Words of the Masters

            For the last month, I have been spending most of my time finishing my work for the semester in preparation for a research trip to southern Vietnam this winter. As a result, I haven’t had the time to compose a full blog post for the month of November, but hope to make up for it with stories from southeast Asia. I will spend about a month travelling around Vietnam and four days in southern China; my hope is to find time to practice and interact with martial artists in both countries.

            In place of my own thoughts, I present a collection of quotes from famous martial artists who have influenced my training. I hope to add to this over time, and for a sort of library of inspiration to motivate myself and other martial artists in their journey. Please feel free to post your own quotes and insights which you think should be a part of this list.

“It is missing the point to think that the martial art is solely in cutting a man down.” –Yagyu Munenori

 “… the true science of martial arts means practicing them in such a way that they will be useful at any time, and to teach them in such a way that they will be useful in all things.” –Musashi Miyamoto

“Let the teacher be the needle, let the student be the thread, and practice unremittingly.”  –Musashi Miyamoto

“A hard attack or hard ukemi will not in itself help society. But the strong spirit that is developed through hard training can be society’s salvation.” –Saotome Mitsugi

“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.” –Bruce Lee

“The ultimate aim of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of character of its participants.” –Gichin Funakoshi

“To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the highest skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill.” –Sun-Tsu

"Iron is full of impurities that weakn it; though the forging fire, it becomes steel and is transformed into a razor-sharp sword. Human beings develop in the same fashion." -Morihei Ueshiba

"Although it is important to study and train for skill in techniques, for the man who wishes to truly accomplish the way of Budo, it is more important to make his whole life in training and therefore not aiming for skill and strength alone, but also for spiritual attainment." -Mas Oyama

Weapons training

                   Demonstrating an Aikiken kata with the Connecticut College martial arts club, 2009

Of all the training methods traditionally employed by martial artists, perhaps the most broadly misunderstood is the practice of weapons. Though for some fighters—particularly military and law enforcement officers—training with knives, batons,, etc. is a reasonable and necessary skillset, for those of us who do not expect to find ourselves armed with a melee weapon when the time comes to defend ourselves, skill in weaponry seems a bit more superfluous.

This becomes apparent  when one examines the weapons used in many traditional arts (e.g., Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Aikido, Kendo, Karate), all of which represent an eyebrow-raising combination of exoticism and anachronism. Students are drawn in droves to certain styles based on the flashy appeal of weapons forms and sparring, others by the weapons themselves, which they may associate with a certain culture or worldview (think of the pop-culture following of “samurai swords” and “ninja stars”, for instance). No matter how deeply devoted a fan of samurai flicks or anime one might be, a reasonable martial artist still won’t expect to have their prized katana or wakizashi handy when they’re waiting at the bus stop or walking out of 7/11 with a slushie in both hands. Likewise, one would have trouble getting on the subway with a guandao under their arm. Though a teacher of mine told me he kept a pair of nunchaku in his bookbag at all times, I believe he is an exception to the rule; training in traditional asian weapons is like training with a sword and buckler or musket and bayonet; it has no direct, practical applicability to self defense situations, if anything because no one expects to have such a weapon on their person outside the training hall.

This is not to say that traditional martial artists (including myself) are wasting their time learning forms and kata with antiquated weapons. I certainly place enough value on all types of weapons training, especially historical, as a way of connecting to the past and preserving old warrior traditions (whether these be Korean, Scottish, or Filipino), but I believe weapons training offers valuable indirect training for combative situations that one is still likely to encounter in the real world. Some of these lessons, I think, are unique and perhaps irreplaceable; martial artists who never receive any weapons training may be missing out on a core component of well-rounded fighting technique.

Above all, weapons training makes all aspects of a technique more obvious; this includes proper spacing, cadence, alignment, openings for attack and defense, and force vectors. At the basic level, it is not ambiguous what someone will be striking with, nor how far their range is with a given weapon. It is harder to make untrue or dishonest assumptions, and more apparent when one is open to being struck. Perhaps more importantly, one becomes immediately more aware if they HAVE been struck—even in the context of training weapons of a more forgiving material—and this sort of lesson is easily internalized and hard to forget. Before one has developed an intuitive grasp of the capabilities of empty hands, feet, knees, and elbows to inflict damage at a variety of ranges, the explicit, straight-forward power of a weapon like a sword, staff, or spear is a helpful and illustrative training aid. To make a crude analogy, weapons in martial arts training function like the lines in a coloring book; before a child can draw a lifelike picture of a dog, they need guidelines to make the form and overall scheme of their drawing more obvious; otherwise they will be overwhelmed by the task at hand and get lost in the minutia of say, the shape of its snout or the fur on its tail, eventually coming up with something that looks nothing like a dog. Likewise, a martial artist—especially early in their training—needs a more obvious representation of the imminent martial danger of a situation to understand the complete picture and take the appropriate attitude. Standing in front of an unarmed person, a fighter without this sensitive awareness will not recognize their vulnerabilities; standing in front of a man with a knife, one is immediately on edge and willing to respect the danger of their situation and move accordingly.

While preparing for my black belt test in Aikido, I encountered this principle first-hand. Knowing it was the biggest weak-point in my training, I spent months practicing tachi-tori (sword-attacker) techniques in preparation for the test. Tachi-tori techniques involve being attacked by an opponent wielding a sword (katana) and simultaneously evading their attack, taking them off balance, and disarming them. Proper spacing is perhaps the most important part of this training; if one is a hair too close to his opponent, a committed attacker will strike him before he can make a movement; if he is a millimeter too far, he risks having his movements read from afar and countered. Thus, there is a “sweet spot” of space (Ma-ai, or shared distance) between the partners which, though crucially important in all aspects of fighting, is conspicuously illustrated in sword work.

Week after week I found a partner to attack me with a sword while the mat was free after class. The two of us were always exhausted after a long class, and after a few minutes normally started to get lazy. My attention would grow more diffuse as the practice went on, my movements more minimal; my attacker would begin to retreat only a few steps before striking again, not returning to a safe distance. His or her attacks would become sluggish and unrealistic; either overextended or too restricted, and would lose their sincerity, while my evasions would become equally impractical.

A week before my test, I was practicing this way, exhausted from a long day at work and an evening of training, and my partner and I let our guard down while we were practicing. I evaded a sloppy sword strike, struggled for a moment with a wrist lock, and brought my partner to the ground. “Nah, nah… no way.” Came sensei’s authoritative growl from across the mat. I felt my heart leap. I was instantly embarrassed that my teacher had seen me training so irresponsibly and with such little commitment. I had been sure he had left at least 15 minutes ago, but there he stood in dress pants and shirtsleeves, blue eyes watching us with hawklike acuity. “You’re too close. He’d have nailed you.” He remarked gruffly, smacking the edge of one hand into his palm.

                “Hai, sensei!” my partner and I both yelped almost reflexively, and we tried again; my partner’s attack was more committed, and we kept a longer distance before the technique. Sensei nodded quietly and disappeared into his office. I breathed a sigh of relief and looked back to my partner with a nod of gratitude. As we repositioned ourselves to continue training, I spotted movement from sensei’s office, as he emerged with a sheathed katana. A real one. This wasn’t the wooden bokken or shinai we used for practice; walking towards us, he drew it and tossed the sheath aside, revealing a steel blade which glinted in the harsh lights of the dojo. Though I’m fairly certain the blade wasn’t fully sharpened, this made it no less daunting.

               I am certain I grew several shades paler. My partner, whose back faced sensei, looked concerned at my expression, hesitating, then turning around only to be pushed aside by my teacher, whose eyes never left me. My partner bowed and immediately retreated to the other side of the mat. I don’t remember whether the normally boisterous after-class chatter of the dojo died out immediately or in the ensuing moments, but I recall a deathly silence. Despite his wool socks and silk shirt, sensei had the same indomitable presence I had known him for since high school; he was a man of small stature about my height, yet something in his martial poise made him feel miles taller. He assumed seigan, an aggressive sword posture, and paused momentarily, his gaze unchanging. Heart pounding, I lowered myself in my stance and adjusted my position a few centimeters; the shining tip of that sword seemed uncomfortably close. Without a sound, sensei slipped toward me and the blade whistled audibly in the air, passing just by me as I evaded the cut and drew him within my own striking range. “Better.” He grunted, and shoved me back across the mat with a heavy swat of one hand, then took seigan again. Before I knew it, the blade was singing past my head again, first once, then twice, and soon in a continuous succession as we moved together across the mat, bound by an invisible line of distance; the safe space, ma-ai. Too close, and I’d have lost an ear; too far, and he’d see me coming and have all the time he needed to readjust and cut me down as I came toward him. Sensei’s attacks were real and sincere; I moved out of desperation and had not a moment to intellectualize about the situation; it was raw movement and raw learning, move or be struck.

                In a typically unceremonious fashion, sensei furrowed his brow and grunted with a bob of his head. He turned from me, retrieved the sword’s sheath and, sheathing the weapon, bowed off the mat and retreated into his office. Wide-eyed, I lay down on my back and took a few minutes to still my trembling hands while my friends began their assault of questions and friendly jokes.

                 Needless to say I have never forgotten this particular lesson. Perhaps more interesting is how I now find it applied in all aspects of my martial training; reading and exploiting my partner’s thip (front pushing kick) range in Muay Thai sparring, steering clear of an atemi (strike) in Aikido, or keeping a stranger at a safe and defensible distance walking home from the lab. Weapon’s training cuts the intellectual fuzz from the martial arts and adds a sense of urgent reality that might otherwise be missed. Even in competitive arts with ample opportunities for sparring, rules are set which can give fighters an unrealistic opportunity to be overly brazen; for example remaining within range of groin strikes, headbutts, eye gouges, foot stomps, or shin kicks. Thus, the way I see it, the practically-minded martial artist has no right to scoff at karateka toiling away with a pair of kama or a practitioner of Tai Chi learning forms with the jian, for these martial artists are learning something they may not find anywhere else.

Why I can’t help but love—and hate—MMA

Photo taken from MMAgospel.com 

Two weeks ago I moved to the Boston area, where I will be attending Tufts University to start my Ph. D. in conservation biology. Returning to a University setting, I was eager to seek out opportunities for training; both through new martial arts and new martial artists. With a little research, I was happy to find a Mixed Martial Arts club on campus, and made haste to join them for their first meeting this past weekend. That Saturday, I found the group—a handful of friendly and enthusiastic undergraduates with a volunteer instructor about my age--and spent just short of two hours learning the basics of Brazilian Jiujutsu and wrestling takedowns. Later in the week, I was told, we would practice striking drills and sparring. Walking back to my apartment in an almost euphoric state of excitement about the new techniques I could study, I began to think carefully about my relationship with this new and growing phenomenon, “Mixed Martial Arts”.

As a martial artist with a primarily traditional training background, I am often pigeonholed as someone who hates or looks down upon “modern” martial arts, especially MMA. I will admit to have been unfairly biased against them when I first started the martial arts, but eight years later I don’t think my criticisms were entirely unfounded. At the same time, my experience with Tufts MMA reminded me of the things I value and respect about MMA. In this post, I’d like to clarify my stance on mixed martial arts and the role I think they play in the world of 21^st century martial arts.

When MMA arose in the U.S., starting perhaps with the start of UFC in the early 90’s, it did not revolutionize the martial arts the way that many practitioners will insist it did; in fact, I would say it scarcely introduced anything novel or unprecedented. That being said, I believe MMA played an even more important and beneficial role; it revived the spirit of its namesake, the open-minded blending of different martial arts styles. Naturally, the idea of combining and comparing martial arts has been around since martial arts themselves, and certain prominent historical examples in the West come quickly to mind.

E.W. Barton-Wright’s self defense system of Bartitsu embraced mixed martial arts as central to its doctrine, focusing on the honing of skills from multiple fighting arts to apply at different ranges and in different situations. Jeet Kune Do, the far more infamous philosophy started by Bruce Lee (which he insisted was not a style, but has since become just that), was also formed on this perspective; as Lee explained, Jeet Kune Do “uses all ways and is bound by none”.

Jeet Kune Do also focused on breaking away from elements of classical styles considered “non-essential”, especially Americanized interpretations of Eastern Traditions which led to poor attitude and unrealistic training. With Lee’s early death, I think the “MMA” philosophy—one of bringing arts together and focusing on what really works—was for a time neglected, and did not reawaken until the arrival of the MMA scene, when raw competition and originally open-ended rules allowed fighters from many disciplines to compete unfettered by stylistic requirements or traditions. It is this attitude, I believe—one of both liberal mixing and an uncompromised desire for reality above all else—which promises the perpetuation of the martial arts into the 21^st century, and will present them from either sinking into cultural obscurity or ineffectiveness. Thus, with the advent of MMA, the “no-nonsense” attitude returned (just take a look at the popular online martial arts community Bullshido, clearly founded on this mindset) and forced the martial arts community to return to practical thinking and more realistic practice. The fierce competitiveness of the mixed martial arts—and their avoidance of attaching moral or spiritual “decoration” on technique and strategy—forced many martial artists to re-examine their disciplines and why the reasons they study them, returning practicality to the top of an expanding list of priorities. I could not be more grateful for this influence, and for that I am overjoyed at the growing popularity of MMA.

While watching a documentary on Bruce Lee recently, I caught the end of an interview with his daughter Shannon, who was explaining how overjoyed her father would have been to see MMA as it exists today. She described how perfectly it fit his philosophy and is a real representation of what he was fighting for in the martial arts. I disagree. I can understand that Lee would be pleased for the same reasons I am for MMA, but it is clear from even a cursory inspection of his training and philosophy that MMA as it exists today is not what he was looking for, nor, for that matter, what I view as the ideal modern martial art.

                Part of me believes Lee would be disgusted at some of what he might see watching a UFC fight today. Corporate sponsors, round girls, walk-out shirts, cages, pay-per-view sessions, and technical rules had no place in Lee’s vision for the future of martial arts. Though he shunned traditional forms and kata and advocated sparring and real time fighting as the highest ideals (both fantastic qualities of MMA training), Lee Maintained that fighting should never be bound by rules, lest it lose its applicability to reality. His first answer to most self defense situations was an eye-gouge or kick to the groin, but his training manuals sggest everything from foot stomps to biting in grappling situations. By creating rules with the obvious—and legitimate—need to keep competitors from killing one another, MMA fighters have taken at least one step away from the dynamic and limitless reality within which Lee’s ideal fighter thrived.

Lee the philosopher despised arrogance and ego, and quoting Aurelius and Laotzu alike spoke about the humility and virtue to be practiced by martial artists; I doubt he would be pleased to see the bottles of UFC sponsored shaving gel lining the aisles of the Rite-Aid down the street.

                Lee also disliked the concept of style. To him, styles limited possibilities and trapped martial artists by narrowing their training and perspective on fighting situations. As arts like Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiujutsu found repeated success in the context of the ring, they soon became the go-to disciplines for MMA, and the training background of MMA fighters has since steadily homogenized. As a result, MMA is quickly becoming a “style” of its own, capping off the steady flow of variety and creativity which led to its initial formation.

                Thus, while I am deeply appreciative of MMA and everything it has done—and continues to do—for the martial arts, I do not think of it as the “ultimate” martial art, nor the ideal for the martial arts of the future. With a burgeoning fanbase and legions of talent, the MMA community has secured itself as an undeniable presence in the world of martial arts, and one which readily commands respect and emulation. At the same time, I would hesitate—as I would with any other style—to label it the be-all-end-all form of empty handed combat, and believe that more comprehensive systems can and will arise in the future, likely from the very seeds that MMA has planted. The way I see it, MMA isn’t going anywhere, nor should it in any hurry; it has done great things for martial arts in the United States and around the world. No matter how often I scoff at the flash and fanfare in the octagon, I can’t deny the presence of some serious martial substance beneath the walk-out shirts and shaving gel.

Book Review: Forrest Morgan's "Living the Martial Way"

Photo from Ikigaiway.com                                         

                It was during my recent stint studying avian social behavior in California that I stumbled upon a book which has contributed immensely to my understanding of traditional martial arts and the often perplexing result of their interweaving with Western culture and ideals. I found it on my third trip to an independent used books store in Monterey, which, to my delight, had an entire shelf labeled “martial arts”. I spent at least an hour squeezed up against that shelf as I made room for other shoppers in the narrow aisle, thumbing eagerly through the mess of second hand titles the store had to offer. The book which caught my eye at this particular time was “Living the Martial Way” by Forrest E. Morgan.

                The title of the book, generic as it is, was not what impressed me, but it’s subtitle “A manual for the way a modern warrior should think” was immediately appealing. As a primarily traditional martial artist, I have always been interested in the integration of skills and ideas from my training into both everyday life and non-traditional arts. “Living the Martial Way”, written in 1992 by a major in the U.S. Air Force, confronted precisely those issues—and many more.

                The first thing I noticed about the book was the sheer breadth of the material it covers; from defining martial arts to separating traditional from modern, from Eastern spirituality to mental focus methods, from ways of upholding honor to tips for diet and exercise. Overall, Morgan presents a thorough, exhaustive account of possible conflicts, situations and ideas to be confronted by a modern martial artist, and the traditional viewpoints on how they might be solved. His overall thesis in the book, one which I respect immensely, is that as a modern martial artist, “[y]ou should never lose your ties to those noble warriors of the past,” that is, much can still be learned from traditional arts, and to abandon their ways completely might be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

                Particularly appealing to me was Morgan’s style (presumably rooted in his military experience) of explaining concepts as clearly and explicitly as possible. Lists, neatly numbered and bulleted, saturate the book, with at least one appearing in nearly every chapter. He does a fantastic job of simplifying esoteric Japanese terminology and translating it into tractable concepts which practitioners can begin employing in their practice. He also makes great use of his military education in providing a conceptual framework for understanding how different styles of martial arts work. For example, defining how specific tactics are part of a strategy employed under a central doctrine of a style (he defines these terms as well). With Morgan’s explanations of styles, training halls, and training techniques, a modern martial artist would enter or continue their training with a much broader, clearer understanding of what exactly they are doing and why.

                Perhaps one of my favorite ideas from the book is that “all systems are artificial”, meaning that every style was still designed by a specific person or group of people, faced with a particular group of threats or particular group of goals in the creation of their doctrine or art. Thus, all styles are in a way an incomplete picture of the theoretical “whole” of combat situations. Consequently, as Morgan explains, it is important that martial artists seek training in styles different from their own, or else risk shutting out ideas from other sources, and missing valuable truths they might otherwise have encountered. As a firm believer in the role of interdisciplinary training (“cross-training”) in the modern martial arts, I was overjoyed to hear this point repeatedly reiterated throughout the book, and found my thoughts deepened and legitimized as I read on.

                The breadth (and much of the time, depth) that Morgan achieved in “Living the Martial Way” is truly impressive. I got the feeling, however that at times he was biting off more than he could chew. As he admits in his interview with the martial arts blog Ikigai Way, much of the information he uses in his section for “warrior diets” turned out to be false as the next two decades progressed. What’s more, the vast majority of terminology used in the book is either Japanese or Korean, understandably restricted to the author’s formal training background. However, the viewpoints and philosophies expressed within are almost entirely Japanese. The traditional attitude Morgan advocates throughout the book is very obviously and strictly one of budo, the Japanese “way of the warrior”. I find this Japan-centric approach a bit limiting, especially the way it is unequivocally touted as “the way”. Many martial arts were originally designed for and practiced by non-warriors for the sole purpose of defending themselves against warriors, for example in the origin of Shaolin kempo, in which Bodidharma supposedly taught peaceable Buddhist monks the martial arts to help enhance their meditation and abilities to defend themselves.

                As might be expected from a text heavily rooted in the traditions of budo, “Living the Martial Way” at times presents a very black-and-white viewpoint. For example, pervasive to the book is the idea of the “Warrior”, the ideal to which Morgan believes all martial artists must compare themselves. All people are either “warriors” or “non-warriors”, the latter are of course referred to somewhat condescendingly throughout the book. There are even faint hints of elitism springing up as Morgan explains that “warriors, by the very nature of their calling, tend to make themselves physically, mentally, and spiritually superior to the rest of society,” and how, as warriors, “we are stronger and faster than our docile, sedentary peers”.  This intensity even goes far enough as to include a chapter exclusively dedicated to revenge and suicide—enough to make me put down the book and pause for thought.

                Morgan also denounces modern training methods with little justification other than that they are different from traditional methods, and leaves some more spiritual-sounding assertions regarding the efficacy of traditional methods entirely unsupported. As he also admits in his Ikigai Way interview, he feels less confident about some of his previous confidence in those areas.

                Overall, I think “Living the Martial Way” comprises a solid guide for a modern martial artist, providing a wealth of well-organized information and guidance on a variety of subjects. It’s main drawbacks come from a budo-centric outlook focused mostly on traditional Japanese viewpoints, and a sort of over-adherence to ideals that I might regard as rather antiquated. Though these portions of the book may be irrelevant to the modern martial artist, it can’t be denied that most others are perfectly germane. I would highly recommend the text to anyone looking to add depth, seriousness, and motivation to their training, and also to learn more about traditional ways of thinking in the martial arts. However, some sections should be taken with a grain of salt, unless readers are indeed serving as attendants to some feudal lord.

The Saving Art of Ukemi

Demonstrating ukemi at the Connecticut College Martial Arts Club's annual demo night, March 2010

Shortly after my last post, I moved back from the North Shore to the Greater Boston area, where I will be starting graduate school in the fall. After more than six years training in other martial arts around the United States, I am finally back at Shobu Aikido of Boston; for the first time in just as long, I will be able to train there for more than a month without a significant break in between. Over the last two weeks, as I delved back into the style in which I began my formal training as a martial artist, I was reminded of the lessons which make it so valuable. Among these, one in particular is an often-neglected practice that I would argue is essential for complete martial arts training, especially for applied combat techniques. This is the art of ukemi.

Literally translated as “receiving body”, ukemi is a Japanese term referring to the art of safely receiving an opponent’s technique (be it a throw, hold, lock, etc.) in practice. My teacher, William Gleason, defines ukemi as the “Art of receiving, falling, and moving in such a way as to have no openings where one could be attacked” (In his first book, The Spiritual Foundations of Aikido); which I think is as good a definition as any. Ukemi is particularly obvious in such arts as Judo, Koryu Jiujutsu, Aikido, and Hapkido, which place emphasis on throwing and locking techniques from which opponents must be capable of rolling, falling, or positioning their bodies safely to avoid serious injury. However, all arts, in one form or another, involve some form of ukemi, and more importantly, I would argue that all martial artists should have at least some training to be realistically prepared for an actual physical confrontation. I perceive three levels of ukemi application in the martial arts, each of which is developed continuously as a result of sincere training.

        At the basic level, ukemi training involves learning to fall and roll on a mat when your balance is thrown off, thus preventing the crippling injuries to bones and internal organs which can result from slamming into the ground. A teacher of mine once told me that to learn to achieve victory in the martial arts, the first step is to learn to be defeated. The idea behind this is not to learn to “lose”, but to learn how to behave in a worst-case scenario. If a martial artist always trains how to fight when they are on their feet and on balance, they will not be prepared to defend themselves if they are knocked to the ground. With this in mind, I consider the reluctance of some martial artists to spend time learning how to fall down a form of arrogance; more likely than not, unless you are an absolute master of your given art, you will be knocked over, or at least knocked off balance, in a real fight.

Practicing ukemi, one learns to relax and be flexible; to know when one is “beaten”, and to resist only when in an advantageous position. Tightening or clenching the muscles or resisting foolishly when the opponent is about to throw can result in serious injuries. A good uke hits the ground like a wet towel, heavily and loosely, while a stiff and rigid one will fall like a grand piano and burst to pieces. On more than one occasion, this basic level of ukemi has saved me from serious injuries.

For example, while working as a Campus security patroller in college, I once slipped on black ice on a steep concrete slope, and rather than breaking my wrist or arm, I dropped to the ground on my side and dissipated my momentum with my palm. The movement had been unconscious but identical to what I might do if someone swept my feet from beneath me. I arose, hands trembling with adrenaline, but totally unharmed, and continued my patrol without incident.

The higher art of ukemi is one I have seen less often. This is the art of blending with and receiving techniques while not yet thrown, and of protecting one’s self through positioning and posture while sezing, grappling with, or otherwise attacking an opponent. This type of ukemi is particularly emphasized in Aikido, Systema, and the more advanced levels of Judo and Koryu Jiujutsu. The idea is not only to survive and recover from a fall or throw as in basic ukemi, but to have the sensitivity and adaptability to find your own openings and weakpoints and actively, continuously adjust your movements and positioning to eliminate them. This is what Gleason sensei refers to in having “no openings”, and what Bruce Lee described as “body feel”. It makes techniques "alive" and realistic, even in a controlled environment, and cultivates an ability to react instantaneously and harmoniously to a situation without the need for thought or consideration. Aikido techniques, because of their goal of nonviolence, depend on this level of ukemi. If an opponent leaves themselves open, even an Aikidoka must take this opening and attack. Only through a dynamic tension of the nage (performer of the technique, “thrower”) taking the uke (receiver)’s balance and the uke adapting their movement to stay safe, is Aikido technique possible.

                The highest level of ukemi is in some way comparable to the internal arts of Tai Chi and Ba Gua (e.g. push hands) or Systema, in which the martial artist becomes so sensitive that in contact with their opponent they can find his or her weakpoints and openings and exploit them the same way. This opens the door to the practice of kaeshi waza, reversal of technique, in which uke finds a weakness in nage’s technique and in turn performs his or her own.

This level of ukemi, as well as that before it, have both been invaluable products of my Aikido training thus far. In practicing with other martial artists, I have repeatedly been astounded by the unconscious connection I can make with their techniques, and how rapidly openings and counterattacks can manifest themselves faster than my conscious thought can process. On several occasions, I have practiced with wrestlers and Judoka whose techniques were repeatedly confounded by minute and subtle adjustments in my movement. While practicing Mixed Martial Arts at Sityodtong, I exhausted a sparring partner who continually clinched and attempted to throw me by blending with his movements. Rather than resisting as he was accustomed, I moved easily with his throws, either moving beyond his control or, when his technique was correct, rolling simply out of range and back to my feet before he could follow up his technique. As the sparring session went on, his arms were tired from their exertions, and I was able to take advantage of his dropping guard.

I would urge every serious martial artist to give proper consideration to the benefits of ukemi, and to investigate how such practice might apply to their training. Even if you don’t find yourself in a combative situation, it may be a real life-saver on a winter stroll.

The Role of Reading in Martial Arts

A sampling of books from my martial arts library

Almost exactly seven years ago, in the dead heat of a New England summer, I roasted on the fourth floor of an old brick building in Watertown, Massachusetts. Wrapped in a thick cotton dogi  and heavy twill hakama, I struggled to catch my breath as I sat in seiza with two dozen other Aikidoka at Shobu Aikido of Boston. Gasping for air, I furtively wiped the stinging sweat from my eyes with the sleeve of my gi (a bit of a breach of etiquette) only to find more trickling down from my forehead. It was nearly 8pm, and the sun was setting hot in the humid air outside, shooting in through the western windows to cast a glow on the sweat-soaked tatami beneath us. The class collectively struggled to silence our rapid breathing as our teacher, William Gleason sensei, was explaining the significance of several Japanese myths on the origins of the martial arts. As he explained the relevance of these texts, he presented a simple idea which I had never before considered.

“It is so important to read,” he said emphatically, sweeping his gaze across the class, “to be aware of what else is out there, and to have an idea of where you and your training stand. It is a part of training off of the mat.”

I was struck by the idea, and how blatantly I had ignored it up until that point. Having only begun my training in Aikido a little over a year before, I had jumped in head-first, attending classes almost daily and practicing hard in my spare time. During summer break from high school, I was free to train with even greater intensity, and had began running to increase my endurance for an upcoming rank test. I was always moving and sweating, and never really thinking about my training, always developing my body and never my mind.

This was probably the product of overcompensation, since I had been a skinny, sickly, and purely intellectually focused person before starting the martial arts, and had a powerful longing to  change that. What I had missed, however, was the juncture of my two growing passions at the time; non-fiction literature and the martial arts. This I found as I began reading.

Though martial arts training is primarily physical—that is, lessons are committed more to “body memory” than conscious thought, and emphasis is on feeling and experience over intellectual reflection—to constrain it to that level is limiting. Part of what many argue distinguishes a martial art from a combat sport is its ethos, and the teaching of moral, ethical, and spiritual principles beyond martial technique (for a deeper investigation of what constitutes a martial art, see Defining "Martial Art").

In reading about the martial arts, a martial artist can learn more about the origins of his or her art, as well as the philosophy which went behind it. Furthermore, books offer the opportunity to research other arts, discovering the similarities and differences in thought and technique which exist between them. While technical points can be useful and illustrative, I would argue that they are best learned first-hand and are not to be relied upon when taken solely from the pages of a book. Reading nonetheless offers the martial artist the continual opportunity to broaden their horizons and re-examine their motivations in training.

Reading also offers a chance for the martial artist to take their learning into their own hands. While it is expected that a student generally focus on the curriculum taught by the instructor, a student (especially in today’s busy world) need not limit their growth to the few hours per week they can spend on the mat. I’ll discuss independent training in greater depth in a future post.

In some traditional schools philosophical lessons may be built into the curriculum or offered freely by the instructor, but in more technical schools such education may be more difficult to come by. Reading provides a great opportunity for students whose training focuses more on technique to gain a deeper understanding of how and why they are training.

That being said, I want to make it clear that reading can never equate to real training. The martial arts must be experienced first-hand to be learned, and cannot be deconstructed into a technical manual. While manuals, guides, and philosophical essays are an incredibly helpful supplement to training, they cannot constitute actual training. The best way to consider reading in the martial arts is as a supplementary benefit, like a daily multivitamin. Real training, on the other hand, could be compared to a hearty meal. A human being can’t survive on vitamins alone; nor can a martial artist get by on just being a bookworm.

Next month, I will begin posting my own reviews of martial arts books, in the hopes of recommending good literature to other interested martial artists. I am also interested in compiling a list of high quality books on the martial arts to be used as a reference guide for those in search of good literary resources. If interested, please comment and leave the titles and authors of your favorite books on the martial arts; I am always looking to add to my library and wishlist.

The following is a selection of ten books which I have found both influential and instrumental in my training, in the order I encountered them:

1.       The Tao of Jeet Kune Do—Bruce Lee

2.       Zen in the Martial Arts—Joe Hyams

3.       The Spiritual Foundations of Aikido—William Gleason

4.       The Way of Kata—Lawrence A. Kane and Kris Wilder

5.       Warrior Mindset—Michael J. Asken, Dave Grossman, and Loren W. Chistensen

6.       A Tooth from the Tiger’s Mouth—Tom Bisio

7.       Ki in Daily Life—Koichi Tohei

8.       The Martial Way and its Virtues/Tao De Gung— F.J. Chu

9.       Aikido and the Harmony of Nature—Mitsugi Saotome

10.   Living the Martial Way—Forrest E. Morgan

Karate in the Heartland: Heyman's Martial Arts Academy

Sensei Heyman (right of center), myself (center) and senior students after my last night at Renshinkan.

             It is said that amazing things are found in unlikely places. Last winter I found this saying to ring true; offering one of the most inspiring and formational experiences of my journey as a martial artist.

In January 2011, I moved from my home town in Massachusetts to the heartland of central Florida for an internship in avian ecology and conservation at a local biological research station. The town in which the research station was technically situated was actually an unincorporated community consisting of an intersection and a church, while the nearest neighboring town, Lake Placid, boasted the unimpressive title of “The Caladium Capital of the World”. During the three hour drive from the nearest airport in Fort Meyers, I saw a flat and endless landscape of cattle ranches and orange plantations with little else in between. In less than a day, I had traded droves of angry Boston drivers in SUV’s and hybrids for tractor trailers and the occasional ’92 Ford pickup. Radio stations were restricted mainly to pop, country, and musica de banda, and the most popular phrases in conversation were “Yes, sir” and “Ya’ll”. Starting my work at the station, I was more than a little dismayed at my lack of prospects for martial arts training, especially after receiving my shodan in Aikido just a few weeks before.

It was my shodan test, actually, which had delayed my arrival to the job by a few days, and struck up a conversation with one of my employers about martial arts. He explained that he had trained for a few years in Shotokan Karate, and since moving to the Lake Placid area had taken up Shorinji-Ryu Karate at a local school. Unsatisfied with my personal training regimen (despite my first read-through of The Bartitsu Compendium) I quickly made up my mind to visit my supervisor’s school and get some formal training during my stay in the South.

After plenty of waffling with regard to the timing of my visit, I finally managed to attend a class in early March. At around 5pm that evening, I borrowed a truck from my lab and drove into downtown Lake Placid for my first class. The dojo was a large garage marked by a sign which spelled out RENSHINKAN KARATE in neat red letters. I made my way into the roofed alley beside the building and to the side entrance door, which was covered in fliers, news bulletins, and points of dojo etiquette for students and parents. Removing my shoes, I placed them on a neatly organized shelf outside, and opened the door to a rush of high-pitched kiai.

Inside, at least twenty youths aged 7 to 16 stood in kiba dachi (or horse stance), one fist extended in a punch, the other chambered at the hip behind them.  As the group continued their kata in unison, I searched the room for a familiar face, and soon found my supervisor warming up in a crisp white gi at the corner of the room. Bowing reflexively as I stepped onto the padded floor, I shuffled awkwardly around the edge of the mat to avoid interrupting class and greeted my supervisor who directed me toward a nearby bathroom which would serve me as a changing room.

Passing by once more, I watched the kids class finishing their kata and returning to heiko dachi (the natural stance assumed when students are “at attention”) under the supervision of a senior student; a tall, lanky fellow in his late teens with a spotless white gi and black obi. He offered me a broad and friendly smile, which I returned with a nod, already impressed with the discipline of the younger students. In the bathroom, I changed into a pair of ragged running shorts and a faded black t-shirt—the only workout clothes I had brought with me to Florida—and listened to the sounds from the mat outside.

I was immediately struck by the loud and commanding voice of one who could only have been sensei Alex Heyman, the head of the school. “Mate!” he bellowed in Japanese with the slightest hint of a Southern accent, signaling the end of a practice drill. I hurried outside to meet him, and caught sight of a powerfully built man a bout my own height but with twice my physical presence. He stood before the class with a quiet, relaxed poise which, in concert with his broad shoulders and mane of frizzy brown hair, evoked the image of an old lion. His well-worn dogi and tattered belt spoke volumes of his commitment to the martial arts, while the lines etched in his sun-browned features made it clear no portion of his seriousness had waned in the intervening years.

“Discipline isn’t about doing what you want to do,” sensei Heyman was explaining as he stalked back and forth in front of the line of sweating students before the end of class, offering what was to be one of many words of wisdom I would hear after a hard night’s work at the dojo. “It’s about doing what you need to do.” He raised his voice for emphasis here, his face alive with earnest intensity. “This is budo! I want you all to think about that tonight, alright?”

“Hai, sensei!” the students replied almost immediately. I was again impressed by the seriousness and discipline of the students at this school, though that made what came next all the more impressive. “Good!” Exclaimed sensei Heyman, displaying dazzling white teeth in a joyful smile; the seriousness had faded in a moment, replaced with a magnetic combination of encouraging positivity and indomitable cheer. “Then let’s finish up class. Smile! It’s Monday!” A few students giggled, and there were smiles all around. Standing straight, sensei turned toward the shomen.

“Shomen-ni, rei!”  he called to the group, and who bowed to the front of the dojo. He called again, and turned, exchanging bows with the students. Next, they bowed to the senior students of the class, and finally to the parents and observers at the rear of the dojo. Each time, the students, urged on by sensei’s infectious energy and enthusiasm ("Come on, like you mean it!"), yelled out  “Arigato gozaimashita!” as loudly as they could. After a rush of applause, the class was over and the students dispersed with their parents, leaving myself and several other adult students to continue stretching on the mat.

I was promptly introduced to sensei Heyman—who insisted that I call him sensei Alex—and was immediately disarmed by his easy smile and intense curiosity about my past training. He chatted excitedly with me for some time, occasionally demonstrating techniques we were discussing and having me do the same, all the while grinning delightedly at our exchange. The type of arm-flexing, "sizing up", and other egotistical exchanges occasionally unavoidable in the meeting of two martial artists were notably absent, yet the void left behind was filled by inescapable, sincere excitement of a passionate martial artist.

My first class was indicative of the rest of my experience at sensei Alex’s dojo; a thrilling combination of modern techniques and ideas with traditional attitude and discipline. The class began with extensive calisthenics followed by deep stretching and conditioning exercises. By the time warm-ups were finished, nearly twenty-five minutes had passed and I was already thoroughly winded.

My fellow students ranged from their mid teens to their fifties, and showed a unique combination of the discipline and intensity of traditional karateka with the kind, unassuming, and laid-back attitude of good old Southern hospitality. As the class moved on to padwork, I found myself shuffling down the mat throwing kicks higher and faster than I had known I could, spurred on by sensei Heyman’s roaring encouragement. When sensei moved on to another pair of students—he paid impressive amounts of personal attention regardless of the size of the class—my partner turned to me, shaking his hand with the focus mitt still attached, and flashed a broad smile. “Whoo-ee!” he cried leaning in to whisper in an accent that was almost Texan. “Now son, this ain’t your first rodeo, is it?” “No, sir.” I gasped as I struggled to catch my breath, chuckling despite myself. Before I knew it, we were off again, and I had neither the time nor the energy to realize I was grinning all the while. The class finished with a handful of beautiful forms which I struggled to follow and the same spirited bowing and applause. Again, there were smiles all around once formalities had been carefully observed.

Driving home through the orange groves that night, I rolled down the truck's windows and inhaled the intoxicating sweetness of the orange blossoms, still sweating as profusely as when I had left the mat twenty minutes before.  Given the time to reflect on my night, I realized that a central motif of my experience—and that which impressed and pleased me the most—was the smooth and natural combination of attitudes from disparate cultures and disciplines. Sensei Heyman’s school was the best of both worlds, where modern sports medicine alternated with the traditional techniques of karate’s cultural heritage, where budoka discipline blended with the friendly and down-to-earth attitude of rural America. Before and after class, my fellow students included a preacher, a diner chef, a tractor salesman, and a handful of high school students, but on the mat I was surrounded by karateka; humble, disciplined, and effective.

Testing was brutally traditional, including repeated executions of forms (we would have to stop and start all over if out of unison, or if someone made a mistake) with meticulous attention to detail, and endurance tests which culminated in throwing over 1,000 consecutive punches at full speed, a feat I hardly knew I could tackle. Yet the weekend after, ranks were awarded (along with hugs and hearty handshakes) at an all-dojo barbecue in front of a lake in town. Again, sensei Heyman’s dojo combined the rigor and reality of real martial arts training with a more “country” attitude of community and hospitality. A rank certificate for 9th kyu (the lowest attainable rank in the discipline) now hangs proudly on my wall beside my blackbelt certificate in Aikido.

The school owes much of its great attitude to sensei Heyman himself, who is a constant and unmistakable presence on the mat, shouting out encouragement and advice alike in a booming voice. I was repeatedly impressed by his attention to detail and ability to pick up on the slightest errors of form or even attitude in practice. If ever my mind wandered after a long day of working in the field, sensei Alex would catch on immediately and startle me back into my training with an energetic shout. During every aspect of training, from stretching to sparring to pad work, he openly challenged students to perform beyond their perceived limits, but remained positive, patient, and supportive throughout.

One of my favorite elements of sensei Heyman’s teaching style was his use of  training "wheels", which were periods of several weeks in which classes focused on a particular aspect of karate training. For my first few weeks, the class focused heavily on flexibility, devoting the majority of class toward intense partner stretching exercises and isometric conditioning. In the month I spent in this intensive stretching regimen, I found myself able to throw kicks higher and more smoothly than I had in the past; more than a year later, I still find myself more flexible than I was before training at Renshinkan.

Near the end of my stay in Florida, sensei Heyman called me into his office after class and asked if I would be willing to teach my own training wheel with the adult class. Naturally, I was floored, and at first objected on the grounds that I was too inexperienced to teach him or his students; I had only just received my shodan in Aikido, while he had been training in several martial arts longer than I had been alive. He waved my flustered objections aside and fixed me a patient smile. “You’ve got everything you’ve learned in your lifetime.” He explained, gesturing next to himself. “And I’ve got everything I’ve learned in mine. It’s all different knowledge.” He continued, smile broadening gleefully. “ It’s when we can come together and share that knowledge, that suddenly each of us can have the experience of two lifetimes. I want to see what you do. So teach what you know, Charles. I want you to try being sensei.  It’ll be a blast!”.

Charged with his characteristically indomitable enthusiasm, these words expressed the relaxed, welcoming, and progressive attitude at Sensei Heyman’s school, and explained the origin of the mixture of modern and traditional ideas which make the school great. This perspective alone had struck a chord in me and won me over, but that notion aside, I wasn’t about to tell a shihan I wouldn’t instruct his students.

For the next six weeks, I taught formal Aikido classes to groups of shorinji-ryu students at Heyman’s Academy of Karate, starting with the basics of ukemi (rolling, falling, and protecting one’s self throughout a technique) to basic throws, joint locks, and finally jiyu waza (freestyle practice). I was immediately surprised by how readily sensei Heyman’s students took to Aikido, despite the fact that the style of practice was worlds away from their sparring sessions and forms and the range at which techniques were performed was closer than they were accustomed. I taught what I knew and only that, sticking to basic ideas with which I felt comfortable and admitting ignorance to those concepts with which I didn’t.

My most successful teaching tool was to teach Aikido in Karate terms. That is, to show how proper body positioning (and posture, movement, etc.) to execute an Aikido technique is identical to that required to perform a karate technique. By keeping one’s hips towards ones partner, for example, an Aikidoka maintains stability and power in performing ikkyo ura, while a karateka keeps their weapons in line with their targets.

Naturally, sensei Heyman grasped my Aikido within minutes, and by the time I had finished explaining a movement I would find that his technique was far better than mine. “Good Karate is good Aikido.” Sensei Alex told his students, a statement which he showed me applies more broadly to the other martial arts, and has been a core tenet of my training philosophy ever since.

After training with Sensei Heyman for about four months, I returned home to Boston with a changed view on the compatibility of both styles and cultures in the martial arts. I feel immensely fortunate and grateful to have had the opportunity to train with him and his students, and to have had shared my martial “lifetime” in return.

Check out a recent article on sensei Heyman's Lake Placid dojo.

Sityodtong North Shore Part 2: A Machismo Sport

In one of last month’s posts, Sityodtong Part 1: The Other Side, I explained my choice of a competitive martial arts school as a summer training venue and described my first impressions as I began training. Now that I have had more time to sink my teeth into Muay Thai, from its attitude to techniques and  principles, I would like to revisit  it for further reflection. While in my first post I focused on the similarities between Muay Thai and other styles I have practiced, my goal for this post is to dwell on differences; it is these differences, after all, that make styles distinct and valuable, and are the source of the diversity which strengthens the modern world of martial arts.

Perhaps one of the most obvious and enjoyable differences between sport Muay Thai and the more traditional styles I have studied is simply the attitude. The Muay Thai/MMA mindset at Sityodtong is unabashedly competitive and confrontational; a far cry from the strictly formalized behavior practiced in a Karate or Aikido dojo or idealized by Taoist monks writing on Gungfu. As showcased by the decorated walk-out shirts, colorful MMA shorts, and expensive sparring gear abundantly spread across a floor-full of students, there is considerably less emphasis on humility, uniformity, and discipline than what one might find training at a traditional school.

One senior student and top-ranked regional kickboxer, after coaching me in a few rounds of sparring in the gym’s ring, described the Muay Thai attitude as one of “Machismo”, explaining the aggressiveness of proponents and the style of competitive fighting, which focuses heavily on hard blows to wear down or knock out an opponent. To use his words, “A guy swings at you, you don’t run away, you take it and hit him right back even harder. You play dangerously with range so that your weapons are always ready to smash him down in front of you.” Indeed, as I learned by sparring with higher level students, standing squarely before me with chins dipped, gloved hands lifted, and feet poised to deliver a crippling leg kick, Muay Thai is not an art for the faint of heart; a practitioner must face their opponent dead on and be ready to win an exchange of blows at any cost. Naturally, there is just as much precision, technique, spacing, and mental game as any other fighting sport, but from a cultural standpoint, the Muay Thai ethos is an assertive one.

I soon discovered just how infectious this machismo attitude could be. At the end of my first month of training, I decided to stick around after my first hour of training for an advanced/intermediate class absolutely loaded with senior students. I struggled with some of the more complex material throughout the night—already exhausted from training earlier that evening—and was dead tired by the time it was time for sparring. I found myself standing before a fellow perhaps three or four years my junior and two or three inches taller than me. He had black, short-cropped hair and a lean build, opting to display an impressive collection of tribal tattoos rather than wear a shirt.

The buzzer sounded, indicating the start of the round, and we touched gloves and fell easily into our practiced stances, maneuvering and adjusting our distance as we tried to feel one another out with a few opening jabs and feints. Accustomed to the lighter contact rules of sparring in karate, I generally pulled my punches, shooting them inside my opponent’s guard but not letting them make heavy contact. In point sparring rules, one would bow to acknowledge such a blow, and the round would begin anew; but I soon noted my opponent was completely ignoring my punches; I would tap his nose,  chin, or solar plexus with a well-timed strike, only to have him showering me with hooks and uppercuts in response. Like a typical Karateka or Aikidoka trained in self defense, I would retreat out of range or pivot around my opponent to his weaker side and evade these salvos of wild blows, then re-enter on my own time. The tactic inevitably failed me in a cramped MMA gym, where I suddenly felt my back hit the wall, followed by a rush of stars as a gloved fist struck my jaw, sending my head bouncing back against the thankfully padded surface behind me.

I shook my head with a good-humored laugh as my opponent retreated a step,myself  perhaps unconsciously assuming (as would be the case in point sparring) that he had, in his enthusiasm, struck a bit too hard, and happily forgiving him. After touching his outstretched glove, I feinted a hook then penetrated his guard with a swift cross that cleanly pecked the tip of his nose; a transgression which he punished with another rush of alternating blows. Like I had been taught, I shot out my lead foot in a gentle, controlled pushing front kick (or thip) to stop his advance, but felt him run right through me and ignore the restrained contact. Raising my arms to cover, I was jarred by another heavy hook, then heard the fleshy smack of his shin impacting powerfully into the outside of my thigh, where an exposed nerve (the target of the leg kick, a fierce weapon for which the style is well known) caused my muscles to seize and flex involuntarily in shock.

“Phew!” I gasped in exasperation, hopping back from the action to rub at my leg with another tolerant chuckle, though by now I was growing indignant and frustrated. So caught up was I in the karate mindset of control and discipline that his forcefulness seemed like arrogance; how could he disrespect me so blatantly when I  made the concerted effort to control my own blows? My partner was oblivious to my plight, however, and made not the slightest indication of understanding that he was hitting too hard; on the contrary, he stared me down with an almost predatory intensity. My resentment and embarrassment grew as the situation repeated itself, and soon I sensed the welling of a sort of egocentric anger within me; the type every Buddhist, Taoist, or Zen martial artist strives to extinguish in the pursuit of greater enlightenment. Alarm bells were ringing in my head; voices of past teachers warning me to calm myself and forgive, but as a fierce cross knocked my cheek hard enough for me to wish I had purchased a mouth guard, those voices were lost in the rush of blood in my ears.          

To hell with enlightenment. I thought as I rolled my shoulders, looking up to my opponent as he awaited my return. I’ll knock him flat. Freed from the perspectives and opinions of past training, I closed quickly with my partner and landed a heavy jab on his gloves, hammering them again with a cross and following with a hook. He covered and ducked his head, taking the blows without surprise or indignation, and answered me with another punishing leg kick, the likes of which hit the same exact spot it had before and made bells ring all up and down my body. Rather than laugh it off, I gave a wrathful kiai and fired a round kick to his body with all the force I could muster. It caught off his tricep and sent him stumbling to my left; I pursued with an overtight hook and sloppy uppercut, then caught his gloves and shoved him hard when he tried to retort. I forced him into a covered retreat toward the caged wall of the gym where two of the trainers had been chatting, and the two of us were soon exchanging fierce blows to the head, body and legs. I attempted another ambitious hook, only to feel my head snap back from a fierce cross and yet another kick to the leg, which I simply took and answered with another brutal body kick. Before my partner could respond to my furious counter, I leaped into a diving thip which struck him in the solar plexus and sent him stumbling backward. The kick must have hurt him, because he pounded me mercilessly with body kicks and landed a solid hook on my kidneys.
        “Easy, guys! Calm down!” We both heard a trainer call from beside us, and responded with a scoffing chuckle in unison. “Jesus, they’re beating the f*** out of each other.” Said another, but we weren’t about to stop. Heart thudding and eyes stinging with sweat, I gave myself entirely to  the sheer aggression of the match, and faced heavy blows despite my fear and unfamiliarity. By the time the round bell had sounded, I was battered and exhausted, my opponent in notably better shape, but I felt rewarded by the experience. After years of rarely being solidly hit, I had become fearful of just taking a blow. It was humbling and empowering to face far less controlled technique and keep on swinging come out standing. Even so, the damage done by the blows was far more emotional than it was physical; my ego was the only thing hurt by my partner’s strikes, my body was shaken but fine.

Walking into the parking lot after class, I spotted my sparring partner, who smiled and complimented me on the bout. “How long have you been training here again?” he asked. “About three weeks.” I admitted with a shrug, noting how his eyebrows sunk with concern. “You’ve done some other stuff before this, huh?” “Yeah.” I laughed sheepishly with a nod. “I thought so… there I was thinking ‘I’ll go easy on this guy, he’s new’, and whang!” he jerked his head back as though he’d been struck hard on the chin. “Good stuff man, keep up the good work.” I wished him the same and thanked him for the great experience, then we both headed for home. While thirty minutes earlier we had clashed egos and shins on the mat, at the end of the day--just like on the tatami of a traditional dojo--there were no hard feelings but instead a mutual respect and camaraderie; we had both learned from the practice (though admittedly I had gained much more from it; he was an amateur MMA fighter with an impressive record).

The moral of the story is a familiar one mentioned frequently throughout eastern spiritual disciplines, and made famous by Bruce Lee; empty your cup. That is, you cannot truly learn from a new experience or idea when your mind is already filled with preconceived notions and lessons learned elsewhere. This concept is especially important for the modern day martial artist, who may (willingly or otherwise) end up taking up other styles of practice throughout his or her journey in the martial arts. While I had been well aware of the idea since I first began my study, I had applied it only to technical aspects of the arts. When I began karate, I did not practice Aikido, but worked to imitate the movements of my teachers and not view them solely through a lens of my past experience. Likewise, when I practiced Muay Thai, I did not let myself fall back on reflexive techniques from karate, Jeet Kune Do, or Aikido (many of these were illegal to boot), but practiced what I had been taught, despite how uncomfortable or awkward the movements may have been. This is an important first step toward emptying one’s cup and learning a new art. What I found to be more difficult and yet perhaps more important is to rid one’s self of the attitude of a past art when practicing a new one.

Thus, when I began my training in Muay Thai, I was simply an Aikidoka learning Muay Thai techniques. My goal, however, has been to be a Muay Thai practitioner practicing Muay Thai; to embody the art I am studying and immerse myself in it. I believe this is a key part of “emptying the cup” and easing the transition into a new art. Perhaps more importantly, it may mean the difference between learning a few techniques and gaining a lasting impression and sense of a system as a whole. Thus, if you're a traditionalist cross-training in a competitive martial art, don't over-complicate your training with the moral implications of your actions in the ring; give yourself to the practice. Likewise, if you come from a more sport-oriented background, don't turn your back on the rituals and ideas of a traditional discipline; bow like you mean it, take the words of your sensei or sifu seriously, and look to your senior students for an example. When training at a new school, a martial artist should think not only "when in Rome, do as the Romans do", but "think as the Romans think". By (at least temporarily) adopting the attitudes of a different discipline, a martial artist learns to view their art from a truly different perspective beyond technical detail.

Chinese Medicine in the Martial Arts

Perhaps one of the most frustrating challenges for a martial artist is a physical injury which disables them from training. Like an all-star quarterback who breaks an ankle before a big game, an injured martial artist is stuck brooding on the sidelines while hours of valuable practice go on without them. While much can be gained from watching a class from the outside (I highly recommend this practice to those temporarily unable to train), learning martial arts is inherently experiential and requires intuitive and physical feeling rather than intellectual understanding. Watching will provide a clear image of what is to be done, but only by doing does a martial artist develop technique to a level of applicable refinement. Thus, being injured, a martial artist’s learning, too, is injured, and their training must take a temporary back seat to healing.

                While I have missed a day or two of training here and there from jammed toes, swollen ankles, and bruised ribs in the past, I have been fortunate in that I did not come to know the bitter disappointment of a serious injury until this past year. Working as a field assistant on a remote natural history reserve in central California, opportunities for formal training were few and far between. After hours of hiking and carrying equipment to census woodpeckers for a Cornell University study, I diligently kept to my own independent training, which consisted of alternating sessions of shadowboxing, Tang Soo Do forms, strength and conditioning, yoga, and suburi (practicing sword cuts). After a month of intense practice, I felt my techniques growing smoother, more natural, and more powerful, and eagerly anticipated the opportunity to train at Shobu during my three week vacation that winter.

 Not long thereafter, I slipped on rocky scree while walking obliquely on a steep hill and fell heavily with my load of equipment. Unable to break my fall, I strained the LCL of my left knee, and experienced sharp pain with nearly every weight-bearing movement. I took a week off from outdoor work and searched frantically for any way to speed up the healing process—I would be returning home in a few weeks and couldn’t stand the thought of missing a day of training—but my injury persisted, and I spent my last month of work limping up and down hill after hill. Even the gentlest of exercises and techniques of my independent training routine seemed to aggravate the injury, and I felt the progress I had made beginning to slip away as I ceased practice altogether. To make matters worse, the stumbling limp I had developed as a result of my ligament strain had begun to take its toll, as I developed patellofemoral pain (runner’s knee) in both knees from the excessive hiking required in my job. By the time I made it home to Boston in December, I could neither sit in seiza, squat, nor stand in hanmi (triangle stance), and knew I would be unable to train without risking further injury.

I arranged for a visit with an orthopedist before returning home, but was unable to get an appointment until halfway through my time in Boston. By the time I had my appointment, I had missed most of my opportunities for training at home, and was given a frustratingly small amount of information regarding my condition.  It was unclear how severe my injury actually was, and whether or not I would need surgery. I would need to have make an appointment for an MRI and come back afterward; an imaging center would contact me in a few days to schedule an appointment. A few days, I thought to myself, knowing that yet more opportunity for training would be lost.

Heartbroken, I attended a few classes at Shobu and visited my friends there, eagerly watching classes and taking what I could from sensei’s lectures.  He approached me after one class to ask about my injuries, and when I described them he was quick to recommend a practitioner of Chinese traditional medicine who he explained had helped him many times in the past. Frustrated to no end with the snails-pace approach of Western medicine, I welcomed the alternative and took her card. Due to the hectic nature of my last few days in Massachusetts, I didn’t have the time to call and arrange an appointment, and before I knew it I was on a plane back to California, having never received a call from the imaging center.

I had all but surrendered myself to simply tolerating the pain as I returned to work in January, when I received a call from a close friend and fellow martial artist. Aside from being one of my first close friends in the martial arts, this friend was also a practitioner of alternative medicine and dedicated student of traditional Chinese martial arts including Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan. The advice he gave me was analogous to sensei’s, and he even went so far as to send me a book on the subject, “A Tooth From the Tiger’s Mouth” by Tom Bisio—a book which I shall explain here to some degree, but most certainly deserves its own post in the future.

As soon as the book arrived in the mail, I was burning through it with enthusiasm. In it I found a fantastic overview and explanation of Chinese traditional medicine, including its history, doctrine, techniques and applications, and relationship with Western medicine, as well as detailed explanations of treatments for nearly every common martial-arts-injury imaginable, and exercises specifically designed to help martial artists prevent further injuries. I immediately found an explanation of both my knee ailments, their likely causes, and how they might be dealt with until I could get real treatment.

I learned that my repeated use of ice to kill pain after a day at work may have actually been slowing or preventing the healing process by restricting blood-flow, and that heat and gentle flexion exercises could be used to bring blood (and qi, best translated as “life energy”) back to the injured areas, allowing my body’s natural healing processes to take place unobstructed. I immediately stopped icing my knees and instead used a heat pad nightly before bed, and soon noticed a dramatic improvement in the ligament pain in my left knee. Using the book’s detailed explanations and guide to acupoints, I massaged specific points on both legs which reduced swelling and lessened pain during the day; a productive activity to keep me busy during hours of waiting in hiding for elusive woodland birds.

By the time I had finished my work in California and returned to the East Coast for good, the ligaments in my left knee had healed completely, and my patellofemoral pain had become more bearable. Training at Shobu was still painful, however, and I arranged an appointment with sensei’s friend immediately. Within a week I scheduled two hour-long acupuncture sessions before moving to Ipswich. The practitioner was direct and to-the-point, plainly describing the problems I was having and how she might help my body to solve them itself (a principle difference between Eastern and Western medicine), yet providing enough scientific rationale to put my biologist’s mind fully at ease. Based on the acupuncture work alone, she was able to tell me that scar tissue had developed around my kneecaps (this was causing the pain and inflexibility) and exactly where it had become most severe. While I am no expert on modern medicine, I would say information of this level of detail is remarkable without the use of imaging technologies. After having me lie still under a heat lamp pin-cushioned with needles, she sent me off with a set of herbal plasters, moxa sticks (herbal sticks which are burnt and used to direct heat into acupoints and injured areas), and a few exercises as homework, and asked me to return in a few weeks for a follow-up appointment.

After the first session of acupuncture I felt little change in my knees and was highly skeptical, yet the next morning I had already begun to notice a dulling of the pain around my kneecaps. The pain was further softened after my second treatment, though I was still unable to perform certain movements (particularly techniques in suwari-waza which involve sitting and moving in seiza, or kneeling position) during training. After a couple weeks of diligently applying and changing plasters, heating my knees with moxa, and exercising my knees each morning, I was astonished to find the pain disappear altogether. It was a remarkably quick and complete transition; enough to give me the confidence to start training in an art as physically intense and demanding as Muay Thai.

Since that treatment, I have used techniques of Chinese medicine to aid in healing a number of injuries (mostly severe bruises and minor sprains) from my training at Sityodtong and Shobu, and have been equally impressed at how quickly they enable me to heal. My knees are stronger and more limber than they have been for quite some time, and in my last few visits to Shobu I practiced suwari waza for nearly an hour with no hint of pain around my knees.

As I have said before, martial artists are practically-minded and results-oriented people, concerned ultimately with what works, and not necessarily why it does so or where a certain solution comes from. Holding to that mindset, I would heartily recommend that any serious martial artist investigate how Chinese Medicine might be applied to their injuries and wellness routine. “A Tooth From the Tiger’s Mouth” is a well-written, clear-and-simple account of Chinese medicine, emphasizing its utility to the martial artist. Aside from that, it contains—in neatly distilled form—volumes of useful specifics on how to self-diagnose, treat, and prevent injuries with techniques of Chinese medicine. A book worth well beyond its retail price for any interested practitioner, and a good introduction for those interested in getting professional treatment.

Training in the martial arts, minor injuries are an inevitable—if not somewhat necessary—part of learning. Healing minor injuries and preventing severe injuries are important priorities for any martial artist hoping to practice for any length of time—especially those who view the martial arts as a life-long endeavor. Chinese medicine is a fantastic tool to help both treat injuries and prevent them in the future, and provides a more straight-forward, less time consuming solution than some approaches of Western medicine. For those hoping to continue practicing well into the next few decades of their lives, a look into Chinese traditional medicine would be a wise move indeed.