One of the other parishioners in my church is starting a physical fitness ministry using taekwondo as the main activity. He knows I am a MA instructor and has asked me for my help as he has no prior experience running a program.
Thoughts? I am generally opposed to mixing martial arts and religion, but I do believe the members of my church could benefit from another outlet to get physical exercise with perhaps some self-defense instruction. I would also be pained to decline to help a fellow church member in a sincere attempt to improve the lives of others.
dancingalone
First off I apologize with my previous post I hit send before I proofed it. I realize I come into this discussion late but for what it is worth. After reading the whole thread I have the following suggestions for you.
1) Get with the other instructor, work out some with him and get to know one another first, to see if your ideas about the ministry gel together. I mean work out philosophy, the mechanics behind techniques, self defense, importance of self improvement vs. what works in self defense etc. etc.
2) Both of you get on your knees and pray earnestly about the ministry and then get back together and discuss it more. Now is it about promoting a MA (whatever that MA might be) or is it about promoting God based on a Christian belief system through a particular MA? Which has priority?
3) Once you have established between the two of you what the goal is, then you can establish the mechanics behind achieving the goal.
4) Unless you really do care about the end result I wouldn't get to involved because that could be a disruptive force in the program. Which is why I believe that you really need to do 1-3 first. Then if you do want to get involved then throw yourself into it and take part ownership of what you can do to make it succeed.
5) Think about scrapping the whole MA thing as we currently know it and replace it with what is important to the people that you are trying to reach.
a) For instance if it is improving one's life style then you could teach fitness stuff like the areobic kickboxing program that one pastor mentioned (I think) along with the self improvement of the forms and basic training but stop there.
b) If it is to develop a martial artist then you can teach the forms, basics, bunkai, and lead into self defense etc.etc.
c) If it is to teach self defense then you can do away with the forms and train more of the applications of techniques found in them, but move away from the whole self improvement model of endless form and basic training.
d) If it is some sort of ministry, you could have the deacon develop a bible study that is reinforced with the martial training, but making the martial training of advancement by belts a thing of the past. Just have the people train for the sake of training and have the bible study coincide with why you train.
For instance you could have a bible study that is home based that takes a while to do say on The Basics of the Christian Faith. Then you can use the example of how important living out those basics are in life just like learning the basics of your MA are the base of which your art stands on. So the bible study acts as a way to help the student become more rooted in their faith, as well as drawing a visual connection to importance of proper technique in your art.
You could set up a small study on say different Basics of the Faith and take one subject, one point, and really get into that one point. At the same time you could concentrate on one technique and build on that as a central theme of the class(es). As an example of the depth of the certain point you might teach how say a motion called a block, could be a strike, could be a lock, or a throw. Again you are showing a physical truth to a biblical concept.
Now normally you might not show these things to someone who isn't a black belt because they have to learn all sorts of kicks they will never use in later life. They have to learn all sorts of stuff that drags the learning process out, when you could really cut it down and teach high quality martial arts and concepts to the students while at the same time and really (probably) more importantly strengthening their spiritual life in the process.
I'm also not suggesting that we bone breaking techniques to teach healing in the church either
This is a far more helpful and radical idea than say just changing names of techniques and staying with the current model of teaching MAs. You are putting the student's needs ahead of any system or hybrid MA. But this would take the most work and preparation by far.
I don't have a problem with teaching MAs from a Christian view point, I also don't have a problem with teaching or studying a MA that is steeped into religion as long as I know that is what I'm getting into up front.
Mark
than people in Korea...(no need to comment, I am being a smart alec again)
