Five Things I Wish I Would have Known About the Martial Arts!
Okay, I’ve been doing the martial arts since mid last century. I’ve lived through judo in the fifties, karate in the sixties, kung fu in the seventies, and stick fighting and shadow warriors and the UFC, and I’ve analyzed durn near every art there is. I’ve made up a list of things that I should have known before I started.
The point here is that martial arts classes were where one perspired, and not where one engaged in lengthy conversations. However, the reason a lot of people didn’t tell people things like what I am telling you here was because they didn’t know anything. So are you ready to learn a few of the things necessary before you jump into karate or kung fu or Aikido?
I wish people would have told me how painful pain was, and if I had known the truth about why things hurt then they wouldn’t have hurt so darn much. The pain of a block, for instance, can go either go into the block or into the strike, depending upon which person has more strength of will. It’s not a matter of how tough somebody is, it is a matter of which way you want the energy to go. and being the stronger in intention.
I wish somebody would have sat down and told me what all the body parts are for, or at least told me that learning would have been ten times easier if I had figured out the purposes of the body parts are. What does it matter how you turn the bones, and why does it matter which side of the bone the muscle is on. A very important point could have been made if somebody had just told me I had a head and I could think with it!
This matter of how a body works could have made my progress thought the martial arts ten times easier and quicker if somebody had explained that all the parts had to work as one unit. This is a thing called harmony, and when the body parts all work harmoniously then intention can flow through the body and make it ten times more efficient. What is the ratio of muscle to body part, how much does each part weigh, how far does each body part have to move, how much effort is required for each body part.
Speaking of this thing called harmony, if somebody had explained that it was not just harmony within your body, but harmony in your life, then I would have had a ten times easier life. Heck, getting along with your fellow man makes life so much easier. If somebody had just told me to love my enemy that would have made me a real martial artist of quality and magnitude.
Probably the most important thing somebody could have told me would have been to stop being lazy and get to work. Heck, if I had done a little more perspiring in the forms I would have gotten to the end of the martial arts path faster, maybe even gotten further along the path, maybe even learned something! The point here is that I could have learned all the things that I eventually figured out faster, and then I wouldn’t be complaining about how stupid I was in an article like this!
Ah, the things I didn’t know, they were so great, but, at last I know them. Even more important, you know them, so you don’t have to be slow or stupid or lazy or things like that! Unless, of course, you want to pretend that I didn’t say anything.
Al Case has analyzed the martial arts 4O+ years. He began writing for the magazines in’81 and has written hundreds of articles, and had a column in Inside Karate. He is the originator of Matrixing Technology and Neutronics. He is giving away a free ebook which explains all about Matrixing at Monster Martial Arts.
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