the effects of meditation with martial arts

[pgsmith]

Sorry to hear about the violence intruding in your life. Most that practice martial arts never really have to worry much about that, so their idea of violence is within the controlled confines of the dojo. It has been my experience that the actuality of violence will cause you to practice harder and learn faster.

The thing is before I thought of martial arts as a artform. doing it to improve character. adopt a stronger mentality. and confidence. and it has worked for me. I have changed my life in a positive way.

And that is absolutely correct. They can and will change your life, but that is not all they are.

another thing. and this may sound childish is to be cool and show mad martial arts skills like I see in movies. and I'll be honest with you mate. I absolutely love martial arts movies
the later is getting less important now. but hay. its the movies and action that got me this far and if it wasn't for that I would not be were I am now.

I hear you there. It was Conan the Barbarian and Highlander that originally got me into the sword arts. However, it doesn't take long under a good instructor to learn that the reality of martial arts looks nothing like the movies. All of the martial arts in the movies is carefully choreographed to look good for the audience. Real martial arts are to decisively end a conflict. Different aims, so they look entirely different.

right now I am coming to to a confrontation between martial arts. and MARTAIL ARTS. as in real martial arts full of bloodshed and violence and killing. And my thoughts of martial art as a artform.
these 2 things are contradicting each other. how can you have peace and war. I guess this is were the question of the post came from. meditation and martial arts.

It's just because you don't have much experience that these things seem contradictory to you. With sufficient training, you'll realize that there is no contradiction at all. The traditional martial arts teaches a person how to deal with violence. The best way to deal with violence is to avoid it. So, if we consider peace to be the absence of violence, then it is correct to say that traditional martial arts are about learning how to promote peace, not about bloodshed and violence.

one is a calm reflective mind and another is violence and attacking without mercy. how can they be together. how can a warrior have mushin?

You are talking about different things there. Mushin (no mind) is generally meant to be the ability to move without the need for conscious thought. As with anything Japanese, there are many other meanings depending upon who you talk to, but that is the most generally accepted one. This occurs due to much dedicated and focused training. A calm mind is, in my experience, more usually referred to as fudoshin (immoveable mind) and allows you to deal with whatever comes up without allowing adrenaline to cause you to panic. This is also the product of much dedicated and focused training. Both are necessary in the traditional martial arts.

What you refer to as the 'artform' portion of martial arts, the improvement in character, is also a byproduct of dedicated and focused training in the traditional arts. In learning how to deal death and destruction to other human beings, you also are required to learn where and when to unleash said destruction. The more you learn, the more harm you can do. This also means that the more you learn, the more restraint you are required to exercise. This exercise of restraint will help you to improve your character and allow you to consider your actions better, which in turn will improve your character etc ... This is supposed to be part and parcel with the traditional Japanese arts, but is not generally something that is, or can be, taught directly.

Enjoy your training, enjoy your martial arts movies, and take necessary precautions in life. Everything comes from hard work over time.

There, that's my pithy Master Po speech for the day. Now I go back to making fun of you.

 

[Chris Parker]

Hi Dusk,

I'll speak to the idea of Mushin being "calm, reflective" against "violence and attacking without mercy".

Mushin is not calm as in "passive", more in the context of "not distracted or influenced by emotional extremes or chatter". What that means is that Mushin is a mindstate whereby you can observe accurately what is going on around you. It actually enables you to respond or act in a spontaneous, sudden, violent act, if that's required. But it will also stop you from going overboard when it's not required, or not reacting extremely enough when it's required. To put it another way, if you were to hear a noise outside at night, reacting emotionally could put you in a dangerous situation needlessly (by acting from fear, or anger), whereas Mushin would allow you to focus on where the noise is, what it is, and so on. You can determine if it's outside, in which case you can lock all the doors and windows... except one. Then you both know where they're going to come in, except they don't know that you know it. If you acted from emotion, you might go outside without knowing where they are, how many there are, what weapons they might have, and so on.

With regards to Fudoshin that Paul mentioned, that's kind of the other side of the coin. Fudoshin literally refers to an "immovable mind", and to me represents the conviction of action. It is what allows the warrior to do what needs to be done, what allows the samurai both cut down the enemy, as well as have the conviction to turn his own blade on himself in the occasion of his being ordered to commit seppuku. I like to think of it as "steely determination".

So both Mushin and Fudoshin are required, really. Mushin means you aren't going to over-react (or under react) based on an emotional response, and Fudoshin means that once you commit to action, you are fully committed to it.

 

[Mr. Freebody]

With regards to Fudoshin that Paul mentioned, that's kind of the other side of the coin. Fudoshin literally refers to an "immovable mind", and to me represents the conviction of action. It is what allows the warrior to do what needs to be done, what allows the samurai both cut down the enemy, as well as have the conviction to turn his own blade on himself in the occasion of his being ordered to commit seppuku. I like to think of it as "steely determination".

So both Mushin and Fudoshin are required, really. Mushin means you aren't going to over-react (or under react) based on an emotional response, and Fudoshin means that once you commit to action, you are fully committed to it.

Are Fudoshin and zanshin the same?

 

[Chris Parker]

Nope, they're not. Fudoshin is a way of remaining constant in the face of whatever may come your way, whereas Zanshin is a state of constant awareness after the event to make sure your not blindsided by a second attack, or any other follow up, as well as being able to ensure that the opponent is finished.

 

[Mr. Freebody]

Gotcha, cheers.