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When
studying martial science the goal of any practitioner is
to achieve the instinctive
response. Learning to achieve this is the difficult part!
Can anyone learn it? Yes, if they
have the perseverance to undergo rigorous training, learning,
believing, and finally the
ability to let go! What does the instinctive response do
for you? Well, it allows you to
in a way perform magic! It allows you to perform complex
movement without thought!
That is the key, without thought! Imagine you are attacked
and you have to think what
you need to do to defend yourself. That thought process
will invariably slow you down, so slow that you are at a
distinct disadvantage. Imagine the attacker, who has already
thought out his attack strategy. You are at a disadvantage
because they act first and have a preplanned attack strategy.
Now the situation is compounded because you have to think
through your defensive strategy and pick an appropriate
tactic (palm heel strike, etc.) to counter their tactics.
This is slow, not impossible, but slower than if one is
in the instinctive response. If you slip into the instinctive
response then you bring your training, understanding, faith,
morals etc. together without thought to defend yourself.
In other words you defend yourself without thought! Amazing
yes, but impossible to develop, absolutely not! Slipping
into the instinctive response is the key. Once you achieve
this, your skills have certainly developed to a new and
incredibly effective level. In this state, everything slows
down, at least to you. Things happen like lightning as your
body moves, opponents seem completely vulnerable and unable
to stop your counter attacks. More importantly as you protect
yourself, all of this is over in the blink of an eye and
your technique, training, knowledge, morals and spirit are
brought to bear to defend yourself or your loved ones. Entering
into the instinctive response is the true method of bringing
together the physical, mental and spiritual side of the
martial arts. Best of all, if you are willing to train,
understand, have faith and let go then you can achieve this
too! It is available for everyone and anyone! Even people
who have not undergone training can achieve this state too,
however they enter into it more out of luck than anything
else. I for one, do not wish to leave this to chance and
therefore I have trained almost my entire life to be able
to bring the physical, mental and spiritual side of the
martial arts together when needed.
How
to achieve this? First, let us start off with the training
aspect. It is vitally important to train and when I say
this I mean train. Train with passion, train with importance,
train correctly, train with a quality instructor, but first
and foremost train. Even if you are away from your instructor
for a period of time or cannot attend class because of work,
etc. TRAIN! Train in class at the training hall, train out
of class at home, but make no mistake that the importance
of training your body cannot be taken for granted. Our bodies
can be like well oiled machines that can perform miraculous
feats when needed to, but if we lie around and let them
get stagnant, well, then they may not perform for us when
we need them most. So in the end, we must take the approach
that our body is our temple and we will treat it right!
Part of training is eating right and nourishing our body
appropriately. Then exercising our bodies and achieving
our peak athletic potential. If you throw yourself into
your training regimen learning martial science then you
will have the potential to enter into the instinctive response!
Next
one must learn and understand the knowledge of what is being
taught. Learn the martial science techniques, strategies,
tactics, ethics, morals etc. and delve into them and understand
them. When I say understand, I mean truly make them a part
of you. Not solely by rote or by memory but make them part
of your being, your spirit, your essence. Understanding
comes from learning martial science in class, applying it
in class, then working on it out of class by yourself. Solo
training makes for the most improvement when done correctly.
When I say correctly, that means that you cannot solo train
poorly or in direct contradiction to your training in the
training hall and expect to achieve good results. One must
solo train with an eye for perfection of the technique that
one has been taught!
Faith,
this five letter word has been used for a long, long time
by our human race. What does it mean? Well, one must believe
in what one is doing, learning, etc. You simply must have
belief in your training, your knowledge, your spirit! Faith
in martial science
truly separates the unique martial artist from the non unique.
Those people who train, understand and have faith are truly
fearsome when confronted. Believe in what you are doing,
believe in your teachers guidance, believe in your own innate
abilities and your understanding of the martial science
that you study. Most importantly you have to believe! This
is what separates some martial artists. There are many martial
artists
who lack faith in their training or teaching. One only needs
to look at some Internet forums and you will see many who
really do not have faith in their training, knowledge and
spirit. They also generally do not have faith in their teachers!
This faith is essential, find a system or art of martial
science that you can believe in!
Finally,
you must let go! Yes, that is it! You have to let go of
everything and just connect with your unique spirit. When
you let go, you bring your training, knowledge and faith
together. This allows the Instinctive Response to come out.
When this happens, if you are being attacked, you will have
a very good chance of defending yourself and your loved
ones effectively. Everything seems to slow down when you
are in the Instinctive Response! Everything and anything
are possible in this state! Average humans have accomplished
amazing feats by going into the Instinctive Response, but
to get there you have to Let Go! This is sometimes the most
difficult aspect but really, if you take care of the first
three principles i.e. Training, Knowledge and Faith, letting
go is easy!!! Once you have accomplished this it is easy
to do it again, and again and again. It is like learning
how to walk once you have it, you have it! Just Let Go!
The
Instinctive Response is really what all martial sciences
are striving for. Some systems and arts may not even talk
about it, but it is there. Some systems and arts may talk
about it using different words such as the void, mushin
(mind - no mind) or other various phrases. It is found in
all endeavors, from athletics to academics. It is just that
people around the world have found different ways of explaining
it. Some people call it the void, mushin, the zone, in the
groove, the flow, etc. Regardless, it is a part of our species
and anyone and everyone can achieve it if they are willing
to Train, Learn, have Faith and finally Let Go! Good luck
on your martial quest and may all of the martial artists
before you bless your path.
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