When I look back at my training with my father, I can recall countless hours spent on repeating the same movement over and over. I remember my frustration as he would constantly correct and refine what I thought at the time to be minute and unnecessary details. As a kid, like most kids, I wanted to be like the action stars I had seen in movies. But my father had different plans. He would have me do a single action hundreds and hundreds of times. Later I began to recognize the value, and appreciate the simplicity of this way of training. Bruce Lee said it beautifully when he said:
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
You see, what I realized is that over time the action that is trained repeatedly becomes a sort of automatic movement. I'll never forget the day I realized why it is so important. One day my father was training my reflexes by striking at me from a close range, and I was only to block and parry as usual. While before I had always struggled to watch his body language to see where he would strike, at that moment my body began to react on its own. It was as if my movement was now a part of my subconscious awareness as opposed to a conscious recognition of an attack. What I really thought was interesting about that was that my conscious awareness now was free to observe from what seemed to be an "outsider's" perspective. In other words I was able to observe both the movements of my father, as well as my own. My mind was freed from the constraints of anticipation and fear of getting hit.
Later as I became more serious in my study and practice of meditation and other esoteric practices I found myself struggling with the same struggles I had before during my physical training. My practices at the time were simple. All I had to do was regulate a consistent and rhythmic breath, and maintain focused awareness to a single point. That was it.... really, you would think it an easy task, but nooooo... my mind wanted to wander, which caused me to lose track of my breath rhythms. After a few minutes I often found myself well into a day dream before I even realized I had gone off track. I even would convince myself that I was really only practicing more "advanced" meditations by moving my energy from one place to another, and allow my mind to visualize one thing or another. It was at this point that I remembered the lessons I had learned during my physical training. It is focused discipline on the simplest and most fundamental practices that leads to proficiency. So, with new resolve I turned inwards and fixed my Will. Inhale, exhale, repeat. That was all I practiced for as long as I could, day after day until one day I realized I was doing it unconsciously throughout the day. Then I began to work with meditation the same way, and simply fixed my Will to observe the mind without engaging the thoughts. After a while I found that a similar thing happened between me, my thoughts and my awareness. While before my mind was absorbed in controlling my thoughts, in time it became an automatic function and my awareness observed from the same outsider perspective. Now it was my mind meditating, the object of my meditation and a sense of "Me" that was observing the interaction between the two the same way it observed the interaction between myself and my father without active participation during my physical training.
This leads me to a concept that has long influenced Japanese Arts in general, Zen 禅. Whether we look at the art of tea, brush painting or martial arts, we see principles of Zen heavily influence how they are done. Each step is meticulously focused, there are no wasted movements. Each and every movement no matter how small has a significance, and is performed as a moving meditation. The word Zen finds its roots in the Sanskrit word for Dhyana, which is profound meditation.
Mastery in the martial arts is not reached by focusing on the fancy and flashy techniques that bring people by the millions flocking into the movie theaters. It is reached by mastery of the techniques that form the foundation of good movement. There is a certain beauty and elegance to its simplicity that I have come to appreciate and love. There are those who criticize this and say that there is no freedom of expression or creativity in it, but I disagree. I find that to be the same way of thinking I struggled with in early training. My mind and my body did not want to be disciplined, and confused my erratic lack of focus with creativity and freedom of expression. What I found later when I submitted to the training, was that I found a much greater freedom in what I once thought was restriction. |
"Generally speaking, fixation and binding are to be avoided, in both the sword and the hand. Fixation is the way to death, fluidity is the way to life."
However I think it would be important to mention that there is a time and place for everything, and the "Middle Way" is usually best. By training your movements time and time again your body and mind get comfortable with them and you learn to trust your techniques. This builds confidence and prevents the beginner's tendency to rush through techniques. Musashi says: "The performance of an expert seems relaxed but does not leave any gaps. The actions of trained people do not seem rushed."
Finally I will leave you with one last quote to inspire some discussion: