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