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| The training environment | ||
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Illusion
Martial arts training halls provide a safe place
for people to meet and explore combat
material.
There is seldom any risk of injury.
The training is carefully monitored by the instructor.
It is a predictable scenario.
However, it is also an illusion.
Real life
Periodically you may hear of a skilled,
seasoned martial artist being beaten up in the street
by an untrained assailant.
This sounds incredulous.
Yet, the situation is really quite straightforward.
My own thinking is that a
sensei is very much like another kind of person who is responsible for
important matters. A person who, like the sensei seems to be from another
age, a person of rare and unique gifts. The sensei, it seems to me, is very
much like a vintner.
A vintner is the person who produces wine. He is the one who is responsible
for it, from the planting of the grape vines, all the way until the raw wine
is poured into casks to age. The vintner is the talented individual who can
look at a particular hillside or a handful of soil and can tell you which
kinds of grapes will grow best there, what kind of yield you can expect. He
knows when the grapes need to be pruned. He makes vital decisions throughout
the growing season, to fertilize, to spray for bugs. He must decide when to
pick them in the fall, to wait for a few more days to let them fully ripen
or to pick now and beat out the rain that can adversely affect the whole
harvest.
The vintner is responsible for the blend of grapes that go into fermentation
tanks. He must add the sugars if they're needed, to begin the fermentation
process. In short, he is the guy responsible for the wine from the time the
grape vines are planted or bud out, until the moment the wine is on its own,
so to speak, when it has been put in casks and must now age and develop
according to the qualities inherent in it.
Doesn't this sound very much like the sensei's task? He is the person
responsible for a student, from the time that student enters the training
hall until the crucial period of the training process has been completed.
The sensei is a person, then, in my estimation, who can take a person of raw
and unknown potential and turn out a complete and worthwhile product. He can
oversee the process from beginning to end.
(Dave Lowry)
Falsehood
Real life combat is nothing like class practice. In the street, the emotional vibe is
different, the threat is sincere and there's a
high likelihood of getting hurt.
In class, you are often told precisely what will happen - before it happens -
giving you ample time to prepare. No assailant in the street will do this.
Simulations
If you want to see if your tai chi works it is necessary to experience some
sort of combat.
Being actually beaten up is not so sensible.
It is better to simulate an assault without too much risk of being
injured.
Roughed-up, struck, caught unawares in class - these are good. Being actually
damaged is not smart at all.
Anticipation
A student will often fail to commit to an
attack and then be a 'smart
arse' when the defender attempts their application.
This situation exists because the attack was
poor in the first place, and the attacker is forgetting that they are
engaged in practice, not combat. In real life, no one will give you a heads-up.
Poor attacker, means poor counter-attacker
Poor attacking skills stem from inexperience and fear.
You must learn to set aside your ego and forget about
sparing yourself.
If you fail to commit, you will probably not
have the opportunity to correct your mistake.
While the teachings of a martial
tradition may be recorded in scrolls or expressed verbally, those outside
the tradition who gain access to this information have little chance of
learning much of practical value. Such instructions invariably consist of
vague references or riddle-like aphorisms. These cryptic axioms suffice for
the conveying of deep secrets because the martial artist who receives them
properly has spent an enormous amount of time apprenticing under his master.
They have in common, teacher and student, the specialized vocabulary of
their tradition, as well as similar experience in the physical actions
demanded in learning it. The teachings, however, opaque they may appear to
the outsider, have meaning to the initiate and his master because the two
have endured the long process of training together.
(Dave Lowry)
Second-guessing
It is very common for new students to over-analyse
training methods in class, second-guess the instructor or think that they can
see holes in the material.
This stems from naivety.
The instructor knows full well that the training is not real.
This is why we have a syllabus.
Tai chi fighting method
As the student makes strong progress through the grades the line between
illusion and real becomes blurred.
The speed, ferocity and challenge of the training methods will tax even the most
entrenched sceptic.
Unpredictable situations force growth, change and adaptation.
Truth
Eventually, the student submits to the syllabus and trains hard without
ego intruding.
They merge with the Way.
Only then will the art become fully realised.
Example stories
These books can serve to illustrate what to expect from a martial arts
training environment:
The Sword Polisher's Record by Adam Hsu
Moving Zen by C W Nicol
Chinese Boxing by Robert Smith
Angry White Pyjamas by Robert Twigger
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
Waking Dragons by Goran Powell
Moving towards stillness by Dave Lowry
Traditions by Dave Lowry
In the Dojo by Dave Lowry
Mindset
Your mindset in martial arts practice is different to what you
require at the supermarket, at work, socialising with friends or family, or
when driving the car. Lapses in concentration when driving a car could cause
a crash. If you 'space out' in a martial arts environment, you could be hurt
or harm somebody else.
I feel extremely lucky to have
found a martial arts school where integrity and being a nice person matters,
this is missing from every school I have ever attended.
(Dave G)
You may have all sorts of wonderful ideas, what you
consider to be valuable contributions and insights, your own personal take on
matters. Nobody cares. Quite the opposite.
The fastest way to alienate yourself
in a dojo is to make known these ideas or to volunteer your suggestions on how
training might be better or more effective.
(Dave Lowry)
The student has nothing to
offer but an absolute willingness to follow the teacher's instructions and
direction without question or comments or personal improvisation.
(Dave Lowry)
When you come to the dojo, it is a recognition the
teacher there has something you want. He will give it to you in his own way.
You must accept that. If you do not, you are free to leave. The dojo,
however, is never run by consensus.
(Dave Lowry)
Upon reaching what is perceived as an ideal goal, the artist
discovers something entirely different. The artist is suddenly confronted
with the fact that what was thought of as perfection of technique was merely
the introduction to it.
An entirely new vista has opened. The artist must be prepared to turn his
gaze from the heights that have so recently been gained, and prepare for the
ascent of the peak suddenly found beyond them.
(Dave Lowry)
The sensei is not a therapist. The goal of the dojo is to make healthy
people healthier, physically and psychologically and spiritually. It cannot
be expected to repair badly damaged human beings. As so if a member exhibits
serious personal problems, the sensei's job is to get rid of him, gracefully
if possible, forcefully and definitively if necessary.
(Dave Lowry)
Page created
18 March 1997
Last updated
16 June 2023
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