By Scott Shaw
I
was doing a workout over at my studio today with, dare I say, some of my aging
contemporaries. These people forever impress me for they, like I, have been
practicing the martial arts longer than most practitioners have been alive.
These people really know their stuff and though some of them have gained some
weight, lost some of their flexibility and endurance, they each understand that
the key to the martial arts is to Adapt and Readapt. They work
with what they have and they make it work.
You
know, there is something really beautiful about a martial artists or a boxer in
their prime. The things they can do and the moves they can make are really
exquisite. For example, when you watch a boxing match when a great fighter is
in his prime, it is pure poetry. This is the same with a highly trained martial
arts practitioner who can propel his body into the air and perform a perfectly
executed flying kick or opponent throw. But, it is the wise practitioner who
understands that the agility of youth does not translate into the person of
age. This is not to say that by adapting as age comes upon a person that they
cannot produce beautiful movements and techniques. For example, as we reached
the portion of the workout today where we met face-to-face on the mat, again, I
was so impressed with these people. Through their years of training they each
know what to do and they know how to do it in their own unique manner. Though
their bodies have become older, they have each individually devised ways to
make what they do effectively work for them. They do not try to fight as if
they were twenty-five, they fight as if they were thirty or forty years past
that point. But, from their knowledge, they could easy defeat someone twenty
years their junior.
This
is the great thing about the true martial artists and here is where the
difference between the individual who trains in the traditional martial arts
and the individual who is more focused upon, "The fight," comes into
play. Whereas the traditional martial artist learns all he can and works with
what he has, they never desire to hurt anyone or focus upon defeating anyone,
as does the fight-orientated practitioner. The true martial artists never
desires to go in for the kill, when there is the opportunity to move the fight
in a different direction. They choose to deflect rather than attack.
I
have been writing about the martial arts for a long-long time now and this is
something I have always discussed; the street is not the same as the training
hall. On the streets it is kill or be kill. But, the true martial artist
never wants to follow that path. They want to be more. They desire to raise
their consciousness rather than to raise their fists. And, this is an important
distinction to make. As long-term martial artists I believe that most of us
walk away from fights rather than to engage in them. For what is the purpose of
fighting when we have spent our whole lives training to do just that? We don’t
need to follow that path for we understand that the martial arts is much more
than simply a means to learn how to defeat an opponent.
And,
that is what I witnessed again today. As ever-advancing martial artists, the
people I worked with have learned and accepted what their body can and cannot
do. Then, they have adapted with the times to keep their bodies in shape and
their minds focused. And, they have done this knowing that a fight is never the
answer when a fight does not need to take place. From this, I witness true
beauty based upon interactive fighting techniques that were taken to the
ultimately level of understanding and used as a means of mental training and
not simply that of winning a fight.
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Originally from the Scott Shaw Blog
