outwardly. But the same technique can be expressed inwardly also.

Martial arts is often mistaken as purely destructive, but it can also be restorative. It depends on how you channel the force; do you do so inwardly such as in Taijiquan, or do you outwardly such as with Tae Kwon Do or Karate, or Kempo.

How you choose to cause energy to interact with yourself and others will determine who you are as a martial artist.

This is a rather esoteric conversation. But let me demonstrate in the video below. I can extinguish a flame by blowing on it; creating a forceful wind with my mouth. Or, I can use a proper technique with a punch that channels the internal energy my body generates, and expresses it in a direct line to and through the target.

Some people extinguish a flame by using the sleeves of their shirt. Not unlike a magician. There are many tricks. It is like the one inch punch- it can be a party trick or a very real and practical technique. It all depends on what technique/move you use, and whether it is combat effective. A magicians trick to extinguish a flame is not practical in a fight, whereas what I do here is very practical. At :018 you can even see the smoke from the extinguished flame and its gasses be pushed in the direction I punched from. I can do the same thing with water when in a pool.

It's weird, and complicated, but as a martial artist worth it.

"Soft as cotton on the inside, hard as steel on the outside."

-Taiji quote.

Time To Go Hunting

"The purpose of training is to tighten the slack, toughen the body, and polish the spirit."

-Morihei Ueshiba

"I'm constantly trying to find other people to better me, to improve. To move outside my comfort zone."

-Frank Mir

I am sure many who are reading this have found themselves in a similar predicament; they are someplace new and for awhile, and want to train, but have no one to do so with.

That's what is currently on my mind; I am in Israel, just outside of Tel Aviv on a kibbutz for a months, and though a major city is just forty minutes away, it may as well be out of reach. The community center in the kibbutz where some martial arts are practiced is currently shut for the summer, so I have to come up with different ways to do so.

Luckily this isn't my first time having to hunt for training partners, and there are some tried and true strategies to find them.

The easiest and ironically at times more difficult way to find a training partner is by talking with others. Find a way to bring up you practice martial arts, and boom, you may have found a training partner. The problems with this method is that it can take time, but also it means that who you may get as a training partner is limited literally by those around you. Sometimes word of mouth gets you that golden person who can help you reach new levels, but I've seen this happen rarely.

Another means is through the internet. There are always forums and hot spots online to meet and coordinate for finding a training partner. I prefer this method most because it allows you to hunt when its best for your schedule, and you can be more selective. You do TKD and want to train with someone who does kyokushin or Muai Thai? This is the route to go.

A way that I have found that works is to start a martial arts club of some kind. The only problem really with this is that if your club has a theme, such as kung fu, or boxing, that is in all likelihood all you are going to get to train with. I prefer mixing it up; I want to spar people from styles I have never even heard of to push myself, so when I assisted founding the NVCC Martial Arts club, it was open to all styles. At any one session we might have a few TKD people, of different styles, to Wing Chun, Silat, Shotokan and more present.

And then there is the long way; find someone who just wants to learn martial arts at all and practice with them until they become a martial artist who can help push you forward. The teacher teaches the student the path, walking ahead, until the student can not only walk with their teaching side by side on the path, but can even run forward, and come back with word of whats ahead.

That's perhaps the greatest way to find a training partner in terms of it having a meaningful and even spiritual context. The only problem is it can take time.

While it is true you can practice by yourself, as Miyamoto wrote in the Book Of Five Rings;

"As one man can defeat ten men, so can one thousand men defeat ten thousand. However, you can become a master of strategy by training alone with a sword, so that you can understand the enemy's stratagems, his strength and resources, and come to appreciate how to apply strategy to beat ten thousand enemies."

-The Fire Book

I prefer to do so with others. They push me harder than I can myself, because I know myself completely. They will think of things I cannot, and use them, and probably succeed until I can come up with my own means to respond and manage their actions.

A training partner is someone who will push to become more than you are. Toward what you can become. Friends can be training partners, but this is usually a bad idea. Your friendship and camaraderie may distract you from actual work which is why you are present together in the first place.

They do not have to better than you. Such a thing is unfeasible. Perhaps they are far faster than you, while at the same time you can kick higher than they can. The point is with their help you can become faster. They can learn to kick higher. It's a mutual exchange. There is no way to find someone who is overall objectively better than you, pragmatically. That's all in a person's judgemental and self-doubting head. And if you go into the relationship of having a training partner thinking they are better, or worse, that you are better, than it will eventually fall apart and you will be without a person to work to become better in the martial arts with.

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, 

but on building the new."

-Socrates.


For the blog concerning my adventures in Israel, see: ajourneyinisrael.blogspot.com/

Burning The Wick

"What gives light must endure burning."
-Viktor Frankl

This will be a very short post; a blurb of a blog entry;

One of my favorite things to practice to practice in martial arts is doing a strike and extinguishing a candle flame. I do this mainly with hand techniques, but now and again do so with kicks. Sometimes I do it on the first move (Especially with hand techniques) but sometimes it can take awhile (such as with a kick)

When you do a technique and fail, such as doing a strike and not blowing out the flame with its wind, or the vacuum it can make, you can see very visibly how you are either improving or not. I implore you to try. I've seen novices knock the candle over and spill wax on your carpet; I've been able to extinguish a candle from more than a meter, and I can see where I'm at because of that. If I can do a technique adequately, I am five feet from it and can put it out no matter what I do.

Practice this, and you will see where you are at.

Just Once I'll Use A Photo From A Meme Generator; This One Is Perfect.

The Coin Does Drop

"You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using a timing the enemy does not expect."

-Miramoto Musashi

 

 

Generally speaking people react similarly to things. That's why there are such things as genre as comedy or horror. We are instilled, from birth and culture how to react. But training can also override and empower such reactions.

For example, we are taught in martial arts how not to flinch when something approaches our eyes or groin. We do this so we can ignore an instinctive reactions to close our eyes or shy away- not only because such involuntary movements can cripple us while instinctively protecting those areas, such as by blinding us (closing our eyes) or making us lose a position of defense, but because the lack of control also means we are still programmable. If A happens then B happens, and if B happens C-Z is possible.

We, as martial artists, and in control, do not want to be programmable. When our opponent or enemy can expect us to do a certain thing, they can manipulate and use that thing.

Our goal is to do that. For example, if I punch a straight to their face, I expect them to move either right or left to avoid the blow. Fighting is more than chess, its a kind of physical programming in a certain sense. If they move to the right I throw a roundhouse kick from the right. If they move to the right, after my hand is extended I pump it through a backfist going to the left. If they back up I pursue, and they lose ground and thus position.

If they block I pump the punch hitting over and over until the arm is numb. These are all situational, but if you do the right thing at the right time it works. That's the point of this; a combination works because one strike leads to the opportunity to use another.

If I do a ridge hand and they block is, I will wrap my arm around theirs' to strike them through a back fist. This becomes a knife chop to backfist.

It's not about a specific combination; I can still remember those I've drilled. Front punch- back punch, front kick then back leg front kick. It's about understanding what happens when you do something, and using it to lead to something else.

It's all about how you chain them together.

When you drop a coin you know it falls straight down. When you throw a ball against a wall you know it will bounce and richochete off; but if you can know where the coin will fall and when, you can always catch it. When you can try eventually you can find how the ball will go, and catch it.

Think on it; program your opponent to react as you want, and then win.

"The more complicated and restricted the method, the less the opportunity the expression for one's original sense of freedom."

-Bruce Lee

What Is A Master?

"Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person."

-Albert Einstein

This blog post may be my opus dei as a martial writer. If there is one writing I want to survive me once I am gone, I would gladly include this one.

I will make it as succinct as possible, given the complicated nature of the question itself.

What is a martial master? What is martial mastery? What defines the expert from the novice, the advanced practitioner from the noob, the master from the white belt?

Especially when masters worth honoring would always wear a white belt again.

The subject matter is one I have contemplated and meditated on for years. Perhaps when I was thirteen and first awakened to wanting to try in practicing martial arts, instead of just drifting forward as I had been. Trust me, there is a marked difference between the motivation of someone who merely floats, and someone who swims.

This is a question that I have asked for a while. So much that I have written three different drafts on this very topic before deciding to ignore the previous writings on the matter and just have at it in an airport in Canada.

Frankly the question makes me somewhat nervous, because from what I have found there is no actual general definition of what a master consists of. It differs from practice to practice, from person to person. Thus, my definition will potentially and thus invariably be disagreed with by many who read it. And boy, do I dislike when people hold my views to be erred. The last time that happened I got over 25,000 views thanks to reddit on a vieo I made on youtube.

But, like going to Israel, like standing up to a gun pointed at me square on, I am throwing caution to the wind. I might-maybe-could-probably be wrong, but I Believe in what I am writing, and especially so that the capitalization was deliberate.

So let me illustrate the disparity of definitions toward what defines a 'master' concerning martial arts. If there is such a thing, I honestly ask as a final kind of point to the journey.

A master climber might be the like who scales the unscalable mountain, or boulders the rock without its crags, but every stone, and especially mountain is different, and do they stop what they love in climbing that unbeatable mountain?

No, and a lesser sojourn and path may be what befallen them, no matter how great they were. But they continue to climb and move, because that is what makes them love what they do, and therefore what they love to do is what makes them succeed.

 

-

Daniel-San pay attention or I'll slap you with Koryo.

To start, there is the view that a 'master' is primarily one who has created their own style. In that sense there are very few masters in existence, comparative to the multitude who claim the title. In my opinion, their claim is deserved.

In Tae Kwon Do a martial arts master was somebody who has reached a specific rank, usually 4th dan, but I have seen exceptions. I have seen it more generalized also where a master is anyone who has considerable experience in the art they practice. This definition is very vague, for example, In WTF style Tae Kwon Do a person can reach master- ranking after only ten years potentially. I have been practicing for almost 22 years, and stopped picking up belts after my 5th first dan, at a time when I also had a 3rd dan in Moo Duk Kwan, and two second dans, as well as several underbelt rankings in other styles.

Additionally I have heard one only becomes a master of something after 10,000 hours of practice. Taking in only the last ten years of practicing, for three hours a day (my normal amount is between three and five hours a day) I just bridged 11000 hours. 

And yet, even though I do fall under the definition of master in some elements, I have never, and will ever refer to myself as one. 

This is why I prefer the label Bruce Lee coined for himself; he was, and would always be a master-student.

And that is a fundamental difference, but also a somewhat different topic deserving its own musings upon. 

To me a master is something that is always earned, but can be received as either a gift, or by recognition. The former is when one takes a test and is recognized by their teacher and their school, and receives an appointment following their successful passing of whatever conditions are in place to determine a master. The second is when one does not test, but blossoms on their own independantly into such status. I recall one teacher who we referred to as Master Arthur, even when he was a third dan. When I returned to visit the school many years later I was very happy to learn that this teacher had finally become a fourth dan, because that meant he was officially recognized by his school and system the title he had already deserved years before he ever held the dan ranking he does now.

That's just how it is; we all have met 'masters' who did disservice to the name in either ability or their character, but we also have met a few individuals who it frankly surprised us weren't masters.

Having been called an expert by others, and even a master by some, I can understand where Arthur was coming from when the students he taught referred to him as a master.

Of course we correct people; I am not a master, and in terms of being officially one with a belt in hand, having been given by another teacher, will never happen. I am done with belts, and hardly ever wear one. I received my first black belt when I was seven, and my 3rd dan when I was 13. Since then I have had numerous black belts from other schools and styles, been a head instructor to a handful, and run a school myself- to the point I am jaded with the system. I know I am capable in the arts, I don't need another belt on my rack to prove that fact to anyone other than myself. And my rack has hung belts from dojos to community colleges. There comes a time you have to hang the rack and take it down.

I have had the fortune of starting a wonderful club with people devoted to martial arts, and as of this point am traveling to the middle east not only to teach english, but Martial Arts as well. Hopefully paired together.

And by no means have I stopped practicing, I still do for several hours a day (I kind of have to, if I don't my whole body begins to ache, especially the knees, fingers, and back)

So the journey never ends for me. But when somebody refers to you as a master, when unaware of your actual ranking, whether or not you are a master, that is a point to stop and ask yourself how that title came to be, and whether or not it is deserved in some aspect.

Because to me, a master is someone who is recognized and honored as such. They are the person others turn to for advice in terms of martial arts, and it wont always be people from the same style. They are people who even other masters will speak with respectfully, or as contemporaries, and they are people who plunge into the arts, and are as much the art as they are themselves. And when they are a particularly superior kind of teacher and practitioner, the art they practice is as much affected by them, as they have been made whom they are by it.

I love martial arts, it gives my life meaning, and that's all someone who practices should humble say.

Thieves And Conflict Management

"If conflict sometimes the best tactic is to allow the force to pass by like a wind or like the water running down the river."
-Jin Kwon

"Martial arts is not about fighting; it's about building character."
-Bo Bennett
 



 

 

I have about two days left before I leave the country, and seem to have run into a snag where I live.

It seems somebody in the house I am at thinks because I am leaving I can be preyed upon. In the last four days I have had a variety of things stolen from me, one pretty ballsy while I slept in the form of money. Today it was something I do not even use anymore, a vaporizer e-cig, and at this point I can't tell if its just somebody being petty, or somebody actively trying to hurt me before I leave.

Considering I will receive a large paycheck tomorrow and need to keep that and my identification documents such as my passport and photo I.D. safe, I think I am within my right to protect myself from others. If any of that is taken I could be in dire straits concerning my move to the middle east.

So this poses the question to me of what a martial artist is to do when confronted by a thief or somebody preying on them.

I suppose I could be combative, and I am within my right to be angry, and believe me, I am. But lashing out against everyone, since I do not know who the culprit is, would be completely wrong. Other people are just bystanders in this situation, but unfortunately, when you do not know who is stealing, everyone falls under suspicion. Considering all of them have been relatively kind to me since this occurred, it just goes to show that trusting others should be done with care.

After all, the thief has taken what is mine, and then given me condolences concerning the matter.

I am not one who forgives very easily, either. Especially when the transgressions are still occurring. Maybe down the road when I have put distance between myself and the situation, but when I feel actively threatened, that option is just not readily available.

So I have decided to stay with friends I can actually trust, as opposed to the current people I have spent the last two weeks with. I suppose in a sense it is running, but to me it is more akin when somebody is trying to fight over nothing, and you walk away.

Yes, we are fighters, warriors even when practicing truly, but sometimes it takes the bigger man to not to fight. Ego is not worth causing issues in our own lives.

Let's say I start a fist fight over this, even if I did find out who did it. Ignoring the legal issues which would ensue, how can I claim any kind of sound victory, morally speaking, if I resorted to violence to solve my problems? A martial artist is someone who not only knows law to a degree, but lives a moral existence.

There is no victory in resorting to conflict when no one's life is in danger. Sure my potential new lifestyle is at risk, but that's not the same thing as the very essence of my being at jeopardy.

And what would I attain if I resorted to physicality? I certainly wont get my property back. The money has already been spent, and chances are the other items are irretrievable, and who would want something back someone has literally put their mouth on?

This series of events over the last five days have brought a quote to mind;

"Do not strike others, and do not allow others to strike you. The goal is peace without incident."

-Chojun Miyagi.

By leaving this I am accomplishing this; I can protect myself going forward, as well as remove myself from further situations.

So, I will take what I do still have, and leave. That seems the most sound solution. I risk nothing with that, and as a plus, get to spend my last few days in the United States with people I hold dear, most likely having a great time. Instead of spending it stewing in my own negative energy of anger. I would rather leave the country on good terms, not one that makes me want to turn my back on people.

 

 

 

"Integrity is not old school, it applies today like it ever did."

-Richard Norton